/ 
 
SAXE HOLM S STORIES. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
SAXE HOLM STORIES. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 Draxy Miller s Dowry. The Elder s Wife. 
 Whose Wife was She. The One-legged Dancer* 
 How One "Woman Kept her Husband. 
 Esther Wynn s Love- Letters. 
 
SAXE HOLM S 
 
 STORIES 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS, 
 
 1888. 
 
Copyright, 1878, 
 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS* 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER I 
 
 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE 66 
 
 MY TOURMALINE I4 1 
 
 JOE KALE S RED STOCKINGS 266 
 
 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE 331 
 
 466523 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 QERGEANT KARL REUTNER had never 
 O found a four-leaved clover. He had often 
 looked for them at home in Bavaria, in the green 
 meadows at the foot of the giant glacier Watzman, 
 and in America, on the sunny prairies of Illinois. 
 But he had never found one. " It is luck ; I shall 
 not have luck before I find the four leaf of clover," 
 he had said, half jesting, many a time, to himself 
 or to gay comrades. And in his secret heart he 
 was not without a shadow of superstition about it 
 It had again and again happened that some one by 
 his side had stooped and picked a four-leaved 
 clover, upon which he was just on the point of 
 treading, while his eyes were searching eagerly for 
 it. It did seem as if Karl could never see the magic 
 little leaf, and why should this not mean some 
 thing ? Whence came the world-wide belief in the 
 spell, if it were merely an idle fancy ? 
 
 But now Karl Reutner was to find his four 
 i 
 
i - I* , 
 
 f * e . * I . .. . . v . 
 
 2 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 leaved clover. There it was, gently waving in the 
 wind, not two feet away from his eyes. Karl was 
 lying low on the ground. He was not looking for 
 four-leaved clover; he was listening with every 
 faculty sharply concentrated, waiting for a sound 
 which seemed to him inexplicably delayed. He 
 was lying in a trench before Gettysburg, and he 
 was impatient for the order to fire. 
 
 The gentle summer breeze stirred the grass 
 blades on the upper edge of the trench, and part 
 ing them, showed one tall four-leaved clover. 
 With an exclamation of delight, Karl dropped his 
 musket, picked the clover, fastened it in the band 
 of his cap, and lifting up the cap, imprudently 
 waved it to the right and left, calling down the line : 
 " Good luck, boys ! The four leaf of clover ! " 
 
 The next Karl knew, it was night dark, star 
 less, chilly night. He was alone ; a dreadful 
 silence, broken now and then by more dreadful 
 groans, reigned all around. He was naked ; he 
 could not move ; terrible pains were racking his 
 breast. Something was firmly clutched in his 
 right hand, but he could not lift his arm to see 
 what it was ; neither could he unclasp his hand. 
 
 The battle of Gettysburg was over, and Karl 
 was shot through the lungs. " Good luck, boys ! 
 The four leaf of clover ! " had been his last words, 
 hardly spoken before the waving cap had proved a 
 mark for a rebel sharp-shooter, and Karl had fallen 
 hack apparently dead. 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. J 
 
 No time then for one comrade to help another. 
 In a few moments more his company had gone, 
 leaving behind many of its brave fellows wound 
 ed, dying, dead. In the night Karl had been 
 stripped by rebel prowlers, and left for dead. 
 Only his cap remained ; that was so firmly 
 clutched in his right hand, they could not take it 
 from him. Withered, drooping above the tarnished 
 gilt wreath on the band, hung the four-leaved 
 clover; but Karl could not see it. He remembered 
 it, however, and as he struggled in his feverish half 
 delirium to recall the last moments before he fell, 
 he muttered to himself: "The four leaf of clover 
 brought this of luck ; bad luck to begin." 
 
 The feeble sounds caught the ear of a party 
 of rebels, searching for their wounded. As the 
 dark lantern flashed its slender ray of light upon 
 Karl s figure, and the rebel officer saw the United 
 States badge on the cap, he turned away. But at 
 Karl s voice and the broken English : " Water ! 
 For God s love, one water ! " he turned back. The 
 blue eyes and the yellow hair had a spell in them 
 for the dark-haired Southerner. There had been 
 a Gretchen once with whom he had roamed many 
 a moonlight night, in Heidelberg. Her eyes and 
 her hair, and the pretty broken English she had 
 learned from him, were like these. 
 
 " Pick him up, boys ; he 11 count for one, damn 
 Jiim ! " were the words under which he hid his 
 sudden sympathy from the angry and resentfu] 
 
4 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 men who obeyed his orders. But afterward he 
 went many times secretly to the ambulance to see 
 if that yellow-haired German boy were still alive, 
 and were covered by blankets. 
 
 Of the terrible journey to Libby Prison Karl 
 knew nothing. A few days after it he came again, 
 slowly and painfully, to his consciousness, as he 
 had that first night on the battle-field, like one 
 awakening from a frightful and confused dream. 
 He was on the damp dungeon floor ; a pretense of 
 a pallet beneath him. When he tried to speak, a 
 strange, gurgling sound filled his throat. 
 
 " Better not try to talk," said the surgeon, who 
 happened to be standing near. 
 
 " Am I dying ? " said Karl. 
 
 " No, not just yet," laughed the brutal surgeon ; 
 but you won t last long. Our boys have n t left you 
 any lungs." 
 
 It was too true. The bullet had gone through 
 both lungs. In one there was a hole into which a 
 man might put his fist. Karl shut his eyes and 
 again the vision of the waving clover leaf floated be 
 fore them. He fell asleep, and dreamed that he was 
 lying in a field filled with four-leaved clovers, and 
 that a beautiful, dark-haired girl was gathering 
 them and bringing them to him by handfuls. 
 When he waked he saw a kind face bending over 
 him, and felt something pressed between his lips- 
 One of his fellow prisoners was trying to feed him 
 vith bread soaked in wine. Ah, the heroes of 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. $ 
 
 Libby Prison! Almost all those who came out 
 alive from that hell of tortures, did so because 
 other men had freely spent their lives for them. 
 
 All Karl s fellow prisoners loved him. His fair 
 face, beautiful blue eyes, and golden-brown hair, his 
 broken English, and his pathetic patience, appealed 
 to every heart. Every man saved the soft part of 
 his bread for him ; and on this, with occasionally a 
 few drops of wine, he lived that is, he did not die ; 
 but he did not gain ; the wound did not heal, and 
 each day his strength grew less and less, long after 
 it had seemed that he could not be weaker and live. 
 But hope never forsook him. The four-leaved 
 clover, folded in a bit of paper, was hid in the lin 
 ing of his cap. Sometimes he took it out, showed 
 it to the prisoners, and told them the story. 
 
 " It has brought to me such bad luck, you see ; 
 but I think it shall bring one luck better ; it is a 
 true sign ; there is time yet." 
 
 The men shrugged their shoulders. They 
 thought Karl a little weakened in intellect by his 
 sufferings ; but they did not contradict him. 
 
 Three months later Karl was again lying on the 
 ground at midnight, alone, helpless. An exchange 
 of prisoners had been arranged, and he, with most 
 of his friends, had been carried to City Point. 
 They arrived there at five in the afternoon. The 
 sun was still high and hot, and Karl being one of 
 the feeblest of the prisoners was laid behind an 
 old hogshead, for shade. Boat load after boat 
 
6 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 load pushed off from the wharf ; but he was not 
 taken. He could not speak except in the faintest 
 whisper; he could not move ; there he lay, utterly 
 helpless, hearing all the stir and bustle of the load 
 ing of the boats, then the plashing of the oars, then 
 the silence, then the return of the boats, more 
 bustle, more departures, and then the dreadful 
 silence again. 
 
 He had been laid in such a position that he 
 could see nothing but the planks of the hogshead. 
 It was old and decayed, and rats were crawling in 
 and out of it. They crawled and ran over Karl, 
 and he could not stir. The sun went down ; the 
 twilight deepened into darkness. The last boat 
 had gone ; in an agony almost maddening Karl 
 lay listening for the oars, and trying to persuade 
 himself that it was not yet too late for one more 
 boat to come back. 
 
 A cold wind blew off the water ; he had noth 
 ing over him but a bit of ragged carpet ; under his 
 head an old army coat rolled up for a pillow. 
 
 A rebel soldier came by and tried to take this 
 away. Karl spoke no word, but lifted his eyes and 
 Jooked him full in the face. The man dropped his 
 hold of the overcoat, and walked away. Eight 
 o clock, nine, ten, no sound on the deserted 
 wharf except the dull thud of the waves against its 
 bides, and the occasional splash of a fierce rat, 
 swimming away. But Karl heard nothing. He had 
 swooned. The fatigue of the trip, the exposure to 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 7 
 
 the air, the long day without food, and still more 
 the utter loss of hope, had drained his last strength. 
 However, in after days, recalling this terrible night, 
 he always said, " I not once my four leaf of clover 
 forget. I say to myself, it is the luck to go to 
 Heaven that it have bring me ; and yet all the time, 
 I know in my heart that I am not to die ; that I 
 have luck in the over world yet." 
 
 Karl was right. By one of those inexplicable 
 but uncontrollable impulses, on which the life and 
 the death of man have so often hung, the young 
 officer, who had had charge of moving the prisoners 
 from the wharf to the transport, was led to return 
 once more to make sure that no man had been left 
 behind. 
 
 Karl was not the only one. There were two 
 others who-had been laid, as he was, in the shade, 
 and out of sight, and who had been too weak to 
 call for help. It was nearly midnight when these 
 three unconscious and apparently dying men were 
 carried on board the ship. The other two soon 
 revived, but Karl knew nothing until he had been 
 for two days tenderly nursed in one of the Philadel 
 phia hospitals. Even then he had only a half con 
 sciousness of himself, or his surroundings. Fever 
 had set in ; he was delirious a great part of the 
 time, for two months; and when he was not, his 
 broken English, and his frequent reference to the 
 "four leaf of clover," prevented the nurses from 
 believing him fully sane. 
 
8 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 At last one blessed Sunday, there came to tha 
 hospital a young lady who spoke German. At the 
 first sound of the broken syllables, she went quickly 
 to his bedside, and saying to the nurse, "I can 
 speak to this poor fellow in his own language;" 
 she said a few words to Karl in German. The 
 effect was magical. 
 
 He lifted himself up suddenly in bed, and exclaim 
 ing " Ach mein Gott," poured out such a flood of 
 incoherent, grateful, bewildered German that the 
 best of scholars need not have been ashamed at 
 failing to comprehend him. Karl had found a 
 friend. Every day she went to see him, carried 
 him the food he needed/found out from him the 
 names of his friends, and wrote letters to them in 
 German. 
 
 One day he said to her : " You cannot be my 
 girl of the four leaf of clover. You have eyes like 
 the heaven, like mine ; but her eyes were like eyes 
 of a deer that is afraid." 
 
 Then he told the story of the clover, and showed 
 her the creased and faded leaf. , 
 
 It seemed almost a miracle that the fragile, 
 crumbling little thing should not have been lost 
 to all these months. But no Roman Catholic dev 
 otee ever clung more superstitiously to a relic than 
 did Karl Reutner to his "four leaf of clover." 
 
 Often in his delirious attacks he would call for 
 it, and not be pacified until the nurses, who had 
 earnt to humor the whim, would put the paper 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. $ 
 
 into his hand. Now that he was better, he kept it 
 carefully in the inner compartment of his pocket- 
 book, and rarely took it out. It was enough to 
 look in and see that it was safe. 
 
 Karl s only relatives in this country were a 
 brother and sister who lived in Chicago. The 
 brother was a manufacturer of fringes, buttons, and 
 small trimmings, and the sister had married an 
 engraver, also a German. They were industrious 
 working-people, preserving in their new homes all 
 the simple-hearted ways of their life in the old 
 world. When Karl was drafted for the war, they 
 had tried in vain to induce him to let them put 
 their little savings together to buy a substitute for 
 him. " No, no, I will not have it," he said ; " my 
 life is no more than another man s life that it 
 should be saved. There are brothers and sisters 
 to all. I have no wife ; it is the men without wives 
 that must go to fight." On these two simple house 
 holds the news from Gettysburg fell with crushing 
 weight. 
 
 " Karl Reutner, killed ; " only three words, and 
 there were long columns of names with the same 
 bitter word following them. But into few houses 
 Was carried greater sorrow than into these. Wil- 
 heim Reutner and Karl were twins. From their ba 
 byhood they had never been separated, had never 
 disagreed. Together they had come to the new 
 world to s?ek their fortunes; together they had 
 slowly built ip the business which their father had 
 
10 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 followed in Berlin ; they lived together ; and Wil- 
 helm s babies knew no difference in love and care 
 between their uncle Karl and their father. The 
 sister was much younger ; Wilhelm and Karl had 
 laid by their first earnings to bring her out to join 
 them, and for some years they had all lived in one 
 family in such peace and happiness as are not 
 often seen among laboring people of American 
 birth. No thought of discontent, no dream of am 
 bition for a higher position, entered their heads. 
 Home love, comfort, industry, and honesty these 
 were the watchwords of their lives, the key-notes 
 of all their actions. When Wilhelm and Annette 
 were married, there was no change in this atmos 
 phere of content and industry, except an immeas 
 urable increase of happiness as child after child 
 came, bringing the ineffable sunshine of babyhood 
 into the two households. 
 
 Just before the sad news of Karl s death, a new 
 and very great element of enjoyment had been 
 introduced into Wilhelm s family. Margaret War 
 ren had come to live in his house. 
 
 Margaret Warren was the daughter of a Congre- 
 gationalist minister. Her life had been passed in 
 small country villages in the Western States. She 
 had known privations, hardships, discomforts of 
 all sorts ; her father was a gentleman and a scholar, 
 and wretchedly out of place in the pioneer western 
 life ; he did not understand the people ; the people 
 misinterpreted him ; his heart was full of love for 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. II 
 
 *heir souls, and a burning desire to bring them to 
 - !hrist ; but he wounded their self love, and they 
 upended his instincts, at every step ; the- conse- 
 q <jnce was, that he found himself at a middle age 
 wuM an invalid wife and six children, a disappointed, 
 uns -ccessful man. Margaret was the eldest daugh 
 ter, *nd for the first fourteen years of her life, 
 her Bather s constant companion. The only un- 
 alloytJ pleasure he had was in the careful train 
 ing of jer mind. Margaret Warren was, at sixteen, 
 a rare ^.rl ; she was far better fitted than most boys 
 are, to %.iter college. But all this learning did not 
 in the le^st unfit her for practical duties. She was 
 her mother s stay as well as her father s delight ; 
 she understood housekeeping as well as she did 
 Greek, and found as true a pleasure in contriving 
 how to make a garment out of slender material, as 
 in demonstrating a problem in Euclid. Until her 
 seventeenth year she had been unflaggingly brave, 
 hopeful, content, in this hard life. But as she saw 
 the years slowly making all the burdens heavier \ 
 her mother growing feebler, the family growing 
 larger, she began to ask herself what the end would 
 be ; and she found no answer to the question. A 
 vague feeling, that she herself ought to find some 
 way of making her mother and her five little 
 brothers and sisters more comfortable, haunted her 
 thoughts by night and day. She saw the secret of 
 her father s failure more clearly than the most 
 discontented of his parishioners ever saw it. She 
 
12 A FOUR-LEADED CLOSER. 
 
 knew things could never be any better. Oh, \vhy 
 did papa ever undertake to preach," she said to 
 herself, over and over ; her affectionate reverence 
 for him made her feel guilty in the thought. Yet 
 it pressed upon her more and more heavily. 
 
 " Each place we go to is a little poorer than the 
 one before it," she repeated, "and yet, each year 
 we need a little more money instead of less ; and 
 mamma is growing weaker and more tired every 
 day. If I could only get a good school I could 
 earn as much money as papa does by preaching. 
 I know T could teach well ; and then I could learn 
 too." Unconsciously to herself, the desire for a 
 wider knowledge and experience of life entered 
 largely into Margaret s desire to be a teacher. She 
 had uncommon executive ability, and, without 
 knowing it, was beginning to be cramped by her 
 limited sphere. 
 
 Through the help of a clergyman in Chicago, an 
 old class-mate of Mr. Warren s, Margaret realized 
 her dream. It was a bitter day for the little house 
 hold in the parsonage when she left them. With 
 tears streaming down their cheeks the children 
 clung to her, and her mother was pale and speech 
 less with grief ; but Margaret bravely kept back all 
 traces of her own sorrow, and went away with a 
 smiling face. The next day she wrote to her 
 mother : 
 
 " Dear, precious, tired Mamma; it would break 
 my heart to think of you working away without me 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 13 
 
 to help you, and when I recall your face on the 
 door-step yesterday, if I were not home up by an 
 instinct that I shall very soon help you much more 
 than I could at home. Only think, I can already 
 send you seventy-five dollars every quarter half 
 as much as papa s salary ; and I know I shall very 
 soon save a great deal more." 
 
 Margaret was right. Such a teacher as she had 
 only to be known to be recognized. Her text-book 
 training had been singularly thorough and accu 
 rate, but this was the least of her qualifications as 
 a teacher. In the first place she loved children 
 with all her heart ; in the second place, she loved 
 nature and truth with the passion of a devotee. 
 That life could be dull to a human being was a 
 mystery to her; every new discovery in art or 
 science was a stimulus and delight to her ; the sim 
 plest every day fact had significance and beauty to 
 her ; her own existence was rich, full, harmonious, 
 and out of her abundance she gave unconsciously 
 far more than she dreamed to every being that 
 came in contact with her. There was not a pupil 
 in her school who was not more or less electrified 
 by her enthusiasm and love. The standard of 
 scholarship was rapidly raised ; but this was a less 
 test of her power than the elevation and stimulus 
 jiven to the whole moral tone of the school in 
 
 r> 
 
 which she taught. Teachers as well as pupils 
 were lilted to a higher plane by inte r course with 
 her. 
 
14 A FOUR -LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 At the end of two years Margaret was the prin 
 cipal of the highest school in the city, at a salary 
 nearly twice as large as her father s. But her am 
 bition was not yet satisfied. She longed to be at 
 the head of a school of her own, where she should 
 be untrammeled in all respects, and free to carry 
 out her own theories. This was her one air-castle, 
 and, with a view to this, she planned all her life. 
 Three hours every day she spent in hard study or 
 reading. Only the best of constitutions could 
 have borne such a strain ; but Margaret had come, 
 on her mother s side, of an indomitable New Eng 
 land stock. It was in carrying out this scheme of 
 educating herself more perfectly that Margaret had 
 come to live in Wilhelm Reutner s house. Wil- 
 helm s two little daughters had been in her first 
 school. They vyere singularly gentle and well-bred 
 children, and held themselves always a little aloof 
 from their companions. One day Margaret dis 
 covered accidentally that they spoke both Ger 
 man and French fluently. "How is this, little 
 ones," she said; who taught you so many lan 
 guages ? 
 
 " Oh, papa always speaks to us in German, and 
 mamma in French," said they. 
 
 " And Uncle Karl coo," added the youngest, 
 with a sad face. Uncle Karl that has gone to the 
 war." 
 
 That afternoon Margaret walked home with the 
 children from school. As they drew near a block 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 15 
 
 of small two-story wooden houses, Margaret s eye 
 was attracted by two balconies full of flowers. 
 " Oh, how lovely ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " That s our house. Those are Uncle Karl s 
 flowers," cried both the children in a breath ; " we 
 Nke all the care of them now he has gone. He said 
 we might." 
 
 The front of the little house was like a terraced 
 garden. Margaret had never seen anything like it. 
 Every window-sill had its box of flowers, and above 
 the door was a balcony full to overflowing of gera 
 niums, nasturtiums, fuchsias, and white flox. Mar 
 garet stood for so long a time looking at them 
 that the children grew impatient, and pulled her 
 with gentle force into the house. 
 
 Annette came forward with a shy, sweet courtesy 
 to meet the unexpected guest. 
 
 " We talk your name very much, Mademoiselle," 
 she said ; " to see you will be to the father a happi 
 ness." Then Wilhelm thanked her with warm fer 
 vor for her goodness to the children, and before he 
 had finished speaking, the children, who had disap 
 peared upon entering the house, came running 
 back with their hands full of scarlet, yellow, and 
 white blossoms, and showered them upon Mar 
 garet s lap. 
 
 " But my children, my children ! " remonstrated 
 their mother. 
 
 "Uncle Karl said we might pick always some 
 or a pretty lady," cried they; "and is not the 
 
1 6 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 teacher pretty? Did we not tell you she looked 
 like the Madonna ? " 
 
 " It was not the first time that Margaret s face 
 had been compared to that of the Sistine Madonna ; 
 always, however, with a qualification, for that calm 
 and placid Madonna had far less joy in her face 
 than was in Margaret Warren s bright counte 
 nance. 
 
 "Yes, the children say rightly, young lady. 
 They have done well to bring you the flowers, as 
 our far away Karl would have done," said Wilhelm, 
 gravely, still standing before Margaret. 
 
 Margaret felt as if she were in a dream. She 
 had come expecting to find two plain, honest work 
 ing people, to whom she could without difficulty 
 say that she would like to come and board in their 
 family for the sake of learning to speak German 
 and French. Instead, she felt as if she had been 
 received by a prince and princess in disguise : so 
 subtle a power have noble thoughts, simplicity of 
 heart, and love of beauty to invest men and women 
 with a dignity greater than splendor can give. 
 
 Margaret made stammering words of her re 
 quest. It was received with great surprise, but 
 with the same dignified simplicity of demeanor and 
 speech. 
 
 " We have never thought that a stranger could 
 come under our roof, and pay for the food," said 
 Annette, with a shade of pride in her voice ; and 
 t might be that our living would displease you." 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. I/ 
 
 "The teacher is not as a stranger, when An 
 nettechen and Mariska so love her," said Wil- 
 helm, who was on Margaret s side from the begin 
 ning. " But do you remember, young lady, that 
 you have never known such ways as are our 
 ways ? It would be a great shame to my heart if 
 you were not at ease in my house; and we can 
 not change." 
 
 With every word that Wilhelm and Annette spoke, 
 Margaret grew more and more anxious to carry 
 her point. 
 
 " It is you who do not know," she said, " how 
 very simply and plainly I have always lived at 
 home, and it is so that I would wish to live even if 
 I had much money. My father is a poor minister ; 
 my mother has never, in all her life, had so pretty 
 a home as this." 
 
 And Margaret sighed, as she looked around at 
 the picturesque little sitting-room ; its white porce 
 lain stove was now converted into a sort of altar, 
 holding two high candlesticks, made out of the 
 polished horns of antelopes a crimrson candle 
 in one, and a yellow one in the other, and be 
 tween the two a square stone jar of dark, blue 
 and gray Flemish ware, filled with white ama 
 ranths. Low oaken chests, simply but quaintly 
 carved, stood on each side the stove, and a row 
 of tiles, maroon colored and white, with pictures 
 of storks, and herons, and edelweiss flowers, and 
 pine trees on them, was above each chest. The 
 
f8 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 
 
 furniture was all of oak, old and dark. It had 
 belonged to Annette s mother, in Lorraine. The 
 floor was of yellow pine, bright and shining, and 
 gay braided rugs, with borders of tufted worsted 
 balls, covered the greater part of it. Flowers 
 rilled every window, and on the walls were prints 
 of Albert Durer, of Teniers, of Holbein, of Ra 
 phael cheap prints, but rendering the masters 
 works truthfully. In one corner stood a large 
 violoncello, and in another, above a shelf filled 
 with music, hung a violin case wreathed with ever 
 greens. This was Karl s. In the other two cor 
 ners were odd oaken cabinets with glass doors, 
 and a figure of St. Nicholas on the top. On the 
 shelves were wax and glass and wooden toys. 
 These were the Christmas gifts of many years. 
 The whole room was like a bit of the quiet Ger 
 man Tyrol set in the centre of the bustling and 
 breathless American city; but Margaret did not 
 know this. She only felt a bewildered sense of 
 repose and delight and wonder, mixed with a 
 yearning recognition of the beautiful life which 
 must be lived in this simple home. 
 
 When Annette heard that Margaret s father was 
 a poor pastor, her face lighted up. " My mother 
 also was the daughter of a pastor," she said ; and 
 is it then that the good pastors are poor in this 
 country also ? " Annette had thus far known only 
 ich and prosperous ones in the rich and pros* 
 perous city. 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. IQ 
 
 Wilhelm, also, felt that a barrier was removed 
 between him and the "teacher" when he heard 
 that she had lived as a daughter lives, in the home 
 of a poor country pastor. He no longer feared 
 that she could not be content in his house ; and his 
 heart had been strangely warm towards Margaret 
 from the first moment. 
 
 " There is Karl s room, which would be sunny 
 and warm, if it were not too small," he said inquir 
 ingly, turning to Annette. 
 
 " And the big closet with a window would it 
 not be that the teacher could use when she would 
 study ? said Annette, who remembered the little 
 room in which her grandfather had kept his few 
 books, and sat when he was writing, and must not 
 be interrupted. 
 
 Margaret s face flushed with pleasure. The mat 
 ter was evidently settled. It was already beginning 
 to be a matter of hospitality in these kindly hearts, 
 and the only question was how they could make 
 her happiest and most comfortable. The children 
 danced with joy, and taking Margaret s hands in 
 theirs, they drew her towards the stairway, saying : 
 
 u Come, see Uncle Karl s room ; it is the nicest 
 in the house." 
 
 It was, indeed, a lovely room, with its one win 
 dow looking out on the great blue lake. 
 
 " It is too small," said Annette, as she stood with 
 Margaret on the threshold ; " but there is also this 
 closet," and she threw open a door into a second 
 
2O A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 still smaller room, also with one window to the 
 east. 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Margaret. " Can you spare 
 them both ? That will be perfect. My good friends, 
 I cannot thank you enough." 
 
 Wilhelm looked at Margaret with a steadfast, 
 half-dreamy gaze. The German nature is a strangely 
 magnetic one, under all its phlegmatic and prosaic 
 exterior. 
 
 " I have a belief that it is I and my house who 
 are laid under debt by you, teacher," he said, with 
 singular earnestness. 
 
 So it was settled that Margaret should come to 
 live with the Reutners, and should have Karl s 
 room till he returned from the war. 
 
 She wished to come at once, but Wilhelm insisted 
 on a week s interval. Annette looked puzzled ; she 
 knew of no reason for the delay ; but Wilhelm was 
 firm, and Margaret did not press the matter. 
 
 Seven days later, when Margaret went home 
 again, with Annettechen and Mariska, this time 
 really going home, she hardly knew the little 
 rooms. Wilhelm had painted the walls of a soft 
 gray ; he had taken away the closet door, made the 
 door-way into an arch, and hung it with curtains of 
 plain gray cloth, of the same shade as the walls. 
 A narrow strip of plain crimson paper bordered 
 the rooms ; a set of plain book shelves on the wall 
 were edged with the same crimson paper. A small 
 table, with a crimson cloth, and a comfortable arm- 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 21 
 
 chair, also of crimson, stood in the room which 
 had been called the closet. Under each window 
 he had put a larger balcony shelf, and filled it with 
 gay flowers, such as were on the shelves below. 
 
 Margaret s eyes filled with tears. She turned, 
 and saw Wilhelm and Annette standing behind her, 
 their faces glowing with welcome and hope that 
 she would be pleased. 
 
 " Do not try to say that you like it, teacher," 
 said Wilhelm ; " we see in your eyes that you are 
 more glad than we had hoped we could make you." 
 And with a delicacy which touched Margaret even 
 more deeply than she had been touched by the 
 adorning of her rooms, he drew Annette away, and 
 left her alone. 
 
 One month from this day, Wilhelm, Annette, and 
 Margaret were sitting alone in the little sitting-room. 
 The children had gone to bed. It was a sultry 
 evening. Annette had put out the large lamp, and 
 Wilhelm was reading the newspaper by the light of 
 a candle in one of the Tyrolean candlesticks. Sud 
 denly he groaned aloud, dropped the candlestick, 
 and fell back in his chair. The candle was extin 
 guished, and they were left in darkness. Help 
 lessly the two women groped for another light, Wil- 
 helm s heavy breathing terrifying them more and 
 more every moment, and poor Annette crying : 
 
 " Wilhelm, oh, my Wilhelm ! He is dead ! He 
 s dead ! " 
 
 Wilhelm Reutner was a strong and robust man. 
 
22 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 It was the first time in his life that he had ever 
 lost his consciousness. But the fatal words, " Karl 
 Reutner killed," had flashed upon his eyes with 
 an indescribable shock of surprise and anguish. 
 He had not known that Karl s regiment was at 
 Gettysburg. He was reading the accounts of the 
 battle with no especial interest, and it was by ac 
 cident that he had glanced at the lists of killed 
 and wounded. When he came to himself he gasped 
 out, " Karl, Karl ! " and then fainted again. 
 
 " Oh ! our Karl is killed ! " cried Annette ; " it 
 will kill my Wilhelm, too ; " and she fell on her knees, 
 clasping her husband s head to her bosom, and call 
 ing : " But, Wilhelm, thou hast the little ones, 
 and thou hast me. Oh, do not die, darling ! " 
 
 He soon revived, but could not speak. He 
 turned most piteous looks first at Annette, then at 
 Margaret. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Reutner," said Margaret, who had 
 taken up the paper, and saw the name, "we know 
 it, too. It is your dear brother s name. But you 
 must remember that these lists are often wrong. 
 A great many people have been reported killed 
 who have been only taken prisoners. I do not 
 believe your brother is dead." 
 
 Wilhelm groaned. Hope could find no place in 
 his heart. " Oh why did I not compel him to stay 
 at home ? " he said. " What is this cursed country 
 to us that we should die for it ? " 
 
 " Oh ! yes," sobbed Annette, " we all knelt to 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 2$ 
 
 Karl ! Wilhelm had tears like the rain on his face, 
 to beseech that he would let us pay that another 
 man should go ; but he said that the man with nd 
 wife should go to the fight, and he was angry at the 
 last, iven with Wilhelm. 
 
 : 1 think your brother was very right," said Mar- 
 gaiet quietly, taking Wilhelm s hand in hers ; "if 
 he were my own brother, even if he had been 
 killed, I should still rejoice that he had been noble 
 enough to give his life for the right." 
 
 "For the Fatherland, yes," said Wilhelm; "but 
 not for this land we need not to love. It is not 
 anything to us, except that we must live. We are 
 Germans ; we are not of your blood ; " and Wilhelm 
 looked almost fiercely at Margaret. 
 
 " All men are of one blood, when the fight is that 
 all men may be free, my friend," said Margaret, still 
 more quietly, with a voice trembling with sympathy, 
 and yet firm with enthusiasm. " Whatever land it 
 had been which first began the fight for freedom to 
 all, 1 would send my brothers to die under its ban 
 ners. I would go myself ! But I do not believe 
 your Karl is dead. I cannot tell why I have so 
 strong a feeling that he is still alive, but I have no 
 doubt of it none ! " 
 
 Margaret s hopefulness was not shared b) Wil- 
 helm.. He refused to listen to any of her sugges 
 tions. Weeks later a letter came from Karl s 
 tnend, Gustave Boehmer, who was in the same 
 company, and was lying in the trench, next to Karl, 
 
24 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 when he was shot. Wilhelm read the etter aloud, 
 without a tear or a sob, and said, turning to Mar 
 garet, "You see the brother s knowledge was more 
 sure than the stranger s. I knew in that first second 
 that my Karl was gone." 
 
 A black ribbon was twined in the evergreen 
 wreath on Karl s violin, a wreath of white immor 
 telles put around Karl s picture on the wall, ar.d 
 the little, grief-stricken -household went on with its 
 daily life, brave and resigned. But Wilhelm Reut- 
 ner s face was altered from that day ; night after 
 night the little children gazed wistfully into his 
 eyes, missing the joyous look from his smile and 
 the merry ring from his voice. Night after night 
 poor Annette had cried as she had cried on the 
 night when the sad news came, " Lieblinj, UK u 
 ha^t the little ones and thou hast me : do not die 
 for the love of Karl." And Wilhelm answered, 
 " Be patient, I had not thought it could be so hard. 
 The good God will make it easier, in time. It 
 must be that the twin bond is strong after death 
 as it is before birth. I feel my Karl all the while 
 more near than when he was alive." 
 
 On the wall of Karl s room, now Margaret s, 
 there hung an oval picture of the beautiful Kon- 
 igsee Lake in Bavaria. On the margin of the piint 
 was drawn, in rough crayon, a girl s head. It was 
 a spirited drawing, and the head had great beauty. 
 Around the picture was a wreath of edelweiss. 
 \nnette had told Margaret that this head was the 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 2$ 
 
 portrait of a young girl in Ischl whom Karl had 
 loved when they were little more than children. 
 She had died just before Karl and Wilhelm had 
 set out for America, and this rough and unfinished 
 sketch, drawn by Karl one day, half in sport, when 
 they were sailing on the Konigsee, was the only 
 memento he had of her. The edelweiss flowers 
 Karl had gathered on the very glacier of the Watz- 
 man, the day before he bade good-by to his home. 
 
 Ever since Margaret had occupied the room, she 
 had found a special fascination in this picture ; 
 but now she was conscious of a new magnetism in 
 it. Every morning the first rays of the rising sun 
 slanted across this picture, bringing out into full 
 relief each line of the girl s head, and still more, 
 every fine, velvety fibre of the snowy petals of the 
 edelweiss. The picture hung at the foot of the 
 bed, and sometimes when Margaret first opened 
 her eyes and saw this golden light on the lake and 
 the girl s face and the edelweiss wreath, she fancied 
 that there were rhythmic sounds in the light ; that 
 she heard voices fainter than faintest whispers, and 
 yet clear and distinct as flute notes in the air, 
 speaking words she did not understand. She grew 
 almost afraid of the picture ; it seemed a link be 
 tween her and the unseen world. Yet she never 
 nelieved that the link was with Karl. It was with 
 the unknown maiden of Ischl ; the immortal Love 
 Blossoms seemed to bind it, to symbolize it, and 
 31 the tremulous sunlight to utter it. Margaret 
 
26 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 was not superstitious, and she had not a touch of 
 
 sentimentalism in her nature ; but it was out of 
 
 her power to shake off the influence of this picture. 
 
 " Konigsee " floated through her brain, even in 
 
 school hours, like the refrain of a song ; when she 
 
 looked off into the sky, the clouds took shapes 
 
 like the shape of the sides of the Konigsee, and 
 
 whenever she gazed on the blue lake, she found 
 
 her fancy walling it in with mountains, like those 
 
 which walled Konigsee. By night she dreamed of 
 
 sailing in shadowy boats, with the shadowy maiden, 
 
 on Konigse; and she waked from these dreams 
 
 only to find the sunbeams on her wall lighting up 
 
 the shadowy maiden s head, and making golden 
 
 bars across the water of Konigsee. The young 
 
 maiden of Ischl had loved Karl Reutner very 
 
 much ; she loved him still ; else, whence came this 
 
 thrilling personality in the mute picture record 
 
 of her and of the sunny day when she and her 
 
 lover had sailed on Konigsee ! Had Karl gone to 
 
 her? Had her love drawn and lifted him up, 
 
 past the stars, and over the golden wall of Heaven ? 
 
 Were they together now ? 
 
 ^ Constantly Margaret asked herself these ques 
 tions, and constantly one answer came. " No ! 
 Karl is alive." Ah, well must the shadowy maiden 
 of Ischl have loved Karl ! Well does she love him 
 still. Else, how does she always and ever, through 
 the mute picture record of that summer day on 
 Konigsee, say to Margaret, " Karl is not dead 1 
 Karl will come home ? " 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 2J 
 
 Six months had passed. Karl s name was oft- 
 ner spoken now in his home. Wilhelm could bear 
 the sound. The faithful little children stil 1 called 
 their geraniums and fuchsias and roses "Uncle 
 Karl s flowers," and laid the fairest buds and blos 
 soms by the " teacher s " plate at breakfast. Mar 
 garet was as thoroughly at home in the family as 
 she could have been in her own father s house, 
 and yet there was a shade of reverential deference 
 in Wilhelm s and Annette s manner towards her, 
 and in their regard for her. They loved her as a 
 sister, but it was as they would love a sister who 
 had become a princess. To their simple and un 
 learned souls her acquirements seemed greater 
 than they really were, and a certain unconscious 
 reticence of nature which Margaret had, in spite of 
 all her overflowing enthusiasm and frankness, sur 
 rounded her with a barrier of personal dignity 
 which every one felt, and which no one ventured to 
 disregard. 
 
 On New Year s night Margaret returned home 
 late from a party. As she drew near the house 
 she saw to her surprise a bright light burning in 
 the sitting-room. Fearing that some one was ill, 
 she opened the door of the room quickly ; a strange 
 sight met her eyes. Wilhelm was on his knees, 
 his face uplifted, and tears streaming down his 
 cheeks. Annette stood opposite him, with her 
 hands clasped, looking at him with an expression 
 
28 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVHR, 
 
 of unspeakable rapture. Neither of them spoke as 
 Margaret approached. 
 
 " Oh, what is it ? What has happened ? " ex 
 claimed Margaret, too terrified by their strange at 
 titudes to see that their expression was one of 
 great joy, and not of grief. 
 
 Wilhelm stretched one hand towards the table, 
 and his lips moved, but no sound came from them. 
 Annette turned to the table, took up a letter, and 
 gave it to Margaret, saying, " Karl ! Karl ! He is 
 alive. He comes home." 
 
 Margaret sank into a chair. Strong as her in 
 stinct had been that Karl was not dead, the cer 
 tainty came to her with almost as great a shock of 
 surprise as it had come to his brother and sister. 
 
 The letter was from Karl s friend, the young 
 lady in the Philadelphia Hospital. It was long 
 and full, giving an account of all that Karl had 
 suffered in the months in Libby Prison, of his 
 almost miraculous preservation at City Point, and 
 of his present convalescence. At the close she 
 said : 
 
 " The surgeon says that if Karl has no draw 
 backs he will be well enough to come home in a 
 month. He most earnestly advises that you do 
 not come here. Karl is absolutely comfortable, 
 and wants for nothing ; the excitement of talking 
 would do him great harm. He himself begs that 
 you will not come. I will see h rn every day, and 
 write to you every week." 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 2$ 
 
 At the bottom of the sheet Karl had v/ritten : 
 
 " Beloveds, do not come to me. I will the 
 sooner come to you. God be praised. 
 
 " KARL. " 
 
 Grief has no tears like joy. A stranger would 
 have supposed for the next few days that the whole 
 household was in sorrow. Everybody s face was 
 red with weeping. Nobody could speak in a steady 
 voice. Wilhelm sat silent, by the. hour, looking 
 into the fire, and wiping his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Margaret," he said ; " Oh teacher, 
 taught of some angel, why did I not believe you ? 
 Why is it that you, who have not known our Karl, 
 should be the one to be told, and not I ? " 
 
 Margaret was on the point of telling him that 
 A he maiden of Ischl had told her because she found 
 her sleeping in Karl s room. But a vague shame 
 sealed her lips. She need not have hesitated. It 
 would not have seemed a strange or an incredible 
 thing to Wilhelm Reutner. 
 
 The next letters were not so cheering. The ex 
 citement of hearing, even by letter, from his friends, 
 had caused a slight relapse of Karl s fever, and the 
 physician now thought that it might be six weeks 
 before he could safely travel. It was a hard thing 
 for Wilhelm to sit quietly at home and wait for so 
 many days. Only Margaret s influence withheld 
 him from going to Philadelphia at once. 
 
 " I need not to see him," he said ; " I could go each 
 day to the door and ask if he is better No hurt 
 
30 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 could be to him in that ; it would not be so hard 
 for me as is this to stay here ; and the doctors do 
 not always know the right ; no one can do for my 
 Karl so as I can do. " 
 
 " But, Mr. Reutner," urged Margaret, " you do 
 not dream how much harder it would be for you to 
 bear not seeing him, there ; it is almost more than 
 you can bear here, three days journey from him ; 
 if he were in the next room, nobody could keep 
 you out ; and then if he were to have another fever 
 from the excitement of seeing you, you would never 
 forgive yourself ; and it might kill him. He must 
 be very weak." 
 
 This last fear restrained Wilhelm. " Yes, if it 
 were to hurt him. That would not be love ! " he 
 said over and over to himself, and tried to keep 
 his heart and hands busy in making preparations 
 for Karl s comfort after his return ; but the days 
 seemed longer and longer to him, and his face 
 again grew worn and haggard, almost as much as it 
 had in the first few weeks after the news of Karl s 
 death. 
 
 One night he sprang up from the tea-table, say- 
 \ng, " Annette, come to the theatre ! I cannot sit 
 in this r&om, thinking how it will be when Karl is 
 again in his corner with the violin. I wish we 
 could live in another house till he is here. It will 
 fiever be done, these two months ! " 
 
 After they had gone, Margaret drew her chair in 
 front of the fire, and fell into a long reverie, a 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 31 
 
 strange thing for her to do. She reviewed hex 
 whole life ; first as the eldest daughter in the poor 
 minister s household ; then as the unknown teacher 
 in the great city ; now the successfull instructress, 
 highly esteemed, sought after by people of culture 
 conscious of influence and power, having in a great 
 measure realized her early dreams. But the early 
 dreams had been succeeded by later ones no less 
 vivid, no less alluring. Margaret Warren had in 
 her nature a vein of intense ambition. It was not 
 a vulgar craving for power as power ; it was rather 
 that a consciousness of power craved room, craved 
 action. Her studies, her reading, had opened to 
 her new worlds, and made life seem to her more 
 and more a vista upon which she had as yet barely 
 entered. 
 
 Her aesthetic sense was fast developing into a 
 passion which must have food ; beauty in little 
 things, beauty in great things, beauty perpetually 
 she was learning to demand. A verse of Keats 
 could so stimulate her, so lift her into delight, that 
 she would find jarring and offense in things which 
 Her practical good sense told her were as true, as 
 harmonious in their way as the color and rhythm 
 of Keats s peerless lines. She recalled herself 
 constantly ; she reproached herself constantly j she 
 said sternly to herself many a time, " Dignity and 
 truth are the same in all ages. This Wilhelm 
 here is great ; and Annette, and the children, they 
 are representative. Socrates knew no more than 
 
32 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 they live, each year, each hour, in their simplicity. 
 If I dwelt in a court, the king could be, after all, 
 only a man. All knowledge is open to me, I 
 have but to take it. What do I want ? " But 
 that she did want Margaret knew very well. She 
 wanted the delights of the companionship of the 
 very wisest and highest men, the delight of the 
 sight and sound and sense of utmost beauty, and 
 still more, the delight of feeling in herself the wis 
 dom, the beauty, the elevation. It was partly a 
 noble, and partly an ignoble craving ; partly selfish 
 and partly pure ; but stirred and kindled and fed 
 by such lofty enthusiasms and purposes, that Mar 
 garet must be called a noble woman even in her 
 discontent. 
 
 She was roused from her reverie by sounds of 
 strange voices in the hall. As she laid her hand 
 on the door to open it, it was thrown violently 
 open, and she had barely time to spring back, when 
 she found herself clasped in the arms of a tall man, 
 and kissed on cheeks, forehead, eyes, lips, neck. 
 
 She was so stunned, so bewildered, she could 
 not speak ; also, strong arms held her so tightly 
 that she had no breath, and the first words came 
 from the servant, who ran into the room, calling 
 vociferously, " Howly Vargin, but it s not the mis- 
 thress, at all, at all, that yee s kissin . It s the 
 tacher, sir och, Miss Margaret, it s the mistress 
 to) is a takin ye for." 
 
 That was a moment not to be forgotten. In the 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 3$ 
 
 dim fire-light, Karl and Margaret having disen 
 tangled themselves, stood for a second looking 
 blankly in each other s faces : Karl, the picture of 
 inexpressible chagrin and confusion; Margaret, 
 scarlet with excitement. But her strong sense o 
 the ludicrous soon conquered every other feeling, 
 and, with laughing eyes, she said, " Never mind, 
 Mr. Karl, I will give them all to Annette as soon 
 as she comes home, and I am very glad to see you 
 back, indeed I am," she added, stretching out both 
 her hands to him ; " we did not look for you for 
 weeks yet. " 
 
 As she took his hands in hers she felt that they 
 were cold as ice, and saw that his face was turning 
 white. His strength of a moment before was only 
 the passing strength of a great excitement. He 
 had set out against the advice of his physicians 
 and nurses, had journeyed day and night, and now 
 the false strength given by the desire to be at home 
 was fast ebbing away. 
 
 " Oh, pray lie down, Mr. Reutner, you look very 
 ill," exclaimed Margaret ; and she led him like a 
 little child, to the lounge. Like a little child he lay 
 down upon it, and looked up in her face, while with 
 the servant s help, she took off his heavy wrap 
 pings. Then he shut his eyes, and murmured, 
 "The four leaf of clover." 
 
 Margaret was terrified. She thought he was de 
 lirious ; she dared not be left alone with him, and 
 yet she felt that she ought to send for a physician, 
 3 
 
34 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 She bathed his forehead; she chafed his hands j 
 she looked helplessly into the servant s face, say 
 ing, " Oh Mary, what shall we do ? " At the sound 
 of her voice Karl opened his eyes, and said, 
 feebly, " Do not have fear. I will rest. That is 
 all, and if there is wine, it will make me strong." 
 Then he looked long into Margaret s face with a 
 strange, unseeing gaze, and murmured again, as 
 he shut his eyes : 
 
 "The four leaf of clover. It have come true." 
 
 When Wilhelm and Annette returned, they found 
 Karl asleep on the sofa, and Margaret siting close 
 by his side, her face pale and full of distress. It 
 had been a terrible hour for her. As soon as she 
 saw Wilhelm and Annette, she burst into tears, 
 exclaiming, " Oh, thank God, you have come ; he is 
 not quite in his senses, and I have not known what 
 to do ! " 
 
 Hardly daring to breathe, lest they should waken 
 the sleeper, the three sat motionless for an hour. 
 
 At Karl s first movement, Wilhelm threw him 
 self on his knees, and clasped him to his heart j 
 no word was spoken but the two men sobbed like 
 women. While they were in each other s arms 
 Margaret stole softly away. 
 
 When Karl looked up he said, " The four leaf of 
 clover, where has she gone ? " Wilhelm did not 
 understand the first wc>rds, but replied simply to 
 the last, " She has gone to her room. It is the 
 good teacher, Miss Margaret ; she lives with us, 
 Vou will love her as we all do." 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 35 
 
 Karl smiled. 
 
 The next morning, when Margaret came into 
 the sitting-room, Karl, still lying on the lounge, 
 fixed his blue eyes steadily on her face, and said 
 abruptly, "It was then that I so frightened you, to 
 make your cheeks so white, last night. To-day 
 they are red, like red lilies and white lilies in one 
 field," and the blue eyes dwelt on the face till the 
 red lilies had driven all the white lilies away. 
 
 Margaret passed her hand impatiently across her 
 cheek. " Oh, I always have color," she said. It 
 did not please her that Wilhelm Reutner s brother 
 should have looked at her in that manner. In a 
 second more, her kindliness of heart triumphed over 
 the slight unworthiness of resentment, and going 
 nearer him, she added, " I was indeed very much 
 frightened about you last night. You seemed very 
 ill, and I was all alone with Mary. I hope you are 
 better ; you look better." 
 
 Karl s eyes had fallen to the ground. As clearly 
 as if it had been written in letters on Margaret * 
 brow, he had read her first thought, and had been 
 pained. 
 
 " Yes, I am better ; I am well. It is the home 
 which could cure me," he said, in a tone whose 
 grave simplicity was like Wilhelm s, and had in it 
 an inexpressible charm. 
 
 In a moment more, he said, earnestly, " Have 
 you ever found one four leaf of clover ? " and, tak 
 ing out his pocket-book, he turned its leaves ovel 
 llowly, searching for something. 
 
36 A FOUR-LEADED CLOVER. 
 
 " Oh dear," thought Margaret, " he is certainly 
 crazy. That was what he was talking about last 
 night. Poor fellow!" 
 
 "Oh, yes, Mr. Reutner," she replied. "Four- 
 leaved clovers are very common. I have often 
 found whole handfuls of them." 
 
 "I thought you had. And have you ever one 
 dream at night that you find the hands full of them, 
 and give them to some one ? " 
 
 Margaret looked puzzled, and was about to reply ; 
 when Wilhelm and the children entered the room. 
 Karl laid a little folded paper, which he had held 
 in his hand, back into the pocket-book, and opened 
 his arms to the children, who sprang into them, 
 and covered him with kisses until he was forced to 
 cry out for mercy. 
 
 All day long Margaret was haunted by the words, 
 and the voice in which they were spoken, " Have 
 you ever found one four leaf of clover ? " " What 
 could he have meant?" she thought. "He does 
 not seem in the least like a crazy man. I wonder 
 what he had in that paper ; " and more than once, 
 the scholars received irrelevant answers to their 
 questions, because their beautiful teacher s thoughts 
 were full of this perplexing memory. 
 
 That night the mystery was cleared up. After 
 the children had gone to bed, Karl told the story 
 of the four-leaved clover, and took from his pocket 
 book the little relic leaf. Wilhelm took it in his 
 oands, and looked at it with stern eyes. 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. tf 
 
 "But why dost thou keep it, my Karl? Ach, it 
 has cost thee dear ! " 
 
 Karl reached his hand out hastily, as if to rescue 
 the leaf. 
 
 " But it have bring me home," he said. " I will 
 keep it so long as I live," and as he laid it back in 
 the pocket-book, he smiled with the smile of one 
 who recalls a bliss known only to himself. 
 
 It was indeed the "home which could cure." 
 Karl grew better hour by hour. The wound healed, 
 and, although the physicians said that the lungs 
 must always be weak, Karl was in two months a 
 strong man. 
 
 Margaret did not grow wonted to his presence 
 in the family. It disturbed her, she hardly knew 
 how, or why, and she chided herself often for the 
 unreasonable feeling. Since that first morning, 
 when with his blue eyes blazing with admiration, 
 he had compared her cheeks to red lilies, he had 
 never by word or glance betrayed any feeling other 
 than the respectful affection with which his brother 
 and sister treated her. His eyes met hers with the 
 same clear, steady response that Wilhelm s always 
 did, and he listened to her words with a simple 
 reverence like that the children showed her. Often 
 when she was speaking, he sat with his head slightly 
 bowed, his eyes fixed on the ground ; and an ex 
 pression of rapt attention ; it was as a man might 
 isten to the words of a priestess. Sometimes 
 when he looked earnestly at her, there was, for a 
 
38 A FOUR-LEADED CLOVER. 
 
 second, a beseeching and remorseful look, as of 
 one who implored forgiveness ; but the look was 
 gone so quickly that Margaret never fathomed its 
 meaning, and no one else saw it. 
 
 Margaret often wished that Karl had not come 
 home ; and yet, she never said this to herself with 
 out being in the same instant conscious that in 
 numberless, and in some hardly definable ways, her 
 comfort had been much increased since his return. 
 Karl had seen more of the world than Wilhelm and 
 Annette, and had, moreover, a curious faculty of 
 divining Margaret s preferences and tastes. 
 
 " The teacher would like this, or that," he had 
 said to Annette, again and again ; and Annette had 
 replied, " How dost thou know ? Has the teacher 
 said it to thee ? She was pleased before." But 
 when Karl had carried his point, Annette always 
 found that there came in a few clays, a strong ex 
 pression of grateful pleasure from Margaret. 
 
 And so the spring and the summer wore away, 
 and the winter came back, and the long months 
 had brought no apparent change in Wilhelm Reut- 
 ner s house. But deep down in one heart under 
 that roof, were working forces mightier, subtler 
 than any which had ripened the spring into the 
 summer, and the summer into the garnered harvest 
 of autumn. Karl Reutner loved Margaret Warren. 
 His love was so entirely without any hope of return, 
 that it partook of the nature of the passion of a 
 spiritual devotee, and was lifted to a plane of at 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 39 
 
 most superhuman unselfishness. To say that he 
 never thought of Margaret as a man thinks of a 
 woman who might be his wife, would not be true. 
 Margaret was a very beautiful woman ; and Karl 
 Reutner was a man in whose veins ran blood both 
 strong and pure ; he could not hear the rustle of 
 Margaret s gown without a faster beat to his pulse. 
 Yet, when he thought of Margaret s possible wife- 
 hood, it was never of her wifehood to him. He 
 could not forbear thinking what wifehood, what 
 motherhood would be to her ; he could not forbear 
 thinking what it would be to a man, if Margaret 
 were to put her arms around him ; he could not 
 forbear thinking how Margaret would look with her 
 child at her breast. But it was as a man might 
 think, kneeling before the holiest of Raphael s 
 Madonnas. His sole desire in life was that Mar 
 garet should have happiness. Each smallest trifle 
 in which he could add to that happiness, was a joy 
 unspeakable ; that she seemed content, even glad 
 in the quiet home life which he shared, was a bless 
 ing so great, that even one day of it could almost 
 be food- for a lifetime, it seemed to him. The 
 thought that it could not always be thus, he reso 
 lutely put away. But from the thought of asking 
 Margaret to be .his, Karl Reutner s, wife, his 
 very soul would have recoiled as it would from a 
 blasphemy. 
 
 And yet the day came when Margaret found her 
 self obliged to say to him that she could not love 
 him. 
 
40 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVE K. 
 
 It was a strange chance which brought it about. 
 
 Karl s love of flowers was a passion such as only 
 Germans know. How, in addition to all the hours 
 he devoted to his business, he found hours enough 
 to make flowers grow in every window-seat, nook 
 and ledge in and outside of the house was a mar 
 vel. But he did, and the little house was known 
 far and wide for its blossoms. Margaret s sitting- 
 room was a conservatory; as soon as a plant showed 
 signs of decay it was removed, and replaced by a 
 vigorous one. Bloom succeeded bloom ; in season 
 and out of season she was never without flowers of 
 red and of white. 
 
 One Saturday in February, a year from the day 
 Karl had come home, Margaret was sitting alone 
 in her room. It had snowed, and the day had been 
 dreary ; at sunset the sky cleared, and a beautiful 
 rosy glow spread over the lake. Margaret sat 
 watching it, and wondering, as all lonely people 
 have hours of wondering, why, since the world is 
 so thronged with its millions, there need ever be 
 one lonely man or woman. Some one knocked at 
 the door so gently that she thought it was one of 
 the children, and answered without looking around. 
 The door opened, but no one spoke. Margaret 
 turned her head ; there stood Karl, holding in his 
 hands an oblong box of daisies in full blossom. He 
 had been for weeks coaxing and crowding the little 
 things until there was a thicket of the dainty nod 
 ding disks, pink, white, red, and the green leaves 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 41 
 
 also crowding thick and bright. The box \vas sur 
 rounded by a fine lattice work, painted white, which 
 came up like a paling, two inches above the top of 
 the box, so that one could fancy it a mound in an 
 English garden fenced in with white. 
 
 " It is for you, Miss Margaret. Where shall I 
 set it," said Karl. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Reutner, you are too kind," exclaimed 
 Margaret, her face crimson with pleasure. " It is 
 the loveliest thing I ever saw," and she bent her 
 face down close to the daisies, still held in Karl s 
 hands. 
 
 Margaret had never been so near to Karl before. 
 The rosy lake and sky, and snowy clouds made of 
 the window-panes behind her a background such as 
 Raphael never painted. Her beaming face and 
 thrilling presence lifted Karl to heights of exalta 
 tion, and, placing the daisy-box on the floor at her 
 feet, he said, " They are but daisies, beautiful Miss 
 Margaret ; that was the fitting flower, for it is like 
 my love for you. It is low on the ground, but it 
 would bloom for you always, and you will not for 
 bid that they should live always in your room ? " 
 And for the second time Margaret saw the blue 
 eyes kindle as they kindled when he had told her 
 her cheeks were like red lilies. 
 
 Margaret grew more crimson still. No words 
 :ame to her lips. 
 
 It seemed as ruthless to hurt this man s love as 
 *o trample on a daisy. Yet Karl Reutner must be 
 
42 A FOUR-LEADED CLOVEK. 
 
 made to understand that there could be no thought 
 of love between him and her. Even in that glori 
 fied moment, when he stood before her, tall, strong, 
 upright, fair as an old Saxon viking with his golden 
 beard and blue eyes, and pure, she well knew, as 
 Adam in Eden, Margaret Warren remembered that 
 Karl Reutner was beneath her in what the world 
 calls station. There was a shade of something not 
 wholly kind in the very kindness and gentleness 
 with which she said : 
 
 " But, Mr. Reutner, I cannot let you give me the 
 daisies to mean that. I am so sorry, so grieved to 
 pain you, but I must be true." 
 
 Margaret s eyes filled with tears as she saw the 
 look of distress on Karl s face. He stooped to 
 pick up the box without saying a word. Marga 
 ret s heart could not bear this. 
 
 " But, Mr. Reutner, you need not take the dai 
 sies away. I would love to have them in my room, 
 now that you understand me. You were so good 
 to make them grow like this for me. They will be 
 beautiful all winter," and Margaret laid her hand 
 gently and caressingly on the edge of the box. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Margaret, I thank you," said Karl, 
 in a very low voice. " You need not to fear that 
 the daisies should say words to you, if yon are 
 willing that they live at your feet. They have but 
 eyes ; they will not speak. You will let them 
 stay ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed I will," replied Margaret, try 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 43 
 
 ing to speak in a natural voice, as if it were an 
 every-day gift, and making room for them on a 
 little stand by the window. Then, while Karl was 
 arranging the box and the saucer, she went on 
 talking with a forced rapidity and earnestness of 
 manner. 
 
 Karl listened as one who only partly heard the 
 words. When she stopped he said in his old, 
 grave, calm tone, lifting his eyes to hers steadily as 
 usual: "Thank you, Miss Margaret," and left the 
 room. 
 
 Margaret burst into tears. She was very un 
 happy and utterly perplexed. 
 
 "Whoever heard of a man s thanking a woman 
 like that, and going away looking so content and 
 glad when she had just told him she could not 
 marry him ! " said Margaret to herself, " and what 
 is to become of me now? I cannot live in the 
 house with him any longer ; it will not be kind ; I 
 must go away. Oh, I wish he had never come 
 home," and Margaret threw herself on the bed 
 and cried herself to sleep. 
 
 When Annette knocked at the door to ask why 
 she did not come down to tea, Margaret roused 
 herself from her heavy sleep, and looked into An 
 nette s face with a bewildered expression of distress. 
 She could not remember at first what had hap 
 pened. In a second it all flashed into her mind, 
 and burying her face in the pillow she groaned 
 aloud. Annette was frightened. She had never 
 
44 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVEK. 
 
 seen the " teacher " lose self-control. She thought 
 she must be very ill. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Margaret, what have you ? It is a 
 fever " for Margaret s face was of a scarlet color. 
 " Karl must bring the doctor," exclaimed Annette. 
 
 " No, no, Mrs. Reutner," cried Margaret. " I 
 beg you will not say a word to any one. I am not 
 ill. I have slept too heavily. I will not come 
 down-stairs to-night, but I shall be well to-mor 
 row." 
 
 It was the first time that Margaret s chair at the 
 table had been vacant. Annette s explanation of 
 her absence did not lessen the sense of gloom 
 which every one felt. 
 
 Margaret ill ! It was incredible. 
 
 " She have never looked so beautiful as I saw 
 her not three hours ago," said Karl incredulously. 
 
 Something in his toie fell strangely on Wil- 
 helm s ear. He turned a keen, quick look upon 
 his brother s face ; but Karl met it with one open 
 as day, in which nothing rould be read except un 
 feigned anxiety and wonder. 
 
 When Annette went to Margaret s room later in 
 the evening, Margaret s fact was pale, and all 
 traces of feverish excitement had passed away. 
 She had had two hours of hard s niggle with her 
 self ; but she had resolved that she must seek an 
 other home, and, having come to this resolution, 
 she wished to lose no time in carrying it out. 
 
 " Sit down, dear Mrs. Reutner," sh~ said, " I 
 must have a little talk with you." 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 45 
 
 Annette looked uneasy. She had never seen 
 Margaret look as she looked now. She knew that 
 bad news was coming. 
 
 " My dear, good, kind friend, I must go away 
 from you," said Margaret, and her voice trembled. 
 
 Annette gazed speechlessly into Margaret s face. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Margaret, what is it ? Is it that you 
 must go home ? " 
 
 Margaret shook her head. " No, Mrs. Reutner, 
 I have no expectation of leaving Chicago ; but I 
 must find another home. It is not best for me to 
 live in your house any longer." 
 
 Great tears rolled down Annette s face, and she 
 sobbed : " Oh, Miss Margaret, is it nothing we can 
 do to make all better for you. It will break the 
 father s heart and the little ones . Will you not 
 tell us ? We have much more money now ; we can 
 buy all for you, if you will only show us how it is 
 to be ; " and Annette cried heartily. 
 
 Margaret was distressed. It seemed disloyal to 
 Karl to give her reason ; cruel to Annette and Wil- 
 helm to withhold it. She remained silent for some 
 time. Annette sobbed again a few broken words ; 
 "Miss Margaret, you do not know what it is to 
 the house that you are in it. Karl said, only yes 
 terday, that you were the good angel to each one 
 in the house. Tell us, Miss Margaret. Is it that 
 you must have larger rooms ? Wilhelm will build 
 all you want, one, two, more." 
 
 The mention of Karl s name gave Margaret 
 ore strength to proceed. 
 
6 A FOUR-LEADED CLOVER. 
 
 " I will tell you, my kind friend," she said, " the 
 real truth. It is for your brother that I must go 
 away. He loves me ; he told me so this after 
 noon ; and it is not delicate or kind after that for 
 me to live in the same house with him. I shall 
 never be so happy anywhere else. Nobody will 
 make me so comfortable, and I am very, very sorry 
 to go away ; but I must," and Margaret, in her 
 turn, was very near crying. 
 
 Annette had dried her tears, sprung to her feet, 
 and now stood gazing at Margaret with such stupe 
 faction in her face that Margaret could scarcely 
 keep from smiling in spite of her distress. 
 
 " Karl tell you he love you to be his wife ? " 
 gasped Annette. " Oh, Miss Margaret, it has been 
 a mistake. Karl has never told you that; Karl 
 could not." 
 
 Margaret colored. 
 
 " I am not likely to be mistaken, Mrs. Reutner," 
 she said, a little coldly. " I regret it more than I 
 can say. But it is so, and I must go away." 
 
 Annette seemed like one in a dream. She was 
 in haste to be gone. She replied at random to all 
 Margaret said, and at last sobbed afresh: 
 
 " Oh, Miss Margaret, I must go now. To-mor 
 row I will hear you again. I think not that the 
 good God sent you to our house to take you away 
 like this ; " and Annette was gone. 
 
 Wilhelm and Karl were seated in the dining 
 room, smoking. Annette, with streaming eyes 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 47 
 
 entered the room, and hurrying breathlessly to 
 Karl, exclaimed : 
 
 " How daredst thou to ask the teacher to be thy 
 wife? It \\as thou that hast made her ill, and 
 she will go away from our house because of thee, 
 and " Annette stopped for lack of breath, and 
 because the two men had both sprung to their feet, 
 and were gesticulating violently, Karl with an 
 angry voice. 
 
 " God in Heaven ! What dost thou take me for, 
 Annette ? Dost thou not know I would as soon 
 ask one of the angels in Paradise to be wife to 
 me ? Who has told thee this tale ? " 
 
 And Wilhelm, " Annette, art thou mad, or dost 
 thou think Karl is a madman ? " 
 
 Annette looked tremblingly from one to the 
 other. She herself had felt like this when Mar 
 garet had first told her. In a hesitating voice she 
 began : 
 
 " But Miss Margaret has said that thou " 
 
 Before she could finish her sentence, Karl s face, 
 white as the face of a dead man, was bent 
 close to hers, and Karl s voice, strange, husky, was 
 saying, in slow, gasping syllables : 
 
 " The teacher said I asked her to 
 -be wife ? " 
 
 Annette nodded, too terrified to speak. 
 
 Karl strode to the door, and opened it. Annette 
 ran to hold him back, but Wilhelm restrained her. 
 In that short moment Wilhelm had understood all 
 
48 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 "He must speak to her," he said; "let him go. 
 It must be told to her. She has mistaken ; it was 
 not that Karl asked her to marry him. But he has 
 let her to know that he has worship for her. And 
 she need not be angry for my Karl s love, if he 
 ask nothing," added Wilhelm, proudly ; but his 
 head sank on his breast, and he said, in a low 
 tone to himself : " Oh, my poor Karl ; my poor 
 Karl ! " 
 
 Margaret knew Karl s step. As she heard it 
 rapidly drawing near her door, her heart beat and 
 her cheeks flushed. What had Annette said ? 
 What new distress and embarrassment were com 
 ing to her now ? Almost she resolved not to admit 
 him, But Karl forestalled that intention. Knock 
 ing lightly on the door, he spoke at the same in 
 stant : 
 
 " Miss Margaret, for God s sake, I ask to come 
 and speak to you one minute, only one minute j 
 it must be." 
 
 The anguish in his voice moved Margaret 
 strangely. She opened the door. 
 
 Karl entered almost staggering, and with his 
 hands clasped : 
 
 " Oh, mine God," he exclaimed, " give it to me 
 what I shall say! Miss Margaret, beautiful Miss 
 Margaret, angel of God, I did only ask that the 
 ove and the daisies should lie together under your 
 feet. I could die here before you m one second, if 
 vou do not believe that never, no never, in aH this 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 49 
 
 urorl i, I could have asked you what you have said 
 to Annette. You are to me as if I saw you in 
 Heaven; you are angel of God in my brother s 
 house. If you go away because I have said such 
 love as this, then will I, too, go, and never shall 
 my Wilhelm see my face again, so help me, my 
 God ! " 
 
 Before Karl had spoken three words, Margaret 
 divined all. Shame, resentment, perplexity, and 
 unspeakable distress mingled of all three, were in 
 her face. She could not speak. This man, then, 
 had never dreamed of asking her to be his wife. 
 True, he acknowledged the utmost devotion for 
 her, and more than implied that the reason he 
 could not ask her to marry him was that he re 
 vered her as an angel of God ; but the mortifying 
 fact remained that she had not only rejected a man 
 who had not asked her to take him as a husband, 
 but she had told the matter, and compelled him to 
 come and undeceive her. It was a bitter thing. 
 Margaret could not speak ; she could not look up. 
 
 Karl went on, more calmly : " Beautiful Miss 
 Margaret, it will come that you forgive me when 
 you have thought. And you would have seen that 
 t was only the love like the daisy, at the feet, if 
 you had come down-stairs before you had spoken, 
 you would have seen that you need not to go away. 
 It is not kind to the daisy that there be no more 
 sun." 
 
 Maigaret could not speak. Karl walked slowly 
 
50 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 to the door. As he opened it, Margaret sprang to 
 wards him, and holding out her hand, said : 
 
 "Forgive me, Mr. Reutner. That is the only 
 word I can say." 
 
 Karl took her hand in his, looked at it with no 
 more trace of earthly passion in his eyes than if it 
 were the hand of a shrined saint, lifted it to his fore 
 head, bowed, and was gone. 
 
 Now was Margaret s distress complete. Turn 
 which way she would, she saw only perplexity and 
 mortification. Mingled with it all was a new, 
 strange feeling in regard to Karl, which she could 
 not define to herself. He had never looked so 
 manly as when he stood before her, saying, "So 
 help me, my God ! " It was the only moment in 
 which he had ever, in her presence, seemed stronger 
 than she. Usually his great love bound him as 
 with withes, and laid him helpless at her feet. 
 
 A low hum of voices came to Margaret s ears 
 from the room below. Karl and Wilhelm were 
 talking earnestly. Only too vividly Margaret s 
 fancy pictured what they were saying. She walked 
 the floor; she wrung her hands; she was too 
 wretched to shed a tear. Deep down to its very 
 depths her proud heart was humiliated. It was a 
 kind heart, too, spite of its pride ; a loving and a 
 grateful heart; and it was sorely wounded to have 
 bi ought such sorrow to friends. 
 
 An hour passed; all grew quiet down-stairs. 
 Margaret still walked the floor. Suddenly she 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 51 
 
 aeard soft steps outside her door; a low knock, 
 and Annette s voice said, entreatingly : " Dear 
 Miss Margaret, may Wilhelm come and speak to 
 you ? " 
 
 Margaret threw the door open instantly. She 
 was so wretched, so perplexed, that she was glad of 
 any help from any source. She had already thought 
 of Wilhelm, and wished that his clear-eyed and ten 
 der wisdom could in some way be brought to bear 
 on this distressing problem. 
 
 " Miss Margaret," said Wilhelm, very quietly, 
 " it is not much that I can say. A grief has come 
 to us all ; but that cannot now be changed : that is 
 as if it were past ; and if you will only stay in our 
 house it can become as if it had not been. It is 
 no shame to you that my brother have seen that 
 you are more beautiful and good than any other 
 woman. It is so that any man must see, Miss Mar 
 garet. I, also, who am the father in the house, I 
 have said to Annette all this year that you are one 
 good angel. And I could kneel to pray you to stay. 
 I know my Karl. It is not with him as you think. 
 It is only a joy to him that you stay, as it is to me 
 and to Annette. And he will keep the vow he have 
 vowed. If you go he will go away for ever. Give 
 So us our brother, oh, Miss Margaret," and tears 
 stood in Wilhelm s eyes. 
 
 " Mr. Reutner," said Margaret, very earnestly, 
 "do you truly believe that it will do your brother 
 uo harm, I mean, cause him no pain to live with me 
 is before ? " 
 
52 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 Wilhdm fixed his eyes on the floor in silence for 
 
 some seconds. Then he said : 
 
 " Miss Margaret, that you are content, are glad, 
 is joy to Karl and to us. So long as you find to be 
 content, glad in our house, it is great joy. When 
 you are more glad in your own house that will 
 be greatest joy to Karl, to us. There will come 
 the year when Karl will have wife and house as I. 
 He has the great father heart which must have the 
 children to love. You will do his life no harm. To 
 have seen that you are God s angel shall be only 
 light to him, not cloud. I know my Karl. Oh, 
 Miss Margaret, will you not for one month try if it 
 cannot be ? " 
 
 So Margaret promised to stay. The first meet 
 ing with Karl was what she most dreaded ; but it 
 was over almost before she knew that it was near, 
 and Karl s beautiful simplicity of nature made it 
 easier than could have been foreseen. 
 
 He was standing alone in the window of the 
 drawing-room when she went to breakfast the next 
 morning. He had just broken a beautiful tea-rose 
 from its stem, and was about to lay it on her plate. 
 <Vs she crossed the threshold he went towards her, 
 holding it out, and saying : 
 
 " You are like a new guest in our house to-day. 
 Oh, Miss Margaret, let the rose tell to you how we 
 *11 thank God that you have come." 
 ^ The tone, the look, were calmly, gravely, affec 
 tionate as evor. The old life was taken up again, 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER, 53 
 
 the stormy break in it put away forever. Mar 
 garet s heart leaped with a sudden rapture in the 
 consciousness that she still had the same quiet, 
 peaceful, dear home as before. 
 
 Again the spring and the summer wore away, 
 and the winter came, and no change was visible in 
 Wilhelm Reutner s household. No change visible 1 
 But ah ! beneath its surface had again been at 
 work far deeper forces than those which ripen 
 spring into summer, and summer into the garnered 
 harvest of autumn. 
 
 Margaret loved Karl ! What subtle triumphs 
 love knows how to win for his own ! Karl Reut 
 ner s heart had no more hope in it now than it had 
 a year before; no less now than then, it would 
 have seemed to him like blasphemy to ask Mar 
 garet Warren to be his wife : yet there were days 
 when Margaret could not see daisies without tears, 
 so bitterly did her heart ache to recall the hour in 
 which she had rejected the love which they had 
 once symbolized to her. 
 
 It was hard to tell how this love had come. Its 
 growth had been as slow, as uninterrupted, as im 
 mutable, as unsuspected as the silent growth of 
 crystals deep hidden in chambers of stone. It was 
 long before Margaret had dreamed of it, and very 
 long before she had admitted it to herself. She 
 wrestled with it bravely j it was against her will , 
 she did not choose to love Karl Reutner. She 
 was no less proud a woman this year than last 
 
54 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 She had no less dreams and purposes for the future 
 and to be the wife of Karl Reutner was not among 
 them. Nevertheless it had come to pass that his 
 presence meant happiness to her, and his absence 
 meant a vague sense of discomfort and loss. Vainty 
 she asked herself why. Reason was silent The 
 great interest of her life had been, still was, 
 in books, in study, in progress in the broadest 
 sense. Karl Reutner had not studied, had not 
 read ; he cared more for the laughing eyes of a 
 happy child than for all the discoveries of a cent 
 ury. To him flowers were events ; a blue sky, and 
 a bright sun, and smiles at home were life. 
 
 The new world of which he had glimpses through 
 Margaret s conversation, the world of history, 
 the world of art, the world of science, seemed to 
 him very great, very glorious. He kindled at men 
 tion of noble deeds, at descriptions of stirring 
 scenes ; but it was partly because Margaret found 
 the scenes and events thrilling, and he always re 
 turned to his flowers and his music with a sense of 
 rest. 
 
 Sometimes when playing one of Mozart s early 
 sonatas, so divine in its simplicity and sweetness 
 and strength, he would say, " Ah, Miss Margaret, it 
 is only the simple tones which can speak the truest. 
 Listen to this;" and while Margaret listened, it 
 would seem to her that the world and its kingdoms 
 had all floated away in space. 
 
 "To be very good, and to make that all are 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 55 
 
 happy, Miss Margaret, is that not enough ? " he 
 said one day. He had grown nearer her, and 
 dared to speak as he could not have spoken a year 
 ago. "Is not that enough ? Why must the little 
 men think they can understand all ? This world is 
 not for that. It is that we are made pure in this. 
 There comes another world for the rest. That is 
 my creed, Miss Margaret." 
 
 But Karl did not add the rest of his creed, which 
 was, that Margaret had the light of both worlds in 
 her soul. 
 
 Often Margaret felt abashed before the spiritu 
 ality of this man s nature ; often she thought, while 
 she looked at him, that he had indeed entered the 
 kingdom of God by becoming " as a little child." 
 Then again, the worldly, the ambitious side of her 
 nature gained the ascendency, and she said, " This 
 is a merely material life he leads after all ; day s 
 work after day s work, and a peasant s song at the 
 end ! What have I in common with him ? " Oh, 
 very stoutly the carnal heart of Margaret Warren 
 wrestled with the angel which was seeking a home 
 m it. But the angel was the stronger. More and 
 more clearly shone the celestial light ; more and 
 more clearly Margaret saw the celestial face. 
 
 It was a year and a day since Karl came home. 
 Margaret had looked forward to the anniversary 
 day with mingled dread and hope. The pretty 
 daisy -box had long ago been taken away from her 
 room ; the daisies had bloomed their day out, and 
 
56 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 died, and other flowers had taken their place. 
 Margaret wondeied if Karl would give her another 
 such token. Except for the deep yearning desire 
 in her heart that he should so do, she would have 
 known that nothing was less likely than that he 
 should do anything on that day to remind her of its 
 being an anniversary. The day passed without 
 even an allusion from any one to the past. In all 
 hearts there was too sore a memory of the last 
 year. Margaret felt this keenly. " Alien that I 
 am in this house," she thought, " I make it impos 
 sible for them to keep the festivals of their love. 
 Two years since Karl came home only two years 
 and it seems to me that it is a life-time." 
 
 It was near sunset. A rosy glow was suffusing 
 the lake, and Margaret sat again at her window 
 watching it. Again came a low knock at her door, 
 and again she answered without turning her head, 
 and Karl entered. 
 
 "Miss Margaret," he said, "may I come and 
 talk with you ? It is that I wish that we all go to 
 another house to live. This is not as it should be ; 
 it is small. I have talked much with Wilhelm, and 
 I can pay all the money, but he will not. He is 
 tvrong ; and will not you, Miss Margaret, help me 
 to make that he sees the truth ? For the little ones, 
 when they are large, it will be that they must know 
 more people ; this place is not right. And you too, 
 Miss Margaret, it is always grief to me that your 
 -ooms are so small. You should have large rooms 
 and many windows for the south sun until night." 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. $J 
 
 Margaret glanced lovingly round the rooms. 
 
 " I love these little rooms," she said, impulsively ; 
 " I should be very sorry to leave them." As she 
 spoke, a sudden memory of the daisy-box flashed 
 into her mind. Her eyes rilled with tears, and she 
 could not hide them. 
 
 Karl stretched out both hands with an eager ges 
 ture, exclaiming, " But Miss Margaret, Miss Mar 
 garet, it shall not be, if it is pain to you. I did 
 not dream that you would be sorry to go. I will 
 no more say." 
 
 "It is not that, Mr. Reutner," said Margaret, 
 " not at all. I believe it would be better for all 
 to have a larger house ; I did not mean that I 
 would be really unwilling to leave these rooms ; I 
 was thinking of something else," and again the 
 tears rilled her eyes. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Margaret!" cried Karl. He had 
 never seen tears in her eyes before. The sight 
 unmanned him. His " Oh, Miss Margaret ! " was a 
 cry from the very depths of his heart. 
 
 The hour had come. Who keeps calendar for 
 the flowers that each blossom bides its time, and 
 blooms at its fated second by sun, by moon, by 
 star, or by breeze ! Who keeps calendar for 
 hearts ? 
 
 The hour had come. Margaret looked full into 
 Karl s face, and said in a low voice, " I was think 
 ing of a year ago yesterday, Mr. Reutner ; and I 
 was so sorry for having made you unhappy then." 
 
58 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 Astonishment and wounded feeling struggled 
 on Karl s features for a second. That Margaret 
 should voluntarily allude to that bitter day seemed 
 heartless indeed. In the next second, something 
 in her face smote on his sight, dazzling, bewilder 
 ing, terrifying him. The celestial light in her 
 heart shone through her eyes. 
 
 Karl gave one piercing look, piercing as if he 
 were seeking to read some farthest star, then 
 sank slowly on his knees, buried his face in Marga 
 ret s lap, and spoke no word. Margaret laid one 
 hand lightly on his head. Tremblingly he took it, 
 lifted his head, still without looking into her face, 
 and laid his cheek down on the firm soft palm. 
 
 Karl Reutner could not speak. He did not dis 
 tinctly know whether he were alive. With her free 
 hand, Margaret stroked his hair as she might that 
 of a tired child. An ineffable peace filled her soul. 
 At last, Karl said, very slowly, almost stammer- 
 ingly, without lifting his head, " Miss Margaret, 
 beautiful angel of God, I cannot look in your eyes ; 
 to see them again would make my heart stop to 
 beat Will you let that I go away from you now, 
 out under the sky ? When I can come back, even 
 if it is a long time, may I come to you ? " 
 
 Margaret bent her head and whispered "vcs 
 Karl." 
 
 He stooped still lower, kissed the hem of the 
 gown on whose folds he had been kneeling, and 
 then without one look at Margaret, went slowly out 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 59 
 
 of the room. When he came back, the twilight 
 was nearly over ; stars were beginning to shine in 
 the sky ; Margaret had not moved from her seat ; 
 the door stood still ajar as he had left it ; softly, 
 so softly, that his steps could hardly be heard, he 
 crossed the room, and stood, silent, before her ; 
 then he lifted his hands high above her head, and 
 opening them, let fall a shower of daisies : on her 
 neck, bosom, lap, feet, everywhere, rested the fra 
 grant blossoms. 
 
 " Now you will let that they tell you all," he said ; 
 "now you will let that they lie at your feet." 
 
 His tone was grave and calm ; his looks were 
 grave and calm : but his eyes shone with such joy, 
 such rapture, that Margaret, in her turn, found it 
 hard to meet them. 
 
 An hour later, when Karl and Margaret went 
 into the dining-room, hand in hand, Wilhelm and 
 Annette gazed at them for a moment in speechless 
 wonder. Then Annette ran out of the room sob- 
 b ng. Wilhelm said aloud : " God be praised ! " 
 Then walking swiftly towards them, he looked first 
 into Margaret s face, then into Karl s, and ex 
 claimed again : " God be praised." 
 
 "Wilhelm," said Margaret, "will you, too, for 
 give me for the day I made sad for you a year ago ? 
 Karl has forgiven it." 
 
 Wilhelm s answer was a look. Then he fell on 
 Carl s neck, and was not ashamed of the tears 
 chat would come. Not often do two men love as 
 did these twin brothers. 
 
60 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 It all seemed to Wilhelm and Annette impossi 
 ble, incredible. Their eyes followed Karl, followed 
 Margaret with an expression which was half joy 
 and half fear. But to Karl and Margaret the new 
 happiness seemed strangely natural, assured. Like 
 a crystal hidden in stone, it had grown, and now 
 that the store had been broken open, and the crys 
 tal set free, every ray of the sun that fell on it wa* 
 multiplied, and the brilliant light seemed only in 
 evitable. 
 
 Later in the evening Karl put a ring upon Marga 
 ret s finger. It was dark, and she could not see the 
 design. 
 
 " Could you promise not to see till the sunlight 
 should come to-morrow?" said Karl. "I would 
 like that the sun should light it up first for your 
 eyes." 
 
 Margaret smiled. " Oh, foolish Karl ! I will try 
 not to look ; but you ask a great deal." 
 
 Karl turned the ring round and round on the 
 finger, as Margaret s hand lay in his. 
 
 " I have a long time had this ring, more than 
 one year. It was to be for you if I died, or if 
 
 you were to be married to " Karl could not 
 
 now pronounce the words " another man." He 
 went on : "I thought that then you would wear it 
 and not be angry. I not once thought I could put 
 it on for you with my own hand ; " and Karl lifted 
 both Margaret s hands, covered them with k .sses, 
 laid them against his cheek, on his f orehen d, on 
 nis heart. 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 6 1 
 
 It was strange to see this lover, in these few 
 hours, already so free from fear. His child-like 
 simplicity of nature was the secret of it. Know 
 ing Margaret to be his own, he joyed in her as he 
 joyed in sunlight. He took the delights of seeing 
 and touching her, as freely as he would bask under 
 the blue sky. He could no more feel restraint 
 from one than from the other. 
 
 "Karl, if you really do not want me to see the 
 ring, you must roll a tiny bit of paper round it," 
 said Margaret. "It feels very large." 
 
 " Yes, it is large. It could not be small to tell 
 what it tells," replied Karl, rolling a fine tissue 
 paper carefully over and under it, and twisting it 
 firmly. "Mine own, mine own," he said, kissing 
 the hand and the ring, " when the to-morrow sun 
 shines from the lake to your bed, lift your hand in 
 the light and look." 
 
 When the " to-morrow sun " first shone on Mar 
 garet s bed, Margaret was asleep. When she 
 waked, the room was flooded with yellow light. 
 Dimly at first, like memories of dreams, came the 
 recollections of her new happiness ; then clearer 
 and clearer in triumphant joy. She raised her left 
 hand in the great yellow sunbeams, which seemed 
 to make a golden pathway from the very sky to her 
 bed. Slowly she unwound the rosy tissue paper from 
 her ring. A low cry of astonishment broke from 
 her lips. She had never seen anything so beau/i 
 fill. On a broad gold band was curled a tiny thread 
 
62 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 like stem, bearing a four-leaved clover of dark 
 green enamel. The edge of each leaf was set thick 
 with diamonds, and the lines down the centre \\ere 
 marked by diamonds, so small, as to be little more 
 than shining points. Margaret s second thought 
 was one of dismay. " Oh, the wicked Karl ! To 
 spend so much money ! It would almost furnish 
 our little house. What shall I do with such a ring 
 as this ? " 
 
 But surprises were in store for Margaret. When 
 she gently reproached Karl for having spent so 
 much money on the ring, his face flushed, and he 
 hesitated a moment before replying. Then he said, 
 with inexpressible sweetness, taking both her hands 
 in his, " My Margaret, I have much money. I was 
 glad before, for Wilhelm, and the little ones. But 
 now that I can make all beautiful for you, I so 
 much thank God. It was a chance that I have it. 
 I know not how to find it, as your people do. It 
 was the land." 
 
 Karl Reutner was indeed a rich man. Lands 
 which he had bought a few years before, for, as he 
 said, " such little of money," were now a fortune 
 in themselves. And it was in consequence of this 
 increase of his wealth that he had so earnestly be 
 sought his brother Wilhelm to let him provide a 
 new home for the family. 
 
 " But now, my Margaret, it shall be for you," he 
 said. " I hope that there shall be enough that you 
 have all things you have ever had dream of." 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 63 
 
 Margaret sighed. Almost she regretted this 
 wealth. It was not thus she had pictured her life 
 with Karl. But her love of beauty, of culture, of 
 art, was too strong for her to be long reluctant that 
 the fullness of life should come to her. 
 
 " Oh Karl ! Karl ! " she said, " I cannot believe 
 that I arn to have you, and all else in life besides. 
 Dear one, I do not deserve it." 
 
 Karl was lying at her feet, his head resting on 
 her knees, as he had bowed it when he first knew 
 that she loved him ; only that now he dared to 
 gaze steadily into her eyes. He did not reply for 
 some moments, then he said : 
 
 " The good God knows, my Margaret. Perhaps 
 there will come sorrow for you, if it needs for his 
 Heaven that you be more of angel than you are. 
 But for my love, that is only like the daisies. It is 
 enough that it can make a beautiful ground where 
 you walk." 
 
 Since these things which I have written, many 
 years have gone by, and have not yet brought sor 
 row to Margaret. The windows of her beautiful 
 home look out on the blue lake ; and into the 
 nursery where her golden-haired children sleep, 
 the morning sun sends its first beams, as it used 
 to send them into her tiny room, in Wilhelm Reut- 
 ner s house. 
 
 On the wall of Margaret s own room hangs the 
 picture of Konigsee, and the head of the shadowy 
 maiden of Ischl still wreathed with edelweiss bios- 
 corns. 
 
64 A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 
 
 " I love her, my Karl. She told me that thou 
 wert not dead. She is glad of thy joy each hour," 
 Margaret often says. 
 
 On the right hand of the portrait of Konigsee, 
 framed in velvet and ivory, and also wreathed by 
 edelweiss blossoms, hangs an oval of soft gray sur 
 face, on which is a tiny and faded and crumpled 
 clover, " the four leaf of clover ; " "which saved 
 my papa s life," little Karl says, pointing to it with 
 his chubby finger, " my papa says so." When lit 
 tle Karl is older he will understand better. This 
 too is wreathed with edelweiss blossoms, fresher 
 and whiter than the others. Margaret also has 
 sailed with Karl on the Konigsee, and she gathered 
 these edelweiss flowers on the edge of the Watzman 
 glacier. 
 
 Above these hangs a quaint old bit of heraldry. 
 It is the coat of arms of the Whitson family, and 
 belonged to Margaret s grandmother, who was a 
 Whitson, and well-to-do, years ago in England. It 
 is an odd thing, and to some minds much more 
 than an odd thing, that this old coat of arms should 
 be an oak tree in a clover field, and that there 
 should be a tale how once when a sorely pressed 
 king of England was escaping from his pursuers 
 he came to a field of purple clover, with an oak 
 ^ree in its centre ; and that a churl Whitson, to 
 whom the field belonged, and who chanced to be 
 mowing it that day, helped the king up into the 
 oak tree, and lied bravely to the pursuers, saying 
 
A FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER. 65 
 
 that no man had passed that way; so the king, 
 grateful for his life, gave lands to the churl, and the 
 right to a crest bearing the oak and the clover. 
 
 This, I say, is an odd thing, and to some people 
 more than an odd thing. To Karl Reutner, for 
 instance, who is so impressed by it, that he has 
 had garlands of oak and clover leaves carved on 
 the cradle in which all his babies sleep ; garlands 
 of oak and clover leaves carved over the doors and 
 windows of his wife s room ; garlands of oak and 
 clover leaves wrought on silver and on glass to hold 
 choice fruits and wines ; and wrought of gold and 
 gems in many a dainty device for his wife to wear. 
 And those who look closely at these garlands find 
 that there is not one without a four-leaved clover. 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 IT began at a camp-meeting ; and the odd thing 
 was that John Bassett should have been at a 
 camp-meeting at all. He had no more respect for 
 such means of grace than Epictetus or any other 
 stoical pagan would have had. He had no antago 
 nism toward the Methodists ; nor, for that matter, 
 toward any of the five so-called religious sects 
 which had places of worship in his native town, 
 Deerway. If the whole truth could have been 
 known, it would have been seen that he classed 
 them all together, and favored them alike with his 
 heartiest but most good-natured contempt. Luck 
 ily he was a silent and reticent man, and his towns 
 men never suspected in what low esteem he held 
 their sectarian bonds, their spiritual ecstasies 
 and depressions. They only thought that he was 
 " queer," and some of the more zealous Christians 
 among them feared he might be an infidel, or at 
 best a pantheist, though as to what that latter man 
 ner of man might be, there were very vague ideas 
 
FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMANCE. 67 
 
 in Deerway. The truth was, that John Bassett was 
 a pagan, a New England pagan. There are a 
 few of these in every New England county. Thej 
 are the offspring of the Westminster Catechism. 
 Apply enough of the Westminster Catechism to a 
 meditative, clear-witted, logical, phlegmatic boy, in 
 his youth ; let him spend most of his days out on 
 sunny hill-sides, thinking it over in silence, and 
 asking nobody any questions, and the chances are 
 that, when he is twenty-one, he will quit going 
 to church, and be a high-minded pagan. He will 
 have absorbed much that is grand and ennobling ; 
 but he will have thrown away, in his slow-growing 
 hatred of the cruel husk, part of the sweet kernel 
 also, and will be a defrauded and robbed man all 
 his days, for lack of true comprehension of the 
 Gospel of Christ, which is loving, and of Christ s 
 Father, who is love. 
 
 It is evident that a camp-meeting was the last 
 place one would expect to see John Bassett in. If 
 pools had been the fashion in Deerway, one might 
 have made a fortune betting against the chance of 
 John Bassett s hearing Bishop Worrell s sermon on 
 the last day of the Middleburg camp-meeting. But 
 he did hear it, every word of it. 
 
 He had been that day to Northborough, ten miles 
 above Middleburg, to look at a pair of prize oxen 
 he had heard of, and had a mind to buy. If those 
 oxen had not been sold the day before, John Bas- 
 sett would have bought them, and this story would 
 
68 FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE. 
 
 never have been written ; for if he had had the 
 oxen to drive home, he would not nave got down 
 to Middleburg till late at night, and the camp-meet 
 ing would have been over. As it was, he got to 
 Middleburg Crossing at three o clock in the after 
 noon; and there he had to stop, for Jerry, his 
 horse, had cast a shoe, and John Bassett would no 
 more have driven Jerry ten miles with one foot un 
 shod than he would have walked it barefoot him 
 self ; no, nor half as quick, for Tom and Jerry, the 
 two beautiful bay horses that he had broken as 
 colts, and trained into the best ten-year-old team in 
 all Wenshire County, were the pride and the love 
 of John Bassett s heart. 
 
 So, there is another little " if " which might have 
 made a big difference to John Bassett, and all the 
 difference between this story s being written and 
 not. If Jerry had not cast his shoe, his master 
 would never have heard Bishop Worrell s sermon. 
 
 There are only three houses at Middleburg 
 Crossing ; the town itself is four miles farther 
 south. One of these houses is a sort of inn, and 
 the master, Hiram Peet, is well known to be the 
 best blacksmith for many a mile round. Here 
 John stopped and fastened his horse at the door of 
 the forge, which was black and still. 
 
 " Gone to that confounded camp-meeting ! " he 
 exclaimed, as he stood by the anvil and tapped ii 
 impatiently with his whip. " Hang it all. I won- 
 ier, if I could find him, whether he d come out 
 and shoe Jerry." 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 69 
 
 Every blind in the house was shut. The hens 
 walked about with an expression which showed that 
 the family was away from home, and the cat looked 
 out uneasy and suspicious from a high loft over the 
 corn-house. 
 
 John walked a few steps down the road and 
 looked at the two other houses. Shut up also; not 
 a trace of life about them. The two Thatcher 
 brothers, who married sisters, lived in these houses. 
 " Well, I don t know what the Thatcher folks have 
 got to do over at camp-meeting," thought John. 
 "They re all Baptists. They don t train in that 
 crowd." 
 
 He had thought that he might while away the 
 time by talking with Mrs. Susan Thatcher, who was 
 a woman he had once almost thought he would like 
 to marry. John was much vexed. He walked up 
 and down the road and switched off the tops of 
 golden rod and purple asters in a way that was 
 really shameful. He was at his wit s ends : ten 
 miles from home ; Jerry waiting to be shod ; not a 
 human being to be found. But John Bassett s im 
 patiences never lasted long. He was too good a 
 pagan to fret and fume. He took Jerry out of his 
 harness, led him into the barn, and gave him so 
 delightful a rubbing down that the creature arched 
 his shining neck and looked around at his mas 
 ters hands, and would have purred if he could, he 
 felt so comfortable. John patted him and talked 
 to him as if he were a child. 
 
fO FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 
 
 "There, there, old fellow," he said, "eat your 
 oats. You shall have four fine new shoes pres 
 ently ; and then we won t get caught this way 
 again very soon." 
 
 Jerry whinnied back and did his best to be en 
 tertaining; but where was there ever a mortal man 
 who did not weary of wordless affection ? John 
 began to be sadly bored. He looked over at the 
 camp-meeting hill, where thin columns of smoke 
 were curling up above the tops of the trees. The 
 Middleburg camp-ground is one of the oldest in 
 New England; it has been used as such for twenty 
 years, and there are some eighty cottages in the 
 "circle." People go there in June, and live in 
 their cottages for two months or more before the 
 camp-meeting week begins. John had often thought 
 he would like to see what kind of a life it was that 
 the Methodist people led on their religious picnics, 
 as the worldly were in the habit of calling them. 
 He began to consider within himself whether this 
 were not a capital chance for doing it without any 
 loss of self-respect on his part. He would go over 
 and see if he could find Hiram Peet. This was 
 not going to camp-meeting. Oh, no ! 
 
 The camp-meeting grove was not more than a 
 quarter of a mile from the forge. At John Bas 
 set t s goodly stride, this distance was quickly 
 walked ; and almost before he fairly realized what 
 he had made up his mind to do, John found him 
 self in the throng of people pouring through the 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. Jl 
 
 outer gate. He and his ways were well known in 
 all this region, everybody stared to see him com 
 ing to camp-meeting. 
 
 " Hollo, John ! Ez this you ? " exclaimed one. 
 
 " What s up ? " said another. 
 
 " Glad to see you in the right way at last, John," 
 called out a gray-haired elder of the Methodist 
 church in Deerway. 
 
 John did not like this. At first he made no 
 reply, except a good-natured laugh ; but presently, 
 to a townsman who shouted out, across many 
 heads, 
 
 " Why, John Bassett, what on airth s brought you 
 here, I d like to know," he answered in an equally 
 loud tone, 
 
 " Not any of the tomfoolery that s brought you, 
 I can tell you that. I m looking after Hi Peet to 
 shoe my horse, back here at the Crossing." 
 
 "Oh, Hi? Well, he s in there, in the seats, 
 along o his folks. But you won t get him to come 
 out till after the sermon. The bishop s jest be- 
 ginm n now." 
 
 John walked on in silence. The scene was be 
 ginning to take a vivid hold on his imagination. 
 From his earliest boyhood he had had a passionate 
 love of the woods. There was not a wood within 
 five miles of his father s house which he did not 
 know as thoroughly as if he had been an Indian or 
 a trapper. The young trees had grown with his 
 growth and strengthened with his strength; he 
 
72 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 often pushed his way through some thick wood, 
 recollecting, step by step, along the path, how 
 twenty years ago these stalwart trees had been sap 
 lings he could bend. No smallest leaf or fern was 
 unknown to his eye ; no flower, no berry ; yet he 
 had names for few. To see a great maple and ash 
 and hickory grove swarming full of human beings, 
 was at first as strange a sight to John Bassett as it 
 would have been to a devout Roman Catholic to 
 come suddenly upon his private chapel and find it 
 crowded with strangers. John felt a mingled irri 
 tation and fascination in the sight. This noble 
 army of trees seemed to lend something of their 
 own sacred dignity to the motley multitude they 
 were sheltering. There were three thousand people 
 that day on the Micldleburg camp-ground. As far 
 as one could see, the vistas between the trees were 
 filled by horses, wagons, carriages of all descrip 
 tions. These were outside what is called the " cir 
 cle," a large space of many acres, fenced in, and to 
 be entered only by gates ; within this circle were 
 the cottages, all picturesquely disposed among the 
 tiees; winding and irregular paths had been trod 
 den from one to another, and there was almost the 
 semblance of a street in some places. But still the 
 trees were left undisturbed ; the street or the path 
 turned reverentially to the right or the left, as the 
 tree might require. Hardly a tree had been cut 
 down. In the centre of the grove a large space 
 fcad been filled in with rough wooden benches in 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 73 
 
 an amphitheatre-like half circle. Even here stood 
 the trees, thick and undisturbed, making of the 
 circle of seats a many-pillared temple, canopied 
 with green and roofed with blue. Fronting this 
 had been built an elevated platform for the elders 
 and the preaching and on this, at the moment 
 John entered the circle, had just risen a corpulent, 
 round-faced, sonorous-voiced man, Bishop Worrell, 
 who was to preach that afternoon s sermon. John 
 stopped, leaned against a young hickory tree, and 
 looked carefully up and down the rows of seats in 
 search of Hiram Peet. At last he saw him sitting 
 between his wife and his wife s mother, in the very 
 middle of the circle, and only five seats back from 
 the platform. 
 
 " I suppose it would be as much as Hi s life was 
 worth to get up and come out from there before all 
 tLese people," thought John. " I might as well 
 give it up." 
 
 Then he fell to laughing so immoderately at Hi s 
 expression of face, that he had to turn suddenly 
 away, lest he should shock the sensibilities of the 
 grave and decorous congregation. As he turned, 
 he suddenly caught a glimpse of the piofile of a 
 girl who sat in the same seat with Hiram Peet, but 
 at the farther end of it. The sight of this profile 
 ^nested John Bassett s steps as suddenly as a 
 Strong hand laid on his shoulder could have done. 
 He stood still., with his eyes fixed on the face. He 
 4id not say to himself, " How beautiful ! " he did 
 
74 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 not even think whether the face were beautiful 01 
 not it simply arrested him, that was all. Pres 
 ently the girl changed her position so that he could 
 no longer see her face, and with a pang like terror, 
 he saw it suddenly vanish from his gaze, and be 
 come lost and merged in the great mass of bonnets 
 and hats and faces. He tried to keep his eyes 
 resolutely on the spot where it had disappeared, 
 as one tries to keep his eyes fastened on the spot 
 where something has gone down at sea ; but like 
 the sea, the mass of faces seemed dancing and 
 shifting under his look. At last he was rewarded. 
 The girl turned her head again, so that for one 
 brief moment he saw her profile, and also noted, 
 with the eagerness of a detective, that she wore a 
 black hat, with one single upright feather of bright 
 scarlet in it. 
 
 Slowly, and with a bewildered wonder at himself 
 all the time, John skirted the great semicircle of 
 seats, pushed his way through and past knot after 
 knot of men and women, and drew nearer and 
 nearer the seat where the girl sat. As one after 
 another saw him, noted his absorbed and grave 
 look, exclamations and conjectures were whispered 
 Dn all sides. There were many of the Deerway 
 Methodists on the ground. 
 
 John Bassett stood no chance of being unob 
 served. Many a soul warmed with hope for his 
 salvation on seeing him in this unwonted place. 
 One good old Methodist woman who had nursed 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. ?$ 
 
 ais mother through several illnesses, and who had 
 come to love John very much, as all persons did 
 who knew him intimately, plucked her neighbor 
 suddenly by the sleeve, and exclaimed : 
 
 " My goodness, Sarah Beman, if there ain t John 
 John Bassett, don t you know ? Let s git right 
 down on our knees here n pray for his soul ! 
 Mebbe the Lord 11 give him religion right now ! " 
 and the two women actually sank on the ground, 
 and were rocking back and forth on their knees, 
 wrestling in prayer on John s behalf, as he passed 
 by them. Perhaps there was never a moment in 
 his life in which he was more in need of prayers. 
 
 When he reached a point opposite the seat in 
 which sat the girl with the black hat and scarlet 
 feather, he turned, and slowly looked in her face. 
 She did not see him. She was listening in rapt at 
 tention to the bishop s sermon. Yet it was not the 
 attention of a credulous or an ecstatic devotee. 
 Her face wore now the look of one who was striv 
 ing to penetrate a mystery; to fathom a secret; 
 there was an expression of something like disap 
 probation on her features. All this John Bassett 
 saw at his first glance. At his second, he per 
 ceived that the girl was no country girl ; he felt, 
 rather than perceived, that her whole attire, bear 
 ing, and atmosphere were of the city : she was a 
 stranger. The two elderly women who sat with 
 ber were richly clad, and their whole manner be- 
 ,okened listless weariness. Up to this moment. 
 
/6 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 John Bassett could not have told, if he h; d been 
 asked, whether this girl were fair or not ; but now 
 in the more assured composure of his new stand 
 point of observation, he began to study her features. 
 They were of delicate mold, indicating sensibilily 
 rather than strength. Her hair was of so pale a 
 yellow that only its great thickness saved it from 
 looking dead. It was turned back from her low 
 forehead in rippling waves which were too thick to 
 lie flat. Her eyes were of a clear, bright dark 
 blue, and in them shone a sort of restrained energy 
 which gave to her face the strength which the del 
 icate features would otherwise have lacked. It was 
 not a beautiful face. It was very far from a pretty 
 face. But it was a face to arrest one at first sight. 
 As it had arrested John Bassett, it had arrested 
 many a human being, man and woman, before. 
 
 But it always came to pass that each human be 
 ing thus arrested by Fanny Lane s face, very soon 
 forgot all about her face, in a vivid conscious 
 ness of her personality. Her individual magnetism 
 was something not to be described, not to be de 
 fined. It was to some persons as powerfully re- 
 pellant as it was to others attracting. There were 
 men and women who had been heard to say that 
 they simply could not stay in the same room with 
 Fanny Lane, so disagreeable to them was her very 
 presence, and there were men and women for whom 
 simply her presence could transform the most 
 cheerless room into a palace of joy and for whom 
 
FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMAA CE. 77 
 
 her love, if they were once sure of possessing it, 
 seemed enough to brighten a whole life-time. 
 
 Bishop Worrell s sermon was one hour long. 
 Until the very last word had been spoken, John 
 Bassett stood without once unfolding his arms or 
 once removing his eyes from Fanny Lane s face j 
 but he stood in such a position that while he looked 
 steadily at her, he seemed to those about him to be 
 looking in the preacher s face, and the intent and 
 grave expression of his countenance gave rise to 
 great hopes in the hearts of many who saw him. 
 After the benediction had been pronounced, there 
 was a general movement in fnt audience, and all 
 except those who were interested in the special 
 services which were about to follow, withdrew. 
 More than half of the seats were left empty. A 
 little knot of some half a dozen persons had gath 
 ered around Fanny Lane, and were all talking 
 eagerly. 
 
 "City boarders from some hotel hereabouts," 
 thought John. " I don t suppose I shall ever set 
 eyes on that girl again ; and I m sure I don t know 
 why I want to." But he lingered, and waited, and 
 furtively watched to see what the next movements 
 of her party would be. 
 
 It was evident that an animated discussion was 
 going on. Fanny Lane said little, but each time 
 she spoke, she shook her head with great decision, 
 smiling as she did so with a smile which was to 
 John Bassett s mind a very perplexing smile j there 
 
/8 FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 
 
 was so much radiance about it, and yet such an ex 
 pression of immovable will ; it seemed as much out 
 of the ordinary course of human smiles as a cold 
 sunbeam would out of the ordinary course of nat 
 ure. At last the party divided, and the two old 
 ladies, wearing very dissatisfied faces, walked slowly 
 away with the majority, leaving Fanny Lane and 
 one other young woman alone in the seats. As 
 the discomfited elderly people passed the tier 
 where John still stood, leaning with his arms 
 folded, watching in feigned carelessness the whole 
 scene, one said to the other : 
 
 " It s perfectly absurd, Maria, the way you spoil 
 that girl." 
 
 A look of fretful impatience passed over Maria s 
 face as she replied : 
 
 " It s all very fine to talk about spoiling, Jane. 
 You know as well as I do, that if Fanny makes up 
 her mind to do a thing, she s going to do it, come 
 what will ; and as for my saying must or 
 mus n t to her, I know better than to try that. 
 She s just like her father." 
 
 " Well, I reckon she s your own child," answered 
 Jane, " and my child should mind me. I know 
 that much," and the party passed on. 
 
 John Bassett smiled. He liked the picture of 
 the fair girl triumphing always. He felt already 
 that it was her right. Before the smile had died 
 off his face, the old ladies came hurrying back ; 
 hey had noticed his grave, honest, clear-eyed fice 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 75 
 
 as they passed, and they had turned back to ask 
 him one of those anxiously helpless questions 
 which the average woman is perpetually asking. 
 
 " Can you tell us where Mr. Goodenow s wagon 
 is ? " they said. 
 
 It happened that John could. It had chanced 
 that as he walked up the hill, he had observed 
 young Luke Goodenow sitting in his big farm- 
 wagon playing cards on the back seat with a 
 stranger, whose whole appearance had seemed so 
 suspicious (to John) that he had said to himself as 
 he passed by, " I wonder if Luke Goodenow d 
 ever be such a fool s to play for money ; " and " I 
 wonder if that s the reason he fastened his team 
 down in that hollow," was his second thought. 
 
 "Yes," said John. "I can. I will show you," 
 and he led the way, thinking, as he walked. 
 
 " So these folks are the Goodenows boarders. 
 Now I can find out all about them." 
 
 Luke little understood John Bassett s affable 
 kindness in helping him put in his horses, and be 
 ing so very careful in examining the harnesses, be 
 fore they set off. John was listening with strained 
 ears to what one of the elderly women was saying 
 to Luke. 
 
 " Miss Lane and Miss Wheelwright are not com 
 ing now. They wish to stay till the end of the 
 meeting. They have friends there from the hotel 
 who will take care of them, and you are to drive 
 *ack after them at nine o clock to-night. 
 
So FARMER BASS ETrS ROMANCE. 
 
 " Well, I swanny," was Luke s reply. " I donno 
 what I m goin to do for hosses." 
 
 The city lady looked calmly in his face with the 
 city lady s usual incredulity of anything being im 
 possible in the country town where she is spending 
 her summer, and said : 
 
 " Oh, it won t hurt these horses to come back." 
 
 Luke did not deign to argue this point, but an 
 swered reflectively : 
 
 " Mebbe I can git Smith s. Hisn warn t out 
 when we come off, an if I don t go for the girls, 
 they can come home in the hotel coach ; that 
 warn t full." 
 
 " Oh, no ; I should much prefer that you should 
 go for them," said the bland lady. "You can 
 surely get horses somewhere." 
 
 " Tnere ain t any somewhere in our town 
 mum," replied Luke, sententiously. " If yer don t 
 know jest where a thing is, t ain t anywheres. But 
 I 11 see that Miss Fanny s got home somehow or 
 another." 
 
 If Fanny Lane had heard Luke s reply, the un 
 conscious and inimitable philosophy of its first 
 clause would have given her a keen delight ; but it 
 was all thrown away on Aunt Jane, or if not 
 thrown away entirely, passed for nothing more 
 than the unintentional impudence of a farmer s 
 lad. So that her orders were obeyed, as she would 
 have called it, she was content and unobservant; 
 and, luckily for her complacent peace of 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 8l 
 
 wholly unaware how far from the thoughts of her 
 .andlord and his sons was any comprehension of 
 the idea of obedience as she understood it. 
 
 When John Bassett returned to his post of ob 
 servation by the young hickory-tree, he found the 
 scat on which his attention had been so long con 
 centrated occupied by two elderly women from 
 Deerway, his own next door neighbors. With 
 a smothered ejaculation of contempt at his own 
 folly, he made a hasty retreat, not however before 
 both the women had seen him, and had beckoned 
 to him with eager gestures to come and sit by their 
 side. He shook his head and walked rapidly away 
 in the opposite direction, as if he were about to 
 leave the grounds j each moment, however, his 
 keen eyes were roving to the right and to the left 
 in search of a scarlet feather. Scarlet feathers 
 there were in plenty, and knots of scarlet ribbon, 
 as he found to his cost, after he had been for half 
 an hour lured vainly about, first in one direction 
 then in another, by them. His scarlet feather was 
 nowhere to be found. To look for one person, 
 among three thousand people roaming about in a 
 grove of several acres, is like searching for a 
 needle in a hay-stack ; and so John said to himself 
 at last, and vowed he would look no longer. He 
 had been asking all the time for " Hi Feet," and 
 had several times narrowly escaped finding him. 
 The truth was he did not now so much want to 
 Snd " Hi Feet," but he liked to give himself {he 
 6 
 
82 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 shelter of that ostensible errand, and so he kep, 
 on asking. At last some one said in reply to his 
 stereotyped question, " Why Hi ? Hi s up in the 
 Franklin tent at a big prayer-meetin they ve got 
 goin on there. You might s well give up all idee 
 of gettin hold of Hi Peet to-night. You 11 have 
 to wait till morning. Hi 11 keep you over night 
 fust rate; though I suppose they won t break up 
 here till midnight." 
 
 This was precisely what John Bassett had in 
 his own mind determined to do, but he replied with 
 a diplomacy worthy of a deeper game : 
 
 " Well, I call that pretty hard, to have to wait all 
 night to get a horse shod, don t you ? " 
 The man laughed, and answered : 
 " Well, yes, I do. But you see, it s just your 
 luck that makes it happen so. They don t have 
 camp-meetin but once a year ; and they don t have 
 but one last night to each camp-meetin : an you 
 could n t ha ketched Hi away from hum one o the 
 other three hundred an sixty-four nights; so you 
 see it s nothin but your luck." 
 
 This curiously illogical logical speech made John 
 laugh heartily, and a half shamed consciousness of 
 the scarlet feather in his thoughts made him also 
 flush a little as he replied : 
 
 " Well, I don t believe in anything s being luck." 
 ] ust as he spoke these words, he heard a voice be 
 hind him, a voice of a quality such as he had never 
 Before heard. He did not turn his head. He list 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 83 
 
 ened, and it was an odd thing that as he listened, 
 he said to himself, 
 
 " If that is n t her voice, I m mistaken." 
 
 The voice said : 
 
 " Can I sit for a few moments in one of these 
 chairs, till my friends return ? " 
 
 The voice was so near that John walked away a 
 few steps, before he turned to see who had spoken. 
 He walked on and on for a rod or two, so sure was 
 he that when he turned he should see the face of 
 which he had been in search. He was not mis 
 taken. There she sat, the strange, vivid, yellow- 
 haired, blue-eyed stranger, alone in a chair on a 
 raised platform ; the platform was full of camp 
 chairs of all sorts which had been brought there by 
 an enterprising Middleburg tradesman, to sell to 
 the camp-meeting pilgrims. The tradesman had 
 gone away for the afternoon and left the business 
 in the charge of his wife, a brisk, bustling, dapper 
 little body with a voice like a jew s-harp, and eyes 
 whose sharp shrewdness was saved from being dis 
 agreeable only by their kindly twinkle, and lines of 
 good-natured wrinkles at their outer corners. She 
 was holding forth to two friends volubly and loudly 
 on the subject of her grievances in the matter of 
 the chairs. 
 
 " Folks seems to think we Ve brought em over 
 here just for them to set in," said she. " I Ve tried 
 every way I could think of ; we turned em bottom 
 side up some days, but the chairs don t show so 
 
84 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 well that way, an it don t make much difference 
 they turn em right orer an flop down, and there 
 they sit s long s they please, n when I say, 
 These chairs is for sale, they say, Oh, I don t 
 want to buy, I only want to rest a while, V I dc 
 declare I in so mad sometimes I tell Eben he d 
 better take the chairs home before they re all worn 
 out. There s some on em now that looks just 
 like second-hand. I fixed some folks yesterday, 
 though," and she gave a hearty peal of unre 
 strained laughter at the thought : " they come along, 
 a whole party three on em, a man and two 
 women, n down they sot without so much s a 
 word ; n I steps forward n sez I, We charge for 
 these chairs bein sot in, a cent a minnit ! You d 
 better believe they jumped up s quick s if the 
 chairs had been red hot, and one o the wimmin 
 she said, < Well, I never ! n sez I, < Well I never, 
 nuther, n I laughed an I laughed till I thought I 
 should ha died to see em goin off s mad s if the 
 chairs had been theirn n not mine." 
 
 John watched Fanny Lane s face during the whole 
 of this long speech, which she could not have failed 
 to hear. He had come slowly nearer and nearer 
 until he stood within a few feet of her chair, but so 
 much behind her that she could not see his face un 
 less she turned her head. Various shades of amuse 
 ment and sympathy flitted over her expressive face 
 as she listened to good Mrs. Cross s troubles ; but 
 *he was evidently now absorbed in watching the 
 
FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 85 
 
 aces of all who passed by. She scanned each one 
 intently, closely, as if she were looking for a face 
 she knew; her face wore the same expression of 
 mingled perplexity and disapprobation which it 
 had worn during the sermon. The longer John 
 looked at her, the surer he felt that he under 
 stood the mental processes through which she was 
 going. 
 
 " She s righting this thing out for herself, just as 
 I did ten years ago," he thought. "She can t 
 swallow it all down, and yet it bothers her to let it 
 go. She 11 come out all right, though, no fear 
 about a woman with such eyes in her head as those." 
 It was half an hour before Miss Lane s friends 
 returned. They came up laughing and chattering, 
 and gathering around her, exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh, Fanny ! it was too bad to leave you so 
 long. We got off farther in the woods than we 
 meant to. Have you been awfully bored, dear, 
 waiting ? " 
 
 " Bored ! " exclaimed Fanny Lane. " I was 
 never farther from it in my life. This is one of the 
 most interesting sights I ever saw. I can t in the 
 least make it out." 
 
 " Make it out ! What do you mean, Miss 
 Lane ? " cried young Herbert Wheelwright". " Does 
 it strike you as a conundrum ? I think it is a con 
 founded bore myself, except for having you girls 
 to take care of." 
 
 " Be quiet, Herbert," interrupted his sister ; 
 
86 FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE. 
 
 " don t be so rude to Fanny ; you don t understand 
 her." 
 
 Herbert shrugged his shoulders and walked to 
 the side of another young girl in the party who was 
 not likely to oppress him with any psychological 
 perplexities. As the group moved on, Fanny Lane 
 turned back, and holding out a piece of silver to 
 the proprietress of the chairs, said in the same low 
 vibrant voice which had so stirred John Bassett s 
 nerves at his first hearing of it, 
 
 " You must let me pay you for the use of your 
 chair. You were quite right in saying that it ought 
 to be paid for." 
 
 The woman stretched out her hand to take the 
 money, but her husband, who had returned and 
 stood by her side, pushed down her hand impa 
 tiently, and exclaimed : 
 
 " No, no, Miss. We d be happy to have you set 
 here s long s you like. You ain t the kind we 
 meant." 
 
 Fanny smiled, but still held out the money. 
 
 " I m very heavy," she said roguishly, " and 
 should hurt the chair quite as much as anybody. 
 Please take the money and buy something for your 
 pretty little boy," and she pointed to a bright-eyed 
 chubby fellow, some four or five years old, who 
 was clinging to his mother s skirts, half in and half 
 out of the folds, after the manner of shy country 
 children. Thus conciliated on the side of his 
 paternal affection, the man took the money, saying 
 
FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMANCE. 8? 
 
 with a clumsy but well-meant attempt at respect 
 fulness : 
 
 " Much obliged to you, Miss, much obliged to 
 you, I m sure, if it s a present to Sammy. Thank 
 the lady, Sammy." 
 
 But Sammy only burrowed the deeper in his 
 mother s skirts, and evinced no gratitude whatever ; 
 as, indeed, why should he, since the chances were 
 so small that he could have any hand in the spend 
 ing of that half dollar ! 
 
 As Miss Lane and her friends walked away, 
 John Bassett turned suddenly in the opposite direc 
 tion, and plunged into the woods. He was conscious 
 of a sudden unwillingness to see this girl put off 
 the face she wore when she was thinking, and 
 alone, and put on the face she wore when she was 
 talking. Already he had perceived that she was 
 like a chameleon in her change of expression; 
 and of the expressions he had thus far seen, the 
 only one which did not jar and perplex him was the 
 one she wore when she was silent and undisturbed 
 by antagonistic or interrupting magnetisms. He 
 roamed on till he reached the outer edge of the 
 wood, where all was as still and peaceful as if it 
 were a wilderness. Here he threw himself on the 
 ground, and surrendered himself to his reveries, 
 He was not much given to analyzing- his own emo 
 tions ; he had always been too healthy and too 
 busy, and, moreover, had had very few emotions. 
 He was affectionate and loyal in the relations in 
 
88 FARMER B AS SETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 which he had found himself placed ; but beyond 
 one or two strong friendships for men who had been 
 his playmates at school, he had not added to his 
 list of affections since he was a little boy. He had 
 never been in love, though he had often thought 
 very sensibly about being married, and had done 
 his share of taking the Deerway girls on sleigh- 
 rides, and home from singing-schools in the winter \ 
 but he did it partly as one of the duties of a good 
 citizen of the town, and partly from a quiet sort of 
 good-fellowship, which would have walked or rid 
 den almost as contentedly with a young man as 
 with a young woman, if so the customs of young 
 people had decreed. He was not without his pref 
 erences among the Deerway young women, but he 
 had also his preferences among the Deerway young 
 men ; and he could have given as clear and satis 
 factory reasons for them in the one case as in the 
 other, unless, perhaps, in the case of a little girl 
 named Molly Wilder, whose mother was a widow, 
 and took summer boarders in Deerway. They were 
 very poor, and had lived on one of the Eassett 
 farms ever since John could remember ; and one of 
 the earliest things he recollected was hearing his 
 father say to his mother, 
 
 <b Well, Sam Wilder 11 never earn his salt in this 
 world, but I sha n t turn him out o that farm s 
 long s Molly lives. She s no kind of a woman to 
 oe left without a house over her head." 
 
 At last Sam Wilder died of a disease so linger 
 
FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE 89 
 
 ing and vacillating in its nature, that one of his 
 neighbors was heard to say one day : 
 
 " It don t seem s if Sam Wilder could even die 
 like other folks. He s just a shilly-shallyin along 
 with that, s he has with everything else he J s ever 
 undertook," 
 
 The day after the funeral poor Mrs. Wilder sent 
 for her landlord, and told him the simple truth, 
 that she had not a cent of money in the world, 
 and no property except the little stock which they 
 had put in the farm. 
 
 "Never you mind," said John Bassett s father; 
 " you shall stay on this farm s long s you like. 
 I 11 take the hay off the meadow land, and we 11 
 call that the rent. If you can manage to make a 
 living for you and the girl somehow, you re wel 
 come to the house and the rest of the farm." 
 
 Ezekiel Bassett could well afford this, for the 
 "Bassett farms," as they were called, were many 
 and large, and comprised the greater portion of 
 the best lands in Wenshire County. Nevertheless, 
 it was a very generous thing for Ezekiel Bassett to 
 do ; and from that day the Wilders seemed to be a 
 sort of outlying colony of the Bassett house. All 
 the odds and ends of clothes and of food, which 
 the Bassetts could spare and the Wilders could 
 use, found their way to the little gray house down 
 in the meadows ; by the time John Bassett was ten 
 years old, it seemed to him as natural to take blue 
 berries to Mrs. Wilder as to his mother ; he knew 
 
gO FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 no distinction in the rights of the houses. And 
 when little Molly was old enough to go to school, 
 John led her in summer and drew her on his sled 
 in winter, as if she had been his sister. Nothing 
 else nothing less would have seemed possible. 
 When he was twenty and Molly was fifteen, occa 
 sions were less frequent for him to take care of her, 
 for she was hard at work all day at her home, and 
 he was hard at work all day at his, but he never 
 lost the sense of responsibility for her ; and if no 
 body else took her to the quilting, or the sleigh- 
 ride, or the singing-school, he did. If he found 
 that some one else was intending to ask her, he 
 was content; so that Molly had the good time, he 
 was satisfied. She never became a burden to him, 
 for no girl in all Deerway had a sweeter face or 
 more winning ways, or more admirers among the 
 young farmers of the region. But all that John 
 Bassett had ever yet thought about Molly, as in 
 distinction from the other young girls he knew was, 
 that somehow he always had a better time when 
 he took her than when he took anybody else. He 
 thought it was because he was so used to her. 
 What Molly thought is neither here nor there in 
 this story as yet. 
 
 Every summer Mrs. Wilder s little house was 
 filled with summer boarders ; and a hard time she 
 and Molly had of it from June till October. Not 
 the least hard part of it to Molly was that for all 
 these months John hardly came near her. John 
 
FARMER BASSETT^S ROMANCE. 91 
 
 disliked the very sight of a "summer boarder." 
 He disliked their clothes, their ways, their general 
 bearing. He disliked the annual invasion of the 
 quiet of the town ; the assumption which so many 
 of them showed only too plainly, that they felt that 
 the Deerway farms and farmers were created 
 chiefly for the purpose of making summer comfort 
 able to city people who must leave home. So John 
 never crossed the threshold of Mrs. Wilder s house, 
 if he could help it, while there was a single, sum 
 mer boarder left ; and this had been the source of 
 many a half quarrel between him and Molly, who, 
 gentle as she was, could not help resenting and 
 misinterpreting his absence. 
 
 And here was John Bassett, at the Middleburg 
 camp-meeting, absolutely spending a whole after 
 noon and evening in watching a "summer boarder," 
 following her about, looking at her face and study 
 ing it, as he never studied a woman s face before 1 
 " All for the want of a horse-shoe nail." 
 
 John s reverie did not last long. It passed by 
 quick and easy stages into a sound sleep. When 
 he waked it was almost dark. He sprang to his 
 feet in bewildered wonder, but soon recalled the 
 vhole situation of his affairs. Sentiment and ex 
 citement had yielded in him, by this time, to fatigue 
 and heat and hunger ; and it must be acknowledged 
 that as he walked briskly back toward the centre 
 of the grove, his thoughts of himself and his be 
 havior were not complimentary. He was as nearly 
 
92 FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE. 
 
 surly as it was in his nature to be ; and by a cunous 
 sort of moral metonymy all his impatience centred 
 on the thought of Hi Peet. So when he found him 
 self face to face with Hi, in one of the restaurant 
 tents, he spoke to him with a gruff displeasure, 
 which was, to say the least of it, uncalled for, an 1 
 made Hi laugh heartily. 
 
 " Why, man alive," he said, " you did n t suppose 
 I was bound to stay to hum year in and year out, 
 on the chance of a man s wantin his horse shod, 
 did you ? Tain t more n once a week or so that I 
 git a job o shoein , anyhow. T was jest your luck, 
 you see, a-comin to-day." 
 
 "Well, you re the second man that s said that 
 very thing to me," replied John, " so I suppose it 
 must be true." And as he was by this time much 
 rested, and no longer hungry, agreeable reminis 
 cences of the scarlet feather floated at once into 
 his mind, and arrested on his very lips the last 
 clause of his reply, which was about to be as before, 
 " But you see I don t believe in any su^h thing as 
 luck." 
 
 The people were already crowding into the seats 
 in front of the platform. The elders and the 
 preachers sat with their hands over their eyes, en 
 gaged in silent prayer. This was the last night of 
 the camp-meeting, and most earnestly did they long 
 for some especial signs and tokens of the Lord s 
 presence before they should separate. 
 
 Again John walked slowly around tf.e circle, scan- 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 93 
 
 ning each seat attentively in search of Fanny Lane. 
 This time he was more successful ; in a very few 
 moments he found her. She and her friends were 
 sitting where Hi Peet had been in the afternoon, 
 only five seats back from the pulpit, and near the 
 central aisle. Fanny herself sat in the outside 
 seat, with her face turned away from the platform, 
 and her eyes bent earnestly down the long vistas 
 of twinkling lights between the trees. It was a 
 beautiful and impressive spectacle. Lanterns were 
 hung upon many of the trees, and their light 
 brought out the foliage above them in a marvelous 
 gold and black tracery ; in every direction long 
 shadowy aisles seemed to stretch away, with alter 
 nating intervals of gloom and radiance ; and over 
 head was a clear, dark sky blazing with stars. No 
 wonder that in such a scene as this hearts are 
 newly wrought upon by memories and appeals. 
 
 The sermon was not a long one. At its close, 
 the usual invitation was given to all those who 
 wished the prayers of the congregation to come 
 forward into the seats reserved for them. Many 
 went forward. Then rose the sweet wild hymn, 
 
 " Come to Jesus ! Come to Jesus ! 
 Come to Jesus just now." 
 
 The tender plaintive cadences seemed to float up 
 among the trees, and to be prolonged there, in the 
 upper air, as if the echoes were entangled in the 
 leaves; then came prayers, earnest, wrestling 
 
94 FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE. 
 
 prayers by men who believed with their whole 
 souls that for many of the men and women sitting 
 there, that night would be the only chance of sal 
 vation. Nothing in this life can be more solemn 
 than such a moment to those who hold the Meth 
 odist belief. Tears flowed down the cheeks of 
 strong men. Women sobbed hysterically ; here 
 and there could be seen a mother pleading with a 
 child, a wife with a husband. The elders walked 
 up and down in the aisles, urging and encouraging 
 the timid and the hesitating ; every few moments 
 the presiding elder on the platform would strike up 
 a new strain of song, tender, plaintive, and sub 
 duing beyond all power of words. With each 
 stanza there came forward more and more, tiil the 
 seats were nearly full. 
 
 " Bless the Lord, here is another soul that s go 
 ing to be saved," the ministers would cry, as each 
 person came forward. Heartfelt " Amens " and 
 " Glorys " rose from the whole congregation. The 
 cool evening wind rustled at intervals through the 
 trees ; and it needed no faith in the Methodist 
 creed, no excitement of spiritual ecstasy, to make 
 one thrill all through with the consciousness that 
 the leaves rustled as if invisible hosts were passing 
 by. Whatever be one s religious belief, however 
 he may disapprove of all his class of abnormal in 
 fluences, he cannot witness such a scene unmoved, 
 unless he be of a hard and scoffing nature. John 
 Bassett was astonished. He was too sincere and 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 95 
 
 earnest himself, not to recognize earnestness and 
 sincerity wherever he saw them. He had regarded 
 the Methodist methods as akin to the methods of 
 mountebanks and jugglers. He felt to-night, in 
 every nerve of his being, that he had been wrong. 
 He was affected in spite of himself so power 
 fully that more than once he felt tears spring in 
 his eyes. 
 
 He hardly dared look at Fanny Lane, so intense 
 was her expression ; her cheeks were flushed, her 
 lips were parted ; she bent forward unconsciously 
 and looked up into the face of each person who 
 passed her to take a seat among those who were 
 "anxious." Whenever the singing broke forth, her 
 lips trembled, and she fixed her eyes on the ground. 
 John had taken his seat just opposite her only 
 the narrow, grassy aisle separated them. He could 
 have reached her with his hand ; and he felt again 
 and again an impulse to do so, when he saw her 
 excitement increasing. 
 
 At last she rose slowly, and turning toward her 
 ft iends, said in a low voice, which John heard dis 
 tinctly : 
 
 "Don t say anything; I am going down into that 
 scat to sit with those people." 
 
 And before her mortified and alarmed compan 
 ions could utter a remonstrance, Fanny Lane had 
 glided quietly three steps forward, and had seated 
 herself by the side of an old woman, who was bent 
 over nearly double with her face buried in her 
 uands, sobbing. 
 
96 FA RATER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 
 
 John Bassett felt a strange, irrational rage at this 
 sight, then a still stranger and more irrational de 
 sire to go and sit by her side. He gazed at her 
 with a sort of terror, wondering what she would do 
 next. He had not long to wonder. One of the 
 elders approached her, and began to put to her the 
 usual questions. She waved him gently aside, and 
 said in a low, clear voice : 
 
 " Thank you, I am not in the least unhappy. I 
 did not come down here for that. I thought I 
 should like to have all these people praying for me : 
 that is all." 
 
 Solemn as was the scene, and profoundly as John 
 was feeling at that moment, he had to pass his hand 
 quickly over his face to hide a smile, at the sudden 
 and utter bewilderment of the discomfited elder. 
 There was evident, at first, a quick, angry suspi 
 cion, that this finely clad city lady had taken her 
 seat there out of pure irreverence ; but one look 
 into the steadfast blue eyes slew that suspicion ; 
 and with a grave " May the Lord bless your soul, 
 my sister," the elder passed on. 
 
 When it was evident that no more persons would 
 come forward to be prayed for, the whole congre 
 gation kneeled down, and the prayers began. 
 Prayer after prayer some quaint, simple, and 
 Couching ; some incongruous and distasteful ; but 
 ill earnest and impassioned. Fanny Lane sat still 
 as a statue, her fair head unbowed, her eyes fixed 
 steadily on each one who prayed. So strange, so 
 
FARMER BASSETTS ROMANCE. 9; 
 
 oreign, so inexplicable a sight was never before 
 seen on a camp-ground. More than one good 
 Methodist man had his attention diverted and his 
 devotion jeoparded by that startling face. And as 
 for the good Methodist women, there was but one 
 opinion among them of poor Fanny s conduct. 
 " Never see anything so brazen in my life." 
 " I wonder that Elder Swift didn t put her out." 
 " Should n t wonder ef he thought she was crazy, 
 an there might be a row that ud break up the 
 meeting," were some of the indignant whispers at 
 Fanny s expense. 
 
 Before the prayers ended, John stole softly away. 
 He was uncomfortable. He had a vague instinct 
 of flight from the place, of flight from this girl 
 whose atmosphere affected him so strangely. He 
 found it no longer agreeable. His feeling toward 
 her was fast becoming something like fear. Mid 
 way down the aisle, he stopped, turned, took one 
 more look at her, and met her eyes, steadily, un 
 mistakably fixed upon him. With a sense of some 
 thing still more like fear in his heart, he turned 
 abruptly and walked on. 
 
 When Hi and Hi s folks reached home, consid 
 erably past midnight, they found, to their great sur 
 prise, John Bassett fast asleep on the kitchen set 
 tee. 
 
 Hi shook him awake by degrees, exclaiming 
 "Why, John, how in airth d ye get in ? " 
 "Through the buttery window." laughed John. 
 
98 FARMER BASSETT S ROM A ATE. 
 
 11 1 stood it over at your camp-meeting as long as 1 
 could, and then I came out. If I d have dreamed 
 that you d left a window open in all your house 
 you would n t have caught me over there at dl, I 
 can tell you." 
 
 It was arranged that Hi should shoe Jerry as 
 soon as it was light in the morning. And John 
 would be off for Deerway by six o clock, for there 
 was mowing to be done that day which could not 
 be put off. Then John went to bed, and as he set 
 tled himself to sleep, he said : 
 "Well, that s the end of that." 
 But the end was not yet. 
 
 Two weeks later, as John was driving Tom and 
 Jerry leisurely along the road past the Goodenows 
 farm-house, just at sunset one night, he heard his 
 name called loudly from the piazza, and saw Luke 
 Goodenow running down the pathway toward him. 
 John felt, rather than saw, that the piazza was rilled 
 with people. He never passed the h^use without 
 having a secret conscious wonder whether the blue- 
 eyed, yellow-haired girl would be in sight ; but he 
 \iad never seen her since the night of the camp- 
 meeting. Now he felt sure that she was on the 
 piazza, for the whole family had gathered there, to 
 look at the sunset, which was one rippling wave of 
 fiery gold from the western horizon nearly to the 
 zenith. John did not turn his head, but reined up 
 his horses and sat waiting for Luke. 
 
FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE, 99 
 
 With true New England circumlocution Luke 
 Opened his communication thus : 
 
 " Ain t very busy now, John, are you ? " 
 Taken unawares, John said, frankly : - 
 "No; did the last of my haying yesterday. 
 Why?" 
 
 " Well, father n I was a wonderin if you 
 would n t do a job o drivin for us. Ef yer would, 
 t ud be an awful help to us. We re jest about 
 drove out o our senses. You see we hain t got 
 hosses enough for all our folks ; ycr can t calkillate 
 on boarders no how ; one year there won t nobody 
 want to ride at all, n yer hosses 11 eat their heads 
 off ; an the next year, ye 11 cut down on hosses, and 
 then everybody 11 want to drive from mornin till 
 night, and not make a mite of allowance for you 
 nuther. Now, Kate, she s gone lame ; a feller here 
 raced her up meetin us hill last week, and pretty 
 nigh killed her I d like to break his darned neck 
 for him ; an that breaks up our best team ; and you 
 see there s some o our folks we d agreed to take 
 regular every afternoon, and they re just upsot 
 about it, an I m afraid they 11 go off if they can t 
 have their rides, it s about all they do. I wish 
 such folks d bring up their own hosses. Now 
 could n t you jest take em for us ? they won t be 
 &ere more n a month. They 11 pay ye first rate, 
 they re rich, they don t care what they pay for any 
 thing." 
 
 John laughed out. 
 
IOO FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMAA r CR. 
 
 " Why, Luke," he exclaimed, "I d do most any 
 thing to oblige you, but I can t really turn hack- 
 driver. I m sorry." 
 
 Luke s face fell. 
 
 " I don t suppose ye d let anybody else drive 
 Tom and Jerry, would you ? Father d always go 
 himself if ye d let us have em," he said in desper 
 ation, for this was really Luke s last hope. 
 
 "You d better believe I wouldn t," said John 
 Bassett, a little proudly. " I m real sorry for ye, 
 Luke. Well, summer boarders are nothing but a 
 pest anyhow." 
 
 " Well, some on em is, an some on em is n t," 
 replied the sententious Luke. " There s folks in 
 our house I d jest as lieves disappoint as not, and 
 a little lieveser ; but I do hate to disappoint Miss 
 Fanny an her ma, the worst kind." 
 
 " Oh, it s women folks, is it ? v said dishonest 
 John Bassett, with a bound at his guilty heart ; " if 
 it s only women folks, I might take em, perhaps ; 
 but I ll be hanged if I ll drive any o these city 
 fellows round." 
 
 Luke jumped eagerly at this suggestion. 
 
 "No, indeed," he said; "there ain t no man in 
 the party ; jest the two old women and Miss Fanny, 
 an they re jest the nicest folks we Ve ever had in 
 our house, I tell you. Miss Fanny, she s a smart 
 one. The old aunt, she s some stuck-up, but she s 
 no account, anyhow. It s Miss Fanny s ma that 
 pays all the bills. You jest come right up here 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. IO1 
 
 ar.d make your bargain with em now," urged Luke, 
 anxious to strike while the iron was hot. 
 
 * Bargain ! " shouted John Bassett, with a look 
 of indignation which nearly paralyzed Luke. " I m 
 not going to make any bargain. You can tell em 
 that a friend of yours is going to do it for you. " I 
 don t want any of their money." 
 
 " But John," began Luke, " Father won t take it" 
 
 "Settle it among you as you like," cried John; 
 "I sha n t take any money. Let me know when 
 you want me to come," and he gave Tom so sharp 
 a stroke with the whip that Tom reared and plunged 
 forward at a pace that whirled the wagon out of 
 sight in the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 "Well, I swanny ! " ejaculated Luke as he walked 
 up the hill, " John Bassett is a queer one. I won 
 der how we 11 fix it ! " 
 
 " I swanny " does such universal duty as an oath 
 throughout New England that the expression merits 
 some attention as a philological curiosity. No one 
 can sojourn among rural New Englanders for any 
 length of time without being driven to speculate as 
 to the origin of the phrase. Could it have come 
 down through ages of gradual elimination from 
 some highly respectable Pagan formula, such as, 
 " I will swear by any of the gods," for instance ? 
 This seems a not wholly incredible supposition, and 
 lifts the seeming vulgarism at once to the level of a 
 
 condensed classic." 
 
 No perplexing considerations of the question of 
 
IO2 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 pay hindered the elder Goodenow from grasping 
 gratefully at John Bassett s help in the matter of 
 driving. 
 
 " They can pay us all the same," he said to Luke; 
 " an ef John Bassett s such a fool s not to take 
 the money, he can go without it, that s all. I 
 sha n t sue him to make him take it, I reckon." 
 
 And so it came to pass that on the next day, at 
 three o clock in the afternoon, John Bassett sat in 
 his big strong wagon with Tom and Jerry shining 
 like satin, and prancing in their harness before the 
 Goodenow s gate, waiting to take three " summer 
 boarders " to drive. He felt uncomfortable. He 
 was sorry he had said he would do it, but he would 
 not withdraw now ; neither was he sure that he 
 wanted to withdraw. In fact, just at present, John 
 Bassett was not sure of anything. Minute after 
 minute passed. Tom and Jerry pranced more and 
 more. 
 
 " Look here, Luke," said John ; " if this s the 
 way your folks keep horses standing, they can t 
 drive with me. I 11 take a turn and come back, 
 it fidgets Tom so to stand," and he drove down 
 frhe road at a rapid rate. 
 
 "What does the man mean?" exclaimed Aunt 
 Jane, who had just appeared at the door, and was 
 leisurely wrapping herself up. Fanny Lane also 
 ooked impatiently after the swift-going horses, an t 
 exclaimed, " How very queer ! " 
 
 Luke hastened to explain. 
 
FARMER BASSETTS ROMANCE. 1 03 
 
 "Ye see, Miss Fanny," he said, " John Bassett s 
 horses aint like ourn. They wont stand a minute." 
 
 "What, aren t these horses quiet?" screamed 
 Aunt Jane. " I sha n t go a step. Maria, this 
 man s brought skittish horses ; we 11 have our 
 necks broken, and these country people never do 
 know anything about driving." 
 
 Luke could not bear this. 
 
 "Well, mum," he said, "if you say that after 
 you ve driven with John Bassett, I 11 eat my head. 
 There aint no circus man can do any more with 
 horses than John can. His horse plays hide-and- 
 seek with him in the yard, just like a boy, you d 
 oughter see it." 
 
 Fanny Lane listened with delight. 
 
 " Oh, how charming ! " she said, with one of her 
 bewildering smiles bent full on Luke. "What 
 good luck it was, Luke, that you found such a nice 
 driver for us, and such nice horses ! How did it 
 happen that he was not engaged ? " 
 
 The truth was very near escaping from Luke s 
 lips in spite of himself ; he was so tickled at the 
 .dea of John s being " engaged " as a " driver ; " 
 but he prudently choked both his laughter and the 
 truth together and answered diplomatically : 
 
 " Oh, he would n t drive for everybody, John 
 wouldn t," which was certainly true, though it 
 served Luke s purpose as well as a lie. 
 
 When Luke, with some confusion and mixing up 
 lif genders and pronouns, had succeeded in in- 
 
I CM FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE. 
 
 troducing John Bassett to the three women whom 
 he was to take charge of for the afternoon, Fanny 
 Lane looked full in John Bassett s face and 
 said, 
 
 " I have seen you before, Mr. Bassett I saw 
 you at the camp-meeting. You went out in the 
 middle of the last prayer, and I thought it was 
 so very wrong of you." 
 
 John was dumbfounded. All the old bewilder 
 ment of senses and emotions which he had felt at 
 his first sight of this girl, rushed back upon him 
 now, also something of the old terror. How 
 could he be sure that she had not seen him during 
 the whole time he had spent in watching her? How 
 could he be sure that she had not read his thoughts 
 and feelings in his face ? How could he be sure 
 that she was not at this very moment reading 
 clearly all his discomforts and perplexity ? Heart 
 ily, John wished himself and his horses safely back 
 on the Bassett farm. 
 
 But all that Miss Lane saw of this mental per 
 turbation was a slight hesitancy and slowness of 
 speech, which she set down to the natural shyness 
 of a rural man unaccustomed to be at ease with 
 city women ; and she found something very quaint 
 and amusing in John s concise reply : 
 
 * I do not think any one heard me go out Nc 
 due looked up that I saw." 
 
 As Miss Lane s eyes were probably the only eyes 
 31 that whole congregation which were not de- 
 
FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE. 10$ 
 
 voutly closed at the moment when John stole away 
 so noiselessly on the grass, John had the best of 
 this little opening passage at arms, how much 
 the best he did not dream, and would have been 
 astonished if he had known that his companion 
 was saying to herself at that moment : " How 
 clever of him ! Of course I should never have 
 known that he had gone out if I had not been 
 gazing about at everything," and Fanny Lane 
 looked with a new interest at John Bassett s face. 
 It was a face that a sensitive and timid woman 
 might fear ; but one that a high-spirited and inde 
 pendent woman might welcome with a quick and 
 hearty sense of comradeship and trust. Very calm, 
 very strong, very straightforward was the expres 
 sion of the face in repose ; the eyes were dark 
 blue-gray ; the eyebrows and lashes jet black ; his 
 smooth-shaved chin was too long and too heavily 
 molded, and his lips were thin rather than full, 
 though the outline of his mouth when closed was 
 rarely fine, and when he smiled it was beautiful. 
 Yet, the face was on the whole a stern one, and 
 oftener repelled than won advances from strangers ; 
 it compelled confidence, but did not invite familiar 
 ity. The more Miss Lane looked at her escort, the 
 more she took satisfaction in his appearance. 
 
 " Really," she thought, " this is a godsend ; such 
 horses as these, and a man who is not in the least 
 stupid if he is a farmer ! We shall have a lovely 
 time or our drives." 
 
IO6 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 And she. settled herself back in the broad front 
 seat with a content and pleasurable anticipation 
 which radiated from every feature, and made itself 
 felt like sunshine. 
 
 "Is n t this lovely, mamma ?" she exclaimed. 
 " What a lucky thing that old Kate went lame ! 
 These horses are a thousand times better that Mr. 
 Goodenow s. In fact," she added, " that s no 
 way to speak of them ; they would be superb 
 horses anywhere ; they re not to be spoken of as 
 the same sort of animal as Mr. Goodenow s." 
 
 " No," said John quietly. 
 
 The tone of the monosyllable meant so much 
 that Fanny Lane exclaimed 
 
 " You love your horses very much, Mr. Bassett, 
 do you not ? " 
 
 "They are my only brothers," replied John, 
 " I have taken care of them since the day they 
 were born." 
 
 " Oh, how perfectly delightful ! " cried Fanny. 
 11 That s the very thing I have always thougnt I 
 should like to do, have a colt for my own in the 
 very beginning, when I could play with it as I 
 would with a kitten." 
 
 "Yes, that s the only way to have the real com 
 fort of a horse," said John. "They are more in 
 telligent than dogs, and much more loving, if they 
 ever had a chance to show it. You ought to see 
 Tom play hide-and-seek with me ; he will hunt the 
 vhole place over and never give up till he finds 
 
FARMER B ASSETS s ROMANCE. 107 
 
 me ; and he knows just as quick in the morning 
 if there s a little difference in my tone of speaking 
 to him ; if I don t happen to feel quite first-rate 
 myself, he 11 poke Ms nose into my hand, and 
 whinny uneasily, till I speak in a chirker voice to 
 him. I don t really need any reins to guide them. 
 See here," and John suddenly said in a low tone 
 " Whoa, Tom ! Whoa, Jerry ! " The horses were 
 trotting at a rapid rate down a little hilL So sud 
 denly that they fell almost on their haunches, the 
 beautifully trained animals came to a full stop, and 
 stood still with their necks arched, their heads 
 down, snorting a little in impatience. The sudden 
 stop had given a severe jar to the wagon, and un 
 fortunately had jolted Aunt Jane forward from her 
 seat. 
 
 " There ! I told you so, Maria ! Let me get out ! 
 let me get out ! We 11 have our necks broken. 
 Young man, let me get out this minute ; do you 
 hear ? " screamed the terrified old woman. 
 
 " Oh, Aunt Jane," cried Fanny, who could barely 
 speak for laughing, " don t be absurd. There is 
 nothing the matter. Mr. Bassett stopped the horses 
 himself to show me how quick they would mind 
 his voice. It s all right." 
 
 " I did not realize that it would give the wajron 
 quite such a jar, ma am ; " said John, gravely, though 
 he cor-ners of his mouth quivered. " I am very 
 sorry it frightened you so." 
 
 Aunt Jane was not very easily appeased. 
 
108 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 "Don t do it again. Don t do it again. I 
 nearly went out into the middle of the road, a 
 most dangerous trick for horses to have. I always 
 am afraid of country horses," she said. 
 
 Any alarm in Aunt Jane s mind always broke 
 out in a jerky, monosyllabic, incoherent, but quick- 
 running chatter, like nothing under heaven except 
 the cackle of a frightened hen. Nobody could 
 help laughing at the sounds she produced ; let the 
 danger be ever so extreme,. it would be impossible 
 not to be amused at them. Fanny broke into an 
 unrestrained peal of laughter in which John could 
 not help joining, a fact which completed Aunt 
 Jane s discomfort, and reduced her to a state of 
 ill-humor and absolute silence for the rest of the 
 drive. 
 
 Mrs. Lane enjoyed and loved fine horses as 
 much as her daughter did, and it was with a really 
 cordial and unaffected tone, quite unlike her usual 
 languid manner, that, when they reached home, 
 she thanked John Bassett for the pleasure they had 
 enjoyed. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, Mr. Bassett," echoed Fanny. " It 
 is the very nicest thing we have had in Deerway. 
 Now, you wont let anything keep you from coming 
 every afternoon, will you ? We shall depend upon 
 it ; I want to explore every inch of the whole re 
 gion within fifteen miles round. It is the loveliest 
 country I have ever found in New England. Re- 
 \nember, now, two o clock exactly ! We wont keep 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE IOg 
 
 you waiting to-morrow. Good afternoon ! " and 
 she ran up the pathway like a fleet deer. 
 
 " Did n t touch his hat. Don t even kno\v enough 
 to touch his hat. What boors these country peo 
 ple are ! " grumbled Aunt Jane, as she laboriously 
 toiled up the piazza steps, lifting her fat ankles 
 slowly, and swinging alternately to right and left, 
 as a duck does when it waddles up-hill. 
 
 "Well, why should he touch his hat, Aunt 
 Jane? " exclaimed Fanny aggressively. " He is n t 
 a coachman, and he has never been taught that 
 gentlemen ought to lift their hats to ladies, no 
 body does in Deerway. If he had been born in 
 the city he would have known better. It is n t his 
 fault." 
 
 Aunt Jane was half way up-stairs, and wheezing 
 audibly, but she stopped, whirled with difficulty on 
 the narrow stair, and exclaimed : 
 
 " It s my opinion, Fanny Lane, that you Ve got 
 some notion in your head of flirting with that strap 
 ping fellow, and I m just going to put your mother 
 on her guard. 
 
 Fanny flushed. "Oh, how could mamma ever 
 have had such a coarse sister ? " she thought, but 
 she answered merrily. 
 
 " I m not afraid. Mamma knows much better 
 than to believe anything you tell her about me." 
 
 And then Fanny Lane sat herself clown in a 
 corner of the piazza, and looked off into the vast 
 
110 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 golden twilight in the west, and said to herself 
 deliberately : 
 
 " It s a very odd thing that I like that man s 
 face so. I have never yet seen a face I like so 
 much. He s as strong as a lion, and as true. 
 What 11 he ever do for a wife here in Deerway, I 
 wonder." 
 
 The story of the next six weeks of John Bassett s 
 life is as well told in one page as in hundreds ; yet 
 its vivid details of delight would need no spinning 
 out, no exaggeration to fill the hundreds of pages ; 
 and as for color, it had the palette of the New Eng 
 land autumn, and the light of love, from which to 
 paint its pictures. 
 
 It was an unusually beautiful autumn; the forests 
 were like altar fronts in old cathedrals ; they glit 
 tered with colors which gems could not outshine. 
 Heavy September rains filled the brooks to over 
 flowing, and left the air cooled for the October sun 
 light. Deerway lies on one of the highest plateaus 
 in New England ; this plateau is in places broken 
 into myriads of conical and interlapping hills. 
 These hills are thickly wooded with maple, ash, 
 hickory, oak, chestnut, pine, cedar, hemlock, larch : 
 not a tree of all New England s wealth of trees is 
 lacking. 
 
 For miles and miles in all directions the roads 
 run through forests and by the sides of brooks and 
 itreams. Then when you come out on the inter 
 
FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE. Ill 
 
 rals and opens between these hills and forests, 
 there are magnificent vistas of view to distant 
 horizons where rise the peaks and ranges of New 
 England s highest mountains. 
 
 Over these roads, under these trees, across these 
 lifted plains, drove John Bassett and Fanny Lane, 
 side by side, every afternoon for six weeks. The 
 two elderly ladies behind, wrapped in their cloaks 
 and shawls, and often half asleep, little dreamed 
 of the drama whose prelude was so quietly and 
 fatefully arranging and arraying its forces on the 
 front seat. 
 
 Fanny Lane was a genuine and passionate lover 
 of the country. As soon as she entered it, the ar 
 tificiality, the paltry ambitions, the false standards 
 of her city life, fell away from her like dead husks. 
 She was another woman. Had her whole life been 
 passed thus face to face with the nature she was 
 born to love, she had been indeed another and a 
 nobler person. As it was, all that her few months 
 interval of each year of summer and out-door life 
 did for her was to give her a marvelous added 
 physical health, a suberabundance of vitality, which 
 country life can never give to any one who does 
 not love it with his whole soul. There seemed 
 sometimes almost a mockery in the carrying back 
 to the senseless dissipations and excitements of a 
 gay city winter the zest and capacity to endure and 
 to enjoy, born of woods and fields and sunrises 
 4nd sunsets. But this was what Fanny Lane did 
 
112 FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 
 
 year after year. It was like living two lives on 
 two different planets ; no one who knew her only 
 in one would recognize her in the other, would 
 believe the other possible to her. How should John 
 Bassett dream that this girl, who knew every tree, 
 every wayside weed by name, who climbed rocks 
 with exultant joy like a chamois, who came home 
 from her drives, day after day, with her arms loaded 
 with ground pine and clematis, with big boughs of 
 bright leaves, with lichens and mosses, would be 
 transformed one month later, in her city home, to 
 a nonchalant, conventional woman of society, en 
 tirely absorbed in a routine of visits and balls ? 
 
 Fanny Lane was also an artist by nature. No 
 spot of color in the woods, no distant shading 
 of tint in the horizons, no picturesque grouping 
 of work-people in the fields, no smallest beauty of 
 their rude homesteads, escaped her eye ; she noted 
 every one ; and she spoke of each one with the 
 overflowing tone of delight which belongs to the joy 
 of the true artist nature. How should John Bas 
 sett dream that all these things which she seemed 
 so to love and delight in, she loved and delighted 
 in as a spectacle, as if they were painted on a 
 canvas ! and that she would use the same tones 
 and show the same joy, a few weeks later, over 
 rare jewels and beautiful raiment, over an exquisite 
 equipage or a fine-flavored wine ! How should 
 John Bassett dream, when she jumped, lightly from 
 the high wagon-seat to the ground, at one bound 
 
FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 113 
 
 without touching his hand, and cried, "Oh, what 
 a lovely drive we have had ; I never had such a 
 good time in my life, Mr. Bassett," that her happi 
 ness was as purely a sensuous one as if she had 
 been a faun, and that she had said the same thing 
 thousands of times before ? Her faculty of enjoy 
 ment was simply a superb gift ; it was the health 
 and mirthfulness of a young animal added to the 
 keen susceptibility and passionless passion of the 
 artist nature : the overflow of all this, the efferves 
 cence of these two qualities, gave a sparkling en 
 chantment to her life and behavior, which was 
 contagious and irresistible to all persons who did 
 not pause to analyze or question it. John Bassett 
 neither questioned nor analyzed it. In the inter 
 vals of his absence from her, he simply recalled 
 her. When he was with her, he simply felt and 
 heard her. 
 
 And so the six swift weeks sped on, and the 
 day came at last when John Bassett had to say 
 good-by to Fanny Lane at the little Deerway 
 railway station, to which he had driven them early 
 one crisp October morning. In the hurry of check 
 ing luggage and bestowing Aunt Jane and her 
 canary bird and her many parcels in the train, 
 there was little chance for farewell words ; but just 
 at the last moment, Mrs. Lane said very cordially, 
 for she had come to have an honest liking for the 
 grave and manly young farmer : 
 
 " Whenever you come to town, Mr. Bassett, be 
 8 
 
114 FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMANCE. 
 
 sure and come and see us ; " and she shook hands 
 with him warmly. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Mr. Bassett, you must come," cried 
 Fanny ; " I shall be so glad to see you. I shall 
 miss Tom and Jerry horribly. Our horses are not 
 half so nice, and our stupid park will be so dull 
 after the Deerway woods. Oh, dear me ! I wish I 
 could stay here all winter. Good-by ! Now, be 
 sure and come and see us if you are in town," 
 and the cars whirled away, bearing Fanny Lane 
 out of John Bassett s sight. 
 
 He jumped into his wagon as if he were in great 
 haste, and drove away at a furious rate. As soon 
 as he was out of sight, he said to Tom and Jerry : 
 "Walk, boys," flinging the reins loose on their 
 necks, and never once roused from his reverie of 
 thought and emotion till the whole six miles had 
 passed, and the horses turned of their own accord 
 into the farm-house gate. Then he started, and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " Bless me ! I meant to have stopped at Molly s, 
 but it is too late now." 
 
 Little Molly had been looking out for John all 
 the morning. It so chanced that their last boarders 
 had gone to the station that morning, and Molly 
 had seen John drive by with the Lane party, and 
 had perceived, much to her joy, that they were also 
 going to the train. 
 
 "Oh, I m so glad ! " said Molly. " It s all done 
 with for this year. Now we can have peace and 
 tomfort again." 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 115 
 
 How many times John had come laughing within 
 a few hours after the last boarders had taken leave, 
 and exclaimed as he opened the door : 
 
 " Thank heaven, the last summer boarder s out 
 of the way ! " 
 
 So Molly felt very sure he would stop now on his 
 way back from the station ; and surprised enough 
 she was, to be sure, when she saw him drive past 
 the house, Tom and Jerry walking as lazily as 
 if they were in the pasture, and John sitting with his 
 hands on his knees and his eyes fixed on the dasher. 
 
 " Why, what a brown study John s in ! " ex 
 claimed Molly. " I wonder what he s thinking 
 about." 
 
 And this was all she thought, for Molly was a 
 sweet, gentle, unsuspicious little girl ; and besides, 
 did not she know John Bassett through and through 
 almost as well as if they had been rocked in the 
 same cradle ? If anybody had suggested to Molly 
 that John might be in love with one of the " sum 
 mer boarders," she would have laughed merrily j 
 she knew better than anybody else how he hated 
 the very sight of all those city people ; and she 
 had often thought in the past few weeks how good 
 it was of John to take those three women to drive 
 every day, "just to help the Goodenows." 
 
 Poor little Molly! It was some weeks after 
 Fanny Lane s departure before the thought of ask 
 ing her to be his wife took actual shape of purpose 
 in John Bassett s mind. He was almost benumbed, 
 
U6 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 be missed her so ; and he spent whole days driving 
 vaguely round and round in the roads where he had 
 driven with her ; he knew well enough what all this 
 misery meant, but while it was at its first height, he 
 could not even grasp at any ray of comfort or hope. 
 He loved this woman with the whole intensity oJ 
 his reticent and long-restrained nature, though his 
 common sense told him (when he let it lift up its 
 voice at all) that it would be folly for him to think 
 of her as his wife, folly on all accounts : her 
 utter unfitness for a farmer s wife ; the utter im 
 probability of her loving him. " Pshaw," he said 
 to himself, a hundred times a day. " John Bassett, 
 you are a fool ! " Nevertheless, day by day, and 
 night by night, a cruel hope whispered to him. He 
 recalled every word Fanny had said of her glad 
 delight in the Deerway life. 
 
 <l I m sure," he thought, " no human being could 
 be happier than she was here. She belongs to the 
 country. She ; s country all over. There is n t any 
 of the city lady about her. Not a bit. 
 
 " She said she wished she could stay here all 
 winter. She need n t ever lift her hand to do a 
 stroke of work. I could keep two or three girls for 
 her, just as well as not ; " and good John Bassett 
 thought over, with true manly pride, how he could 
 give to his lady-love all which, in his simplicity of 
 heart, he could conceive of even a city lady s re 
 quiring. 
 
 " I d build her any sort of a house she wanted, 
 
FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMANCE. 
 
 if she did n t want to live here with mother. Oi 
 I d take her anywhere in the world she wanted to 
 go. There s money enough ; " and so the treach 
 erous hope allied itself to the blinded love, and 
 both together lured John Bassett on until one day 
 in midwinter he rang the door-bell of the grand 
 house in which Fanny Lane lived " in town." He 
 had not come with any assured hope ; not at all ; 
 toward the last, his strong, good sense had come 
 to look on the step more as a desperate remedy for 
 a desperate hurt, than as a probable healing of the 
 wound by the gentle and blessed healing of happi 
 ness. He said to himself, grimly : " It s the only 
 way I 11 every get free from it. I Ve got to know 
 the truth once for all ; and I m not ashamed to 
 ask her." 
 
 Mrs. Lane s black servant man had never seen 
 at Mrs. Lane s door a person of precisely John 
 Bassett s bearing. His first impression was, that 
 he was some sort of tradesman, and he was on the 
 point of giving him a seat in the hall, when John s 
 quick and decisive tone " Will you please say to 
 Miss Lane that Mr. Bassett, from Deerway, wishes 
 to see her," caused him to change his tactics, and 
 usher this unclassed gentleman into the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 On the very threshold of this room, John got his 
 first blow. People who have been accustomed all 
 their lives to laces and velvets, and paintings and 
 ftatues in their rooms, can form no conception of 
 
Il8 FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMANCE. 
 
 Lhe bewildering impression which such splendors 
 produce on the mind of simply reared persons, see 
 ing them for the first time. John s only experience 
 of splendor, or what he thought splendor, had been 
 in theatres, where he had, a few times in his life, 
 seen plays put on the stage with considerable mag 
 nificence of appointment. He would not have con 
 ceived that even in kings palaces could there be 
 rooms so adorned as was this room in Fanny Lane s 
 home. The only thing which he saw, which did not 
 give him a sense of dazzling bewilderment, was the 
 conservatory which opened from the farther end of 
 the room. With a vague instinct of seeking refuge, 
 he walked toward it ; but even here all seemed un 
 real ; the plants were, to him, as new as the soft 
 carpets and the floating draperies of cobweb lace j 
 not a familiar leaf or flower ; only a great exuber 
 ant bower of strange colors and strange shapes, 
 and an overpowering spicy scent w r hich seemed, to 
 his fresh and uncloyed nerves, almost sickening. 
 Involuntarily he looked about him for a window ; he 
 wanted fresh air and a sight of the blue sky. Dra 
 peries and veils shut out one and hid the other ; he 
 felt as if he were in an enchanted prison, and it 
 seemed to him a measurelessly long time before the 
 black servant returned, and holding out to him 
 some newspapers said, with a much increased re 
 spectfulness of demeanor : 
 
 " Miss Fanny says, sir, that she is very glad, in 
 deed, to see you, but she will have to keep you 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 1 19 
 
 waiting awhile, for she is just dressing for a din 
 ner. She sent down the morning papers, thinking 
 you might like to look them over." 
 
 Mechanically, John took the papers and sat down 
 in the simplest chair he could find, and as near to 
 the wonderful window draperies as he dared to go. 
 Mechanically, he fastened his eyes on the printed 
 words ; but he did not read one. He was wonder 
 ing what would be the next scene in this play. 
 Fanny Lane s face, as he had seen it the last sum 
 mer, in a simple white chip shade hat tied loosely 
 under her chin, with a branch of wild roses floating 
 down on her shoulder, seemed dancing in the air 
 before him. Would she look as she looked then ? 
 He had sat thus, wondering and dreaming for a 
 long half hour, when a soft, silken rustle fell on his 
 ear, and a swift, light step, and the voice he knew 
 so well said, in the door-way : 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Bassett, I m so glad to see you ; and 
 you must forgive me for keeping you waiting so 
 long, but you see I am going to a stupid dinner at 
 six o clock, and I was just dressing for it. But 
 now I am all ready, and have nothing to do but 
 sit and hear all about Deerway, and dear old Tom 
 and Jerry. I in ever so glad to see you ; have you 
 been well ? " and the vision held out its hands, 
 which looked like Fanny Lane s hands, and recalled 
 [ohn Bassett a little to his senses. 
 
 This was what Fanny Lane had done : 
 
 When the servant brought to her Mr. Bassett a 
 
120 FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 
 
 name and message, she sprang to her feet, and ex 
 claimed, " Why, the good soul ! I m so glad to see 
 him. Tell Mr. Bassett I 11 be down in a moment," 
 but before the man had left the room, she ex 
 claimed : " Wait, William." Then turning to her 
 mother she said : 
 
 " I believe I d better dress before I go down, for 
 it s four o clock now ?nd he 11 be just as likely to 
 stay two hours as one, and I never could hurt his 
 feelings by telling him- 1 had an engagement." 
 
 " Yes, dear, I think so too," assented Mrs. Lane, 
 though she did not in the least think so, having a 
 very distinct impression of the incongruity between 
 Fanny s evening toilet and her Deerway visitor. 
 Then Fanny went to her room, saying in her heart 
 as she went : 
 
 " It may be all a ridiculous fancy of mine, but it 
 wont do any harm ; and if the poor fellow has 
 really come down here with any such idea in his 
 head, nothing would cure him of it so soon as to 
 see me in evening dress. I know John Bassett well 
 enough for that." 
 
 Fanny Lane had never forgotten ; she had often 
 wished she could forget, the look on John s face 
 just as the train moved out of the Deerway station, 
 the day she had bade him good-by. It smote her 
 with a pang, not of remorse, for she was not con 
 scious of having by look, word, or deed done any 
 thing to invite 01 to awaken his love, but of bit 
 ter and bootless regret. She liked and esteemed 
 
FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMANCE. 121 
 
 John Bassett heartily; more than that, she recog 
 nized in him the elements of a true manliness of 
 the sort that she most admired ; and she had more 
 than once gone so far in her secret thoughts as 
 to admit to herself that not one of the men with 
 whom she had thus far been brought into contact 
 could compare in point of fine native grain and 
 honesty clear through to the core with this uncul 
 tured and unmannered farmer. Through all Fanny 
 Lane s worldliness and ambition and convention 
 ality, she had kept unsullied her womanly instinct 
 of reverence for, and tenderness to, all real love. 
 To break, or to hurt a heart wantonly was as impos 
 sible to her as it would be to John Bassett himself. 
 Very sorely she suffered during the half hour that 
 she spent in arranging herself to go down to meet 
 this man whom she feared she had wounded ; and 
 it was a serious and pensive face that looked back 
 at her from the long pier-glass, as she surveyed 
 herself at last, and noting every point of the per 
 fection of her attire, thought sadly, 
 
 " I am sure if he has thought of such a thing, he 
 will see now he has made a great mistake." 
 
 Kind, wise Fanny Lane ! When John first 
 ooked up, he literally did not know her. The 
 dazzling white neck and white arms were all he 
 saw at first, and at sight of those he felt an hon 
 est and quick displeasure. To his unenlightened 
 and uncultured sense, they were unseemly. He 
 \tnew, he had read, that this was the way of the 
 
122 FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 cvorld ; and he had often seen actress women thus 
 bared to the eyes of men ; but even in the theatre 
 he had disliked it : he was so simple-hearted, so 
 pure-minded, this man of the fields, and now, 
 nearer, within the close and unrestrained reach of 
 his eyes, he disliked it more. Yet it was not this, 
 powerfully as this affected him, which slew on the 
 instant the purpose with which he had sought 
 Fanny Lane. For this he could have had patience 
 and comprehension, seeing that all the influences 
 and circumstances of her life made it inevitable. 
 The thing which slew the purpose, almost the de 
 sire, within his heart, was the thing which Fanny 
 Lane had divined beforehand would slay it, and 
 had purposely plotted should slay it ; it was the 
 whole atmosphere of luxury, artificial elegance in 
 her dress. She had chosen the showiest and cost 
 liest of her gowns : a heavy wine-colored silk, with 
 a sweeping train trimmed profusely with white lace , 
 white chrysanthemums, so daintily and truly made 
 that it was hard to believe them artificial, looped 
 the folds of the silk, and were scattered in the lace \ 
 white chrysanthemums, made of pearls with yellow 
 topazes for their centres, shone in her hair, on her 
 neck and on her arms. She was superbly beautiCul 
 in this toilet, and she knew it ; but she knew or 
 believed that it was a kind of beauty which would 
 bring healing and not harm to the heart of John 
 Bassett. It did. It did its work so quickly that to 
 her dying day, Fanny Lane never felt sure and 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 123 
 
 it was many years before she ceased to wonder 
 whether the healing had been needed or not. 
 
 " Very well, thank you, Miss Lane," said John 
 Bassett, with an untroubled and warm-hearted smile, 
 in reply to her first inquiry. " I am always well. 
 Have you been well ? and your mother and aunt ? 
 You asked me to come and see you, if I came to 
 town, and so as I was here to-day, I called. Are 
 you well ? " 
 
 " I m very glad you did," said Fanny ; and with 
 an uneasy instinct which she never felt in a ball 
 room, she drew close up to her throat the fleecy 
 shawl she had thrown over her shoulders as she 
 came down-stairs. Without knowing what she felt, 
 she had felt the avoidance in John Bassett s eyes. 
 " Yes, I am very well." 
 
 " You do not look as well as you did in Deer- 
 way," said the honest man, looking at her more 
 closely now that he could; "you are not out-of- 
 doors enough, are you ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, but it s a different out-of-doors," said 
 Fanny. " It s only one degree better than in 
 doors ; but it s all we can have till summer comes, 
 and we can get back to Deerway." 
 
 " Will you be in Deerway next summer again ? " 
 asked John. 
 
 " Oh, no, Mr. Bassett, nor for two or three sum 
 mers ; we are going to Europe in May, to stay three 
 fears ! " exclaimed Fanny, with great animation. 
 * I m so delighted. It has been the dream of my 
 
124 FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE. 
 
 life. But, Mr. Bassett, do tell me about 1 om and 
 Jerry ; and how the pine woods look now the snow 
 has come. I wish I could see Deerway in the 
 winter." 
 
 Then John told her about Tom and Jerry, and 
 about the pine-trees, with great avalanches of snow 
 on their lower branches, and about the sledding, 
 and sugaring-time, which would soon come ; and 
 before he knew it, it was already dark and time to 
 go. As he rose, Fanny exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh, let me give you some flowers, Mr. Bassett ; 
 come into the green-house." 
 
 Very ruthlessly, Fanny Lane cut the rare flowers, 
 not even sparing the tremulous and spiritual or 
 chids, of which she had a few. Putting the fra 
 grant and beautiful mass of bloom into a basket 
 which stood on the table, she said, with a sudden 
 impulse : 
 
 " Give some of these to that pretty little Miss 
 Wilder I saw in Deerway, the one that sings in the 
 choir. She lives near you, does n t she ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; " said John, " she is just like my 
 sister ; she is very fond of flowers." 
 
 " She has one of the very sweetest faces I ever 
 saw," said Fanny, earnestly; "I never have for 
 gotten it." 
 
 John looked a little astonished. He did not 
 Vnow that Molly s face was sweet ; but he knew 
 that she was. 
 
 " Molly s a very sweet, good girl," he said 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 12$ 
 
 warmly; and oddly enough, those were the last 
 words, except good-byes, which passed between 
 John Bassett and Fanny Lane. 
 
 After Fanny went up into her mother s room, 
 she stood for some minutes at the window watch 
 ing John s tall, broad-shouldered figure, as he 
 walked away. Then she sighed and sat down. 
 
 " What s the matter now ? " said Aunt Jane. 
 
 " Nothing," said Fanny, " only I was thinking 
 that country people are a great deal happier than 
 we are." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said Mrs. Lane, languidly, " I won 
 der what Mr. Bassett thought of your gown. I 
 don t suppose he ever saw a really handsome silk 
 gown before." 
 
 " He did n t appear to think anything about it at 
 all," said Fanny, half petulantly. Could it have 
 been that, side by side with her good, true purpose 
 of saving John Bassett from speaking words he 
 might wish unsaid, she had had a petty desire that 
 he should, at least, confess her more beautiful in 
 her silks and jewels ? 
 
 "What could you expect ? " sneered Aunt Jane. 
 " I don t suppose he d know a pearl marguerite 
 with a topaz middle, from one of the ox-eye daisies 
 on his farm ! " 
 
 " Yes, he would," retorted Fanny, " and like the 
 ox-eye daisy a great deal better ; and that s where 
 he is happier than we are." 
 
 John Bassett went back to Deerway. The pur 
 
126 FARMER B ASSETS S ROMANCE, 
 
 pose, nay, even the desire to ask Fanny Lane to be 
 his wife was slain, as we have said, in an instant by 
 the sight and the sense of the Fanny Lane whom 
 he had never seen, never known, till he saw and 
 knew her in her city splendors. But there re 
 mained still the memory, the consciousness of the 
 other Fanny Lane whom he had seen and had 
 known during all those long, sweet, bewildering 
 summer hours. This memory and this conscious 
 ness were not so easily slain. They died hard, and 
 John was, for many months, a man bereft. If there 
 had been in the Deerway grave-yard a mound 
 under which he had laid away the dead body of a 
 woman he had loved, his sense of loss would not 
 have been much greater. The winter was a long 
 and cold and sunless one. If it had been summer, 
 John s loneliness would have been far less ; nature 
 would have helped to cure him through every pore, 
 and every nerve ; but the New England winter is a 
 bitter season in which to be shut up alone with a 
 grief; it takes a serene and ever-abiding joy to 
 reconcile one to its imprisoning cold. The months 
 seemed very long to John. They seemed very long 
 to Molly Wilder also. The instinct of love is like 
 the subtle added sense by which the blind know 
 .he presence or the approach of a person they can 
 neither see, nor hear, nor touch. What had hap 
 pened to John, Molly did not know, could not 
 imagine ; but that something had changed him, she 
 Celt so keenly, that she could hardly keep back 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 12? 
 
 tears when he spoke to her. Sometimes she fan 
 cied that he must have discovered that he had some 
 deadly disease of which he knew he would sooner 
 or later die ; but he said that he was well ; and he 
 looked well. Sometimes, she fancied that she had 
 in some unwitting way displeased him ; and a hun 
 dred times a day, the gentle girl said, " I will ask 
 John what I have clone ; " but a shy consciousness 
 which did not clothe itself in words made it impos 
 sible for her to ask the question. 
 
 Molly was unhappier than John. Meantime, he 
 came and went all winter in the old fashion, so far 
 as times and seasons counted, and never dreamed 
 that he was seeming unlike himself ; never noticed, 
 either, that Molly was pale, and was growing thin, 
 until one day in April, when all the young people 
 were out on a sunny hill-side looking after arbutus 
 blossoms, he came suddenly upon Molly sitting 
 alone on a mossy log, with a few violets lying 
 loosely dropped in her lap, her hands crossed 
 above them, her eyes fixed on the far horizon, and 
 an expression of patient suffering on her counte 
 nance. He ran toward her. 
 
 " Why, Molly, what is the matter ? Have you 
 hurt yourself ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 She flushed red, and replied : 
 
 " Nothing. I am only tired." 
 
 But John saw that there had been tears in hex 
 eyes, and with a sudden lightning flash of con 
 Sciousness, his heart pricked him. 
 
128 FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 
 
 "Dear little Molly!" he thought. "I do- be 
 lieve I Ve been cross to her all winter. I Ve been 
 thinking about something else all the time, and she 
 has n t anybody else but me. 
 
 From that hour, John s manner toward Molly 
 changed, and the color began to come back to 
 Molly s cheeks. Nothing could be further from 
 love-making than his treatment of her; and yet 
 she was comparatively happy, for the old atmos 
 phere of brotherly fondness and care had returned, 
 and gradually, the old, good cheer came too. 
 
 Molly did not dream that anything more would 
 follow ; if ever the thought had striven to enter 
 her pure, maiden heart, that it would be a joy to 
 be John s wife, she would have blushed with shame 
 at herself, as if the thought were a sin ; but it must 
 have been hard for Molly to keep the thought away 
 all through these clays, when John was deliberately 
 permitting himself to wonder whether, after all, 
 little Molly were the woman who would bring him 
 true peace and content. He was very honest with 
 himself. He knew he did not love Molly as he 
 had loved Fanny Lane ; but he also knew clearly 
 that his love for Fanny Lane was a mistake, was 
 a glamour of the senses, and he was fast coming 
 to feel, by Molly s side, a serene sort of happiness 
 which he believed was a better and truer thing 
 than the other. There was not a trace of cox 
 combry in John Bassett s nature. He did not once 
 feel sure that Molly could love him as a husband , 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE I2Q 
 
 but he said to himself : " If I feel that I can make 
 her happy, I believe she is the woman I ought to 
 marry. I Ve loved her ever since I can remember 
 anything, and that ought to be the best sort of 
 love." 
 
 And as the summer grew fair this feeling grew 
 strong, and John and Molly grew happier and hap 
 pier, until one October day when everything except 
 grapes had ripened, this too ripened and fell, and 
 Molly gathered it. When John said to her : 
 
 " Molly, do you think you could love me well 
 enough to have me for your husband ? " she looked 
 up into his face and said only : 
 
 "Oh, John, do you think I should make you 
 happy ? " And in that instant something in the 
 look on Molly s face, and in the tone of Molly s 
 voice, smote the inmost citadel of John s heart 
 which had never before opened, and never would 
 have opened to any other or different touch. 
 
 There is an evil fashion of speech and of theory, 
 that a man s love for a woman lasts better, is 
 stronger, if he be never wholly assured of hers for 
 him. This is a base and shallow theory ; an out 
 rage on true manliness ; it has grown out of the 
 pitiful lack of true manliness in some men ; out of 
 the pitiful abundance of selfish counterfeit loves 
 and loving. Nothing under heaven can so touch, 
 so hold, so make eternally sure, the tenderness, 
 the loyalty, the passion of a manly man, as the con- 
 tciousness in every hour, in every act of life, thai 
 
 Q 
 
130 FARMER BASSETTS ROMANCF.. 
 
 the woman he has chosen for his wife lives for him, 
 and in him, utterly and absorbingly. 
 
 Before snow fell, John and Molly were married. 
 Molly went up from the house on the meadow to 
 the house on the hill to live, and that seemed to be 
 almost the only change, except in the gladness of 
 her heart and John s, and that was a change no 
 body knew much about except themselves. A little 
 change there was also in Molly s clothes, though 
 not the usual metamorphosis which brides undergo. 
 She was as quiet in her tastes as a Quaker, and 
 the only adornment which she wore when she first 
 went to church as John s wife, was a wreath if 
 small white chrysanthemums in her hat. They 
 were singularly becoming to her fair and rosy 
 face. It cannot be denied that when John first 
 saw them, he started a little, and remenbered 
 some he had seen a year before, made of pearls 
 and topazes. But he thought these much j rettier 
 than those ; and as Fanny Lane had said, " in ox- 
 eye daisy on the farm " prettier than either. 
 
 We may not dare in this world to wondr.r why 
 the sad people live and the happy people dK At 
 times one is so overwhelmed by the terrifyin r con 
 sciousness of this cruel habit of fate, th?t one 
 hardly dares rejoice at his fullest, for fear of being 
 slain and removed from his joy. 
 
 John Bassett and his dear and beloved -wife, 
 v little Molly," lived together only one short "-ear. 
 Then with his own hands he laid her and \\*\i 
 
FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 13) 
 
 baby daughter, who had never breathed, in one 
 grave under the apple-trees in the south orchard, 
 where he could see the mound from his chamber 
 window. Now was John Bassett, indeed, bereft. 
 The blow told on him heavily. It changed him 
 month by month by a slow benumbing process into 
 a man sadly unlike what he had been before. He 
 had lived, as we said, like a noble pagan. He 
 suffered as the noble pagans used to suffer, with a 
 grim stoicism, an unwilling and resentful surrender 
 to powers he was too feeble to oppose. 
 
 Before little Molly was taken ill, she had had a 
 presentiment that she would die, and she had set 
 all her house in the most careful order to leave 
 behind her. Her few little personal ornaments, 
 her two or three bits of lace, and her two silk 
 gowns, only two, and of the simplest fashion, 
 she had laid away with bags of lavender in one of 
 the deep drawers in an old-fashioned chest which 
 stood in their chamber. Her common clothes she 
 had packed in a box, and had said to John one 
 day : 
 
 " If I don t get well, dear, just give that box to 
 mother ; all the things will be of use to her ; but 
 the things in the drawer I d like to have kept for 
 the baby. I don t believe God will take us both 
 away from you ; and I am sure it will be a girl, 
 a daughter would comfort you more than a son, 
 ivould n t it, dear? 
 
132 FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMANCE. 
 
 And so it came to pass that after Molly was 
 buried, there was hardly a trace left of her in the 
 old Bassett house except her little work-basket, 
 which stood on the stand by her bed, and held a 
 little baby s sack of flannel, on which she had been 
 working that last day. This basket John would not 
 allow to be moved. It hurt him like a new sight 
 of Molly s dead face whenever he looked at it, and 
 yet he could not bear to have it taken away. He 
 would often turn over the spools, the worn and dis 
 colored bit of bees-wax, the thimble, the scissors ; 
 he would take up the little sack, and look at it al 
 most with thoughts of hatred. If the baby had 
 lived, he would have come to love her in spite of 
 her having cost her mother s life ; but now he felt 
 that Molly had gone childless out of the world, he 
 was left childless in it ; this miserable, frustrated, 
 useless life, that was never a life at all, had sep 
 arated him from Molly, it was bitter. One day 
 he felt in one of the silk pockets of the basket a 
 rustling of paper ; clumsily, and with difficulty, he 
 thrust his big fingers deep down into the little 
 receptacle, and drew out a crumpled bit of news 
 paper. It had been folded and refolded so many 
 times that the creases were worn almost through, 
 He opened it and read the following lines : 
 
FARMER BASSETT^S ROMANCE. 133 
 
 HEART of mine, is our estate, 
 Our sweet estate of joy, assured ? 
 It came so slow, it came so late, 
 Bought by such bitter pains endured ; 
 Dare we forget those sorrows sore, 
 And think that they will come no more ? 
 
 With tearful eyes I scan my face, 
 And doubt how he can find it fair ; 
 Wistful, I watch each charm and grace 
 
 1 see that other women wear ; 
 Of all the secrets of love s lore, 
 
 I know but one to love him more ! 
 
 I see each day, he grows more wise, 
 His life is broader far than mine ; 
 I must be lacking in his eyes, 
 In many things where others shine. 
 
 Heart ! can we this loss restore 
 To him, by simply loving more ? 
 
 1 often see upon his brow, 
 
 A look half tender and half stern ; 
 His thoughts are far away, I know ; 
 To fathom them, I vainly yearn ; 
 But nought is ours which went before ; 
 
 Heart ! we can but love him more ! 
 
 1 sometimes think that he had loved 
 An older, deeper love, apart 
 
 From this which later, feebler, moved 
 His soul to mine. O Heart i O Heart ! 
 What can we do ? This hurteth sore. 
 Nothing, my Heart, but love him more 1 
 
134 FARMER B ASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 Tears filled John s eyes : " Oh, what could have 
 made Molly keep that ? " he said to himself. 
 " Dear little girl ! I never really loved anybody 
 in this whole world, but her, and I never will." 
 
 The lines haunted him for days. He put the 
 paper into the upper drawer where he kept his col 
 lars and neckties. He did not like to leave it in 
 the basket, lest, some day, it might be read by 
 some one else. Every morning, when he was 
 dressing, he took it out and read it again, and it 
 always brought the tears to his eyes. After awhile, 
 he read it less often ; and after another while, it 
 was gradually pushed farther and farther back in 
 the drawer till, it being out of sight he forgot it ; 
 and at last, some day, it might have been a year, it 
 might have been two or three, nobody will ever 
 know, the little worn wisp of paper over which 
 sweet Molly Bassett had, in spite of all her quiet 
 happiness, shed some tears, slipped through a wide 
 crack at the back of the drawer, and fell down 
 into the drawer beneath, the drawer which held 
 Molly s clothes, fragrant with the undying lavender. 
 Here the verses lay for years, forgotten, and un 
 disturbed, forgotten, for John Bassett had 
 become a grave, silent, steady-working, contented 
 fanner ; undisturbed, for the key of the drawer 
 lay where Molly had laid it, in the till of the chest, 
 and John never saw it without thinking of her, and 
 wondering uneasily what would be done with those 
 garments when he should die. The verses he hnd 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 135 
 
 forgotten all about. But it was not because he 
 had forgotten Molly that he had forgotten the 
 verses; neither was it because he had forgotten 
 Molly, that when he was, in the Deerway vernac 
 ular, "just turned forty," he one day rode over 
 to Middleburg Crossing and asked the widow 
 Thatcher to marry him. He was lonely ; he was 
 uncomfortable ; he had borne with the eye-service, 
 the short-comings, the ill-nature of hired women in 
 his house as long as he could; and just as the 
 Deerway people had fairly settled down inio a be 
 lief that " nothing under heaven would induce John 
 Bassett to marry again," that "there was a man 
 who was really true, from first to last, to his first 
 love," they were electrified one fine morning, by 
 finding posted up on the brick meeting-house 
 walls, on the ominous black-board containing the 
 announcement of intended marriages, the names 
 of John Bassett and Mrs. Susan Thatcher. 
 
 Mrs. Susan Thatcher was the most notable 
 housekeeper in Wenshire County. She was some 
 thing of a farmer, too, and had " done very well 
 for a woman," everybody said, with Siah s farm 
 since his death. She made the best butter and 
 cheese in the region ; dried more apples, and 
 pickled more pickles, sweet, sour, and "mixed," 
 
 than any two other women. Her bread always 
 took the premium at the County Fair ; and as for 
 her "drawn-in rugs," they were the wonder and 
 
 he admiration of everybody. She was a spinner, 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 
 
 too, and stoutly discountenanced the growing dis 
 favor into which that ancient and picturesque art 
 was fast falling. " You can always spin at the odd 
 times when you would n t do anything else," she 
 said, and by chests full of home-made linens and 
 woolens, she made good her words. With all this 
 notable industry and skill, she was also warm 
 hearted and cheery ; had a pleasant word for 
 everybody, and was a master hand at " bees " of 
 all sorts, especially at " quiltings." 
 
 She was generous, too, and gave away her 
 turkeys at Thanksgiving, and her chickens in July, 
 with a cordial liberality not common in the country. 
 She was generous, moreover, with what costs more 
 than food or money, sympathy and help ; she was 
 confided in and leaned on by everybody ; and even 
 if her words sometimes seemed a little brusque or 
 hard, it always turned out that, in their sense and 
 substance, they were right, for Susan Thatcher was 
 the incarnation of common sense. 
 
 As soon as Deerway recovered from its first 
 shock of surprise at the announcement of John 
 Bassett s intended marriage, the town was unan 
 imous in its approval. 
 
 "The very best thing he could have done," 
 thsy said ; I wonder nobody s thought of it be 
 fore." 
 
 " He could n t have found a woman in all the 
 country who d have gone right on to that farm, an 
 worked everything s Susan Thatcher wil!." 
 
FARMER BASSETT S ROMANCE. 137 
 
 This was quite as clear to John Bassett as it was 
 to any of his neighbors \ and it was with a great 
 sense of assured satisfaction and calm content 
 ment that he took his second wife home and in 
 stalled her in his house. He felt for her a gieat 
 esteem and an honest liking, and the sort of calm 
 affectionate regard, which was all he had to offer 
 her in the way of love, was all that Mrs. Susan 
 Thatcher would have known what to do with. 
 More would have embarrassed and annoyed her \ 
 for she was, as we have said, the incarnation of 
 common sense. 
 
 When in the course of her setting to rights ah 
 things in the house, she came upon the locked 
 drawer in John s bureau, she said to herself : - 
 
 " Here s some of Molly Wilcler s things, I ex 
 pect. I guess I d better let em alone. If he 
 wants me to have em, he 11 say so when he gets 
 ready ; " and she asked no question about the 
 drawer. 
 
 The little work-basket, with all its contents, now 
 so yellowed and dusty with age, for it was eight 
 years since Molly died, John had burned the 
 night before he married Susan. 
 
 " I don t believe little Molly would like to have 
 Susan have that," he thought, "and I don t think 
 I want her to neither," he added, with a deep sigh 
 and a yearning recollection of Molly s sweet face, 
 as he watched the crisp straw crackle and the fine 
 fiery lines of the threads auiver and turn from red 
 
138 FARMER BASSE TT^S ROMANCE. 
 
 to gray. Then he recollected the locked drawer 
 and said to himself : 
 
 " Some day I 11 give Susan the key to that 
 drawer. I suppose the things might as well be 
 used first as last." 
 
 When John gave his wife the key, and told her 
 what the drawer held, she said in her clear, reso 
 lute, kindly tone : 
 
 "Well, just as you like, John. Of course, I 
 have n t any feeling one way or another about it ; 
 but there s so many folks in need of clothes, it 
 seems a pity to let anything be lying by idle." 
 
 As soon as John had gone out to his work, Susan 
 went up-stairs to open the drawer. It mu^ be con 
 fessed she had her own curiosity to look into it 
 especially as John had said to her, a little huskily : 
 
 " I have n t ever opened the drawer. It s just 
 as Molly put the things in before she was sick." 
 
 " Poor little thing ! " thought Susan, as she 
 turned the key and slowly drew out the drawer ; 
 " it was real hard for her, but I can t say I m 
 sorry exactly," and Susan s eyes took on a softer 
 light. She had found out that she loved John 
 Bassett better than she had ever loved Josiah 
 Thatcher. She shook out the folds of the two 
 silk gowns, one black and one of a pale gray. 
 
 " I don t know as there s any reason why I 
 should n t use this black," she thought, rolling a 
 bit of it between her thumb and finger, and men 
 tally estimating that it must have cost at least ten- 
 and-sixpence a yard. 
 
FARMER B ASSETT S ROMANCE. 139 
 
 " Black silk s black silk, whoever s worn it ; 
 nobody could tell one from another, and I might 
 have the gray one dyed for a petticoat ; no, I 11 
 give that to Molly s cousin, Sarah Beman ; she 
 never has anything pretty, poor soul ! John u d 
 never see it on her, or he would n t know it if he 
 did ; she d make it up with red, most likely." 
 
 And so good Susan Bassett went on through the 
 simple wardrobe, apportioning it in her own mind 
 as seemed best, and quietly saying to herself at 
 last : 
 
 " I guess I d better not say anything to John 
 about it ; he 11 know I Ve disposed of em some 
 how, and I reckon he d rather not know where 
 they went. It s only natural he should have 
 some feeling about the things ; taint so very long 
 yet." 
 
 As she took out the last article from the drawer, 
 she saw far back in the right-hand corner a small 
 folded paper. She took it out, opened it, and see 
 ing that it was poetry, was just about to threw it on 
 the floor (Susan never read poetry) ; but suddenly 
 recollecting the circumstances under which this 
 drawer had been closed, she felt a curiosity to see 
 what the verses were which had been put away so 
 carefully with Molly s best clothes. 
 
 If " The Wife s Reverie " had been written in 
 Sanscrit, it would have been but little more re 
 moved from Susan s comprehension. She read it 
 slowly with a look of increasing contempt on her 
 face. 
 
140 FARMER BASSE TT S ROMANCE. 
 
 "Pshaw!" she exclaimed, as she finished the 
 fast line. " If that is n t just like Molly Wilder 
 she always was a silly little thing," and Susan 
 crumpled up the paper, and tossed it on the bed. 
 Then she put back the clothes, locked the drawer, 
 and put the key in her pocket. The morning was 
 slipping away fast, and she was in a hurry to be 
 about her work. She had been cutting out some 
 unbleached cotton shirts for John the day before, 
 and as she left the room, she noticed a few of the 
 yellow threads and bits of cloth on the floor ; she 
 stopped and picked them up; then she took "The 
 Wife s Reverie " from the bed, and rolling it and 
 the rags together in a tight ball, hurried down-stairs 
 to oversee the churning. At the foot of the stairs, 
 behind the door which opened into the kitchen, 
 hung a big rag-bag made of bed-tick. It was so 
 full that the mouth bulged open. 
 
 " Dear me," thought Susan, " I do wish that 
 peddler d come round. The bag s running over 
 full ;" and as she impatiently crammed in her little 
 ball of ravelings and paper, and her eye fell again 
 on a line of " The Wife s Reverie," she said to 
 herself complacently : 
 
 " It s the queerest thing, when a man marries 
 again, how sure he is to pick out such a different 
 kind of a woman from his first wife. I suppose 
 they find out what they really do want." 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 I HAD arrived, late one November afternoon, at 
 a wretched little tavern in a small village in Maine. 
 I was very unhappy. It was of no consequence to 
 me that I was young ; it was of no consequence to 
 me that I had superb health. I was very unhappy. 
 How compassionately middle age smiles, looking 
 back upon the miseries of its healthy youth ! How 
 gladly to-day would I be sent away in disgrace 
 from college, to rusticate for six months in a coun 
 try parson s house, if I could feel the warm, strong 
 blood bound in my veins, as it bounded that night 
 when I jumped from the top of the stage to the 
 ground under the ugly, creaking sign of that vil 
 lage tavern. 
 
 It was a dismal afternoon. A warm rain was 
 slowly filtering down through the elm-trees with 
 which the street was too thickly shaded. The 
 ground was sprinkled with golden-yellow leaves, 
 and little pools of muddy water fil ed eveiy foot 
 print on the grass-grown sidewalk A few inert 
 
142 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 and dispirited men lounged on the tavern steps 
 with that look of fossilized idleness which is pe 
 culiar to rural New England. In other countries, 
 idlers look as if they were idling because they liked 
 it ; or perhaps because illness or lack of employ 
 ment had forced, them to idle ; but the New Eng 
 land idler, on the steps of his native tavern, or by 
 the stove of his native " store," looks as if he had 
 been there since the prehistoric ages, and had no 
 more volition or interest in his situation than a 
 pterodactyl five hundred feet under ground. 
 
 Spite of the rain, I had persisted in riding on 
 the outside of the stage. I took a perverse pleas 
 ure in being wet through, and chilled to the mar 
 row. I remember I even thought that I hoped I 
 should take cold and have a rheumatic fever, so 
 that the President might see what had come of 
 sending a fellow down into Maine to spend a win 
 ter. Jim Ordway, my chum, had been rusticated 
 with me. His offense was simply calling the Presi 
 dent an " inhuman old fool " to his face, on hear 
 ing of my sentence of rustication. Jim was a 
 warm-hearted fellow. I have always wondered I 
 c id not love him better. He was snug and warm 
 inside the coach, and had been exasperating me 
 all day by breaking out into snatches of the old 
 college songs. For the last hour he had been 
 .^uiet, and when I sprang down from the top of the 
 coach, and called loudly to him, " Come, jump out, 
 old fellow ! Here we are, and an infernal hoJe it 
 
MY TO UK MA LINE. 143 
 
 s to be sure, " I was half paralyzed with astonish 
 ment at hearing him reply in a whisper, " Be quiet, 
 Will ! She s asleep." Slowly and carefully he 
 came down the coach steps, holding in his arms 
 a Jimp and shapeless bundle, from which hung 
 down two thin, little gray legs, with feet much too 
 big for them, and made bigger still by clumsy 
 shoes. 
 
 "Good heavens, Jim," I exclaimed, " what is it ? 
 where did you pick her up ? " I added, for I saw 
 tangled yellow curls straggling over his arm from 
 the folds of the old plaid shawl in which the poor 
 little thing was rolled. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! Look after him, will you ? " he 
 said, nodding his head toward a man who sat in 
 the corner of the coach, and made no motion to 
 get out. The driver took hold of him roughly and 
 shook him. He swayed helplessly to and fro, but 
 did not speak nor open his eyes ; horrible fumes of 
 rum came from his wide-open mouth. He was 
 drunk and asleep. We carried him into the house 
 as if he had been a log, and laid him on a buffalo- 
 robe on the floor in the corner of the office. The 
 loungers turned their slow dull eyes on him. One 
 said : 
 
 "Drunk, ain t he?" with a slight emphasis of 
 surprise on the verb. 
 
 " Wall, yes, I sh d say he wus," replied a second, 
 *he least talkative of the group, also conveying his 
 sense of the unusualness of the incident by em 
 
144 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 phasizing the final verb of his sentence ; and then 
 die group returned to their vacant contemplations. 
 
 No such indifference was shown in the parlor, 
 where Jim had carried the little girl, and, leaving 
 hex on the grim hair-cloth sofa, had summoned the 
 landlady to care for her. 
 
 " The poor little creatur ! Now, I never ! Ain t 
 she jes skin an bone," ejaculated the kind-hearted 
 woman, as she bustled about, with pillows and 
 shawls " and, good gracious ! I do declare, ef her 
 feet ain t jest as stun cold as ef she wus dead," she 
 cried out, beginning to rub them so energetically 
 that the poor little waif shrank and screamed, even 
 in her sleep, and presently opened her eyes the 
 most beautiful and most terrified eyes I ever saw, 
 hazel brown, large, deep-set, with depths of appeal 
 in their lightest glance. 
 
 " Where is my father ? " she said, beginning to 
 cry. 
 
 " Don t cry, dear. Your father is asleep in the 
 other room. I 11 take care of you," said Jim, try 
 ing in his awkward boy fashion to stroke her head. 
 
 She looked up at him gratefully. " Oh, you re 
 the kind gentleman that picked me up in the stage," 
 and she shut her eyes contentedly and was asleep 
 again in a moment. 
 
 It seemed that she and her father had taken the 
 stage some ten miles back. I had been too ab 
 sorbed in my own dismal reflections to notice them, 
 fbe man was almost unconscious from the effect? 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 145 
 
 of liquor when he got into the stage, and had 
 placed the child so carelessly on the seat, that at 
 the first motion of the wheels she had fallen to the 
 floor. Jim had picked her up, and held her in his 
 lap the rest of the way. It was pathetic to see how 
 he had already adopted her as his special charge. 
 He was an impulsive and chivalrous boy, with any 
 amount of unmanageable sentimentalism in him. 
 
 " I say, Will," he exclaimed, as soon as the land 
 lady had left the room, " I say ! That man out 
 yonder will kill this child some day. He is a 
 brute. She trembles if he looks at her. I won 
 der if we could n t keep her hide her away some 
 how. He d never know where he lost her. He 
 did n t know he lifted her into the stage. I d just 
 like to adopt her for my sister. I Ve got plenty 
 of money for two, you know, and it would be jolly 
 having the little thing down here this winter." 
 
 " Oh, bother ! " said I. " It s lucky you Ve got 
 a guardian, Jim Ordway, I know that much. You 
 can t adopt any girls for five years to come ; that s 
 one comfort. Come along ; let s see if there s any 
 thing to eat in this hole. She 11 sleep well enough 
 without your watching her." 
 
 But Jim would not stir. He sat watching the 
 tiny, sleeping face, with an abstracted look, un 
 usual to him. He did not even resent my cavalier 
 treatment of his project. He was too much in 
 earnest about it. 
 
 " No, no ; I sha n t leave her here alone," he 
 
 10 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 Sfiid, in reply to my reiterated entreaties to him to 
 come to the dining-room. " If she wakes up and 
 finds herself alone, she will be frightened. And 
 you can see, by her face, that she has cried herself 
 almost sick already." 
 
 It was true. There were deep circles, swollen 
 and dark, around the eyes, and a drawn look about 
 the mouth, pitiful to see on such a little face. She 
 could not have been more than eleven years old, 
 but the grief was written in lines such as might 
 have been written on the face of a woman. 
 
 On my way to the dining-room I passed through 
 the office, and looked at the drunken man, still in 
 his heavy sleep, lying where we had laid him on 
 the floor, like the brute he was. It was indeed a 
 bad face bad originally, and made more hideous 
 still by the unmistakable record of a long life of 
 vile passions. I shuddered to think of that child s 
 pleading hazel eyes lifted up in terror to this evil 
 countenance, and I no longer wondered at Jim s 
 sudden and chivalrous desire to rescue the little 
 one by almost any means. But her rescue was al 
 ready planned and nearer at hand than we could 
 have dreamed. Only a few moments after I had 
 taken my seat at the supper-table, I heard excited 
 voices in the office, the quick trampling of feet, and 
 l hen a pistol-shot. I sprang up, and reached the 
 ioor just in time to see the drunken man s body 
 fall heavily on the floor, while the blood spouted 
 from a bullet-hole in his throat, and the men who 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 147 
 
 had been grappling with him staggered back on all 
 sides with terror-stricken faces. In a second, how 
 ever, they gathered round him again, and lifting 
 him up, tried to stay the blood. It was too late ; 
 he was dying ; a few inarticulate gasps, a dim look 
 of consciousness and fear in the blood-shot eyes, 
 and he was gone. 
 
 Loud and confused talk filled the room \ men 
 crowded in from the outside ; pale and agitated, in 
 the doorway, stood Jim, his eyes fixed on the dead 
 man s face. " Will," he whispered, as I pressed 
 closer to him, " I feel just like a murderer. Do 
 you know that just before that pistol went off. I 
 was saying to myself that I wished the man were 
 dead, and I believed it would be a good deed to 
 shoot him ! Oh God, it is awful ! " and Jim shud 
 dered almost hysterically. In the excitement, 
 everybody, even Jim, forgot the little girl. Pres 
 ently, I felt my coat pulled by a timid touch. I 
 turned. There, to my horror, stood the child. Her 
 brown eyes were lifted with their ineffable appeal, 
 not to my face, but to Jim, who stood just beyond 
 me, and many inches taller ; she had touched me 
 only as the sole means of reaching him. 
 
 " Kind gentleman," she began. Before I could 
 speak, Jim leaped past me, caught her in his arms, 
 folded her on his breast as if she had been a baby, 
 and carried her back into the parlor. She was 
 beginning to cry with vague terror. Jim was too 
 overwrought himself to soothe her. 
 
148 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " Where is my father," she said. " Has he left 
 me?" 
 
 Jim looked at me hopelessly. 
 
 " Why," said I, " does he often leave you ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, sometimes," she said, in a matter-of- 
 fact tone, which was pitiful in its unconscious rev 
 elation of the truth. 
 
 " What do you do when he leaves you, dear ? " 
 said Jim, tenderly as a woman. 
 
 " A boy that lived in the room under our room 
 took care of me the last time. He was very good, 
 but he was away all day," replied the waif. 
 
 " Well, I m the boy that 11 take care of you, this 
 time," said Jim ; " if he leaves you here, I 11 take 
 first-rate care of you." 
 
 A queer little wintry smile stole over the pinched 
 face. 
 
 " But you re not a boy. You re a big gentle 
 man the kindest gentleman I ever saw," she 
 added in a lower tone, and nestled her head on 
 Jim s neck. " I like you." 
 
 Jim looked at me proudly, but with tears in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Did n t I tell you you never saw anything like 
 it ? " he said ; then, turning to the child, he looked 
 very earnestly in her face, saying, 
 
 " If you think I m a kind gentleman, and will 
 take good care of you, will you mind me ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir, I will," she replied, with the whole 
 strength of her childish little voice thrown on the 
 " will." 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 149 
 
 " Very well. My friend and I want to go into 
 the other room for a few minutes. I want you to 
 promise to lie still on this sofa and not stir till I 
 come back. Will you ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, I will," again with all her strength on 
 the " will." 
 
 Jim stooped over and kissed her forehead. 
 
 "You know, I shall come back in a few minutes," 
 he said. 
 
 " Yes, sir, I do ; " and she looked up at Jim 
 with an expression of trust which was as much too 
 old for the little face as were the lines about the 
 mouth. Both were born of past suffering. As we 
 went towards the door, the brown eyes followed us 
 wistfully, but she did not speak. 
 
 As soon as we had closed the door, Jim took 
 both my hands in his and exclaimed : 
 
 " Now, Will, don t you see, I Ve got to take her ! 
 It s a clear Providence from beginning to end ; and 
 if you don t help me through with it, I 11 cut loose 
 from you, and college may go to the devil. I Ve 
 got five hundred dollars here with me, and that to 
 these country folks is a fortune ; they 11 be glad 
 enough to have me take her off their hands." 
 
 "But, Jim," I interrupted, "you talk like a ciazy 
 man. You don t know that she is on their hands, 
 as you call it. There may be twenty relations here 
 to the funeral before to-morrow, for all you know. 
 The man may have lived in the very next town." 
 
 " No, no, I know all about them," said Jim. " I 
 
150 MY TOURMALhVE. 
 
 mean," he added shamefacedly, " I know they 
 didn t live anywhere near here. They re English. 
 You might have known it by the sweet tones of her 
 poor little feeble voice. They have only just come 
 from the ship ; she told me so ; and her mother is 
 dead; she told me that too." 
 
 We were interrupted by the appearance of the 
 landlord, who came hurrying out of the office, his 
 face red with excitement, which was part horror 
 and part a pleasurable sense of importance in hav 
 ing his house the scene of the most startling event 
 which had happened in the village for a half cen 
 tury. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, " I was jest a lookin for you ; 
 we thought mebbe ye knowed suthin about the 
 miserable critter, as ye come in the stage with him." 
 
 " All I know," said Jim, " I know from the little 
 girl. The man was nearly dead drunk when they 
 got into the stage. They are English, and have 
 only just come to this country. She has no broth 
 ers and sisters, and her mother is dead. He was a 
 cruel, inhuman brute, and it is a mercy he is dead. 
 And I am going to take the little girl. I am an 
 orphan myself, but I have friends who wil 7 care for 
 her." 
 
 The landlord s light-blue eyes opened wider and 
 wider at each word of Jim s last sentences. A boy, 
 eighteen, who proposed to adopt a little girl of 
 eleven, had never before crossed Caleb Bunker * 
 path. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 151 
 
 " Ye don t say so ! Be ye be ye rich, in yet 
 yer own right ? " he stammered, curiosity and 
 surprise centring together on the one-sided view 
 which the average New England mind would natur 
 ally take of this phenomenal philanthropy. " I ex 
 pect ye be, though, and uncommonly free-handed, 
 too, or else ye would n t think o plaguin yerself 
 with a child, at your time o life," and the inquisi 
 tive eyes scanned Jim s tall but boyish figure from 
 head to foot. 
 
 "You re a professor, I reckon," he added in a 
 half earnest, half satirical tone. 
 
 Jim looked utterly bewildered. He had never 
 heard the phrase, " a professor," except at college, 
 and was about to disclaim the honor in language 
 most inexpediently emphatic, when I interposed. 
 
 " No ; neither my friend nor I have yet made a 
 profession of religion, Mr. Bunker. We have come 
 to study with Parson Allen this winter, and " I 
 had a vague intention of closing my sentence with 
 a diplomatic intimation that we hoped to be spirit 
 ually as well as intellectually benefited by Parson 
 Allen s teachings ; but Mr. Bunker interrupted me 
 in tones most unflatteringly changed. 
 
 " So, ho ! You re them two young college chaps, 
 oe ye ? We Ve heerd considerable about ye ; the 
 parson was over a lookin for ye, last night." 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Bunker," interposed Jim with great 
 dignity, which, although it simply amused me, was 
 vot without its effect on Mr. Bunker : " we are the 
 
152 MY TOURMALINE, 
 
 young college chaps ; and if we had behaved wisely 
 at college, we shouldn t be here to-day, as you evi 
 dently know. But we are going to study hard with 
 the parson, and go back all right in the spring. 
 And about this little girl, I am entirely in earnest, 
 in wishing to take care of her. Parson Allen will 
 advise me as to the best way of doing it. In the 
 meantime, perhaps your wife will be so kind as to 
 get some clothes for her ; the poor little thing is 
 very ragged. Will this be enough, do you think, 
 to get what she needs at present ? " and Jim quietly 
 put a hundred dollar bill in Mr. Bunker s hands. 
 Its effect was ludicrous. Not very often had Caleb 
 Bunker even handled a hundred dollar bill, and the 
 idea of such a sum being spent at once on the 
 clothing of a child stunned him. He fingered the 
 bill helplessly for a second or two, saying " Wall 
 wall, reelly naow Mr. I beg yer pardon, 
 sir, don no s I heered yer name yit." 
 
 " Ordway," interrupted Jim. " My name is Ord- 
 way." 
 
 " Wall, Mr. Ordway, reelly reelly I 11 speak 
 te Mis Bunker; " and the bewildered Caleb disap 
 peared, totally forgetting in his astonishment at 
 Jim s munificence, that the dead man still lay un- 
 cared for on the office floor. 
 
 "Will," said Jim, "you go in there, and tell 
 those men I ve taken the child. I don t want 
 them coming near her. And if there s any trouble 
 about burying that brute, I 11 just pay for it. I ex 
 
MY TOURMALWE. 153 
 
 pect, by the way the man glared at that bill, they re 
 an awfully poor lot up here. No, no, I can t go 
 in," he exclaimed, as I tried to persuade him to go 
 with me. " I don t want to see that infernal face 
 again. I won t forget it now as long as I live. I 
 am thankful I did n t kick him out of the coach. 
 I came near doing it a hundred times. You just 
 manage it all for me, that s a dear fellow. I m 
 going back to the child." 
 
 The story of the hundred dollar bill had evi 
 dently reached the bar-room before I did. As I 
 entered, the hum of excited conversation was suc 
 ceeded by a sudden and awkward silence, and I was 
 greeted with a respectfulness whose secret cause I 
 very well knew. The dead body had been carried 
 to an upper room, and the arrangements for the in 
 quest were under discussion. There was no dis 
 agreement among the witnesses of the death. The 
 landlord had ordered the hostler and the stable 
 boy to carry the drunken man to a room. On be 
 ing lifted, he had roused from his sleep, and with a 
 frightful volley of oaths had demanded to be let 
 alone. As they persevered in the attempt to lift 
 him he had drawn the revolver from his pocket, 
 aimed it at random, and tried to fire. In the scuf 
 fle, it fell from his hand, went off, and the bullet 
 had passed through his neck, making a ghastly 
 wound, and killing him almost instantly. 
 
 It was a horrible night. Not until near dawn 
 did silence settle down on the excited house j 
 
154 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 neither Jim nor I shut our eyes. Jim talked in 
 cessantly. His very heart seemed on fire ; all the 
 lonely, pent up, denied brotherhood in his great 
 warm nature had burst forth into full life at the 
 nestling touch of this poor little outcast child. He 
 was so lifted by the intense sentiment to a plane of 
 earnestness and purpose, that he seemed to me like 
 a stranger and grown man, instead of Like my two 
 years chum and a boy some months my junior. I 
 felt a certain awe of him, and of the strange, new 
 scenes, which had so transformed him. Mixed 
 with it all, was a half defined terror lest he might 
 not be quite in his senses. To my thoroughly pro 
 saic nature, there was something so utterly incon 
 ceivable in this sudden passion of protecting ten 
 derness towards a beggar child, this instantaneous 
 resolve to adopt her into the closest relation but 
 one in the world, that no theory but that of a 
 sudden insanity could quite explain it. Jim had 
 one of those finely organized natures, from whose 
 magnetic sensitiveness nothing can be concealed. 
 He recognized my thought. 
 
 " Will," he said, " I don t wonder you think I m 
 crazy. But you need. n t. I was never cooler- 
 beaded in my life ; and as for my heart, every bit 
 of this love has been there ever since I was a little 
 shaver. I never tell you fellows half I think. I 
 never have. I know you d only chaff me, and I 
 dare say you d be half right, too, for there s no 
 doubt I ve got an awful big streak of woman in me. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 155 
 
 But a fellow can t help the way he s made , and I 
 tell you, Will, I cried myself to sleep many a night, 
 when I was along about ten or twelve, because 1 
 did n t have a sister like most of the other boys, 
 And since I have been a man [dear Jim, seventeen 
 years and six months old] I have had the feeling 
 just as strong as I had it then ; only I ve had to 
 keep it under. Of course, I know I 11 have a wifa 
 some day. And that s another thing, Will, I 
 never can see how the fellows can talk about that 
 as they do. I could n t any more talk about my 
 wife lightly and laughingly now, while I don t 
 know who she 11 be, than I could do it after I 
 had her. I can t explain it, but that ? s the way I 
 feel. But it 11 be years and years before I have 
 a wife, and do you know, Will I suppose this 
 is another streak of woman in me when I think 
 of a wife, I never think so much of some one who 
 is going to be all feeble and clinging, dependent 
 on me, as I do of somebody who will be great 
 and strong and serene, and will let me take care of 
 her only because she loves me so much, and not a 
 bit because she needs to be taken care of. But a 
 sister is different. I d just like to have a sister 
 that could n t do without me. And, by Jove, if ever 
 a man had the thing he wanted put right straight 
 aito his hand, I should think I had. Don t you ? " 
 " Yes, I should think you had, you dear old 
 muff," I said. : But what in thunder are you 
 going to do with the child ? You can t carry her 
 vack to college with us." 
 
156 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " I know that ; but I can have her at school 
 there, and see her every day ; and we can keep her 
 with us here, this winter, and she 11 get to loving 
 me first-rate before spring." 
 
 " Well, as for that, the little beggar loves you 
 enough already, that s easy to see. It s a case 
 of love at first sight, on both sides," I said, care 
 lessly. Jim flushed. 
 
 " Look here, Will," he said, very soberly, " you 
 must n t speak that way. We 11 quarrel as sure as 
 fate, old boy, if you do it ; you must remember 
 that from this day, Ally is just the same as if she 
 were my own sister, blood-born. And is n t it 
 strange, too, that Alice was my mother s name ? 
 That s only one more of the strange things about 
 it all. Supposing, for instance, we d gone the 
 other road, as we came so near doing, we should n t 
 have got here till day after to-morrow, and she d 
 have been in their infernal poor-house by that time, 
 I dare say ; is n t this what you might call Fate 
 with a vengeance ? I don t wonder the old Pagans 
 believed in it as they did. I believe I m half 
 Pagan myself." 
 
 " Now, Jim," I interrupted, " don t go off into 
 the classic ages. If you are really going to be 
 such a " 
 
 " Say fool, and be done with it, Will ; I don t 
 mind," he laughed. 
 
 " Well j if you re really going to be such a fool 
 is to adopt Ally, and really want to keep hei 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 157 
 
 with us at Parson Allen s this winter, the sooner we 
 drive over and see the old gentleman and break the 
 news to him, the better. Oh, Jim ! " and I roared 
 at the bare thought of how queer a look the thing 
 had on the face of it " what will become of us 
 if the parson has a keen sense of humor ! Two 
 college boys rusticated for serious misconduct, ar 
 riving at the door of his house with a young miss 
 in their charge. I never thought of this before. 
 It s enough to kill one ! " 
 
 Jim laughed, too. He could not help it. But 
 he looked very uneasy. 
 
 " It is awkward," he said ; " there s no doubt 
 about that ! I d rather face the President again 
 than this old parson, but I ve got a conviction that 
 this thing is going to be all of a piece right straight 
 through, and that the parson 11 be on my side." 
 
 " The parson s wife is more important, I reckon," 
 said I. " It 11 all turn on how she takes it." 
 
 " Well, I think she s all right," Jim replied. 
 " Old Curtis, my guardian, knows her. He says 
 she s an angel ; he knew her before she was mar 
 ried, and something in the dear old man s face, 
 when he spoke of her, made me wonder if it was n t 
 for her sake he d lived an old bachelor all his life. 
 She was a Quaker, he said, and they have n t ever 
 had any children. You know that it was Curtis 
 who asked the President to send us here, don t 
 you ? " 
 
 I had not known this ; it gave me a great sense 
 
158 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 of relief, for, " Old Ben Curtis," as he was always 
 called, was a man whose instincts were of the finest 
 order. A tenderer, purer, gentler, more chivalrous 
 soul never lived. His lonely life had been for forty 
 years a pain and a mystery to all who loved him. 
 Was it possible that two careless college boys were 
 to come upon the secret of it, in this little village 
 in the heart of Maine ? 
 
 When we went down-stairs, Alice was fast asleep. 
 She began already to look younger and prettier ; 
 the dark circles under her eyes were disappearing, 
 and the pitiful look of anxiety had gone from the 
 forehead. Mrs. Bunker stood watching her. 
 
 " She s as pooty a little gal as ye often see," she 
 said, turning to Jim, with an evident and assured 
 recognition of his paternal proprietorship. " I II 
 be bound ye won t never regret a-taken on her, sir. 
 I suppose ye 11 send her right to yer folks ? " she 
 added, endeavoring to put the question carelessly, 
 but succeeding poorly in veiling the thought which 
 was uppermost in her mind. 
 
 " No, Mrs. Bunker," said Jim, " I shall not send 
 her away if I can induce Parson Allen to keep her 
 for the winter. I want her here very much." 
 
 Mrs. Bunker s countenance fell. Plainly she had 
 
 had hopes that the child might be left in her own 
 
 hands. But the native loyalty and goodness of her 
 
 heart triumphed speedily, and she said, in a hearty 
 
 one, 
 
 " Lor me ! I never once thought of that ! But 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 159 
 
 I reckon it would be jest what Mis Allen would 
 like. She s dreadful fond o children. She an 
 the parson hain t never had any o their own." 
 
 Jim glanced at me triumphantly. 
 
 "Yes," the good soul went on ; " I do reely think 
 there s a kind o Providence in the hull thing from 
 fust to last. I ve often heerd Mis Allen say that 
 she an the Parson hed thought of adoptin a little 
 gal, but they never quite see their way to do it. 
 You see, his salary s dreadful small. Tain t much 
 we kin raise in money down here, and there s a 
 sight o men folks moved out o town n the last few 
 years. So I reckon Mis Allen s given up all idea 
 on t long ago. Did ye ever see her ? She s jest 
 the handsomest old lady ye ever sot eyes on. 
 There ain t a gal in the meetin us, not one, that s 
 got such cheeks as Mis Allen, an she s goin on 
 sixty. She s a Quaker, for all she s married the 
 parson, an they do say there s somethin in the 
 Quaker religion that s wonderful purifyin to the 
 complexion. I don no how t is. But there ain t 
 no such cheeks as Mis Allen s in our meetin us, 
 old or young ; I 11 say that much, whether it s the 
 religion makes em, or not." 
 
 Fairly launched on the subject of Mrs. Allen, 
 good Mrs. Bunker would have talked until noon, 
 apparently, if Jim had not interrupted her to say 
 that we must go at once to report our arrival to 
 Parson Allen, and to see what arrangements we 
 *ould make for Alice there. 
 
l6o MY TOURMALTNE. 
 
 " Remember, Mrs. Bunker," he said, with great 
 earnestness, "if Ally wakes, she is not to leave this 
 room, and I do not wish her to see any one excepl 
 yourself ; she must not be told that her father is 
 dead by any one but me. I hope very much that 
 she will sleep till we return. I think she will, for 
 she is very much exhausted." Jim s magnetism of 
 nature always stood him instead of authority, and 
 was far more sure of obtaining his ends than any 
 possible authority could be. He simply mesmer 
 ized people s wills so that they desired and chose 
 to do the things he wished done. It was perfectly 
 plain already that so far as Ally was concerned, 
 Mrs. Bunker and her whole household were at Jim s 
 command. 
 
 As we drew near the parsonage, our hearts sank. 
 Our errand grew more and more formidable in our 
 eyes. Jim s face took on a look more serious than 
 I had ever seen it wear, and he said little. I felt 
 impatient and irritable. 
 
 " Oh, bother the thing ! " I exclaimed, as I 
 opened the gate ; " I don t see how we re going to 
 have the face to ask them to take the child. If it 
 were only a boy, it would be different." 
 
 Jim turned a slow look of unutterable surprise 
 on me. 
 
 "Why, I don t see what difference that would 
 make. I guess girls are not so much trouble. 
 And I should n t have taken her if she d been a 
 boy. It was a sister I wanted. I ve got you for 
 brother, you know." 
 
MY TOURMALINE. l6l 
 
 I felt guilty at heart. 
 
 "You dear old boy," I exclaimed, "go ahead; 
 I won t go back on you." 
 
 We walked slowly up to the door, between two 
 old-fashioned, narrow flower-beds. They were 
 brown and rusty now, but in spring must have 
 been gay, for there were great mats of the moss 
 pink, thickets of phlox, and bushes of flowering 
 almond. Now, the only blossoms left were the 
 old-fashioned " Ladies Delights," which were still 
 plentiful, and seemed to have been allowed to run 
 at will from one end of the beds to the other. 
 The house was a large two-story house, square, 
 white, with nine windows on the front ; on one side 
 of the door stood a scrawny lilac-tree ; on the other, 
 a high bush of southern-wood. As Jim lifted the 
 big black knocker, he said, under his breath : 
 " Well, there s room enough, anyhow. Look at 
 the windows ! I wonder what the parson lives in 
 such a big house for, if it is n t on purpose to take 
 us all in." 
 
 " Perhaps he don t have the whole of it," said I. 
 
 At that instant, before the knocker fell, the door 
 was opened, and there stood " Mis Allen." I had 
 broken, a bit of the southern-wood, and was crump 
 ling the sweet-bitter leaves in my fingers as the 
 door opened. To this day I can never smell 
 southern-wood without recalling the picture of Mis 
 tress Dorothy Allen as she stood in that door-way. 
 
 " No such cheeks," indeed ! Well might Mrs 
 ii 
 
1 62 MY "OURMALINE, 
 
 Bunler hivesa r .d it. They were of such pi.ik ag 
 lines the innermost curves of the conch shell ; and 
 the rest of the face was white and soft. Her eyes 
 were as bright-brown as little Alice s, but were se 
 rene and grave. Very thin white hair was put 
 smoothly back under a transparent lace cap, which 
 was tied under the chin by a narrow white ribbon. 
 Her dress was of a pale gray, and fell straightly to 
 her feet. Folds of the finest plain white lace were 
 crossed on her bosom, and fastened by two tiny 
 gold-headed pins, joined together by an inch or two 
 of fine thread-like gold chain the only thing bor 
 dering upon ornament which she ever wore. 
 
 "How does thee do? And thee?" she said, 
 holding out motherly hands first to Jim, and then 
 to me. " Come in. We were just about to have 
 family prayers, and waited, because I had seen you 
 at the gate. It is a good hour to have come home ; " 
 and she smiled upon us so warmly that we could 
 not remember to speak, but followed her into the 
 house, bewildered by our welcome. 
 
 Parson Allen sat at a window ; the bright autun n 
 sun streamed in across the open Bible which lay 
 on his knees. Nearly in the centre of the room 
 stood a tall oleander-tree, in full bloom. The sun 
 light poured through and through its pink blos 
 soms, and seemed to fill the room with a rosy glow. 
 
 "I am glad to see you, my sons," said Parson 
 Allen. " I take it as a sign from the Lord, that 
 you should have reached my house just at this 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 163 
 
 hour; wo always begin our days with prayer." 
 There was not a trace of anything sanctimonious 
 or pharisaical in his manner. It was as simple and 
 hearty and loving as if he were speaking of his 
 affection for an earthly friend, and his habit of 
 morning greeting to him. As he waved his hand 
 to us to be seated, and said, " After prayers, we 
 will tell you how glad we are to see you, wife and 
 I," by some sudden, undefined association, the 
 words, "Christ, our elder brother," floated into my 
 mind. I glanced at Jim. His eyes were misty. 
 The religious element was much more fully devel 
 oped in his nature than in mine, and he was much 
 more profoundly impressed than I, by the spiritual 
 atmosphere of the scene. He afterwards said to 
 me, that he could think of nothing while the par 
 son was speaking, except that this must be, the 
 way angels welcomed new-comers into Heaven, if 
 they happened to arrive while the singing was go 
 ing on. We sat down together in one of the deep 
 window-seats ; more than once, at some Bible verse 
 read in a peculiarly impressive manner, Jim s hand 
 stole over to mine, and his eyes dropped to the 
 floor. But what was our astonishment when, nftei 
 the Psalm, came these words from the " Enchirid 
 ion " of Epictetus : 
 
 " There are things which are within our power, 
 and there are things which are beyond our power, 
 Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion. 
 and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. 
 
164 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, 
 office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly 
 our own affairs. 
 
 " Now the things within our power are by nature 
 free, unrestricted, unhindered ; but those beyond 
 our power are weak, dependent, restricted, alien, 
 Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to 
 things by nature dependent, and take what belongs 
 to others for your own, you will be hindered, you 
 will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find 
 fault both with gods and men. But if you take for 
 your own only that which is your own, and view 
 what belongs to others just as it really is, then no 
 one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you ; 
 you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no 
 one, you will do nothing against your will ; no one 
 will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will 
 you suffer any harm." 
 
 Jim and I had been wild boys. We had come 
 down to this far away village in disgrace, with 
 something of bitterness and resentment entering 
 ; nto all our resolutions of good behavior. But in 
 our first hours in the parsonage, the bitterness, the 
 doubt, the resentment, melted away, and there was 
 sown in our souls a seed of reverence, of belief, of 
 purpose, whose whole harvest has never been gar 
 nered, neither indeed can be, since in Eternity is 
 neither seed-time nor harvest. 
 
 In less than half an hour after prayers were 
 ended, Jim and I had told to our newly found 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 1 6$ 
 
 friends the whole story of little Alice, and of out 
 desire to bring her to live with us at the parsonage 
 for the winter. Mrs. Allen s eyes glistened at the 
 thought. 
 
 " Husband," she said, slowly, " I feel myself 
 much drawn toward this little girl. Does thee not 
 think it is a clear call that this young man s heart 
 is so set upon bringing her to live under our roof ? " 
 
 " Dorothy, thee knows that it shall be as thee 
 likes," said Parson Allen, his eyes resting as lov 
 ers eyes rest, on the smooth cheeks, whose beauti 
 ful pink was deeping a little in her eager interest ; 
 " but we must consider whether James s guardian 
 will think we have done wisely in permitting him to 
 undertake the charge of a child. My mind mis 
 gives me that most people would not approve of his 
 taking this burden upon him." 
 
 " Benjamin Curtis is not of the world s people 
 at heart," said Mistress Dorothy, gently. " He 
 cannot have changed in that, I am persuaded, 
 though it is thirty-five years since I saw him. If, 
 as James says, he has these thousands of dollars 
 each year to spend, Benjamin Curtis will joy to see 
 him spending it on another rather than himself." 
 
 " That he will," burst in Jim. " He s the most 
 generous old boy in the world. Why, he goes look 
 ing like a beggar himself half the time, he gives 
 away so much of his own money ; and he s nevei 
 BO pleased with me as when I go and tell him thai 
 I ve just given away my whole quarter s allowance 
 am dead broke." 
 
1 66 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 Mistress Allen s eyes were fixed dreamily on the 
 cleander-tree, but her mouth was tremulous with 
 intent interest. 
 
 " Did thee say that thy guardian was frequently 
 impoverished himself, by reason of his gifts to the 
 poor ? " she asked. " That is like the boy I knew 
 forty years ago." 
 
 " Why, no, I can t exactly say he s impoverished, 
 because he s got heaps of money, you know," re 
 plied Jim ; " but he s so full of other people s 
 troubles and needs that he don t remember his 
 own, and he goes pretty seedy half the time, bless 
 his old heart ! He s the biggest brick of a guar 
 dian a fellow ever had. I know just as well, Mrs. 
 Allen, that he 11 be only too glad to have me adopt 
 Ally for my sister, and take care of her all the rest 
 of my life, as if I d asked him ; and it will only 
 take four days to hear from him ; I sent a letter 
 this morning. You 11 very soon see that it is all 
 right." 
 
 " In the mean time, the little girl would be better 
 off with us than in that wretched place where she 
 is now," said Mrs. Allen. " Mrs. Bunker is a 
 kindly woman, but there are sights and sounds 
 there which the child should know nothing of. 
 Thee had better bring her over this afternoon, that 
 is," she added, turning to me, " if thy friend will 
 share thy room for a few days, and give up to the 
 child the one we had prepared for him. We have 
 oot had need for many rooms, and have had no 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 1 6? 
 
 money to spend on anything but needs ; so most of 
 our chambers are still unfurnished ; " and a shade 
 of what would have been mortification thirty-five 
 years before, but was now only sweet resignation to 
 a cross, passed over the beautiful old face. 
 
 The dreaded errand was over; the difficulties 
 had all vanished, as Jim s prophetic sense had as 
 sured him they would ; and we parted from Parson 
 Allen and his wife, as we might have parted from 
 our father and mother, eager to come back to our 
 home at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 It was a mile from the parsonage to the hotel ; 
 Jim drove furiously, and hardly spoke during the 
 whole distance. 
 
 " I 11 never forgive myself for staying so long, if 
 Ally s waked up and cried," he said. " We might 
 have done it all in one half the time. Will, did you 
 ever, in all your life, see such a heavenly old face ? 
 It s enough to make a saint of a fellow just to look 
 at her ! I sha n t ever call her Mrs. Allen ! I Ve 
 got to call her mother, or aunt, or something. 
 Guardy was right, she s an angel," he exclaimed, 
 as he jumped out of the buggy, and throwing the 
 reins to me, bounded into the house. 
 
 Ally was still asleep ; Mrs. Bunker said she had 
 roused once, and asked for " the kind gentleman," 
 SLrid on being told that he had left word that she 
 must not stir from bed; had asked pitifully : " Does 
 he keep little girls in bed all day, every day ? and 
 had then fallen asleep again almost immediately. 
 
1 68 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " I don t wonder, sir, that Mr. Ordway s so taken 
 with her," said Mrs. Bunker to me, as we stood 
 together in the front door. " She s jest the win- 
 nin est child I ever laid eyes on ; she s jest like a 
 lamb, yit there ain t nothin stoopid about her. 
 But, ain t it strange, she never so much s asked for 
 her pa? I was all over a tremble for fear she 
 would. I reckon it s a mercy the Lord s taken 
 her out o his hands." 
 
 I did not see Jim or Ally for some hours. I 
 went several times to the door, but I heard Jim s 
 voice talking in a low and earnest tone, and I knew 
 he w r as telling the child of her father s death and 
 of his intention of adopting her as his sister, and 
 it was better that they should be alone. At last 
 Jim called me in. He was sitting at the head of 
 the bed, and Ally s head was on his shoulder. I 
 never forgot the picture. Ally had been crying 
 bitterly, but her face had a look of perfect peace 
 on it. Jim had been crying also, but his eyes shone 
 with joy and eager purpose. 
 
 " Ally," he said, as I entered, " this is Will. He 
 is just the same as my brother ; so he is just the 
 same as your brother, you know." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Ally, looking at me with a grave 
 and searching expression. " Shall I kiss you ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed, you dear little thing," I exclaimed ; 
 and as I stooped over, she put one tiny thin arm 
 ground my neck, the other was around Jim s, 
 drew my head down to her face, and kissed me 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 169 
 
 once, twice, three times, with the sweetest kisses 
 lips ever gave. I thought so then ; I think so still. 
 From that moment my fealty to Alice was as strong 
 as Jim s. Wondrous little maid-child ! Alone, un 
 known, beggared, outcast, she had won to her ser 
 vice and forever two strong and faithful hearts with 
 all the loyalty of manhood springing in them. 
 
 Two days later, Jim and Alice and I were all so 
 peacefully settled down in our new home that it 
 seemed as if we had been living there for weeks. 
 Never did household so easily, so swiftly adjust it 
 self to new bonds, new conditions. The secret laws 
 of human relations are wonderfully like those of 
 chemistry. An instant of time is enough for 
 blending, where the affinity is true ; an eternity is 
 not enough, if the affinity do not exist. Oh, the 
 years and strength, and vital force which we waste 
 in the vain endeavor to make antagonistic currents 
 flow smoothly together ! When Mrs. Allen first 
 looked into Ally s face, tears sprang to her eyes, 
 and she exclaimed involuntarily : " Dear child, dear 
 child ; does thee think thee could call me mother ? " 
 Ally flung both her arms round the old lady s neck, 
 and said, in a tone so earnest that it made her sim 
 ple answer more emphatic than volumes of assev 
 eration could have been : 
 
 "Yes, ma am; I d like to very much, if you will 
 be my brother Jim s mother, too." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Allen, please let me ! " said Jim, in a 
 tone as simple and earnest as Ally s. 
 
I/O MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 * And me, too ! I can t be the only orphan in the 
 house," exclaimed I. 
 
 The sweet old face flushed, and she turned smil 
 ingly to her husband, saying : 
 
 " A quiver full is it not, husband ?" 
 
 "He setteth the solitary in families," replied 
 Parson Allen, solemnly and tenderly. " God bless 
 you all, my children." And he drew Ally to his 
 arms very fondly. 
 
 It was thought best that Ally should know noth 
 ing of the circumstances of her father s death, nor 
 of his funeral. It was enough for her trusting little 
 soul to be told that he had died. There was no 
 bond of love between them. He had represented 
 to her only terror and suffering, since her baby- 
 ^ood. The strongest proof of this was the fact 
 that sne never mentioned his name ; of her mothe r 
 she had no recollection ; her life had been almost 
 incredibly sad ; it was hard to conceive how a child 
 could have lived to be eleven years old, and have 
 had so few associations stamped on her mind, 
 either with places or people. Her memories 
 seemed to be chiefly of hunger and loneliness, and 
 terror of her father of room after room in which 
 she had been left alone, day after clay, and some 
 times night after night, for weeks and months ; and 
 of long journeys which were one shade less dread 
 ful than the solitary confinement had been, because, 
 as she said quietly : " Everybody spoke to me, and 
 I liked that." 
 
MY -rOURMALINE. I?! 
 
 It was a marvel how, in this hard life, had grown 
 .he grace and instincts which made Ally so lovable. 
 She had had no books, no toys she had known no 
 other child ; she had spent whole years of days, sim 
 ply watching the sun and the sky, as a little savage 
 might in the forest ; but in place of the savage s 
 sense of freedom, she had had the constant pain of 
 constraint and fear. There was a certain fine fiber 
 in her nature, which had saved her from being be 
 numbed and dulled by these ; had transmuted the 
 suffering into a patience all the more beautiful that 
 it was so unconscious. It was certain that this fine 
 organization must have come from her mother. If 
 only we could have known, if only we could 
 have found a clew to her history ! But Ally had no 
 recollections of her ; and the few papers found in 
 her father s possession threw no light on his past or 
 his plans for the future. What could have brought 
 him to this remote spot, no one could divine ; and 
 where their luggage had been left, Ally did not 
 know. 
 
 " It s just as if she had been dropped out of the 
 skies to me," said Jim, one clay, as we were talking 
 it all over ; " and that is just where I used to look 
 up, and think I saw little girl angels flying, when I 
 was a little fellow, and used to cry for a sister. I 
 remember once, when I was only eight years old, 
 I spoke right out loud, in church, at prayer-time 
 and asked my mother, Oh, mamma, is n t there the 
 east chance of my ever having a little sistar ? And 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 afterward, when she talked with me about it, she 
 cried so, that I never said another word about a 
 sister to her till she died. But I remember I said 
 to her then : * I know I 11 have a sister some day ! 
 I know I will ! You see if I don t ! How can you 
 be so sure God never will give me one ? And now, 
 you see, I have got one." 
 
 Yes ! It was indeed as if Ally had been dropped 
 out of the skies into Jim s hands. We were her 
 only friends in the country, so far as we knew, in 
 the world, and all that she could tell us of herself 
 was that she was eleven years old, and that her 
 name was Alice Fisher. 
 
 She was a marvelous child. Mrs. Bunker s 
 homely words told the exact truth of her ; they 
 came to my mind constantly in the course of our 
 first days at the parsonage. " She s jest like a 
 lamb, and yit there ain t nothin stoopid about her." 
 She obeyed, with an instant and pathetic docility, 
 the slightest suggestion from any one of us ; she 
 rarely made a movement of her own accord. 
 Wherever we placed her, whatever we gave her to 
 do, there she stayed ; with that thing she continued 
 to occupy herself until some one proposed a change. 
 
 This was the result of the long patience she had 
 learned in her sad years of solitude and confine 
 ment. But her eager brown eyes watched with in- 
 tensest interest everything that happened within 
 her sight, and no word that was spoken escaped her 
 ittention. At family prayers, while the Bible was 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 1/3 
 
 Deing read, her face was a study. She had known 
 but dimly of God and of Christ, and she had never 
 in her life said a prayer until she had knelt by her 
 new mother s side on the first evening of our ar 
 rival. 
 
 The next morning, immediately after prayers, we 
 were all startled by this question from her : 
 
 "Why don t you go into the room where God is ? 
 Is it that one ? " pointing to the closed door on the 
 opposite side of the hall. 
 
 The little, ignorant child had felt to her heart s 
 core the same atmosphere which had so impressed 
 us when we first heard Parson Allen pray. She felt, 
 as we knew, that he was speaking to some one very 
 near. Every fiber of motherhood in Mrs. Allen s 
 heart twined around this sensitive, loving, helpless 
 little creature. 
 
 " She seems to me like a babe," she said ; " like 
 a babe found in the wilderness. I hope we may be 
 guided to nurture her aright, for I believe she is a 
 child of very rare gifts. She has not known the 
 name of Christ, but she has lived his life, and I 
 have a conviction that she is one of his chosen 
 ones." 
 
 No danger but that Ally would be nurtured aright 
 in the house of which Dorothy Allen s sweet soul 
 ivas the central warmth, and the man she loved 
 was the light and strength. I have seen many 
 households, households of wealth and culture, 
 households of simple and upright living, but I have 
 
174 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 never seen one which so filled my ideal of a home 
 as this plain and poor little parsonage. The secret 
 of it all lay in the fact that its life was idealized \ 
 idealized, first, by Dorothy Allen s lovingness and 
 her fine sense of beauty and grace ; secondly, by 
 her husband s fine sense of moral truth, and his 
 devotion to thought and study. Parson Allen was 
 a rare scholar. Only his great modesty prevented 
 his being known as one of the finest Greek scholars 
 in the country ; but all his learning did not in the 
 least detract from the " simplicity of Christ," with 
 which he was filled. I shall never, in any world, 
 hear a grander outburst of praise from lips of saint 
 or angel than these words seemed to me, pro 
 nounced as he often used to pronounce them at 
 the end of his morning prayer : " For the sake of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed and only Po 
 tentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; who 
 only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which 
 no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath 
 seen nor can see ; to whom be honor and power 
 everlasting. Amen." 
 
 His enthusiasm for study, his recognition and 
 love of high thoughts, were no less hearty than his 
 enthusiasm for Christ and his love of souls. Theie 
 were no limitations to his religion. Life, from 
 Adam until now, was to him all one great, beautiful 
 revelation of God. He was a devoted disciple of 
 Christ ; he believed with all his heart in the Chris 
 tian dispensation ; but he walked also with Socrates 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 175 
 
 and Plato, and was broad enough to feel that he 
 did Christ s words no dishonor when he read side 
 by side with them at our morning prayers, the brav 
 est and most religious words of men who, dying 
 before Christ was born, yet saw and preached and 
 lived the truths for whose sake Christ died. Ah, 
 never did two boys sit at the feet of a wiser, 
 stronger, sweeter teacher than Parson Allen. Our 
 winter with him was worth more to us than all our 
 after years in college. The lessons which we re 
 cited to him from text-books were the smallest part 
 of the education he gave us. The Plato that I read 
 to him I have forgotten. The Plato that he read 
 to us is part of my life. 
 
 No less rare than his power of compelling us un 
 consciously to assimilate intellectual truths was his 
 wife s power of giving us spiritual tests, and arous 
 ing in us a need of the highest living. We did not 
 know, as the noiseless and gentle days slipped by, 
 bow much beauty they bore. We did not know in 
 what their charm lay ; but when we went into the 
 presence of those who lived on a lower plane, for 
 smaller ends, and with a less love of beauty, less 
 depth of insight and feeling, we recognized the 
 change in the atmosphere, as one does who conies 
 suddenly from pure, outside air, into the confined 
 And impure air of a house. I might write pages in 
 the endeavor to explain this fact ; to analyze the 
 fine flavor which Dorothy Allen knew how to give, 
 or, rather, could not help giving, to life ; but mv 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 words would be vain. It was not that she was 
 always gentle, low-voiced, dainty, and full of repose 
 it was not that she knew how to produce in her 
 simple household, and with small means, the effect 
 of almost luxury of living, in all matters of food 
 and service, and personal comfort ; it was not that 
 she had, spite of her Quaker training, a passion for 
 color ; and from December round to December, 
 never permitted her home to be one day without 
 the brightness of blossoming flowers ; it was not 
 that her warm, active nature was thoroughly alive 
 to all the events, all the interests of the day, and 
 that she had ever some new thing to speak of with 
 eager interest, and found the days far too short for 
 inquiring into all the matters which she desired to 
 search out. It was no ane of these ; it was not all 
 of these. I have seen women of whom all these 
 things were true, but they did not create a home as 
 did this woman. Neither was it the great loving- 
 ness of her nature, marvelous as that was : God 
 makes many women who are all love and loving- 
 ness. It was so far as language can state it it 
 was because in all these traits, into every one of 
 the acts springing from them, there entered a deep 
 significance, a symbolic meaning, a spiritual vitality, 
 born of her intensity of temperament and purity 
 of nature. The smallest thing had its soul, as well 
 as its body; and the soul radiated through and 
 through the body until transfiguration became an 
 ?.ver-present reality. For thirty-three years she had 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 1 77 
 
 every morning laid by her husband s plate, before 
 breakfast, a bunch of flowers or at least, a green 
 leaf, if no flowers were to be found. When Jim first 
 saw her do this, he came to me, and said, " Will, 
 that s the way the Lord meant a woman and a 
 man should love each other. That geranium-flower 
 she put down by his plate this morning was n t sim 
 ply a geranium-flower either to her or to him. 
 Oh, if I were a poet, I d just write what I saw in 
 her eyes. They said, All the summers of the 
 world, all the sun, all the light, all the color, have 
 gone to make up these blossoms ; since the begin 
 ning of time, the moment has been journeying on 
 at which it should bloom, in the spot where my 
 hand could gather it for thee ; my vow is no less 
 than its ! Love it for to-day, my love ! reverence it, 
 and to-morrow another blossom will bloom either 
 here or in eternity, also for thee ! 
 
 " Oh, Jim," I said, " You ought to have been 
 a woman. I don t believe the dear old mother 
 thought any such thing. She knows that Dominie 
 loves flowers that s all ! " 
 
 " All ! " exclaimed Jim, " I tell you the flower s 
 nothing ! It might be a pebble ; it might be a 
 crown of diamonds and pearls. It s the soul of 
 love, and the symbol of life, when she lays it down 
 there of a morning. It s just so when she hands 
 him a newspaper, for that matter. I ve seen him 
 .ook up at her as if she had just that minute given 
 him herself for the first time, dear old lovers, that 
 
 12 
 
178 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 they are. And if you watch, you 11 see that he has 
 that flower about him all day somewhere ; if it is n t 
 in his fingers, it s lying on his desk, or in his but 
 ton-hole. I ve seen him read a whole forenoon 
 with it in his hand. I wonder if anything like it 
 will ever happen to you or me, in this world, Will ? " 
 
 " May be to you, Jim ; not to me. I m too pro 
 saic. I shouldn t understand it. I don t half 
 know what you mean now, " replied I. But, in 
 spite of my words, I did know dimly, and won 
 dered, as Jim had wondered, if it were ever to be 
 mine. 
 
 " I don t know, old fellow," said Jim. " I ve a 
 notion that the Dominie was something such a fel 
 low as you are; he isn t a bit like her, anyhow. 
 That J s the reason he worships her so. Now, I am 
 like her. I know just how she feels about fifty 
 things a day, when you are only listening to what 
 she says, and trying to make it out that way, just as 
 you do with me, you dear, old, honest, sturdy, 
 strong, slow fellow, worth a thousand of me, any 
 day. But if I were a woman, and you loved me, 
 you d understand me just as the Dominie under 
 stands mother." 
 
 In this warmth of love and care, little Alice 
 bloomed out like the geraniums in the deep win 
 dow-seats. At the end of two weeks no one would 
 have known the child, except by the hazel-brown 
 eyes. Suffering and feebleness had not disguised 
 or dimmed the beauty of those \ neither could joy 
 
MY TOURMALIN S. 1 79 
 
 and health add to it. They were simply and for 
 ever perfectly beautiful. One looked from them to 
 the shining, yellow curls, and then back from the 
 yellow curls to the brown eyes, in almost incredulity 
 of the wonderful combination. Each day we feared 
 to see the golden hue change on the sunny head ; 
 but it never changed, never ! 
 
 It soon became our habit to take Ally with us on 
 all our rambles. She was as nimble and as tireless 
 as a squirrel, and so full of joy in all things she 
 saw that she was a perpetual delight to us. She 
 ran between us, holding a hand of each ; she ran 
 before us, her golden curls reaching far back on 
 the wind \ she lagged behind, hiding mischievously 
 behind a tree or rock, and laughing loud like an 
 infant to hear us call her. Sometimes we clasped 
 our hands together and carried her proudly aloft 
 higher than our heads, and holding on clingingly to 
 each neck. When we put her down, she always 
 kissed Jim, saying : " Thank you, brother Jim," 
 and then, turning to me : " Thank you, too, Mr. 
 Will ; would you like to have me kiss you ? " 
 
 One day I said to her, as we were sitting under a 
 tree : " Ally, you always kiss Jim without asking 
 him. How do you know he likes it ? Why don t 
 you kiss me without asking me ? " 
 
 "Why, he is my brother," she said instantly; 
 * he wants me to kiss him always," and she sprang 
 np with a wonderfully agile spring which he had 
 taught her, and lit on his shoulder, where she sat 
 
180 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 perched like a bird, kissing him over and over. 
 Then she said, more gravely : " Brother Jim did n t 
 &iy you were my brother. He said you were just 
 the same as my brother. There is n t any same as 
 brother about kisses." 
 
 Oh, marvelous maid-child of eleven ! Jim 
 laughed, but I had a strange sense of pain in the 
 child s words, and I waited sorely for days and days, 
 for her to kiss me, spontaneously and freely as she 
 kissed Jim. 
 
 The Indian summer lingered late and long. The 
 maples turned scarlet and gold, the ash-trees to 
 purple and yellow, till the forests outvied the sun 
 rise and sunset. Little Alice had never seen this 
 sight. It gave her delight so great that it bordered 
 on pain. Day after day she filled the house with 
 the bright boughs. Not a corner, hardly a chair, 
 but had the glittering leaves lying in it ; it was as 
 if they floated down among us through the roof ; 
 and Ally was never seen without them in her hand, 
 or placed fantastically around her belt or in her 
 hair. It grieved her very heart that they must 
 die. 
 
 "Oh, why do they not stay on all the winter, 
 brother Jim ? " she said. " Why can they not be 
 this color all summer ? I suppose God likes green 
 best ? Is there any other world where He lets the 
 trees be red and yellow all the time ? " 
 
 One afternoon, we were returning very late from 
 g ramble in the woods, now nearly leafless. Ally 
 
TOURMALINE. l8l 
 
 had made a long wreath of crimson oak-leaves, and 
 we had thrown it round and round her shoulders 
 and neck, till it looked like a mantle of red, with 
 long ends trailing down behind. Her golden curls 
 fluttered like sunbeams across it, and as she ran 
 lightly before us, and, lifting up one end of the 
 crimson wreath in her hand, looked archly through 
 it over her shoulder, laughing and crying out, 
 <f Now, I am an oak-tree running away from you," 
 Jim drew a long, sighing breath and whispered to 
 me : " Oh, Will, does she look like a mortal child ? 
 I think she is an angel and will fly away pres 
 ently." 
 
 At that instant she stumbled over a projecting 
 root of a tree and fell heavily to the ground without 
 a cry. She was several rods in advance of us ; be 
 fore we reached her she had fainted. 
 
 We were almost paralyzed with terror ; we were 
 two miles from home, and on the top of a rough and 
 rocky ledge, the face of which was so thickly grown 
 with scrub oaks that we had found great difficulty 
 in forcing our way through. " Oh, Will, how are 
 we to get her home ? " gasped Jim, as he lifted her 
 up. The poor little white face, with its yellow curls, 
 fell limp and lifeless on his shoulder, and the torn 
 oak wreaths tangled themselves around his arms. 
 She looked as if she were dead ; but in a few mo 
 ments she opened her eyes, and said : " I am not 
 hurt brother Jim, not a bit. Where is the pretty 
 green stone ? " 
 
1 82 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " Oh, Ally dear, are you sure you re not hurt . " 
 exclaimed Jim ; " never mind about the stone ; was 
 it that made you fall ? " 
 
 " But I must mind about the stone," said Ally. 
 " You have n t got any such stone among all yours ; 
 it was as pretty almost as the leaves; it s right 
 down here, under the old root that tripped me up. 
 I wanted to get it for you, brother Jim," and she 
 tried to slip away from his arms to look for it. 
 
 " Stay still, Ally, stay still. I 11 find it," said I. 
 " What sort of stone was it ? " 
 
 " Oh, beautiful," said Ally ; " it shone, and it was 
 shaped like my prisms ! Oh, do find it, Mr. Will." 
 
 I searched in vain ; the old tree had been 
 partially uprooted, and its scrawny underground 
 branches exposed to light, had twirled themselves 
 into strange shapes. Stones and earth had piled 
 up around them, and a big mullein was growing on 
 the very top of the root ; coarse white pebbles and 
 sharp bits of granite were lying all about, but no 
 such stone as Ally described could I see. 
 
 " Dear little Ally, you must have fancied it ; as 
 you fell, things looked different to you; there is n t 
 any such stone here." 
 
 Ally rarely contradicted, or urged any point ; but 
 her child s heart was too firmly set on the pretty 
 stone to abandon it without a further effort. 
 
 " But, Mr. Will, I saw it before I fell. It was 
 *hat tripped me up. I mean, I went to stoop over 
 *nd pick it up, and I caught my foot." This was 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 183 
 
 logic irresistible. I searched again, but with no 
 better result. All this time, Jim had been anxiously 
 studying Ally s face, and paying little attention to 
 the search for the stone. 
 
 " Ally," said he suddenly, " where does it hurt 
 you ? Something hurts you, I know by your face." 
 
 " My foot, just a little bit, brother Jim, but not if 
 I don t move it," replied Alice. 
 
 " This one ? " said Jim, touching it very gently. 
 
 Ally moaned in spite of herself. 
 
 " Yes, that one, brother Jim ; please don t touch 
 it. It will be well pretty soon." 
 
 Ally had sprained her ankle. That was evident. 
 The slightest movement or the slightest touch was 
 more than she could bear. It was very near sun 
 set, and fast growing cold. To carry the child 
 down that rocky ledge, and through the scrub oak, 
 without giving her greater torture than she could 
 bear, seemed impossible. But it must be done. 
 
 Jim rose up very slowly, with her in his arms, 
 saying, " Now try, dear little Ally, to bear the 
 pain." 
 
 " Yes, brother Jim, I will ; it " but the sen 
 tence ended in a groan. Ally was very much hurt. 
 At last, I arranged a sling from Jim s right shoulder 
 in which both her legs could rest, and in this posi 
 tion she bore the motion better. As we moved 
 slowly away from the tree, the gentle brown eyes 
 looked back wistfully; in spite of the pain she 
 tould not forget the stone. Suddenly she cried out 
 
84 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " Oh, there it is, Mr. Will. Mr. Will, there is the 
 stone ! " and she pointed to a crevice in the tree- 
 roots, higher up than I had looked. 
 
 There it was ; and a most beautiful stone indeed; 
 Neither Jim nor I had ever seen one like it. It 
 was a crystal nearly two inches long, of a brilliant 
 green color, shading through paler and paler tints 
 to a clear white, and then from white to a deep rose 
 red. For a second we almost forgot Ally in our 
 wonder at the gem. There was nothing like it in 
 the cabinet of our college ; we had never read of 
 any such stone. 
 
 " Oh, let me carry it, Mr. Will," pleaded Ally. 
 " I won t drop it, and it will help me bear my foot 
 better ; " and the sensitive child fixed her eyes with 
 passionate delight on the crystal. 
 
 Presently she said, feebly, " Take the stone, Mr. 
 Will. I can t hold it. It pricks." 
 
 As I took it from her, a sharp shock of pain ran 
 up my arm. What was this weird bit of crystallized 
 red and green on which we had stumbled ? Had 
 we, unawares, linked ourselves to unseen dangers^ 
 hidden spells ? I was ashamed of the vague sense 
 of terror with which I walked on through the twi 
 light recalling the whole scene : the little flying 
 maiden, with her fantastic red wreaths and golden 
 curls, the strange stone, the mystic bond between 
 her and it, the sharp and inexplicable pain which 
 had shot through my frame on taking it from her 
 hand. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 185 
 
 Ally s sprain proved a serious hurt ; it was al 
 most a fracture. In two hours after we reached 
 home, the slender ankle was firmly bound with 
 splinters, and the patient little face looking up 
 from pillows on which the Doctor had said she 
 must probably lie for some weeks. As he was leav- 
 the room she said : 
 
 " Oh, please, Mr. Will, show my pretty stone to 
 the Doctor." 
 
 Dr. Miller reached out his hand eagerly for the 
 crystal as soon as he saw its shape and color. 
 
 " Why, bless my soul, what s that," he exclaimed. 
 " You found that up on Black Ledge ? Somebody 
 must have dropped it. It s an emerald. No, it 
 is n t, either. Look at this red in it." 
 
 The Doctor was thoroughly excited. He turned 
 the stone over and over, held it up to the lamp 
 light, all the while muttering to himself, " Most ex 
 traordinary ! Never saw or heard of such a stone 
 as this before;" "looks like magic;" "and, by 
 Jove, I believe it is," he said, dropping the stone 
 suddenly on the floor, and rubbing his fingers 
 violently. " It s given me an electric shock." 
 
 "It made my hand prick," said Ally. " I could 
 n t hold it either." 
 
 The Doctor and I stooped at once to pick it 
 up, and our hands touched it simultaneously. In 
 stantly the same sharp thrill of heat flamed up my 
 arm as before. I drew back, and again I glanced 
 uneasily at Ally, and felt that there was something 
 
1 86 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 supernatural in the bond between her and the 
 stone. The Doctor sprang to his feet, thrust both 
 his hands in his pockets, and stood looking down 
 at the crystal. Then he put the lamp on the floor. 
 The carpet was of a pale gray. The gem shone 
 out vividly upon it, and green and rose-colored rays 
 gleamed and flickered through it as we moved the 
 lamp from side to side. Very quietly Mrs. Allen 
 bent down, and, after looking at it earnestly for a 
 second or two, lifted it and laid it on the silver 
 snuffer tray on the stand. On the polished silver 
 it looked still more beautiful. Ally clapped her 
 hands with delight. 
 
 " It is evidently some jewel which has been lost," 
 said Mrs. Allen. "We ought to seek for the owner. 
 Does thee not think it may be of great value ? " 
 she asked, turned to Dr. Miller. 
 
 " I don t know anything about it, Mrs. Allen," re 
 plied the Doctor. " I am inclined to think there ! s 
 some kind of witchcraft about the thing, anyhow." 
 
 " But thee does not believe in any kind of witch 
 craft about anything," said Mrs. Allen, with a 
 placid twinkle in her eyes. " Thee knows that 
 very well. Can thee not judge if it is a carven gem, 
 or if it is in a state of nature ? I think I have 
 reaa of various stones having a certain electrical 
 power." 
 
 " Oh, it is not cut," said the Doctor. " It s a 
 natural crystal. It s the color that poses me. .1 
 have never read of such a stone." 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 1 87 
 
 " Please let me take it a minute," said Ally. 
 
 I laid it in her hand. She stroked it softly with 
 the other hand, then raised it to her cheek. 
 
 " It gets brighter every minute Ally holds it," 
 exclaimed Jim. 
 
 Indeed it did. As we watched the motions of it 
 in the child s hands, it seemed almost as if a dis 
 tinct light came from it, and played upon her feat 
 ures. Suddenly she dropped it, with a little cry. 
 
 " It pricked again, brother Jim. Is it alive ? 
 Does it hate to have us handle it ? " 
 
 We gathered around the bed. There lay the 
 gem, silent, shining, rosy red and emerald green, 
 on the white sheet, between Ally s two little out 
 stretched hands, which she held to right and left of 
 it, as if afraid it might escape her. Her cheeks 
 were scarlet and her eyes dilated with excitement. 
 She watched it as if expecting it to move. I think 
 it would have astonished none of us if it had. We 
 watched it for some time in silence. Then Mrs. 
 Allen laid it again on the silver tray, and placed 
 the tray on a high shelf, saying, quietly, " I do not 
 feel any of these singular sensations myself in 
 touching the stone. It is a most beautiful jewel. 
 We must seek for the owner to-morrow, and now 
 this child must go to sleep." 
 
 Late into the night we sat around the fire talking 
 about the magic stone and making the wildest con 
 jectures about its nature, its history. Dr. Miller 
 was as excited as Jim and I, and the Dominie 
 
1 88 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 seemed carried out of himself by the sight of it. 
 " It brings more to my mind the thought of the 
 crystal gates of the heavenly city," he said, " than 
 anything I have ever seen. Who knows but it 
 may be one of the gems mentioned in Revelations 
 whose names are not now well known. 
 
 Dr. Miller smiled, half reverently, half pityingly. 
 
 The village called Dr. Miller an atheist, because 
 of the blunt speech in which he set his contempt 
 for creeds which they held sacred. But so much 
 the more, by all the scorn which he felt for the pict 
 ure of God as framed in the phrases of men, did 
 he love the picture of God as framed in a rock, or 
 a mountain, or a daisy. 
 
 " I ve a notion, parson, that God makes jewels 
 for more practical purposes than for gates to his 
 heaven," he said. " If we Ve got a mine up on 
 Black Ledge of such gems as this, it s a fortune for 
 some of us. I own a big piece of the ledge to the 
 south myself, and I m going up the first thing in 
 the morning with these boys, to see if there are any 
 more stones like this one." 
 
 Dominie smiled, also half reverently, half pity 
 ingly. The two men loved each other. 
 
 At dawn Jim and I sprang up. Jim went to 
 the window. In a tone of utter despair he ejacu 
 lated : 
 
 "Will!" 
 
 The ground was white with snow deep, solid, 
 level snow. It must have snowed furiously all 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 1 89 
 
 night. Winter had come in utter earnest. Side by 
 side we stood and looked out on the scene. The 
 air was thick with snow-flakes. We could not see 
 ten rods from the house. 
 
 " Plague take this climate," said I. " When it 
 once comes down this way there s no let up to it 
 till spring ; I know all about it. I spent a winter 
 in Vermont once, and from the first of December 
 till the middle of March we never saw an inch of 
 bare ground. I just hate it. Now, we can t look 
 after those stones for three months." 
 
 "I don t believe there are any more of them, 
 Will," said Jim, speaking slowly and in an earnest 
 tone. " I believe there was just that one left there 
 for Ally, by angels, for all I know. Did you see 
 how that light flickered on her face when she 
 stroked her cheek with the stone ? And if there 
 were any such stones would n t Dr. Miller know ? 
 Should n t we have seen some in the cabinet ? " 
 
 " Oh, pshaw ! you dear old Jim," I said. " I 
 agree with Dr. Miller that God don t make stones 
 on earth for gates to heaven, nor for angels to give 
 to earthly children not even to Ally ! " I added, 
 with a sudden conscience-stricken memory of the 
 picture of her the night before, with the tangled 
 crimson oak wreaths and the yellow curls and the 
 flying feet, and how I myself had shuddered in the 
 twilight to recall the thrill of hot pain which shot 
 \hrough my nerves when she first handed me the 
 itone. 
 
IQO MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " I dare say we 11 all get some money out of that 
 old ledge yet. New minerals are all the time being 
 discovered." 
 
 " Money ! " said Jim, contemptuously. " I be 
 lieve if a feather should drop off an angel s wing 
 you d pick it up and wonder what it would sell 
 for." 
 
 " Yes, I would," said I, very composedly ; " not 
 wearing angels wings myself, and having no kind 
 of use for that kind of feather ! I d sell it as a 
 curiosity and buy a pair of cassimere trousers ; and 
 so would you, old fellow, if you had n t any more 
 money than I have." 
 
 " Oh, forgive me, Will, dear Will, I did n t mean 
 to be rough on you ! " exclaimed Jim, with his 
 whole face grieved at his own thoughtlessness. 
 " But you know I do hate money-making, and 
 money-talking, and money-worshiping. If I had n t 
 had money to begin with, I d never have made a 
 cent more than just enough to get bread with." 
 
 " I don t believe you d have made that, old boy," 
 laughed I. " You would have sat on the sunny 
 side of the almshouse, perfectly rapt in content, 
 watching angels in the clouds, and treasuring up 
 their feathers if they happened to drop any ! And 
 then you could n t have adopted Ally." 
 
 " No," said Jim, thoughtfully. " After she came, 
 I think I d have carried the angels feathers to 
 market, and made as sharp a bargain for them aa 
 you yourself, Will." 
 
MY TOURMALINE. IQ1 
 
 I was right. It was the winter which had set in. 
 All that day, and all the next day, it snowed with 
 out stopping. The village seemed slowly, steadily 
 sinking in a silvery morass ; bush after bush, stone 
 wall after stone-wall, fence after fence, landmark 
 after landmark, disappeared, until the vas ttracts of 
 open country lay as unbroken as an Arctic Ocean, 
 and the very chimney-tops of the town looked like 
 the heads of hopelessly overwhelmed travelers. On 
 the morning of the second day, Dr. Miller came in, 
 trampling, puffing, and shaking off snow from shoul 
 ders, pockets, beard, everywhere ; he shed the pow 
 dery avalanches as a pine-tree sheds them when it 
 is rocked by a sudden wind. 
 
 " Ha, boys," he exclaimed ; " no hunting for pre 
 cious stones on Black Ledge this year ! We re 
 snowed up for three months at least. How 11 you 
 youngsters like that ? And how s the ankle, Pussy," 
 he said, in a softer tone, turning to Ally with such 
 a smile as seldom came on his rugged face. A lit 
 tle bed had been brought into the sitting-room and 
 set across the south window. In this Ally lay, 
 under a marvelous coverlet which the parishioners 
 had presented to Mrs. Allen at the last Donation 
 Party. It was called the " Rising Sun " pattern, 
 the villagers never having heard of the word Au 
 rora. But there was something pathetic in the em 
 bryonic conception which these hard-working New 
 England women had stitched into their bed-quilt of 
 flaming Turkey red and white. A scarlet sun in 
 
I 92 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 the centre shot myriad spokes of red to the outer 
 edge ; and minor suns with smaller spokes were 
 set at regular intervals around it. When Ally first 
 saw this, she was so captivated by its splendors, 
 that Mrs. Allen s motherly heart could not resist 
 giving it to her ; so Ally had, as she said, " twenty- 
 five suns to keep her warm at night." The child s 
 passion for color was intense. It was the forerun 
 ner of the exquisite artistic sense and worship of 
 beauty in all things which marked her later devel 
 opment. She lay now, idly following with her tiny 
 forefinger, scarlet ray after scarlet ray on the cover 
 let. The south window held two high abutilon- 
 trees in full flower. Their striped orange bells and 
 broad green leaves nodded above her like a fairy 
 canopy; and at the foot of the bed stood the 
 glossy, dark-leaved oleander-tree, with a few pink 
 blossoms left on the upper boughs. The sun 
 streamed in at the four windows, and the reflected 
 light from the snow world outside was almost too 
 dazzling. Close by Ally s side sat Mrs. Allen, her 
 pale gray gown, soft white hair, and filmy lace, 
 making a delicious tone of relief for the sunlit reds 
 ^nd yellows. 
 
 Dr. Miller put his hands behind him and stood 
 before the fire for some moments, silently drinking 
 in the picture. Then he turned suddenly to us, 
 and said in a gruff tone : 
 
 " Boys, how d ye like it, here ? " Jim laughed 
 outright. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 1 93 
 
 " Just about as well as you d like it yourself, 
 Doctor." 
 
 Jim had been watching the Doctor closely. The 
 Doctor chuckled, and clapped him on the shoulder. 
 
 " Pretty good for you, boy. Bring out that stone 
 of yours. Let s look at it by daylight. The con 
 founded thing kept me awake last night. I can t 
 imagine what it is." 
 
 Ally raised herself slowly on one elbow, and, 
 fumbling under her pillow, brought out from a mis 
 cellaneous store of treasures a tiny blue silk bag. 
 In this was the crystal. 
 
 " Mother said I could have it to sleep with," she 
 said ; " but in the night I heard it crawling in the 
 bag, so I moved it from under my head. It s alive. 
 I guess it 11 get to know me." 
 
 Again I felt a strange shudder at the child s 
 words, and at the eager look with which her eyes 
 followed the gem as she gave it into the Doctor s 
 hands. Again we experienced the same singular 
 sensation, like shocks from an electric battery, in 
 passing it from hand to hand. Again we fancied 
 that the colors deepened while Ally held it, and 
 that a peculiar iridescent light flashed from it when 
 A was held near her face. It was very evident that 
 she grew more and more excited while the stone 
 was in motion in the room. Her cheeks grew red 
 and the pupils of her eyes dilated, and she was 
 stless ; she did not like to have it out of her pos 
 13 
 
IQ4 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 session ; still she could not hold it for many min 
 utes. 
 
 " What does make it pinch so ? " she said. " Poor 
 little Stonie, is that all the way it can speak ? 
 Mother said the wasp pricked me to say Let me 
 alone ; but this does not hurt. I like it." 
 
 Mrs. Allen looked uneasy. " Does thee think, 
 Doctor, it can harm the child ? " 
 
 " No," replied the Doctor, in a perplexed tone. 
 " No, I think not. If it is, as it seems to me, simply 
 a natural electricity, it may do good ; but it is a 
 strange thing. I d give a good deal to know what 
 it is." 
 
 Broad sunbeams were resting on Ally s bed ; the 
 coverlet was soon warm to the touch. Ally laid 
 the crystal carefully on one of the white spaces, 
 " Stonie does not look pretty on the red color," she 
 said. One of the abutilon blossoms had fallen, and 
 she was slowly tearing the bright striped bell into 
 strips and arranging them in fantastic patterns on 
 her breast ; the feathery stamens also lay scattered 
 about like a shower of golden threads. Suddenly 
 Ally cried out : 
 
 " Oh, see ! The flowers like Stonie ; they fol 
 low him." 
 
 We all ran to her bed, and stood transfixed with 
 astonishment at the sight. Yes, the flowers did fol 
 low the stone ! As Ally drew it slowly along, the 
 tiny shreds of the abutilon petals and the slender 
 filaments of the stamens followed it. On touching 
 
MY TO UX MA LINE. 195 
 
 it they adhered slightly to the surface, as magnet 
 ized objects to a magnet. " Is Stonie eating 
 them?" said Ally. " Is that what he lives on ?" 
 This persistent disposition on Ally s part to speak 
 of the stone as a living and sentient thing, childish 
 as it was, and as we all the while knew it to tx,, 
 heightened our half superstitious sense of mystery in 
 the thing. For the first time Mrs. Allen s face ex 
 perienced a shade of the same feeling. 
 
 " My mind misgives me," she said, slowly, " that 
 it would be well for us to return this mysterious 
 visitor to the place from which he came." 
 
 " Oh, no, no, mother dear," cried Ally ; " not out 
 in the cold snow, my dear Stonie," and she lifted 
 it to her lips and kissed it. With a little cry, she 
 dropped it quickly, exclaiming, " He is hot as fire, 
 I left him in the sun too long ; he pricked me to 
 say he did not like it," and she picked the stone up 
 again cautiously, and, with a timid air, half appeal 
 ing, half resolute, dropped it into the little silk bag, 
 looking all the time in Mrs. Allen s eyes, and say 
 ing " Please let me keep him, mother ; he is such 
 a pretty Stonie, and he 11 get to know me." 
 
 " Oh, yes, let her keep it," said Dr. Miller, " it s 
 vnly a crystal. We re foolish to be so stirred up 
 about a bit of stone, just because we never saw any 
 thing like it before. I dare say there are a few 
 more stones on the earth we don t know. We re 
 nothing but ignoramuses, at least I am, beg 
 ging your pardon, Mistress Allen." 
 
1 96 MY TO URMALINE. 
 
 Mrs. Allen smiled. " I know only too well hov? 
 ignorant I am of all the treasures in this wonderful 
 world," she said. " The word that thee used did 
 not stir any resentment in my heart, I assure thee. 
 But does thee really think it is safe for the child to 
 have for a plaything a stone which has such strange 
 properties as this? And does thee not think it 
 may be a jewel of value lost by some stranger on 
 the hill ? " 
 
 Dr. Miller sprang to Ally s bed and bent over it. 
 In that moment, almost before she had put the 
 stone fairly back into the bag, the child had fallen 
 asleep. It seemed an unnatural sleep to have 
 come so suddenly, and yet her breathing was 
 peaceful, her pulse regular, and her cheeks were 
 less flushed than before. 
 
 " It s the electricity ; it must be," said the Doc 
 tor, more to himself than to us. " No," he con 
 tinued, " I do not see any danger in the thing. 
 The electrical properties of the stone must be 
 slight, and the child will soon weary of it as of any 
 other toy. But the first thing we ll do, boys, when 
 the snow breaks up, 11 be to go to Black Ledge, 
 and hunt up the rest, if there are any more. There s 
 something worth looking into. I in confident of 
 that, but I must not spend my time this way ? " And 
 the Doctor was off almost without a good-by. 
 
 The Doctor s prediction that Ally would soon 
 weary of the stone was not fulfilled. Six long 
 weeks the patient little creature lay on her bed, in 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 19* 
 
 the south window, under the abutilon canopy, and 
 the mysterious crystal was her inseparable play 
 thing. When she was not holding it up and turn 
 ing it over and over in the light, she kept it in 
 sight, laying it always on the white spaces in the 
 coverlet, and as far as possible from the scarlet ; 
 and I observed that when she was lying still, appar 
 ently in a reverie, her eyes were usually fastened 
 upon the stone. We grew familiar with its strange 
 electric and magnetic phenomena, and even amused 
 ourselves by passing it rapidly from hand to hand 
 after it had been heated by friction and by the sun 
 light. 
 
 As our superstitious uneasiness about it wore away, 
 our interest in it diminished, and sometimes for 
 weeks we did not think of it, except when Ally 
 called our attention to its beauty or its mysterious 
 powers. She still persisted in speaking of it as if 
 it were alive, and caressing and loving it as if it 
 could reciprocate all her affection. 
 
 " Stonie knows me now," she would often say. 
 " He does not know any of the rest of you ; you 
 don t love him. He hardly ever pricks me now ; 
 he only purrs on my fingers." 
 
 It was an odd thing that Mis. Allen never felt 
 this sensation. Her nerves were so strong that the 
 powerful influence, whatever it might be, produced 
 no disturbance on the equipoise of her system, 
 Jim was more sensitive to it than any one except 
 Ally herself. He knew instantly on approaching 
 
iqS MY TO UK MA LINE. 
 
 Ally if she had been playing with the stone. He 
 could tell with his eyes shut, by touching her hands, 
 in which hand the stone lay ; and he never entirely 
 lost the first feeling of fear and repulsion with 
 which we regarded the gem. He said again arid 
 again to me : 
 
 " Will, I m ashamed of the feeling, but I do 
 hate to have Ally keep that stone. I can t shake 
 off a sort of presentiment that evil will some clay 
 come to her through it. I do wish it could be lost, 
 but it is never away from her one second. At night 
 she hides it under her pillow, and by day she car 
 ries it in her pocket. I do believe there is a spell 
 about the thing." 
 
 " Well, it isn t a spell that does the child harm, 
 anyhow," I always replied to him, "for certainly 
 never in this world did a child grow strong and tall 
 and beautiful faster than she is growing. You 
 have it so firmly fixed in your head that she is n t a 
 mortal child, like other children, that you can t see 
 anything connected with her as it really is." 
 
 I was not conscious of the feeling, but a deep- 
 rooted jealousy of Jim was already growing up in 
 my heart, and distorting my thoughts of both him 
 and Ally. Gentle and loving as she always was to 
 every human being, there was a certain spontaneous, 
 exuberant overflow of affection toward Jim, which 
 made her manner to every one else seem cold by 
 contrast. I was not sure, but it seemed to me that 
 even dear Mrs. Allen felt this. I sometimes saw 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 199 
 
 her eyes rest upon the two when they were frolick 
 ing together, with an expression of pain. The day 
 came when I understood what that pain had meant. 
 
 Long before spring we had ceased to talk about 
 going to Black Ledge to look for the magic stones, 
 but Ally never forgot it. One bright day in April, 
 when the drops falling from the eaves had melted 
 a little circle around the roots of the lilac-tree, and 
 brought to light a few tiny pale green shoots of 
 grass, Ally turned from the window, and said to 
 me : 
 
 "Mr. Will, see, there is the ground again ! Pretty 
 soon the snow will be gone, and we can look for 
 Stonie s friends. Poor Stonie ! he would have been 
 very lonely all winter if it hadn t been for me. 
 We 11 take him up with us, and he will show us the 
 way." 
 
 " But, Ally, how can a stone show people the 
 way ? That s a silly speech, little girl," said I. 
 
 " No, Mr. Will," she answered gravely. " It is n t 
 silly, because it is true. Stonie won t show you, 
 because he don t know you ; but he will show me. 
 He tells me a great many things when we are all 
 alone together, don t you, Stonie ? " And she took 
 the little blue silk bag from her pocket and laid it 
 against her cheek. As she did so her eyes dilated 
 and her cheeks flushed, and again the uncomforta 
 ble sense of something supernatural in the stone, 
 and in the bond between Ally and it, swept over 
 me. "Who knows but Jim is right, after all! I 
 
20O MY TOURMALIATE. 
 
 wonder if we should love Ally any less if she did n t 
 have that stone ? " I said to myself, as I pondered 
 her words and looks. 
 
 The thaw was rapid and general. Not for years 
 had such a body of snow disappeared so quickly. 
 The river rose alarmingly ; even little pools became 
 dangerous. A large part of the village was under 
 water. One feeble old man was actually drowned 
 at the foot of his own garden, and for a few hours 
 there was great cause for alarm ; but the waters 
 fell as fast as they had risen ; a high wind rose and 
 blew steadily for three days, and at the end of a 
 week the whole country lay bare and dry, with a 
 tender green tint everywhere struggling through 
 the brown. 
 
 Dr. Miller had not forgotten the trip to Black 
 Ledge. While the freshet was at its height he ran 
 in one morning to say, " Boys, if this lasts we can 
 go to Black Ledge by Saturday. The snow 11 be 
 all gone." 
 
 "And me, too?" said Ally. "Will you take 
 me?" 
 
 " No, indeed, Pussy," said the Doctor. " It will 
 be too wet and muddy." 
 
 " But you can t find Stonie s friends without me," 
 said Ally. " I know you can t. Don t you know, 
 Mr. Will, you could n t see Stonie, look all you 
 could, and there he was right in plain sight all the 
 time. Don t you remember ? " 
 
 True, so it was. Again a vague distrust and fear 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 2OI 
 
 flashed through my mind. It had seemed to me at 
 the time inexplicable that, searching so carefully 
 and long, I had not seen the stone. Ally con 
 tinued : " It won t be of any use for you to go un 
 less you take Stonie, at any rate. Perhaps he will 
 toll you the way if I ask him to." 
 
 Dr. Miller looked at Ally with a surprised face. 
 
 " What nonsense is this you re talking, Pussy ? " 
 he said. 
 
 " That s just what Mr. Will said," replied Ally, 
 archly, and yet with a strange earnestness in her 
 tone. "Nobody believes that Stonie knows me 
 and tells me things, but he does. Some day you 11 
 all believe it." 
 
 "Pshaw what a notional little woman it is, to 
 be sure," laughed the Doctor, patting her on the 
 head, as he hurried out. 
 
 " Never mind. You 11 see," said Ally quietly, 
 putting back into her pocket the blue silk bag 
 which she had been fingering dreamily while she 
 talked. 
 
 Saturday was clear and bright. We set out 
 early. Ally made no request to be taken with us, 
 but watched all our movements with intense in 
 terest. I observed that she had the blue silk bag 
 in her hand and raised it often to her cheek. She 
 bade us good-by very quietly, but, as we cleared 
 the gate, we heard her call, " Doctor, brother Jim, 
 wait a minute," and she came flying down the walk, 
 urith the blue silk bag in her hand. " Here, Doc- 
 
202 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 tor," she said " you must take Stonie. You can t 
 find the way without him. He has told me where 
 his friends are ; and I have asked him to tell you, 
 There are n t any more of them on the old tree- 
 root. You need n t look there. Most of them are 
 down deep, and you 11 have to dig ; but there are 
 some up on the very tip-top of the rocks. I know 
 just how they look there. Stonie showed me." 
 
 The Doctor laughed and dropped the little bag 
 in his pocket, saying, " I 11 take good care of your 
 Stonie," and Ally ran back, kissing her hands to 
 us all 
 
 " She s a most fanciful child," he said, as we 
 walked on ; " that imagination of hers will give her 
 trouble some of these days ; though she s got a 
 splendid physique to offset it." 
 
 " Are you sure it is all her imagination about this 
 stone, sir ? " asked Jim, hesitatingly. 
 
 Dr. Miller stopped, turned, and looked Jim 
 squarely in the face. " God bless my soul, boy, 
 what else do you suppose it is ? You re as bad as 
 the child, upon my word. They don t teach a be 
 lief in witchcraft at your college, do they ? I 11 be 
 bound Will here don t believe any such nonsense," 
 turning to me. 
 
 I felt my face grow red, and my answer was as 
 hesitating as Jim s question. 
 
 " No, sir ; I don t believe it exactly, but it is very 
 odd how Ally " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " chuckled the Doctor. " It is r t at 
 
MY TOURMALINS. 2O3 
 
 all odd how Ally But you two are beginning 
 rather young to see through a woman s eyes. Let 
 it alone, boys, let it alone, only torment comes of 
 it ; " and the Doctor fell into a reverie, such as we 
 had often seen him in before, and which we knew 
 better than to interrupt. 
 
 It was a wet and ugly climb up Black Ledge that 
 morning. In the hollows of the rocks and under 
 the giant oaks there still la> patches of slippery 
 snow and ice ; but the air was soft and balmy, and 
 one blue hepatica welcomed us. It was growing 
 almost under the trunk of the fallen tree in whose 
 root Ally had found the stone. 
 
 " Ally said it was n t of any use to look here," 
 said Jim, unthinkingly. 
 
 Dr. Miller looked at him almost severely. 
 
 "Youngster," says he, "aren t you a little 
 ashamed of yourself ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir, a good deal," replied Jim, frankly 
 enough to disarm the most contemptuous critic. 
 " A good deal. But I can t help it. I do believe, 
 if we find the stones at all, we shall find them 
 where Ally said they were." 
 
 " And I suppose you believe, too, that this 
 stone here " tapping his waistcoat pocket, 
 " told her where its friends/ as she calls them, 
 were ? " said the Doctor, with kind, twinkling, com 
 passionate eyes. " Poor boy if Ally, at ten, does 
 .his to your senses, what 11 she do to you six years 
 hence ? " 
 
204 MY TOURMALINE 
 
 " Love me, I hope," said Jim, " as well as she 
 does now. She s all I ve got in the world, Dr. 
 Miller, and please don t laugh at me any more. 
 You would n t if you knew how 1 love that child, 
 would he, Will ? " 
 
 " No," said I, pretending to laugh. " It s no 
 laughing matter, Doctor." 
 
 But the words, " She s all I have got in this 
 world," echoed strangely in my ears. Dear, gen 
 erous Jim ; how little our boys hearts could have 
 dreamed in that hour of the barrier into which 
 those few words were destined to be built ! 
 
 We searched long around the roots of the old 
 tree. I think Dr. Miller was determined to falsify 
 Ally s prediction by finding the stones there. 
 
 " That one stone could n t have been all alone," 
 he said. " There s no such thing in nature ; there 
 must be more where that came from." 
 
 " But, Dr. Miller," said I, " that one was in a 
 crevice of the roots ; it probably came from deep 
 down in the earth," and I showed him, as nearly 
 as I could recollect, where the stone had lain. He 
 examined the earth on the roots very carefully, and 
 we looked for the cavity from which the tree had 
 come, but there was no trace of it. Probably 
 many years had elapsed since the storm which up 
 rooted the old oak. " It might have grown a long 
 way farther up the hill for all we can tell," said the 
 Doctor, scratching his head and looking puzzled. 
 
 At this instant we heard loud shouts from Jim 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 2O$ 
 
 He had spent very few minutes looking in the 
 vicinity of the old tree, but had climbed rapidly up 
 the ledge, and had been out of sight for some 
 time. 
 
 "Oh, Will! Will! Doctor! Doctor! Hurry I" 
 he cried, in tones so shrill and earnest, that I 
 feared he was in trouble. 
 
 " He s found them, I do believe," exclaimed the 
 Doctor, and we ran breathlessly up the steep and 
 slippery rocks. 
 
 On the very top of the ledge knelt Jim, his 
 hands clasped. 
 
 " Oh, look, look ! " he exclaimed. " Was not 
 Ally right ? " 
 
 We stood still in amazement. Glistening, spark 
 ling in the sun, there lay dozens of crystals as if 
 they had been just thrown down by some careless 
 hand. 
 
 " I have n t touched one," said Jim ; "I did n t 
 dare to." 
 
 Dr. Miller did not speak for some moments. 
 Then he cried out : 
 
 " By Jove, I d like to know whether we re in 
 Maine or in Brazil ! It looks as if we d been liv 
 ing at the foot of an emerald mine all our days, 
 and might have gone on living so if it hadn t 
 been for that blessed child. However, somebody 
 nad to find it out sooner or later. Pitch in, boys y 
 pitch in, we 11 get all we can this trip. The whole 
 town 11 be up here to-morrow, for I take it we 
 
206 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 haven t got any right to keep it to ourselves. 
 Nobody s ever thought of owning Black Ledge. 
 I guess my line comes up higher n anybody s \ 
 but I in a good way down yonder ; this is the 
 town s property up here." 
 
 Eagerly, silently, with an undercurrent of con 
 sciousness that we were coming very close to some 
 strange secret of nature, we gathered up the crys 
 tals. There were many of great beauty, but none 
 so fine as the first-found one, Ally s " Stonie." 
 Many of them were broken ; some looked as if 
 they had crumbled slowly into fragments ; but all 
 were transparent, brilliant, and of colors of in 
 effable beauty, dark green, light green, pink, 
 yellow, blue, rose-red and white. 
 
 It seemed utterly incredible that such treasures 
 could long have been lying exposed on this hill-top. 
 
 " I don t suppose there are many villages where 
 it could have happened," said Dr. Miller, " but 
 there is n t a man or woman in this town that 
 would ever think of walking a rod for pleasure, ex 
 cept me, and I m too busy always to get so far 
 from home s this. I suppose I ve looked up at 
 this Black Ledge a hundred times and resolved to 
 come up here at sunset some night, but I never 
 have. I guess I m glad I did n t. It s worth a 
 good deal more to come on it this way, with you 
 boys along, and that Ally down below waiting." 
 
 " Oh, what will she say ? What will she say ? * 
 exclaimed I. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 2O/ 
 
 " She won t be surprised," said Jim. " She s 
 known it all winter. She told me a long time ago 
 that there were ever so many up here ; that Stonie 
 said so. And she says : You know that the most 
 of them are down deep ; that we d only find a 
 few on the top." 
 
 " So she did ; so she did," said the Doctor, un 
 conscious of the amount of confidence in Ally be 
 trayed by his reply. " It s odd how the child 
 knew ; but that s the way it must be. These 
 crystals have been formed deep down among these 
 rock. I don t know what has laid them bare. It 
 takes ages for rocks to decompose, but this looks 
 like it. We 11 dig down just at the base of these 
 biggest rocks. This soil has washed down round 
 them." 
 
 In our first wonder and delight at the crystals, 
 we had scarcely observed the rocks ; but in looking 
 more closely, we found that they, too, were of rare 
 beauty. There were great masses of a rose-red 
 stone, magnificent rocks of quartz, and shining sur 
 faces of mica. On the cold gray of the granite 
 ledge these glittering colors stood out in sharp re 
 lief, and produced an effect of design in spite of all 
 the chaotic confusion. 
 
 " I believe the gods began a temple here once/* 
 said Jim, " and left their jewels behind them." 
 
 "Quit Maine for want of worshipers," chuckled 
 the Doctor, as he tugged away at his digging. Sud 
 denly he threw down his spade, fell on his knees 
 
208 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 and began fumbling in the loose earth with his 
 fingers. 
 
 More crystals ! We looked on in speechless as 
 tonishment The cavity into which his spade had 
 broken was some two feet deep. The bottom was 
 filled with sand, and loose in this sand, as if they 
 had been packed in it for safe keeping, lay many 
 crystals of the finest colors we had yet seen. Their 
 shapes were not perfect, and many of them were 
 cracked or fissured as if they had been at some 
 time exposed to the grinding of other stones upon 
 them, but the colors were superb. Carefully we 
 sifted the cavity to the very bottom, not leaving a 
 single fragment of the gems in it. By this time 
 the sun was well down in the western sky. 
 
 " We really must go home, boys," said the Doc 
 tor; "they will be anxious about us, and I am 
 hungry ; and you ought to be, though you are not," 
 he added, scanning our excited faces with a pro 
 fessional eye. 
 
 Hungry ! we had no more thought of hunger 
 than we should have in Aladdin s palace. Our eyes 
 were so feasted that the whole body seemed fed. 
 It was simply impossible to carry down the ledge 
 all the crystals and crystal-bearing fragments of 
 rock we had collected. We hid some of the least 
 beautiful specimen^ under the old tree-root, and we 
 were then so heavily burdened that the walk home 
 was a serious toil. Ally was at the window watch- 
 Jig for us. At the first sight of our overloaded 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 209 
 
 arms she clapped her hands and bounded to open 
 the door. 
 
 " Oh, I m so glad, so glad ! " she exclaimed, 
 jumping up and down, and springing first to one, 
 then to another. " I thought Stonie would help 
 you." 
 
 "You foolish Pussy," exclaimed Dr. Miller, 
 " we ve got a hundred stones just like him." 
 
 "No," said Ally, gravely, "you have not got any 
 just like him. There is not one among them all 
 just like him." 
 
 " By Jove, she s right," muttered the Doctor, as 
 we slowly set down our loads ; " there isn t one 
 just like hers." 
 
 " I told you so. I said she knew all about them," 
 whispered Jim, under his breath. 
 
 We spent the whole evening in sorting and ar 
 ranging the stones ; they seemed more and more 
 beautiful the more we studied them. There were 
 no two alike ; very few of them were perfect in 
 shape, but they were all of superb colors. There 
 was not one, however, which was so large, so regu 
 larly shaped and beautifully tinted as Ally s Stonie. 
 As we held up crystal after crystal, exclaiming, 
 " This is a perfect one ! " " Oh, this is the most 
 beautiful of all ! " Ally would place hers by the side 
 of it, and without saying one word, look an arch in 
 terrogation. When the last crystal was laid in its 
 p.ace, she said, quietly : 
 14 
 
2IO MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " Stonie is king. These are his people. But 
 there are many more in the hill." 
 
 " How does thee know, dear ? " asked Mrs. 
 Allen. " Can thee tell me how it is ? " 
 
 " Stonie tells me, mother," replied Ally. 
 
 " But how does he tell thee ? " said Mrs. Allen, 
 humoring the child s fancy by speaking of the stone 
 as she herself did. " He does not speak in words. 
 He makes no sound." 
 
 Ally looked perplexed. " No," sho said, slowly, 
 " I know that. But he likes me. He makes me 
 see." 
 
 This was all the explanation she could ever give 
 of the way in which she received impressions by 
 means of the magnetic stone " He makes me 
 see." The next morning we inclosed a few of the 
 smaller crystals in a letter and sent them to the 
 Professor of Geology in our college, giving him a 
 full account of the crystals, and of the locality 
 where we had found them. 
 
 How anxiously we awaited his reply. Our brains 
 teemed with the wildest hopes and projects ; even 
 Dr. Miller built air-castles, in which rubies and 
 emeralds made walls and floors. The whole village 
 was in a ferment of excitement. Black Ledge 
 swarmed thick with eager crystal hunters. Many 
 beautiful specimens were found, but no more of the 
 perfectly formed crystals like ours. At last the 
 tetter came. Jim and I ran with it to Dr. Miller s 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 211 
 
 office, and we read it together. It was long and 
 full. 
 
 Our crystals were no* emeralds, not rubies. They 
 were tourmalines. The mineral was a rare one. 
 Early in the eighteenth century, some experiments 
 had been made before the French Academy, show 
 ing the wonderful electric properties of the stone, 
 and for a few years considerable interest had been 
 taken in the subject. But, owing to the scarcity 
 of the gems, the investigations had not been con 
 tinued, and even at the present day the stone was 
 almost unknown, except to professional mineralo 
 gists. 
 
 Commercially, the gem had no fixed value. A 
 superb group of them, which had been presented 
 to the British Ambassador to the Burmese Empire, 
 in 1795, and was now in the British Museum, had 
 been valued at one thousand pounds sterling. The 
 deep red variety, when clear and flawless, would 
 command the price of rubies. It had been sur^ 
 mised that the famous ruby in one of the diadems 
 of the Russian crown jewels was a species of tour 
 maline. The Professor concluded his kind letter 
 by heartily congratulating us on our discovery, and 
 thanking us, in the name of the college, for the 
 specimens we had sent. He also offered to put us 
 in communication with some amateur collectors in 
 Europe, if we wished to dispose of the remaining 
 crystals. As these were the only ones which had 
 been discovered in America, he believed that Ihey 
 would be largely sought after. 
 
212 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 "Well, they re not real jewels after all, then/ 
 said the Doctor, drawing a long sigh. " I did hope 
 they d turn out to be a fortune for somebody. But 
 I don t care to dabble with the amateur collectors 
 the Professor talks about. I Ve had one such man 
 on my farm already after bird tracks. I never made 
 anything out of him. You can have all my share, 
 boys ; but I think you d better send some of the 
 very handsomest specimens to the college, don t 
 you? Those little fellows we put in the letter 
 weren t anything. If the British Museum has got 
 one five-thousand dollar specimen, t aint anyways 
 likely they want another. It s easy enough, though. 
 to value a thing at five thousand dollars, when a 
 grand Mogul of the Burmese Empire s given it to 
 you for nothing. I can set one of these big quartz 
 rocks with the green crystals in it up on my mantel 
 piece and * value it at five thousand dollars, too, 
 any day." 
 
 We were crestfallen and disappointed; but the 
 romance remained, though the hopes of pecuniary 
 gain had departed. There was something in the 
 very word tourmalines, Jim said, which went far 
 to reconcile him to their not being rubies, and we 
 felt somehow linked to the past century, to the 
 French Academy, and to the Russian Empire, we 
 boys in the heart of Maine who could amuse our- 
 lelves of an evening with handfuls of gems such as 
 savants had vainly desired to possess and Em 
 cresses had worn. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 213 
 
 When we read the letter aloud at home, Mrs. 
 Allen looked at her husband with so significant an 
 expression, and he returned it with one so full of 
 earnest meaning, that I exclaimed : 
 
 " Dear Dominie, dear Mrs. Allen, what is it ? " 
 
 Mrs. Allen did not speak. The Dominie glanced 
 a: her before replying. Then he said : 
 
 " My son, our hearts were much troubled at the 
 new thoughts which these jewels had brought into 
 the life of our household. We do not desire money 
 for ourselves ; we fear it for those we love. We 
 must grieve that your hopes are cast down, but we 
 cannot help being glad that the chief mission of the 
 wonderful stones is, after all, nothing more than to 
 give us all one farther glimpse into the wonders of 
 God s house in which we dwell." 
 
 Jim sprang from his seat, went to the Dominie, 
 took his hand reverently in both of his, and pressed 
 it without speaking. The Dominie s words had 
 gone to the very bottom of his heart. 
 
 "God bless you, my son," said the Dominie. 
 " When your hair is as white as mine you will think 
 as I think." 
 
 " I do now, sir," said Jim, in a low voice, " and I 
 believe I should think the same if I had not been 
 rich." 
 
 " Much you can tell about that, old fellow," said 
 I. " Wait till you Ve had to go without half the 
 ihings you wanted for years and years. You re 
 ust like a blind man talking about colors." 
 
214 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " The Dominie and mother have had to go with 
 out most things they wanted," said Jim, impul 
 sively. 
 
 The two aged lovers again exchanged glances. 
 This time it was Mrs. Allen who spoke. 
 
 " Nay, not so. We have not gone without the 
 things we have not had. But that is something 
 thee cannot understand yet," and the placid, tender 
 eyes turned to Ally involuntarily. 
 
 Ally had listened with absorbed interest to the 
 reading of the letter and to the conversation which 
 followed. Her face showed that not one of the 
 ideas escaped her comprehension. The mental 
 growth of this child in the last six months had 
 been simply wonderful. In technical and text-book 
 knowledge she was still far behind most children 
 of her age, and must, of course, continue to be so 
 for a long time. The lost years of her sad, un 
 trained childhood could not easily be made up. 
 But, on the other hand, every moment of her life 
 now contained true education; and her suscepti 
 bility to influence was so exquisite that each new 
 germ of thought sprang up quickly, bearing its 
 hundred fold. Except for the innate gayety of her 
 temperament, and for her fine English physique, 
 she would have been in danger of becoming an in 
 troverted and too thoughtful child. But the mirth 
 ful heart and the abounding animal life saved her. 
 
 As Mrs. Allen finished speaking, Ally came 
 slowly to the table, drawing the blue silk bag from 
 her pocket. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 21 5 
 
 " I would like to send Stonie to the gentleman 
 ivho wrote that letter. Stonie is king, and ought to 
 go," she said. 
 
 "Can you spare Stonie?" asked Jim, tenderly. 
 "You will miss him very much, little one." 
 
 " I can have another all for my own, can t I ? " 
 said Ally, anxiously. 
 
 " Why, yes, pet, a dozen, if you want them," re 
 plied Jim ; "but they won t be like Stonie. There 
 isn t one just like him." 
 
 "I know that," said Ally. "There isn t one in 
 all the hill just like him. But he is king ; he ought 
 to go, and he wants to go, too. He has told me 
 so." 
 
 With a tender, lingering touch she laid the be 
 loved crystal down on the paper wliere we had 
 already placed some of the specimens to be sent 
 to the Professor. It was, indeed, king of them 
 all. Both ends of the crystal were perfectly formed. 
 It was transparent and flawless throughout. Two 
 thirds of its length were vivid green ; the other 
 third rose-pink. At the green summit was a layer 
 of solid opaque white, looking like a cap, though 
 only a line wide. In no other specimen did we see 
 any trace of such a formation of white. 
 
 "That is Stonie s snow crown," said Ally, laying 
 her finger on the white end of the crystal. " You 
 see none of the rest have crowns." 
 
 She found it hard to make a choice. She tested 
 tvery stone by laying it against her cheek. 
 
2l6 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " I want one with a voice like Stonie," she said. 
 
 We were so accustomed now to this strange man 
 ner of speaking of the stone that we treated it 
 merely as a child s fancy for thinking a toy alive. 
 But there was much more in it than we knew. At 
 last she made her selection, two of the longest and 
 slenderest crystals, of precisely the same length, 
 one solid green, the other green and red. 
 
 " Are these too nice for me to have ? " she asked 
 timidly. " They are the best of all you have." 
 
 "You generous pussy," exclaimed Dr. Miller, 
 " as if you had n t given us the very gem of the 
 whole." 
 
 " Oh, Stonie was n t really mine ! only to keep 
 for a little while," said Ally. " He was king." 
 
 The next day Dr. Miller was to set out on a long 
 journey to the West, and he proposed to deliver 
 our precious package of tourmalines, with his own 
 hands, to the Professor. 
 
 I d like to tell him, too, about you boys," he 
 said, roguishly. " If I report all your misconduct 
 faithfully, he 11 get your sentence extended another 
 six months." 
 
 " Oh, if he only would ! " we both exclaimed. 
 " We do hate to go away." 
 
 The time was very near only four weeks more. 
 We could not bear to hear any one mention the 
 days of the month. They sounded in our ears like 
 the notes of a clock striking hour after hour of a 
 happy day. Oh, the marvel of this thing which we 
 
MY TOURMALIN S. 21 J 
 
 rail time ! which is, and which is not ; a moment 
 of which can seem like an eternity of pain ! an eter 
 nity of which can seem too short for a moment of 
 joy? 
 
 Some weeks after Dr. Miller s departure I ob 
 served, one morning at breakfast, that Ally was 
 unusually grave. 
 
 " What is it Ally ? What are you thinking about ? " 
 said I. 
 
 " Stonie," she replied, in a sad voice. 
 
 " Do you want him back ? I was afraid you 
 would, " said Jim 
 
 " Oh, no, brother Jim. It is n t that ; " and the 
 child s lip trembled. 
 
 " What is it, then ? Do tell me, dear," ex 
 claimed Jim, his face full of trouble, as it always 
 was at sight of an instant s unhappiness on Ally s. 
 
 " I can t," said Ally ; " I don t know. It s 
 Stonie. When will Dr. Miller come home ? " 
 
 " Why, not for three weeks yet, Ally," replied 
 Jim; "but he hasn t got Stonie now. Stonie s 
 safe in a great big box on high legs, with a glass 
 cover to it, by this time." And he tried to divert 
 her mind by telling her about the college cabinets. 
 She listened absently, and at last shaking her head, 
 and saying, " Stonie is n t there," she slipped from 
 Jim s lap and walked slowly away. 
 
 That night there came a letter to Jim in a hand 
 writing he did not know. He glanced at the sig 
 nature, and exclaimed : 
 
218 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " Oh, the good Doctor ! He s written to tell us 
 about the tourmalines ! " 
 
 As he read the letter his face lengthened. I did 
 not interrupt him with any question, but I said to 
 myself : 
 
 " The tourmalines are lost, and Ally knew it 
 this morning. I wish we d never heard of the 
 things, anyhow. They re bewitched. " 
 
 Presently he threw the letter to me, saying, 
 " Read that, Will. I don t care about the con 
 founded stones, but I d rather run a gauntlet of 
 wild Indians than tell Ally. Hang the thing! I 
 wish we d never seen Black Ledge." 
 
 Dr. Miller s letter was highly characteristic : 
 
 " DEAR BOYS : I may as well out with it. Your 
 my Ally s all the tourmalines are lost. I don t 
 know but the Dominie was right, after all. Maybe 
 they are used for gates in heaven, and angelic archi 
 tects lay violent hands on them whenever they find 
 them. The worst of it is, that I can t swear that it 
 is n t my fault. The beastly stage driver that we 
 rode with day before yesterday upset his stage just 
 before dark, and nearly broke all our necks. There 
 was a woman with a little boy in it, and the child s 
 leg was broken, and I was up all night with them \ 
 and I 11 be hanged if I ever thought once of the 
 package of tourmalines till late the next day. I 
 had it in my inside pocket, and felt of it about once 
 ai an hour or so up to that time. I spent most of 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 2 19 
 
 yesterday ransacking the bushes and sand where we 
 tipped over, and questioning everybody, but it s no 
 use ; the thing s gone, and I 11 have to push on to 
 morrow. I hate to leave this woman with her boy 
 worse than I ever hated to do anything. The child 
 can t be stirred for three months, and they re as 
 poor as the dogs. You can tell Ally about this lit 
 tle boy and his broken leg, and that 11 divert her 
 from Stonie. Don t blame me any more than you 
 can help, boys ; I m cut up enough about it, any 
 how. I expect you thought I was old enough to be 
 trusted. DAVID MILLER. 
 
 " P. S. I m ashamed of myself for thinking such 
 a thing, but I can t get it out of my head that Caleb 
 Bunker has got the tourmalines. He sat next me 
 in the stage, and he has been like a man possessed 
 about them from the very first; but, of course, I 
 can t ever say a word to him, and I Ve no business 
 to you. He was terribly officious in helping me 
 look after them yesterday morning, and all of a 
 sudden he disappeared. If he got them I shall find 
 it out some day, for he s such a fool. D. M. " 
 
 To our great relief Ally took the news of the loss 
 of " Stonie " very quietly. She was prepared for it. 
 
 " I knew something had happened," she said, 
 " but it is no matter. Stonie will be king, you know, 
 wherever he is. I dare say he did not want to be 
 shut up in that box you told me about." 
 
220 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 When we were alone Mrs. Allen said quietl} to 
 Jim : 
 
 " I am very glad thee was discreet enough not to 
 read before the child the Doctor s suspicions of 
 Mr. Bunker. She has gratitude to him and Mrs. 
 Bunker, and I would be sorry to have it disturbed, 
 I fear that the Doctor is right. There was all the 
 essence of dishonesty in the manner in which he 
 spent thy hundred dollars for Ally." 
 
 Our sorrow at the loss of the tourmalines was 
 soon swallowed up in our grief at the near prospect 
 of going back to college. To leave Ally and Mrs. 
 Allen and the Dominie was harder to me than it had 
 ever been to leave my own home ; and, as for Jim, 
 poor boy, it was the first home he had ever known. 
 
 " If I were n t ashamed, Will," he said, " I d 
 quit college and turn my back on the world and 
 settle down here with Dominie." 
 
 " What to do, Jim ? " said I. " Study and hunt, 
 and teach Ally till she s old enough for me to take 
 her to Europe, replied he with kindling face. " I 
 believe I d know more at the end of six years that 
 way than I will now. College is an infernal hum 
 bug, Will, and you know it as well as I do. 
 Have n t we learnt more in these six months with 
 Dominie than in all the rest of our lives put together ? 
 \nyhow, I m thankful Ally s got such a home. 
 Blessed little angel, how could I ever have thought 
 of her being marched up and down the streets in 
 tfiose processions of boarding-school girls, and 
 
TOURMALTNE. 221 
 
 learning to flirt with the students. It makes me 
 feel like knocking these country fellows down now 
 whenever I see them looking at her, and I don t 
 know what I d do with her at college." 
 
 " Break a dozen fellow s heads every term, I ex 
 pect, old boy, what with the ones that made love 
 to her, and the ones that chaffed you about her," 
 laughed I. 
 
 "Chaffed me about Ally!" exclaimed Jim. 
 " What do you mean, Will ? Who ever heard of a 
 man being chaffed about his sister ? " 
 
 " Nobody," said I satirically ; " but Ally hap 
 pens not to be your sister." 
 
 " Will, it s just the same as if my father and 
 mother had adopted her instead of me ; exactly the 
 same. She is my sister, I tell you," said Jim em 
 phatically. 
 
 " There is n t any same as brother about kisses, " 
 came into my head, but I forebore to quote the 
 words. My heart was already sorer than I knew 
 how to explain, by reason of this little maiden s ex 
 clusive love for her brother Jim. 
 
 The dreaded day came swiftly, as only dreaded 
 days can ; it was a sunny May morning. To go 
 away by stage from a home one sorrows to leave 
 is infinitely harder than to go in any other way. 
 There is such a mockery of good cheer, of a pleas 
 ure drive, in the prancing of the horses eager to be 
 off. There is such a refinement of cruelty in the 
 Composure of the driver, waiting wlip in hand for 
 
222 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 you to decide for yourself when the last words have 
 been said, the last kiss taken. There is such a 
 prolongation of the pain of last looks, as at turn af 
 ter turn of the winding road you discover that you 
 can still see the dear forms on the doorstep, or 
 the gleam of the home through the trees. The au 
 thoritative " All aboard " of the conductor, and the 
 pitiless shriek of the steam-engine at the railway 
 station, are mercies for those who find it hard to 
 part. All this I thought as we rode away from the 
 beloved parsonage, looking back and back again 
 between the pink apple-tree tops to the group of 
 loved ones in the door-way. The parting had been 
 singularly brief and quiet. Mrs. Allen s placid 
 brown eyes were full of tears, but her last words 
 were simply, to both Jim and me : " Thee will 
 write, thee will write often ; " and the Dominie s 
 voice shook a little as he said, " God keep you, my 
 boys. Remember that this is your home always." 
 
 Ally spoke no word ; she kissed fiiiit me, then 
 Jim, with a swift kiss quite unlike her usual cling 
 ing, loving kisses, and then turned her head away 
 and hid it in the lilac boughs. The clusters of 
 purple flowers bent down and rested on her golden 
 Hair as if to soothe her. All I could see of her face 
 was the patient, sweet mouth, which was firmer 
 shut than usual. 
 
 And so we went back into the world again : the 
 city, the college, the men, the women, all seemed 
 unspeakably strange, and the strangeness did not 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 22$ 
 
 wear off. For weeks our feeling was not so much 
 one of homesickness as of bewilderment. No 
 foreigners in a strange land ever found the atmos 
 phere of their lives newer, more inharmonious. The 
 very speech jarred on our ears. For six months 
 we had heard but three voices, and those singularly 
 low, sweet, rich. 
 
 " Oh, Will, is this the same language they used 
 to speak at the Dominie s ? " exclaimed Jim, in the 
 middle of our first breakfast at our boarding-house ; 
 " I can t stand it ! It is like jews-harps. It never 
 sounded like this before. " 
 
 " How have you ever made out to live through 
 the winter in that outlandish place, Mr. Ordway ? " 
 at this instant called our spinster landlady in shrill 
 tones from her high seat at the head of the table ; 
 " I assure you we have all sympathized with you 
 deeply." 
 
 Jim s look of surprise was almost an angry stare. 
 
 " I was never so happy in my life, madam," he 
 retorted, " and I assure you this place is the out 
 landish one and not that ! " 
 
 Significant looks were exchanged among the 
 boys at this outbreak. " Oh, Jim, be quiet," I 
 whispered ; " the boys will chaff you to death if you 
 make such speeches." 
 
 " Yes, I m a fool, Will," he answered, under his 
 breath, and then, resuming his more courteous tone, 
 he endeavored to soothe the ancient maiden s re 
 sentment and disarm suspicion by a graphic ao 
 
224 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 count of the beauty of the winter in northern 
 Maine, and of the rare characters we had found in 
 Parson Allen and his wife. 
 
 But the mischief was done. College boys do not 
 easily lose sight of the clew to a possible joke, and 
 the secret of Jim Ordway s attachment to Maine 
 was the staple of current banter for months. I 
 was not there long to help poor Jim bear and 
 baffle it. In the third week of the term I was 
 called home by the sudden death of my father. 
 His business was left in disastrous confusion, and 
 the only chance of saving the property seemed to 
 lie in my giving up my college education and going 
 into the counting-house. It was a severe test for a 
 boy eighteen years old, but I never regretted that 
 it devolved upon me. I was better suited for a 
 business life than for any other, and the four years 
 of college would not have been sufficient help to me 
 in it to have compensated for the delay. Here, 
 therefore, the currents of life divided me from Jim. 
 After four years three at school and one at col 
 lege in which we had lived like brothers, we 
 were now thrown widely apart. 
 
 The separation was much harder to Jim than to 
 me. As I said in the beginning of my story, I ha\e 
 always wondered why I did not love him better. 
 His idealistic, dreamy, poetic, impulsive nature had 
 freat fascination for me, but with the fascination 
 was mingled a certain impatience, almost scorn, of 
 his lack of practicality, and an element of pity 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 22$ 
 
 which is fatal to the strongest love between man 
 and man. It was only in a woman s nature that I 
 could wholly love the combination of qualities which 
 made Jim the sweet-souled fellow he was, and made 
 him dearer to almost everybody than he could ever 
 be to me, whom he loved with his whole heart. 
 Yet I feel a sharp sense of disloyalty, in writing 
 these words, in acknowledging even to myself this 
 fatal flaw in my regard for him. He was so pure, 
 so unselfish, so true; he lived habitually on so 
 much higher a plane of thought than 1 did, that I 
 always felt in his presence that the flaw was in me, 
 rather than in him, that my love could not grow 
 warmer. His gentle, affectionate sweetness, his en 
 thusiastic sympathy, moved me greatly. But the 
 instant he was gone from my sight my conscious 
 ness of the lack in his nature returned in undimin- 
 ished vividness, and I knew that I must forever re 
 ceive far more affection than I could give, in my 
 relations with him. 
 
 The story of the next three years is summed up 
 in a few words. Jim was faithfully working away 
 in the college routine, which he more than half 
 despised, but would not let himself abandon. I 
 was working alone and unhelped, as men work in 
 a shipwreck, striving to save the remains of my 
 father s little property. It was a terrible strain, and 
 has told on my whole life. I used up in those 
 years physical capital which could never be re 
 placed, but I gained a business knowledge and 
 15 
 
226 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 capacity which no less severe training could have 
 given me. In saving my father s hundreds I learned 
 to make my own thousands, and I am content. Jim 
 wrote very often. I wrote seldom. This was partly 
 because of my temperament, partly because I was 
 so overworked. Through him I heard from the 
 dear home in Maine, and through him sent to them 
 my warm recollections ; but after the letters at the 
 time of my father s death I left off writing directly 
 to him. This, again, was partly because of my tem 
 perament, partly because I was so overworked ; but 
 partly, also, because I had an instinctive conscious 
 ness that the thought of Ally must not become an 
 element in my daily life. Strange that in the boy s 
 heart the man s instinct should have been so strong ; 
 should have so recognized in the little unformed 
 child the mature woman ; should have had so pro 
 phetic a sense of all which lay hid far, far in the 
 future ! When the news of my misfortune reached 
 the parsonage, Mrs. Allen and the Dominie each 
 wrote me a loving and sympathizing letter. Mrs. 
 Allen said : 
 
 " Thee knows that we ourselves set little store by 
 money, nevertheless we can sorrow with those who 
 lose it. If it is best for thee to have riches, it is 
 very easy for the Lord to lay them in thy hands." 
 
 Enclosed in the letter was a small tit of paper, 
 on which Ally had printed in large and angular 
 etters : 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 22J 
 
 " DEAR MR. WILL, I am very sorry for you to 
 have to go away from brother Jim. 
 "1 would kiss you if you were here. 
 
 " ALLY." 
 
 I have this precious bit of paper now ; the letters 
 are faded, and the paper is worn thin and ragged ; 
 it is many years old. Jim s letters were full of Ally, 
 especially during his vacations, which were always 
 spent at the parsonage. Sometimes he was grieved 
 at my seeming lack of sympathy about the child. 
 He once wrote : 
 
 "I don t know if I bore you about Ally. You 
 never ask a question about her, and sometimes I 
 think you have forgotten our life in the old parson 
 age, you say so little of them all. But it don t seem 
 like you, Will, to leave off loving anybody that loves 
 you, and they all do love you just as well to-day as 
 the day we rode off together on the stage. If you 
 don t care about them as you used to, and would 
 rather not hear so much about them, do tell me, so 
 I need n t write it any more." 
 
 Leave off loving ! No, it was not like me. In 
 my reply to this letter I said : 
 
 " I hope you will never think, because I do not 
 speak of or to people, that I have ceased to love 
 them. I do not love you, or Dominie, or Mrs. Al 
 len, or Ally any less than I did three years ago. 
 You will never learn, I suppose, that words are not 
 with me natural expressions of feeling." 
 
228 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 Jim was relieved, but not satisfied. 
 
 " I cannot doubt the truth of all you say, deaf 
 Will," he replied, "out I wish it had a different 
 sound to it, somehow." 
 
 Ah, the " sound to it ! " How many a heart like 
 my faithful Jim s, has half broken for the lack of a 
 certain " sound " to words which were spoken in all 
 loyalty and affection, and really meant all which the 
 aching, listening heart craved, but could not learn 
 to understand in any other language than its own ! 
 
 This letter was just before Jim s graduation. I 
 had promised to be present at the Commencement. 
 The Dominie and Mrs. Allen and Ally were all to 
 be there, and perhaps Jim s dearly beloved old 
 guardian. Jim s heart was over-full with delight 
 and anticipation. His letters made even me, pro 
 saic, calm-blooded man that I was, feel like laugh 
 ing and crying together. 
 
 " Oh, you dear old Will ! " he wrote ; " will you 
 just think of what currents are coming together 
 next week ? Guardy hasn t seen Mrs. Allen for 
 thirty or forty years, and I know he used to love 
 her I know it by lots of things ; and you have n t 
 seen Ally for almost four years. I shan t tell you 
 a word about her, only just you be prepared to lose 
 your breath, that s all. I will tell you one thing, 
 though. She s almost as tall as I am, Will ! What 
 do you think of that for a girl of fourteen ? Oh. 
 I m proud of her ! And you, old fellow, have you 
 got such a beard I shan t know you ? Oh, but I m 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 22$ 
 
 afiaid I shall cry! Hang it all! I wish there 
 wasn t such a streak of woman in me." 
 
 Ally, almost as tall as Jim ! I could not form 
 any such fancy of her. 
 
 She lived in my mind, always in one picture ; a 
 little bounding child, with a wreath of scarlet oak- 
 leaves over her shoulders, and golden curls shining 
 in the wind ; and whenever I recalled this picture, 
 I recalled as vividly the sharp thrill of electric heat 
 which shot up my arm as I took from her tiny hand 
 the red and green crystal. My life during these 
 three years at home had been so secluded, so dull, 
 so hard, that the memory of the winter at the par 
 sonage was in no danger of being effaced by new 
 impressions. On the contrary, it but brightened 
 day by day. The traveler cannot forget the oasis 
 while he is still in the desert. My mother and sis 
 ters were good women. I loved them dutifully, but 
 they gave me no joy ; they invested life with no 
 grace, no exhilaration, no stimulus ; they were, like 
 me, affectionate, realistic, faithful, plodding; ex 
 cept that I had known Mrs. Allen, had breathed 
 the atmosphere of her house, I should have ac 
 cepted them as types of the highest sort of women 
 so true, loyal, upright, steadfast were they; but, 
 I had learned the gospel of a new dispensation ; I 
 had been led up to heights whose air had expanded 
 iy spiritual nature as the air of great altitudes ex 
 pands the lungs. All the more that I compre 
 hended my own incapacity to create or even fully 
 
230 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 understand the atmosphere of an idealized life, I 
 felt that I needed it, and knew that I longed :or it. 
 Hour by hour, in these long three years, while Jim 
 had suspected me of forgetting the dear ones at 
 the parsonage, I had yearned for them with a yearn 
 ing born of such need and loss as Jim could never 
 have felt, and never have borne. I hesitated long 
 whether I should go to the Commencement. The 
 promise had been of such long standing it seemed 
 an obligation ; and well I knew that Jim s loving 
 heart would be wounded to the quick, if I failed. 
 My inmost instinct warned me against going, told 
 me that after a week in such companionship it 
 would be only the harder to return to the associa 
 tions and the burdens of my inevitable life : on the 
 other hand, it seemed a selfish thing to deprive my 
 friends of a pleasure solely to save myself a pain. 
 " Supposing life is made a little harder," I said to 
 myself, bitterly, " what then ! I can bear it." Oh, 
 how worthless a faculty is imagination when we use 
 it to gauge an untried burden ! As well ask the 
 eagle s vision to measure the load that a beast of 
 burden may draw ! 
 
 I went to the Commencement. An accident to a 
 train delayed me many hours, and I did not arrive 
 antil nearly noon of the Commencement day. The 
 exercises had begun some two hours before. The 
 church was filled to overflowing. To enter by the 
 doors was simply impossible. A step-laddei had 
 been set at an open window on the left hand of the 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 2$l 
 
 pulpit, and by this the guests who were to have 
 seats on the platform had climbed up. From this 
 window I could see the whole house. I had not 
 stood there many minutes before I caught Jim s 
 eye. He was in the second row of pews, in front 
 of the platform, looking no more like a senior than 
 he did the day we were rusticated for our freshman 
 frolic. Dear, child-hearted man. Not a line of 
 beard on his cheek; not a trace of wordliness in 
 his face ; every line, every feature, full of spiritual 
 ity, enthusiasm, simplicity. 
 
 When he caught my eye his whole face flushed, 
 and he involuntarily half rose from his seat ; then 
 recollecting himself, he sank back with a comic 
 look of despair, and began to make signals to me 
 which I could not in the least comprehend. In my 
 absorbed attention to these signals, I did not ob 
 serve that I was obstructing the entrance to the 
 platform, and that some one was waiting to pass me. 
 Suddenly, I heard a low voice saying, "Will you 
 have the kindness, sir, to let my father pass ? " and 
 the old electric shock flashed up my arm like fire. 
 Without turning my head I knew that it was Ally 
 who had spoken, and that she had the Tourmaline 
 in her possession. I sprang back. She lifted her 
 beautiful brown eyes to me as calmly as to a stran 
 ger, thanked me, and stretched out her hand to 
 Dominie, saying : " Come down here, father, we 
 have kept a seat for you." 
 
 Dominie also looked in my face as in the face of 
 
232 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 a stranger, and bowed courteously as he passed. 
 Then for the first time I realized what the years 
 had done to my face. But how then should Jim 
 have known me so instantly ? A sudden sense of 
 aggrieved pain stole over me. I said to myself : 
 " They would have known me if they had not for 
 gotten my face. " As Dominie took his seat, I heard 
 him say to Ally : 
 
 " He has not come. It is very strange. I am 
 afraid there is some accident. " 
 
 I knew then that he had been to the station to 
 meet me. The temptation was very strong to make 
 myself known, but the temptation to study Ally s 
 face for a few hours unobserved was still stronger. 
 
 To say that she was the most beautiful human 
 creature I had ever seen seems to desecrate her. 
 Comparison between Ally and other women was 
 impossible. Moment by moment as I looked at 
 her I grew incredulous of my eyes. Was that a 
 girl fourteen years old ? Was that the outcast child 
 fostered in a lonely New England village by the 
 village pastor s wife ? It was a woman of such 
 superb stature that one half inch more of height 
 would have made her look masculine. It was a 
 woman of such self-poise of manner and bearing 
 such elegance of dress that out of America one 
 would have thought her of some royal house. If 
 she had had no beauty, the elegance and the grace 
 of her bearing would have produced the effect 
 of it ; but what words can describe the charm pro 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 233 
 
 duced by the combination of these \vith beauty 
 which more than fulfilled the promise of her child 
 hood ? There were the same soft yet brilliant 
 brown eyes, the same exquisite complexion, the 
 same golden-yellow curls. The curls were no 
 longer falling on her neck, but no looping could 
 wholly confine them. 1 could have sworn that one 
 which drooped and fluttered on her right shoulder 
 was the very one I had so often threatened to cut off. 
 The expression of her face was singularly like that 
 of Jim s. I had sometimes noticed this at the par 
 sonage, but now the resemblance had deepened. 
 There was the same simplicity, spirituality, enthu 
 siasm. There was, however, in spite of the enthu 
 siasm, an expression of placid repose, which Jim s 
 face had not. In this her face was like Mrs. Allen s, 
 and no one seeing them sitting there side by side 
 could have failed to suppose them mother and 
 daughter. Mrs. Allen s face had grown wrinkled 
 and thinner, and yet so tender and holy was its 
 beauty that it did not suffer by contrast with the 
 fresh young bloom at its side. 
 
 Ally s dress was black, of a fine transparent mate 
 rial. A wide, floating scarf of the same, quaintly 
 embroided in tiny poppies of scarlet and gold, was 
 ihrown over her shoulders. Her bonnet was of the 
 finest black lace, its only ornament two scarlet pop 
 pies and one golden bud. It was a toilette an In 
 dian princess might have worn if she had also 
 been a poet. 
 
234 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 " Jim must have sent to Paris for that for her," 
 said I to myself. "Lucky fellow that he is with 
 his money ! " I was wrong. It was a toilette that 
 Ally had devised, and her own hands had wrought 
 the poppies in scarlet and gold. 
 
 The President rolled out his sonorous Latin sen 
 tences ; my old classmates came and went on the 
 stage ; disquisitions, discussions, orations, were all 
 alike to me. I heard the words as one hears words 
 in a dream. I was fully conscious of but one sense, 
 and that was the sense of Ally s personality. It 
 was not the fascination of her beauty ; it was, as it 
 always remained, the vivid sense of her as of an 
 expansion of my consciousness of myself. This is 
 the nearest analysis which words can give of the 
 bond which held me to Ally. As I stood with my 
 eyes dreamily fixed on the scarlet and gold pop 
 pies of her scarf, I recalled the wealth of scarlet 
 oak-leaves which she had worn on that autumn 
 morning, and I knew that the two hours were linked 
 together by a bond as enduring as eternity. While 
 I was thinking of the strange coincidence in material 
 color of these two most vivid pictures in my brain, I 
 was suddenly conscious of another sharp, electric 
 thrill ; not running as before, up my arm, but seem 
 ing to come from the floor beneath my feet. It was 
 very sharp, so sharp that I involuntarily leaned 
 against the wall to steady myself for a second and 
 shut my eyes. When I opened them I saw that 
 Ally s head was turned ; she seemed to be eagerly 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 235 
 
 looking for some one, yet the expression was not 
 wholly one of expectancy ; it was of a vague anx 
 iety. Her eyes moved slowly from face to face in 
 the seats behind her. As they came nearer and 
 nearer to me my heart beat violently. Was she 
 about to know me at last? Had the tourmaline 
 bond revealed me to her ? Her eyes met mine. I 
 had resolved that no change in my face should as 
 sist the recognition, but I felt the blood mount to 
 my temples, and I could no more have withdrawn 
 my eyes from hers than I could have lifted the old 
 church in my arms. For a second her eyes fell un 
 der mine, then she lifted them again with the old 
 appealing look which I remembered so well, her 
 cheeks flushed, and a reproachful expression gath 
 ered around her mouth. If she had said : " I know 
 it is you ; how can you be so cruel, pretending not 
 to know me ? " it could not have been plainer. I 
 smiled, and in one second there broke all over her 
 face a light of rosy color and laughing gladness, 
 and turning to Mrs. Allen and the Dominie, she 
 spoke one eager word, pointing to me. In a mo 
 ment more the dear old Dominie had my hands in 
 his, and, too regardless of the place, we were talk 
 ing breathlessly. It was well for us that an inter 
 mission in the exercises arrived at that moment. 
 Once the barriers of my incognito were broken 
 down, words could not come fast enough. 
 
 a I am very glad to see thee once more," were 
 all the words of welcome Mrs. Allen spoke, but the 
 
236 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 eyes said more. And Ally, beautiful Ally, how 
 shall I describe the myriad ways in which the child 
 heart spoke through the woman s eyes and voice ! 
 The three years interval seemed obliterated in her 
 consciousness ; it was again " Brother Jim " and 
 " Mr. Will, " and the glad, merry, loving old life 
 seemed to be going on, as fresh and un trammeled 
 as ever, there on the platform of the old meeting 
 house, and under the eyes of hundreds of people. 
 
 " I knew you were here some time ago, Mr. Will," 
 said Ally. 
 
 " How, Ally ? " said I. She colored, but did not 
 reply. " You have spoken to me once this morn 
 ing, and did not know me," I continued. " That 
 made it hard for me to be sure you knew me just 
 now." 
 
 " Oh, no, Mr. Will, " she said, earnestly. " That 
 is not possible. I knew your face the instant I saw 
 it. I had been looking slowly into all the faces 
 near me to find you. I had been looking for an 
 hour. I knew when you came in, I think. 1 
 
 It was probable, then, that when I had believed 
 her eyes were lifted to my face, they were really 
 fastened on Dominie, who was close behind me, and 
 she did not see me at all. As I sat ne?r her, the 
 folds of her dress touching my feet ; again the sharp 
 electric thrill flashed from the floor to my brain. I 
 bent over her and whispered, 
 
 " Ally, do you carry Stonie in your pocket ? " 
 
 "Oh, no, not Stonie. He was lost, you know 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 237 
 
 But I have Stonie s two friends here ; " and she 
 threw back her scarf and pointed to the two tourma 
 lines hanging at her belt. They were fastened to 
 gether by a twisted silver wire in shape of a cross, 
 and swung bv a long loop of the wire from her belt 
 clasp 
 
 " I keep them always with me," she went on. 
 "I am just as much a baby as ever about them. 
 Do you recollect ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " Well, it is just so now. Mamma thinks I shaP 
 outgrow it, but I do not believe I shall grow any 
 more. Do you, Mr. Will ? " she said with delicious 
 archness. " And if I do, I believe the crystals will 
 keep on telling me things as long as I live. If I put 
 my hands on them I feel their power, and I can see 
 things while I am touching them things which are 
 happening away from me. But mamma does not 
 like to have me talk about it to any one. So I 
 never do." 
 
 " Oh, dear me ! " exclaimed Jim, " Tourmalines 
 ae;ain ! I 11 cut them off your belt some day, Ally. 
 They bewitch you and make you too bewitching, 
 and she is bewitching enough without them. Is n t 
 she, Will ? " turning to me. 
 
 I could not answer. Something in his tone 
 jarred upon me indescribably. Was this the Jim 
 who had said to me once that he could not under 
 stand how boys spoke lightly of the wives they 
 would one day have ? Was it he who was speaking 
 
238 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 in this jesting way of the witchery of the girl whom 
 he was to marry ? Ally laughed, and her laugh 
 jarred upon me still more. 
 
 " No use, brother Jim," she said. " I should go 
 to Black Ledge and get others. Besides, Stonie is 
 coming back to me some day, and he is king." 
 
 Ally s child-like unconsciousness of self prevented 
 her seeing what we all saw, that the eyes of the 
 whole assembly were upon her. Her beauty, her 
 remarkable stature, her indescribable charm of 
 voice and smile, awaked the attention of every one 
 and held it spell-bound. 
 
 "Ally, my child," at last said Mrs. Allen, "thee 
 must not forget that thee is not at home. There 
 are many strangers here observing us." 
 
 Ally was as high-spirited as she was beautiful. 
 The old lamb-like docility had gone with the days 
 of suffering which had created it. 
 
 " Why should they observe us ? How dare they 
 be so rude ? " she said, with her eyes flashing and 
 turning suddenly toward the front of the platform, 
 unconsciously taking in the whole house in her 
 swift glance of resentment, and looking more su 
 perb than ever. 
 
 "By Jove, Will," exclaimed Jim, in a whisper, 
 " look at the galleries ! We 11 have the whole col 
 lege at her feet to-morrow ! " and his face flushed 
 with pride. 
 
 * Oh, Jim," said I, " do let us get her away, J 
 can t endure to see them stare at her so." 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 239 
 
 "Why, you queer old Will," said Jim, "what do 
 fou mean ! You ought to be just as proud as I. 
 She s just as much your sister as mine." 
 
 " She is n t either your sister or mine, old fellow," 
 said I, "and it s no place for a girl like her up 
 on this platform for a mob of men to look at. I m 
 going to take her farther back;" and I easily per 
 suaded them all to move into a more retired seat, 
 \\here we could talk more quietly. 
 
 The memory of the next two weeks is to me like 
 the memory of a dream a dream of a lifetime 
 passed in some fairy land, through whose scenes 
 floated one peerless being, robed in such robes as 
 mortals do not wear. There were evening parties, 
 and there were drives, and there were breakfasts 
 and dinners, and there were days in cars, and days 
 on mountain tops. After the exercises of the Com 
 mencement were over, we went to the White Moun 
 tains for a week, and then home to the parsonage. 
 It is certain that I moved and spoke through it all 
 like a caim and rational man, for no one wondered 
 or demurred at anything I did ; and the atmob- 
 phere of all our hours together was one of affec 
 tionate and unbroken hilarity ; but the best proof 
 of the overwrought state in which I was really liv 
 ing is the fact that when all was over, and I sat 
 down at home to recall the incidents of the journey, 
 I had literally not one single memory of any of the 
 scenes through which I had passed. I had only a 
 series of pictures of Ally, sometimes with a floating 
 
240 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 background of clouds, and sky, and silence ; some 
 times with an equally misty one of the heads and 
 faces and voices of people ; but all this, merely as 
 background, frame-work for the one vivid, gleaming 
 picture of Ally in her marvelous attire. Never be 
 fore was woman so clothed. Her passionate, ar 
 tistic sense, spent and wrought itself in the fashion 
 ing of every garment she wore. She would not 
 allow Jim to send her any gowns except of plain 
 colors, and made in absolute simplicity of style. 
 Then she herself, with silks and flosses of the most 
 exquisite hues, wrought upon each gown its chosen 
 ornament. Embroidery was to her as inevitable an 
 expression as verse to a poet. It was like no other 
 embroidery ever seen, except in some of the rarest 
 Japanese tapestries. How into the heart of this 
 lonely little girl, in Maine, entered the conception 
 of thus repeating and rendering nature, by simple 
 stitches of silk, is one of the secrets of divine births 
 which no common law explains. No one taught 
 her. No one could learn from her. She copied a 
 grass, a flower, a bird, with her needle, rapidly, as 
 another artist might with a pencil. The stitches 
 were strokes of color. That was all. They were 
 long and massive, or they were light and fine, as 
 need was ; looked at closely they were meaningless, 
 &nd seemed chaotic ; but at the right distance the 
 picture was perfect, perfect because copied from 
 nature, with that ineffable blending of accuracy and 
 nspiration which marks the true artist. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 24! 
 
 One of the gowns she wore was a blue siik, 
 blue of that pale yet clear tint which summer skies 
 take on at noon of the hottest days. On this were 
 wrought pond lilies, cool, white, fragrant, golden- 
 centredjust a lap full, no more with a few 
 trailing stems and green glistening pads, reaching 
 to the hem, and falling back to right and left, one 
 big knot at the throat, and a cluster of buds and 
 coiling stems on the wrist of each sleeve ; that was 
 all ; but a queen might have been proud to wear 
 the gown. Another was of soft white crape ; upon 
 this she had wrought green and amber and silver 
 white grasses, in a trailing wreath, yet hardly de 
 fined enough to be a wreath, across the shoulders, 
 to the belt, from the belt carelessly across the front, 
 to the hem, and then around the hem, which lay 
 heavily on the ground. These gowns she had 
 wrought especially to wear for "brother Jim," to 
 do honor to his Commencement Day. 
 
 " Did they not take a great deal of time, Ally ? " 
 said I. In my ignorance of the great difference be 
 tween her type of work and ordinary embroidery, 
 I had been sorry and surprised to see such evi 
 dences of love of mere ornamentation. I could not 
 understand how Mrs. Allen had permitted it. 
 
 Ally laughed a little merry laugh. 
 
 "Not half so much time as to hem ruffles, Mr, 
 Will," she said. " I did it at odd minutes." 
 
 "Can thee not show him how it is done, Ally/ 
 16 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 dear ? " said Mrs. Allen, very quietly, with a twin 
 kle in her eye. 
 
 Ally took the Dominie s white silk handkerchief 
 roguishly from his lap, saying : " I want it to give 
 Mr. Will an embroidery lesson on, papa." Then, 
 sitting down on a low cushion at my feet, she 
 looked up in my face, and as she threaded a large 
 needle with crimson floss, asked : 
 
 " Now, what flower will you have, Mr. Will ? " 
 
 " A rose, Ally," I said, " if that is not too much 
 trouble." 
 
 " Oh no," she said. " That is very easy." 
 
 In and out, in and out flew the needle making 
 long loops at every stitch, as a crayon might make 
 long curves ; and in less than ten minutes a perfect, 
 many-leaved crimson rose had blossomed on the 
 silk. 
 
 " Now I will show you how easy it is to unmake 
 arose," she said, smiling, half sadly; "the petals 
 can go almost as quickly as they do in the wind." 
 After a few quick, short snaps of the scissors rosy 
 ends of the floss fluttered to the floor ; she pulled 
 out the rest, and held up the handkerchief spotless 
 white again. "That rose has had its day," she 
 said, and fixed her eyes dreamily on the crimson 
 threads on the floor. " It was n t a rose after all 
 is any rose a rose, Mr. Will ? " 
 
 Dimly I understood her, but my dull sense groped 
 vainly after the words which should carry my mean- 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 243 
 
 " Yes, I know," she went on ; " you are one of 
 che people that believe that a rose is a rose. It is 
 so many drachms of so many sorts of chemicals, 
 and that s the end of it. But brother Jim and I 
 we don t think so. A rose is a great deal more 
 than a rose ; and the rose you see is a great deal 
 less than the rose; and there s a conundrum for 
 you," she laughed, tossing back the golden curls 
 as if shaking off the sober aiought 
 
 " Brother Jim and I." The words sank into my 
 heart. Yes, they two thought alike ; they saw into 
 the secrets of the rose. What was I, practical, real 
 istic clodhopper that I was, to dare even to worship 
 this glowing woman, whose soul could so illumine, 
 possess, and interpret nature and life? And an 
 other sentence came to my memory at this moment 
 a sentence which Jim had spoken three years 
 before. " She is all I have got in the world." 
 
 " May God do so to me and more also," I said to 
 myself mentally, " if even in my heart I permit my 
 self to long for my brother s wife " 
 
 " Yes, Ally," I said aloud. " I can believe that 
 a rose is a great deal more than a rose ; but the 
 rose I see is more than all roses, and there s a co 
 nundrum for you, my sister." 
 
 She looked at me for a second with an expression 
 I could not fathom. I had never before called her 
 sister. 
 
 "I am not your sister. I am brother Jim s 
 sister," she said half petulantly. "You mustn t 
 
244 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 think I love you as well as I do brother Jim, Mr. 
 Will." 
 
 "No danger of that Ally," I said, laughing. 
 " You told me a long time ago that there was n t 
 any same as brother. If you ll love me half as 
 well as you do brother Jim I 11 be satisfied." 
 
 "I remember the day I told you that," replied 
 Ally. " It is very true/ and she left the room. 
 
 I do not like even now to recall the memory of 
 the first few weeks after I returned home from that 
 fortnight s dream. The world believes that the 
 keenest suffering and deepest joy are known by 
 the idealistic and imaginative temperament. There 
 seems a manifest absurdity in the attempt to com 
 pare the emotions of opposite temperaments. How 
 can either measure the other, and shall one man 
 know both ? I dissent, however, from the world s 
 verdict on this point. I believe that the idealist 
 enjoys more but suffers less than the realist. The 
 realist accepts his pain as he accepts other things 
 in life, for what it is actual present hopeless, 
 irremediable. Face to face with the fact of it, he 
 sits down and sees no escape. In the idealist, hope 
 is always large and strong, and a certain joy in the 
 great significant, solemn, undercurrent of life is 
 never absent from him, even when the waters seem 
 going over his head. I am quite sure that no pos 
 sible future could have looked to either Jim or Ally 
 so like a pall as my future life did to me during 
 these days. Nothing but a strong physique, a cer- 
 
MY TOURMALINE 24$ 
 
 tain quality of dogged pride, saved me from suc 
 cumbing to the sense that life had nothing worth 
 living for. How I cursed my folly in having ex 
 posed myself to the suffering ! " The child I should 
 have forgotten ; the woman I never, never can for 
 get," I groaned to myself daily. I destroyed Ally s 
 picture. I destroyed every note I had of hers ex 
 cept the little bit of paper on which were written 
 in the big childish letters : " If you were here I 
 would kiss you." That I could not destroy. When 
 I bade her good-by she gave me one of the tour 
 malines from her cross, and this I laughingly prom 
 ised to wear always as a charm. 
 
 "Have a care, Will. There s more in those 
 stones than you think," said Jim. 
 
 Indeed there was. I was distinctly conscious 
 many times of an electric effect produced on my 
 nerves by the stone. I unconsciously acquired the 
 habit of holding it in my hand while I was reading, 
 or whenever I sank into a reverie. Sometimes for 
 days it would not give me any sensation whatever. 
 Then suddenly, whether from my own physical 
 condition or from the state of the atmosphere, or 
 from some subtle bond between it and its magnet 
 ized fellow hanging at Ally s belt, I cannot say, 
 it would give me sharp shock after shock, would 
 seem, as Ally had said when she was a child, to 
 "purr" in my hand, and would make me "see 
 things " as it used to make her see them. Often, at 
 such times, I would see the interior of the parson 
 
246 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 age as vividly as if I were there. I would sink 
 into a sort of clairvoyant trance, out of which I 
 would rouse only by a strong effort of my will, and 
 find myself cold, my hands and feet numb and 
 pricking, and partially paralyzed for a few moments. 
 1 firmly believe that many times in these trances I 
 saw as clairvoyants see things which were happen 
 ing hundreds of miles away. There were many 
 coincidences which I cannot relate here which es 
 tablished this point fully to my own mind, though 
 they might not do so to others. 
 
 The hard and dreary days grew into weeks, 
 months, years. Jim was studying at a theological 
 seminary. His tender heart had drawn him strongly 
 to seek some way of helping souls, and he had re 
 solved to become a preacher. The parsonage life 
 was going on placid, beautiful as ever. The Dom 
 inie and his wife were slowly nearing harbor, with 
 the radiant light of a glowing sunset illumining 
 their faces. Ally was the central delight and sup 
 port of their lives. Jim s letters kept me fully in 
 formed of all which happened to them as well as to 
 himself. His letters were fuller and fuller of Ally. 
 I could not tell him that such letters gave me pain, 
 neither was I wholly sure that they did me harm. 
 They heightened my consciousness of the indis 
 soluble bond between him and his adopted sister. 
 Ally s genius was fast developing in many ways. 
 Her passion for study was as great as her passion 
 ate love of beauty. As no summer could satiate 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 247 
 
 tier heart with sunshine and flowers, so no knowl 
 edge could satiate her soul. When she was not 
 drinking in nature or reproducing it in the wonder 
 ful tapestry-like embroidery, she was absorbed in 
 study. 
 
 "Only think, Will!" Jim wrote in one of his 
 letters. "Dominie has begun to teach Ally He 
 brew. She begged so hard that he could not refuse 
 her, and Ally says she likes it better than Greek ; 
 it is so much grander. Dominie says he has never 
 had a pupil who learns languages as Ally does. 
 She has intuitions about them just as she does 
 about other things, and she never forgets." 
 
 Again he wrote : "Ally s flowers grow more and 
 more wonderful. I only wish you could see the 
 panels she has made for the corner cupboards in 
 the sitting-room ! You d never know the old rocm. 
 It is a perfect picture-gallery. I brought one of 
 her pieces up to town last week, and the artists 
 all say it is one of the most beautiful things ever 
 seen in America, and entirely unique in its way. 
 One of the fellows made me so angry. Why, 
 said he, this young lady could make thousands of 
 dollars if she would put these things in the market. 
 They would command any price for draperies of 
 rooms or panels in doors. Fancy Ally ! I sa d 
 very coldly that luckily this young lady was in no 
 need of earning money, and the man had the im 
 pudence to say that it was not luckily at all; 
 that art would be advanced if such works were 
 
248 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 known. I wanted to say to him that art was ad 
 vanced whenever one true and beautiful thing was 
 done, whether it ever came into what he called his 
 market or not, whether it were ever seen by any 
 other eyes than the artist s or not. I Ve a notion 
 that art is only one form of truth, and that laws of 
 growth of truth are as sure and steadfast as the laws 
 of growth of a crystal. I reckon the tourmalines in 
 Black Ledge never stop growing one second from 
 the day they began, whether we are to find them 
 to-day, or our children s grandchildren are to find 
 them a hundred years hence. But I did nt argue 
 with the fellow. He paints great pictures of West 
 ern territories, a county or two at a time, warranted 
 to fit the largest dining-rooms, and gets thirty thou 
 sand dollars apiece for them. What s the use of 
 telling him that my darling s pansies and fox-gloves 
 on a bit of white crape set in an old mahogany 
 door in a Maine parsonage are dearer to the heart 
 of the God of Art, and really a higher water mark 
 in the Art Record, than all his acres of canvas ? " 
 
 It was not only that Jim s letters grew fuller and 
 fuller of Ally. They grew fuller and fuller ol ex 
 pressions of fondness for her, of delight in her. 
 While these maddened me, they also slowly awoke 
 in my heart a feeling akin to scorn of Jim s love. 
 
 " He speaks of her as his darling to a third per 
 son," I said to myself. I could as soon hold up 
 one of her golden curls to passers-by in the street 
 and say, " Look at this for a color, my masters ! r 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 249 
 
 I was bitterly unjust to Jim in these days. Forgive 
 me, my brother, forgive me. 
 
 It was near the end of the third year that I took 
 from the post-office one day a letter addressed in 
 Jim s handwriting. As I put it in my pocket I 
 touched the tourmaline swinging from my chain, 
 and felt a sharp electric thrill. I took the stone in 
 my hand and fancied that it was warm. The elec 
 tric pricking was stronger than I had felt it for 
 months. " The letter is full of Ally, I suppose," I 
 said to myself, and I went to my own room to read 
 it. I fully expected that the letter was to tell me 
 of their approaching marriage. 
 
 Like a man stunned, blinded, I groped my way 
 through these opening sentences : 
 
 "DEAR WILL, I have something to tell you 
 which will surprise you very much. I have made 
 up my mind to go out to India as a missionary. 
 This is no new idea. I have been thinking of it 
 for months, but I thought it best, and kindest too, 
 to say nothing of the plan until my resolution was 
 fully taken. I have had for a long time a growing 
 and unconquerable instinct that this was my proper 
 work and my proper field for work. Of course you 
 know me well enough to know that I have no inten 
 tion of going out as the delegate, employee, or rep 
 resentative of any sect or any organization. I shall 
 go independently, and after I get there I shall work 
 as I see fit, just as I might in any city or town here 
 My fortune will enable me to do this, thank Heaven, 
 
2^0 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 and to give material as well as spiritual help to the 
 people over whom my heart so strongly yearns. 
 The good missionaries in India will, no doubt, call 
 me a Buddhist, and include me in their labors. But 
 perhaps I can love them into liking me enough to 
 let me alone." 
 
 Here I threw the letter down. I could read no 
 more. I buried my face in my hands. " Oh, my 
 God ! " I said, " to take that glorious girl to India, 
 to kill her, body and soul ! " 
 
 Whenever I had dared to picture to myself Ally s 
 future as a wife, it had always been as the centre of 
 a perfect home, surrounded by all that her rich nat- 
 ire craved and could use of beauty, of culture, of 
 luxury. I had fancied the whole world itself laid 
 under tribute for her growth, her joy, as I myself 
 would have laid it had I won her love. Only too 
 well I knew the uselessness of attempting to influ 
 ence Jim when one of his sentiments had suddenly 
 become a conviction and crystallized into a pur 
 pose. 
 
 " It is no use," I grieved. " He has taken India 
 just as he took Ally into his very heart of hearts. 
 No earthly powej could have moved him or can 
 now." 
 
 I picked the letter up and read on. 
 
 "I have made all my arrangements -to go in a 
 month. Good-byes are hard, even when one has 
 so few to say as I have. The sooner they are over 
 the better. I have but one anxiety in going. Of 
 
MY TO UR MA LINE. 251 
 
 course you know what that is. It has been so great 
 that it has many times brought me to the verge of 
 abandoning my purpose. It is the leaving Ally, 
 my dear, sweet, darling sister. But she has a father 
 and a mother, and may I not say, dear Will, a 
 brother ? I have settled on her unreservedly half 
 of my fortune, and dear old Guardy is to take care 
 of it for her as he always had for me." 
 
 Mechanically I folded the letter. Mechanically, 
 but with breathless rapidity, I moved about my 
 room, making all my arrangements for going to Jim 
 by the next train, which would start in a few min 
 utes. I had but one distinct consciousness in my 
 brain ; it whirled back and forth, and back and 
 forth, in the one question : If Jim could leave Ally 
 like this, had he loved her as I thought ? I must 
 know. 
 
 A day and a night and a day I rode with that 
 question, in a million shapes, mocking, comforting, 
 racking my soul. When I stood face to face with 
 Jim, in answer to his alarmed and eager "Why, 
 Will, Will, what has brought you ? Are you in 
 trouble ? " all I could do was to gasp out slowly, 
 syllable by syllable, the same question, 
 
 "Jim, if you love Ally, how can you leave her 
 so?" 
 
 My face more than the words told him the whole 
 story. 
 
 " Oh, my Will, my Will ! " he said, putting his 
 kands on my shoulders, and standing so closely 
 
252 MY TOURMALINE, 
 
 bieast to breast with me that his breath was warm 
 on my cheek. " I never once thought of Ally as a 
 wife, never ! God be praised that you love her. 
 Oh, my grand old boy, how did you ever torture 
 yourself so for nothing ? " he burst out, impatiently, 
 throwing one arm around my neck in our old boy 
 ish fashion. 
 
 I had not slept, I had scarcely eaten, for seventy 
 hours. I staggered and reeled, and Jim caught me 
 in his arms. I felt that I looked up in his face 
 helplessly, as a woman might. For one brief mo 
 ment in our lives, he was the stronger man. He 
 gave me wine, and tried to persuade me to rest, 
 To all his persuasions I had but one answer, 
 
 " I must go to Ally. There is no rest for me till 
 I know." 
 
 It was a marvelous thing how strong a hope had 
 sprung into instantaneous life in my heart. I had 
 no shadow of reason to believe that Ally loved me. 
 Yet I believed it. 
 
 " I will come back to you, Jim ; I will come back 
 at once," I said, " but you must let me go. It it 
 of no use to try to stop me." 
 
 He proposed to go with me. I was too over 
 wrought to consider the cruelty of my words, and 
 I exclaimed : 
 
 " Not for worlds ! " 
 
 It seemed to me at that moment that to have 
 seen Ally meet us, and throw her arms around her 
 " brother Jim," before I knew that he was to her a 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 253 
 
 brother as she was to him a sister, wou.d have 
 made of me a Cain. 
 
 Jim s nature was too thoroughly sweet for resent 
 ment ! 
 
 "You are right, my dear fellow," he answered, 
 u I should only be in the way." 
 
 Again I rode a day and a night and a day in the 
 ceaseless din of the cars, with one question whirl 
 ing back and forth and back and forth in my rest 
 less brain. The spring was just opening. All 
 through New England s lovely meadows the apple- 
 trees were rosy pink and white. The sweet bridal 
 colors flashed past my eyes, mile after mile, in sig 
 nificant beauty ; my life, too, had had a long win 
 ter ; I felt the thrill of its coming spring. 
 
 It was near sunset when I reached the town now 
 so dear, which had looked so dismal and wretched 
 to me when I first saw it six years before. I walked 
 slowly toward the parsonage. For the first time 
 since I left Jim s rooms, a misgiving forced itself 
 upon me, whether I had done wisely in coming 
 unannounced, and I dreaded the first moment of 
 meeting. I need not have done so. It was true 
 and right I should lose no second s time in hast 
 ing to Ally ; and the right always arranges itself. 
 A few rods from the parsonage was a clump of tall 
 firs. I paused behind these and gazed earnestly at 
 the house. " Oh," I thought, " if Ally would only 
 come out ! " Involuntarily I laid my hand on the 
 tourmaline, and recalled Ally s childish fancies 
 
254 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 about her " Stonie." The crystal was highly elec 
 tric at that moment, and I felt a sharp shock. At 
 ihat second the door of the house opened, and 
 Ally my Ally stood on the threshold. 
 
 She wore a white gown, and had a dark purple 
 scarf thrown over her shoulders. She looked up 
 and down the road as if expecting some one, 
 then sat down on the door-step and leaned her 
 head against the wall, as she had done the morning 
 Jim and I had ridden away on the stage six years 
 ago. The clusters of purple lilac blossoms seemed 
 now, as they did then, to caress her golden curls 
 curls as golden to-day as then. I was hidden from 
 her sight by the firs. I watched her for some mo 
 ments. She sat motionless ; I could see that she 
 held in her fingers something swinging from her 
 belt. "Why does not the tourmaline tell her I am 
 here ? " I thought, and I laid my hand on my own 
 crystal, as I walked toward the house. 
 
 She rose slowly, looked earnestly toward me, and 
 then came with hesitating steps down the walk. 
 The almond flowers shook down a cloud of rosy 
 petals at the floating touch of her gown. I reached 
 the gate first, folded my arms on its upper bar, and 
 waited. She came toward me with her lips parted 
 in a smile such as I never saw on her face before 
 such as I shall never see again, unless God takes 
 her first to heaven, to wait my coming there. No 
 trace of surprise no shade ot strangeness was on 
 tier countenance. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 255 
 
 " I thought you were coming to-night, Mr. Will," 
 she said, as simply as she would have said it six 
 years before. 
 
 " Oh, Ally, how could you know ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " The same old way," she replied, smiling, but 
 still with a certain solemnity in the smile, and touch 
 ing the tourmaline which swung at her belt. " I half 
 saw you, Mr. Will. 1 am all alone in the house. 
 Mother and father have gone to the prayer-meeting. 
 But I can be glad enough for three till they come 
 home." 
 
 " Can you be glad enough for the fourth, Ally ? " 
 said I. 
 
 She looked at me perplexedly. 
 
 "Oh, Ally Ally," I exclaimed in a tone which 
 needed no syllables further to convey its meaning. 
 
 She did not tremble nor flush she gazed stead 
 ily into my eyes, as if reading my inmost soul. Her 
 look was not one of gladness it was of unutter 
 able solemnity. We had reached the doorstep. 
 The lilac trees waved above our heads, and the 
 strong, sweet odor of the blossoms seemed to wrap 
 us as in a fragrant cloud. Still her bright, fearless, 
 loving, child-like, woman-full eyes gazed steadily 
 into mine, and she did not speak. I could not. 
 
 I put in her hand the little worn bit of papei 
 which had lain on my heart for five years. She un 
 folded it and read her own childish words : 
 
 " If you were here I would kiss you, Mr. Will." 
 
 A faint rosy color mounted to her temples to 
 
256 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 her golden hair ; the look of solemn, earnest seek 
 ing deepened on her face, but into it there came a 
 tenderness, an ineffable love, and, lifting her face 
 to mine, she repeated in a low whisper the dear old 
 childish words : 
 
 " Shall I kiss you, Mr. Will ? " 
 
 An hour later the bent figures of the beloved 
 Dominie and his wife came slowly up the path un 
 der the firs. Arm in arm, with an unconscious and 
 touching revelation of tenderness in their clinging 
 hold on each other, they paused under the trees 
 and looked up at the stars. 
 
 " Let us go and meet them, Ally," I said. 
 
 Hand in hand we walked swiftly toward them. 
 When they first saw us they stopped in surprise for 
 a second, then hurried on with ejaculations of joy 
 and wonder. Mrs. Allen s clear-visioned eyes saw 
 all in the first moment of our meeting. 
 
 " Oh, my children ! " she exclaimed, and even in 
 the twilight I saw tears of gladness in her eyes. 
 " Husband, husband," she continued, " they love 
 each other." 
 
 Dear Dominie s slower sense but dimly compre 
 hended her meaning. As he looked into our faces 
 it grew clear to him, and, lifting up both his hands, 
 he blessed us. Then Ally left me and clung to 
 her father s arm, and we walked slowly homeward. 
 Mrs. Allen and I lingered at the door. 
 
 " I used to hope for this," she said, " in the first 
 months of our knowing thee. Thee has the tern 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 perament which our child requires. My great fear 
 for her has been that she would love some man of 
 an organization similar to her own. It is the dan 
 ger of women of her temperament and mine, but I 
 have learned that the great need of such a tempera 
 ment is a trustful sense of rest, of calm tenderness, 
 and the tendency to restrain rather than to stimu 
 late the nervous life. Thee will do my child good 
 as well as make her happy, just as my beloved hus 
 band has done for me." 
 
 " God bless you, mother, for saying this ! " I ex 
 claimed. " Do you not really think there is danger 
 of my being a clog to Ally ? I feel so utterly un 
 able even -to comprehend her sometimes. I only 
 know that I worship her." 
 
 " Undoubtedly thee will be a clog, as thee terms 
 it, on a part of her nature, but it is a part which 
 needs to be held down," replied the sweet, low, wise 
 voice. " Thy tenderness will perpetually calm her 
 unrest, thy practical wisdom will direct her swift 
 fancy, and it will not be long before thee will smile 
 to think that thee ever said thee could not compre 
 hend her ; and she will create in every hour of thy 
 existence a new life of which thee has never so 
 much as dreamed." 
 
 When I entered the sitting-room I started back, 
 
 exclaiming : " Good heavens ! what room is this ? " 
 
 Jim had told me often of the transformations that 
 
 Ally s art had wrought in the room, but I was un- 
 
 17 
 
25 S MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 prepared for it. I gazed from wall to wall in bewil 
 derment. Ally stood by delightedly, saying : 
 
 " Is it nice ? Do you like it ? We do, but nobody 
 else who knows has seen it except brother Jim, and 
 he thinks it is lovely because I did it, and if it were 
 hideous he would think so all the same. The vil 
 lage people, some of them, say it is * heathenish/ 
 and when I told them that I was glad of it ; that 
 the people they called heathens knew a great deal 
 more than we did, they looked at me as if they 
 thought I was crazy." 
 
 " I wish thee had more patience with such igno 
 rance, my daughter," said Mrs. Allen, quickly. 
 " Thee could teach them what true beauty is, if 
 thee would." 
 
 Ally shook her head impatiently. 
 
 " It would n t be of any use, mother dear. No 
 body was ever taught what beauty is by being told. 
 It s just like my telling you it is warm by the ther 
 mometer when you are shivering. You don t mind 
 a bit about my telling you it is over seventy de 
 grees." 
 
 The Dominie laughed heartily at this sally. The 
 one sole discomfort in the parsonage winter life 
 was dear Mrs. Allen s need of a higher tempera 
 ture than the Dominie s and Ally s more robust 
 blood could endure. 
 
 "Nobody learns beauty," Ally went on. "You 
 reel it in one second, if you ever can. If this room 
 is beautiful, there will now and then come into it 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 259 
 
 people who will see what it is, and they will be the 
 better for it. It only hurts and hardens the others 
 to tell them they ought to like it. And, as for ex 
 plaining why a thing is beautiful, you can t. There 
 is n t any why." 
 
 The room was indeed beautiful. Across three of 
 the corners had been fitted book-shelves with doors 
 of mahogany. The wood had been brought to the 
 town by an old sea captain. He had brought it 
 from Brazil, and it had lain a quarter of a century, 
 waiting for him to grow rich enough to build a 
 house. Before that time came he died, and the 
 mahogany boards went to auction, with old sea 
 chests and other rubbish. Dusty and unplaned as 
 they were, the rich, dark wine-colored planks caught 
 Ally s eye, and she had bought them herself, to the 
 Dominie s great amusement. The doors were fin 
 ished in long, narrow panels with a single mold 
 ing. In the centre of each was framed one of Al 
 ly s flower-pieces ; in one, purple pansies on white 
 ground ; in another, pale, shadowy white foxglove 
 blossoms, in a cream-colored jar on a dark claret 
 ground ; and in the third, amber and green and 
 dark-red grasses on a light-blue ground. In the 
 fourth corner stood the abutilon-trees, now grown 
 to the ceiling, and branching wide like lilac bushes. 
 A mantel-shelf and several brackets had been cut 
 simply of the same mahogany, and along their front 
 edges were set, like tiles, bands of the same flower 
 embroidery, or of fantastic patterns like mosaics, 
 
260 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 Cornices of the same were at the windows. The 
 cornices were all of one pattern mingled wood 
 bine sprays of deep crimson on light blue. These 
 were the most beautiful things in the room. 
 
 "That s the way our woodbine branches look in 
 November, blowing between your eyes and the blue 
 sky," said Ally, eagerly, as I was studying them and 
 wondering how the combination could be so daring 
 and seem so simple. The effect of all this dark 
 mahogany was heightened by a pale uniform gray 
 tint on the walls and in the carpet. There was no 
 bright color on the floor except in the rug before 
 the fire. The rug was of heavy gray felt. In one 
 corner were two palm-trees, with gorgeous blue and 
 red parrots swinging from their branches, the palm- 
 trees copied truly from a photograph of a palm, 
 and not looking in the least like the tall, flattened 
 feather dusters which are the conventional render 
 ing of the theoretical palm-tree. A mahogany easel 
 stood in front of the abutilon-tree, and on this was 
 a superb photograph of the Venus of Milo. The 
 pure white statue gleamed out among the rich dark 
 colorings about it. The furniture was covered with 
 crimson and blue chintz, and the curtains were of 
 a creamy white, of some curious filigreed Indian 
 material, which had come from the treasures of the 
 same old sea captain who had unwittingly brought 
 all the way from the Brazil forests the settings for 
 Ally s pictures. 
 
 " I hope the old man sees his mahogany now, 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 261 
 
 said Ally, dreamily, " and I think he does. I often 
 feel conscious of him, and in very hot days the 
 wood purrs sometimes a little as my crystals do. 
 They are of kin." 
 
 "Oh, Ally, what a room ! what a room!" I ex 
 claimed. It was all I could say. The vivid, in 
 tense personality of the room overpowered me. It 
 seemed strange that they could all be living a quiet 
 every-day life in such surroundings. 
 
 " I d love just to make a whole house like it," 
 said Ally, sighing. The bareness of the parsonage 
 was a grief to her; her artistic sense demanded 
 harmony throughout. 
 
 " You shall, my Ally," I whispered, and forgetting 
 that we were not alone, I folded her in my arms. 
 
 There is but a brief story left to tell of Ally s 
 life and mine. I mean that the story which I shall 
 tell is brief. When happiness begins, history stops. 
 There is, however, in " Stonie s " life one more in 
 cident which belongs rightfully to the readers of 
 this story. Ally and I were married before that 
 year s apple blossoms had all fallen. There was 
 no reason why we should wait ; and Jim had made 
 his one last request of us, that we would go with 
 him to Europe on his way to India. Very earnestly 
 he begged the Dominie and Mrs. Allen to go with 
 us ; but the old lovers refused. 
 
 " We are too old," they said. "The cities of this 
 woild do not draw us as they did. We expect 
 rery soon to see a fairer one." 
 
262 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 They were right ! God rest their souls ! They 
 died within one week of each other, in less than a 
 year from the day of Ally s marriage. 
 
 Mrs. Allen died first. The Dominie died ap 
 parently of the same disease, but we who knew, 
 knew that he died of her death. 
 
 Our first Christmas day was spent in Vienna. 
 We lodged there with a queer old Professor whom 
 Jim had met on a trip in the Austrian Tyrol. He 
 was not poor, but spent all his money in making 
 botanical and geological collections, to the displeas 
 ure of his wife, who had at last resolved to take 
 lodgers as an offset for her husband s scientific ex 
 travagances. 
 
 " He will us ruin, mine Franz," she said, shrug 
 ging her shoulders. " He will, to sell the clothes 
 off his back for one small stone ; and it is not that 
 one can eat and drink from stones ! " But for all 
 that Frau Scherkle was very fond of her Professor, 
 and told us always when he was asked to dine at 
 great houses, " because that he so much do know, 
 they do not care for his so shabby coat." 
 
 As we were sitting at dinner on Christmas day, 
 Professor Franz burst into the room unannounced, 
 in a state of great excitement. 
 
 "Come, come all," he exclaimed. "Come this 
 minute to the Museum. There are stores from 
 your country, like the stones the beautiful madame 
 wears at her belt. They are unpacking the casket 
 now. Come, come ! The dinner is no matter. 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 263 
 
 Ally turned pale. I observed that she clasped 
 her tourmaline cross in her right hand as she rose 
 from the table. 
 
 " Let us go at once," she said, and in a few mo 
 ments we were in the street, hurrying to keep up 
 with the little Professor, who ran before us. " It 
 is Stonie, Will," said Ally, in a low tone to me. 
 " You need not laugh, I know it is." 
 
 Prof. Scherkle had admittance to all parts of the 
 Museum. He led us to a large basement room, 
 where we found workmen busily engaged in unpack 
 ing boxes of minerals. Those which had already 
 been taken out were arranged upon a table in the 
 centre of the room. 
 
 Ally walked swiftly to the table and pointed di 
 rectly to a small red box. 
 
 There, in a cotton-lined compartment, alone by 
 itself, transparent, .flawless, rose red and vivid 
 green, lay "Stonie!" We, who had known the 
 stone so well, could never mistake it. There were 
 other tourmalines in the box; all of them looked 
 like ours ; but of none of them could we be sure, 
 except Stonie. It was the only one which had 
 both terminations complete. It was the only one 
 which had the layer of solid white, the "crown." 
 
 "King still," was all that Ally said. She was 
 moved to her heart s depths. 
 
 We were all deeply stirred at this mysterious in 
 cident. All that we could learn from the persons 
 in charge was, that these minerals had been bought 
 
264 MY TOURMALINE. 
 
 by the Austrian Government in Holland. They 
 had belonged to the antiquary Van der Null ; and 
 this box of tourmalines was labeled simply "from 
 America." 
 
 " Could any of the stones be bought ? " we asked. 
 
 " Nothing was less likely," we were told. " The 
 Imperial Museum did not trade." 
 
 " Oh, Will, I can t leave Stonie," pleaded Ally. 
 
 " You shall have him, love, if I can buy him and 
 have money enough left to take care of you with," 
 whispered I. 
 
 What I paid to the illustrious Government of 
 Austria to buy back our own tourmaline I would 
 rather not tell. However, the sum, though large 
 for me, was small to them, and I know very well 
 the stone was not bought so much by money as by 
 Ally s eyes, and by the sweet voice and looks with 
 which she told the whole story to the Baron Roe- 
 derer, who introduced me to his cousin, the di 
 rector of the Museum. 
 
 Stonie is very safe now ; he is locked up every 
 night in a tiny jewel-box, which is also of tour 
 maline, and has a bit of history of its own. It is 
 an exquisite thing, made of thin layers of amber 
 and yellow tourmaline, fastened at the corners by 
 curious gold clamps, with serpents heads. Jim 
 sent it to Ally on the anniversary of our wedding 
 day. In the letter accompanying it he wrote : 
 
 " I send you a magic box to keep Stonie in. It 
 ilso is tourmaline. You see I can t escape the 
 
MY TOURMALINE. 26$ 
 
 mineral any more than you. Ceylon is full of them. 
 This box was made by my most devoted lover and 
 convert, Phaya Si Zai. He sat on the veranda of 
 my cottage every day last week, tinkering away on 
 it. That is the way the native jewelers do here. 
 They bring their little furnaces and tools, squat on 
 your veranda, and make your jewelry under your 
 eye. Phaya will not take a cent for making this 
 box, though it has cost him six days work. The 
 chasing, you will see, is very finely done. He has 
 seen your picture hanging in my room, and when I 
 showed him the stones and asked him if a box 
 could be made of them for the pretty lady with 
 gold hair, he said, eagerly : Yes, yes. Me make, 
 me make. When he brought it to me just now he 
 said : Lady of gold hair this Phaya kiss the 
 hands stones make lady see Phaya; see good 
 brother. So you see even the Ceylonese know 
 the spell of the tourmaline." 
 
 Our little girl seems to have the same love for 
 and relation with the stones that her mother had. 
 She will play with them for hours, as Ally did when 
 she lay in her little bed, under the abutilon-tree, in 
 the parsonage parlor. The child s name is Alice; 
 but I have fallen into the way of calling her " Tour- 
 mie," and strangers stare when they ask what that 
 means, and I reply : " Short for Tourmaline." 
 
JOE KALE S RED STOCKINGS 
 
 IT was a hot day in August, and it was hotter in 
 the linen room of the Menthaven Hospital than it 
 was anywhere else on the New England shore. At 
 least so thought Netty Lamed, as she sank back in 
 her chair, if one can sink back in a wooden 
 chair, and exclaimed : 
 
 "Thank heaven, the last of those stockings is 
 darned." 
 
 Sarah Lincoln and her cousin, Netty Larned 5 in 
 a fit of mingled patriotism and romance, had under- 
 aken the charge of the linen room in the Mentha 
 ven Hospital for the summer. Their cousin, Clara 
 Winthrop, was superintending the diet kitchen, and 
 Rebecca Jones and Mrs. Kate Seeley, and several 
 more of Menthaven s "first ladies," were nursing 
 in the wards. It was in the second year of our 
 war ; just at the time when the fever of enthusiastic 
 work for the soldiers and the cause was at its 
 greatest and most unreasonable height among the 
 nromen of the North. Not to be sacrificing one s 
 
JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 267 
 
 self in some way on the shrine of the country s 
 need seemed to prove one to be next door to a 
 traitor in fact worse. It seems ungracious, even 
 at this distance of time, to call in question either 
 the motives or the results of this great outburst on 
 the part of the women ; but no one who was famil 
 iar, in even a small degree, with the practical 
 results in many of our hospitals of the average 
 headlong enthusiasm of the average woman, will 
 deny that in very many instances it could have 
 been advantageously dispensed with. 
 
 The meek and satirical gratitude of the soldier 
 who, being inquired of by one of these restless 
 benevolences, if she should comb his hair for him, 
 replied: "Thank you, rna am, you can if you want 
 to ; there s nineteen ladies has done it already to 
 day," pointed a moral which was too generally 
 overlooked. 
 
 Some dim suspicions as to the common sense of 
 their work had more than once crossed the minds 
 of both Sarah Lincoln and Netty Larned. They 
 were clear-headed, energetic women, without a 
 trace of sentimentalism about them. It had ap 
 peared to them in the outset that there was a grand 
 field of work in the Menthaven Hospital, and that 
 it was clearly the duty of the Menthaven women to 
 take hold of it. Being, as I say, clear-headed, they 
 had too distinct a consciousness of their incapacity 
 as nurses, to undertake ward work ; in fact, when 
 they came to discuss seriously what they could do. 
 
268 JOE HAL&S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 the charge of the linen room was the only thing 
 they were not afraid to undertake. 
 
 "I can keep things in order, and mend, and 
 make out lists, and give out clothes," said Netty ; 
 " and that s about all I can do and be sure of 
 doing it well." 
 
 " I think so too," said Sarah, " and we 11 take it 
 together, and then we can change with each other 
 and have a day s rest now and then ; we shall not 
 be very busy, and one or the other of us can go 
 about in the wards and write letters for the men, or 
 help the nurses. But I would n t take any respon 
 sibility about them for anything." 
 
 " Nor I either," said Netty. 
 
 But when they saw Clara Winthrop, who had 
 never in her life cooked anything more nutritious 
 than sponge-cake, and who was used, in her father s 
 house, to having four servants at her command, 
 gravely assuming the entire control of the diet 
 kitchen ; and flighty Mrs. Kate Seely, who could 
 not even be trusted with her own baby when it had 
 croup, installed as head nurse in one of the largest 
 wards, Sarah and Netty looked at each other, and 
 said, in the expressive New England vernacular, 
 
 " Did you ever ! " 
 
 And when they saw, day by day, the sentry op 
 posite their linen room door, simply overborne and 
 disregarded by numbers of most respectable women 
 of their own acquaintance filing in, with baskets of 
 til sorts of edibles, proper and improper, which 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 269 
 
 they proposed to distribute indiscriminately among 
 the patients, they looked at each other again and 
 again, and said : 
 
 "Would you have believed women were such 
 geese ? " 
 
 " Did you tell those women that Doctor Hale s 
 strict orders were that no one should be admitted 
 to the wards without a pass from him ? " exclaimed 
 Sarah one day, indignantly, to the sentry. 
 
 "Indeed ma am, and I did," he replied, "but it 
 did n t stop her. She said she knew Doctor Hale 
 very well, and he would let her go in." 
 
 " But they must not go in," persisted Sarah. " It 
 is against orders." 
 
 " What am I to do ma am ? " said the sentry. 
 
 " Put your bayonet straight across the door, and 
 hold it there, John," said Sarah. 
 
 " Ah, ma am, an I could n t to a woman. If it 
 was a man I could ; but I could n t to a woman. 
 Besides, she d jump over." 
 
 The next time, however, John tried it. Sarah 
 heard a parley and flew to her door to reenforce 
 John by the moral support of her countenance. 
 
 What to her horror did she see ? Her own aunt, 
 Mrs. Winthrop, red with rage, and Clara behind 
 her, both abusing the poor sentry in no measured 
 terms, and threatening to report him for insolence. 
 
 " I am in charge of the diet kitchen," said Clara, 
 " and my mother can go where she pleases in this 
 Hospital." 
 
JOE HALKS RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 John lowered his bayonet, and the two angry 
 women walked past him, darting withering glances 
 at his discomfited face. 
 
 " It s no use, Netty," said Sarah after this. " It s 
 no use. I do believe that ninety-nine women out 
 of a hundred are absolutely destitute of logic. If 
 you were to talk to Clara till the millennium, you 
 could never make her see that her being in charge 
 of the diet kitchen gives her no right to break 
 Doctor Kale s rules." 
 
 As week after week went by, and Sarah and 
 Netty set in the two hard wooden chairs in the 
 linen room, mending, mending, mending, eight 
 hours a day. there began, as I said, to cross their 
 minds a dim distrust of the common sense of their 
 proceedings. 
 
 " How much do you suppose I have saved the 
 United States Government by mending that stock 
 ing ? " said Netty, one day, holding up on her little 
 round fist a stocking whose foot was one solid mass 
 of darns. 
 
 Sarah laughed. "Oh, Netty," she said, "what 
 did you mend that for ? It was n t worth it." 
 
 "I know that as well as you do," retorted Netty. 
 * But we have barely enough to go round, and to 
 morrow s Saturday. I did hope that box from 
 Provincetown would have had some stockings in it, 
 but there was only one pair. Look at them ! " and 
 Netty held up a pair of socks knit of fine scarlet 
 vorsted on very fine needles. They were really 
 
JOE ff ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 2^\ 
 
 beautiful socks, barring the color, which was a fiery 
 yellow scarlet, but one remove from orange. 
 
 " Goodness ! " exclaimed Sarah. " What lunatic 
 ever knit those stockings ? I don t believe a man 
 in this hospital would put them on ; do you ? " 
 
 "No," said Netty. "It wouldn t be any use to 
 offer them to them. I 11 put them at the bottom of 
 the pile." As she slipped them under, she felt 
 something in the toe of one. " Why, there is some 
 thing in the toe," she said, and turned the stocking 
 wrong side out. A small bit of pink paper, folded 
 many times, fell to the floor. Netty picked it up 
 and unfolded it. It was a half sheet of pink note 
 paper, with a little stamped Cupid at top. In the 
 middle of the sheet was written in a cramped but 
 neat hand 
 
 "Miss Matilda Bennet, 
 
 " Provincetown, 
 
 "Mass." 
 
 Netty exclaimed as she read this: "Why, how 
 queer ! Some girl s put her name in here. Whi/ 
 do you suppose she did that for ? " and she read it 
 
 "Miss Matilda Bennet, 
 
 " Provincetown, 
 
 " Mass." 
 
 1 What could she have done it for ? " I wondei 
 if she knit the stockings ? " 
 
 " Perhaps she has a brother or lover in the war 
 ind does n t know where he may be, and thought 
 
2/2 JOE HALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 the stockings might happen to hit him," said Saiah. 
 reaching out her hand for the paper, and looking 
 at it curiously. " Is n t it odd ? Who knows, now, 
 but the man she meant that for may be in this very 
 hospital ! " 
 
 " I guess not," said Netty. " There is n t a sin 
 gle Massachusetts man here. They re mostly from 
 New York, and Maine, and Connecticut, so far as 
 I have found out. I suppose I d better put it 
 back," she said, folding the paper up, and holding 
 the stocking open. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Sarah. "Put it back, by 
 all means. Who knows what 11 come of it. It s 
 something like a letter in a bottle at sea ! " 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed Netty, in unutterable amaze 
 ment; "like a bottle at sea! What s the matter 
 with you ? What do you mean ? " 
 
 Sarah colored : hidden very deep in her heart 
 she had a vein of romance which did not show on 
 the surface of her shrewd, active nature, and which 
 never took form in words. 
 
 " Why, I mean, " she replied, " that it is trusting 
 a thing to just as blind chance to stick it in a stock 
 ing and send it to the Sanitary Commission to be 
 allotted to any hospital between Maine and Missis 
 sippi, as it is to cork it in a bottle and toss it out in 
 the Atlantic Ocean. Of course that girl put that 
 name in that stocking to reach somebody, and I 
 just hope it will reach him. I don t suppose it 
 ever will, though, and yet, I imagine stranger things 
 6ave happened. " 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 2/3 
 
 " Perhaps she put it in just for fun," said Netty, 
 as she pushed the little roll of paper tight down 
 again into the stocking from which she had taken 
 it. " I think that s quite as likely. " 
 
 " Why, I don t see any fun in it," said Sarah. 
 
 " Nor I either," replied Netty ; " but then things 
 may seem funny in Provincetown which would n t 
 anywhere else. It s a real New England name, 
 Matilda Bennet. I wonder how she looks. An 
 old maid, I guess. I don t know why I think so." 
 
 " Well, if she did it for fun, as you say, it s more 
 likely to be a young girl," said Sarah. " A girl too 
 young to think whether it were proper or not." 
 
 Early every Saturday morning clean clothes 
 were given out in the hospital. All the convales 
 cent men who were able came for their own ; and 
 the ward nurses came for what they needed for the 
 nen who were in bed. It was always an interest- 
 <ng day to Netty and Sarah. They liked to survey 
 the faces of the men, and to watch their behavior 
 as they received the clothes. It was pathetic to 
 see the importance which the little incident as 
 sumed in the lives of some of them, the child-like 
 pleasure they would show in an especially nice 
 garment, the difficulty they would find in selecting 
 a pocket-handkerchief. The stockings were Netty s 
 especial department ; and she had endless amuse 
 ment on the subject of sizes. 
 
 " Never yet did I hand a man a pair of stockingSj 
 *he said, " that he did n t look at them, turn them 
 18 
 
274 7 E KALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 over, and hand them back to me, and say he d like 
 a pair either a little longer or a little shorter. It s 
 too droll." 
 
 On this particular Saturday morning, Netty was 
 much afraid the stockings would not hold out to go 
 round. One or two pairs had come out of the wash 
 so hopelessly ragged that even her patience had 
 not been equal to the trials of mending them ; and 
 the washerwomen were still in arrears with part of 
 the wash, so that the piles on the stocking shelf 
 looked ominously low. By noon there were not a 
 dozen pairs left. 
 
 " I m going to begin to offer the scarlet ones, 
 now, " said Netty. " It s a shame not to use them, 
 they re so nice. Perhaps I can put them off on 
 somebody who is color-blind." 
 
 No man so color-blind as not to be startled at 
 that flaming red! Man after man refused them. 
 Netty held them out, saying with her most winning 
 smile, " Here is a very nice pair of stockings; per 
 haps you like red;" but man after man replied, 
 some timidly, some brusquely, that they d rather 
 have any other color. At last came a man who 
 wanted two pairs, one for himself, one for the 
 man who slept in the next bed to him, and was 
 asleep now ; and the nurse thought he d most like 
 ly not wake up before night, for he d been taking 
 laudanum for the toothache. 
 
 " Here s my chance, " thought Netty, and laid 
 the red stockings on the pile of clean clothes to be 
 Carried to the unconscious victim of the toothache 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 2?$ 
 
 " I suppose he 11 like these red stockings as well 
 as any, " said she, quietly. " They are very nice. 
 
 The man looked askance at them. 
 
 " Powerful bright, aint they ? I should n t like 
 em myself ; but perhaps he won t mind ; " and he 
 walked away with them. 
 
 " What 11 you wager they don t rome back ? " 
 said Sarah. 
 
 " Nothing," said Netty. " I expect them." 
 
 The afternoon wore on, and the red stockings 
 did not come back. The last man from the last 
 ward had come, taken his Sunday ration of clean 
 clothes, and gone, and not a single pair of stock 
 ings was left on the shelf. 
 
 " Was n t it lucky I put those red stockings off 
 on that poor toothache fellow in his sleep ? " 
 laughed Netty. " I should have come one pair 
 short if I had n t." The words had not more than 
 left her lips when a shadow darkened the linen 
 room. She looked up ; there in the door-way stood 
 the man who had taken the red stockings ; he held 
 them in his hand, and fidgeted with them uneasily 
 as he said : 
 
 "Sorry to trouble ye, marm, but Wilson s waked 
 up, and he won t have these stockings no how ; and 
 I had to bring em back, if it would n t trouble ye 
 ;t>o much to change em for something else ; any 
 thing 11 do, he said, that aint red." 
 
 Netty pointed to the empty shelf ; " I m very 
 sorry," she said ; " but you can see, that is my 
 locking shelf ; I have n t a pair left." 
 
2/6 JOE BALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 With a crestfallen face the man laid the stock 
 ings down and turned to go. 
 
 " Don t you think he would rather have those 
 than none ? " asked Netty. 
 
 " No, marm," replied the man. " He said he d 
 rather go barefoot than wear em. He can make 
 the ones he s got do." 
 
 " I will give him a clean pair as soon as some 
 more come in from the wash," said Netty. "You 
 tell him he won t have to wait till next Saturday ; 
 by Tuesday we shall have more ; " and she put the 
 rejected stockings back on the empty shelf. Sarah 
 was shaking with suppressed laughter. 
 
 " Poor Miss Matilda Bennet," said she, as soon 
 as the man had gone away. " Her red stockings 
 will never reach their destination, I fear. Who 
 knows ? Perhaps the very man they were for has 
 already refused them. You d better mention the 
 card in the toe to the next man you offer them to. 
 You might hit the right person." 
 
 " No," said Netty, " I shall not offer them any 
 more. I ll give them to a poor man I know in 
 town, who will not be so particular. They are 
 really beautiful socks. Any gentleman might wear 
 them." 
 
 The linen room was darkened again; another 
 tall figure stood in the door-way. It was Joe Hale, 
 the tallest, handsomest, best-natured man in the hos 
 pital, favorite alike with surgeons, nurses, and 
 men ; so brave while he lay ill with a terrible wound 
 
JOE HALKS RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 in his shoulder ; so brave when the arm had to 
 come off ; so jolly which was the best bravery 
 of all now that it had been off and buried for 
 many a week, and he was only waiting for his dis 
 charge papers to come from Washington before 
 starting for home. 
 
 He stood in the door-way, twirling his cap ner 
 vously in his right hand ; luckily for Joe, it was the 
 left arm which had gone. 
 
 Netty looked up. 
 
 " What can I do for you, Mr. Hale ? " she said. 
 
 " Have you got a pair of red stockings here?" 
 he said, and a gleam of respectfully restrained mirth 
 twinkled in his bright blue eyes. 
 
 Netty laughed outright. 
 
 " To be sure I have," she said, and took them 
 from the shelf. " Here they are. I can t find any 
 body who will wear them." 
 
 " I 11 take them," said Joe, holding out his right 
 hand, cap and all. " I gave mine to Wilson ; he 
 is sort o sick and fussy, and he was so mad with 
 Craig for bringing them to him, it seemed to quite 
 upset him that and the laudanum together ; so 
 I gave him mine. I had n t put them on ; and if 
 you have n t any use for the red ones, I 11 take them, 
 and obliged to ye. Craig said they were the last 
 you d got left." 
 
 " So they are," replied Netty, laying them on 
 tfie cap in Joe s hand. " I m very glad you don t 
 dislike red. It s a beautiful pair of stockings." 
 
278 JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 " Would you be so very good, ma am, as to just 
 put them in my pocket here ? " said Joe, awkwardly. 
 " I can t manage it very well." 
 
 Netty put them in the pocket, and with a military 
 salute, Joe lifted his cap to his head and walked 
 away. 
 
 "How thoughtless of me," said Netty, "to have 
 laid them on the poor fellow s cap in his hand ! 
 He could n t put his cap on without their falling on 
 the ground. Was n t it nice of him to give his to 
 Wilson ? I don t believe he likes the red any bet 
 ter than the other men did." 
 
 " It s just like Joe Hale," said Sarah. 
 
 " The ward-master in his ward told me the other 
 day, he had n t the least idea what he d do when 
 Joe went away. He said he was equal to any two 
 nurses in the ward. I ve a notion, though, that he 
 has a great fancy for the color red, for I ve seen 
 him a dozen times with a bit of red geranium or red 
 salvia in his cap ; he always picks out the red ones 
 when Mrs. Winthrop brings her flowers." 
 
 Joe Hale was a methodical fellow. When he 
 was preparing to go to bed, he laid all his clean 
 clothes on the chair at the head of his bed to be 
 ready in the morning. On the top of the pile he 
 aid the red stockings. 
 
 " Hullo ! Fire away, Joe ! " called out one man, 
 
 And another : 
 
 " Warm yer toes, Joe, won t they ? " 
 
 And another : 
 
JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 2 79 
 
 "What possessed a woman to knit stockings c 
 such a color s that, do you suppose ? Why, the 
 turkey-cocks 11 chase ye, Joe, when ye get them 
 things on." 
 
 Joe only laughed good-naturedly. 
 
 " Go it, boys," he said. " I can stand it s long s 
 you can. I think the stockings are a real hand 
 some color." 
 
 " So they be," said the first speaker. It was the 
 very Wilson who had rejected them with such scorn. 
 " So they be, a splendid color for a rooster s wat 
 tles ; that s the only thing I ever see sech a 
 color." 
 
 Joe took one of the stockings up and began me 
 chanically to turn the heel out ; he felt the paper 
 in the toe, drew it out in surprise, looked at it, read 
 the name, and slipped the paper quickly into his 
 pocket. The whole thing had not taken a minute, 
 and nobody had chanced to notice it. 
 
 "What in thunder did any girl go and do that 
 for ? " thought Joe. 
 
 Presently he rose and walked out of the ward. 
 
 " Say, Joe, don t leave them red stockings o 
 yourn out that way ; they might be stole," called 
 one of the men. 
 
 "All right, boys," he said, "laugh away. It s 
 good for you ; cure you quicker n medicine ; " and 
 Joe walked away. He wanted to look again at the 
 little pink paper. Underneath the big Ian- 
 
28O JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 tern swung at the door of the surgeon s room, he 
 stood still and read again the words : 
 
 " Miss Matilda Bennet, 
 
 " Provincetown, 
 
 " Mass." 
 
 He looked attentively at the little stamped Cupid 
 on the top of the sheet. Joe had no experience in 
 mythological art, and did not know a Cupid when 
 he saw one. A naked baby with a bow and arrow 
 was as much of a puzzle to him as an unprecedented 
 fossil to a naturalist. The word " Provincetown " 
 also set Joe to thinking. He recollected dimly 
 how on the map he studied at school the word 
 Provincetown stretched away from the tip of Mas 
 sachusetts out into the blue space of the Atlantic 
 Ocean beyond. It seemed to fly like a signal at a 
 prow, and the little dot which represented the 
 town had been half on, half off, the coast, he re 
 membered. " Poor thing ! " he thought, " she lives 
 away down there. I wonder what sort of a girl she 
 is, and what she ever stuck her name into these 
 stockings for. I might write and- thank her for 
 them." 
 
 This last idea Joe dismissed with a scornful 
 laugh at himself as a " silly booby ; " but he folded 
 up the little pink paper, and put it away carefully 
 m his big leather wallet 
 
 Three days later Joe Hale lay flat on his back 
 
JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 281 
 
 delirious with fever. He had been devoted in his 
 attentions to a poor fellow who was dying in one 
 of the outside tents from a gangrened wound, and 
 in some way that subtlest and most dangerous of 
 poisons had penetrated his veins. For several 
 days he lay at the point of death; a general gloom 
 pervaded the hospital ; the surgeon-in-charge him 
 self spent hours at Joe s bedside ; everybody grieved 
 at the thought of the brave, cheery fellow s dying. 
 But Joe s time to die was a long way off yet ; good 
 blood, and a constitution made strong by an early 
 out-door life on a farm, triumphed, to everybody s 
 surprise and joy. Joe began to get well. He 
 was as weak as a new-born infant at first, and sat 
 propped up in his bed among pillows, fed by spoon 
 fuls at a time, looking a strange mixture of giant 
 and baby. There was great danger of Joe s being 
 spoiled now. it became such a fashion to pet him. 
 All the visitors wanted to see him ; everybody 
 brought him something, generally something to eat ; 
 as for quince marmalade and tamarinds, for years 
 afterward the very name of them made Joe ill, he 
 had such a surfeit of them now. Every day, as 
 soon as his too generous friends had left the ward, 
 he would summon the boys around his bed and dis 
 tribute his supplies ; and very sumptuously that 
 ward fared for a good many weeks. Foremost and 
 most devoted among Joe s admirers was Clara Win- 
 throp. There were petty-minded and gossiping 
 people about who even declared that Miss Win- 
 
282 JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 throp really neglected the diet kitchen, she spent 
 so much time over " that Hale." One day, early 
 in Joe s convalescence, Clara went to the linen room 
 and called Sarah. 
 
 " Come here," she said. " I want to tell you some 
 thing. You know that splendid fellow, Joe Hale, 
 that s been so ill. Well, he is n t going to die. He s 
 had his senses perfectly clear for two days now, 
 and Dr. Wilkes says he 11 pull through." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Sarah. "I saw him this 
 morning and he knew me perfectly." 
 
 "Oh, you saw him, did you ? " said Clara, with a 
 little dignified surprise in her manner. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Sarah. "Netty and I have seen 
 him every day." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Clara, " I didn t know you had been 
 seeing him all along." 
 
 Not least among the semi-comic things inwoven 
 with all the tragedy of hospital life, was the queer, 
 sexless sort of jealousy which women unconsciously 
 and perpetually manifested among themselves, in 
 regard to one and another of their pet patients. 
 
 Clara continued : 
 
 " Well, I m perfectly sure that he is engaged to 
 some girl, or in love with her ; and I think she 
 ought to be sent for. Thomas, the ward-master, 
 has been telling me about it. Thomas says that 
 all the time Joe was out of his head, he was talk 
 ing about a Matilda Somebody. He never made 
 *ut the other name ; but Thomas says he d talk 
 
JOE HALKS RED STOCKINGS. 283 
 
 about her all night, and about red stockings ; was n t 
 that queer ? Thomas said he had on a pair and 
 the men laughed at him about them. Now, don t 
 you think we ought to ask him about the Matilda, 
 and write to her ? " 
 
 Sarah opened her lips to say hastily, " Oh, I 
 know all about that," but suddenly recollecting 
 Clara Winthrop s constitutional inability to keep 
 a secret, she merely said : 
 
 " I don t think he would like to know he had 
 been talking about his affairs that way. Joe is n t 
 like the common soldiers here ; he is a very dif 
 ferent sort of man. I should just ask him if there 
 was any friend or relative he d like to have written 
 to, and if he wants to have her sent for." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Clara. " That would be a great 
 deal better. I 11 do that," and she hurried off, to 
 lose no time in following Sarah s advice. 
 
 " Why did n t you tell her ? " said Netty. 
 
 "Tell Clara Winthrop ! " ejaculated Sarah. "I 
 should think you d known the Winthrops as long 
 as I have. Why, I wouldn t tell her anything which 
 I should have the slightest objection to seeing up 
 in posters on Main Street." 
 
 Netty laughed. 
 
 " Oh, that s too bad," she said. " Clara would n t 
 tell anything that she thought would do any harm." 
 
 " I dare say not," retorted Sarah ; " but she 
 never thinks beforehand whether a thing will do 
 harm or not. She is not a bit malicious ; but she 
 
284 JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 does twice as much harm as if she we e ; a mali 
 cious person plots and plans, and has intervals and 
 occasions of reticence ; but Clara, why, Clara s 
 conversation is like nothing in earth but a waste- 
 pipe from a cistern ; as soon as it is full it over 
 flows, no matter where, when, or on whom. Give 
 me a good, malignant, intentional gossip any day, 
 rather than one of these perpetual leaky people. 
 What do you suppose she 11 say to Joe now ? " 
 
 " Oh, just what you told her to," said Netty. 
 
 " She is a well-meaning soul, and always ready 
 to take advice." 
 
 " After all," said Sarah, " we don t know that 
 Joe never heard of Matilda Bennet, except in that 
 stocking." 
 
 " And as for that matter," continued the sensible 
 Netty, "we don t know that it is not some other 
 Matilda he was talking about." 
 
 " No," said Sarah, " of course we don t. I never 
 once thought of that." 
 
 " Here are the red stockings again," said Netty, 
 taking them out of the basket at her feet. " They 
 don t want mending; that s one comfort. I 11 lay 
 them up till Joe gets well ; I should n t wonder a bit 
 if he fancied them. It will be a long time, though, 
 poor fellow, before he 11 do much walking." 
 
 That evening as Sarah and Netty and Clara were 
 walking home from the hospital together, Sarah 
 said : 
 
 " Did you write a letter for Joe Hale to-day? " 
 
JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 28$ 
 
 " Ol. ! " exclaimed Clara. " That s just what I 
 was going to tell you. It s the queerest thing about 
 that Matilda ; I don t believe there s any such girl 
 at all. I guess it was nothing but crazy fancies. 
 I asked him this morning if there were not some 
 one he would like to have me write to, some 
 body who could come on and stay here with him 
 till he got well ; and do you think, the poor fellow 
 said, * Miss Winthrop, I have n t a near relative in 
 the world, nothing nearer than a cousin; and I 
 don t know any of my cousins ; they all live in 
 Iowa, and I ve never seen one of them. Then I 
 said, Well, have n t you some friend that could 
 come ? or at any rate that you d like to have me 
 write to ? And he said, No, I have n t any friend 
 that could come, unless it were a neighbor of mine, 
 Ethan Lovejoy, he might come, but I guess I don t 
 want him. I m getting on first rate. * Is n t there 
 any woman ? I said. I just was determined to see 
 if there was n t something in it. And he got as red 
 in the face as if I d asked him something improper, 
 and said he, Any woman ! Why I told you I had 
 n t any relative in the world. I had one sister, but 
 she died when I was little. I don t remember her \ 
 and the only aunt I have lives in Iowa, I told you. 
 So I gave up then. Is n t it too bad ; the poor 
 lonely fellow ! I m really disappointed, I thought 
 it would be so interesting if that Matilda should 
 come on, and we could see them together. Per- 
 oaps there has been something in it, some time or 
 
286 JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 other ; but it s all broken off now. If it was only 
 craziness it s very queer he should stick to that one 
 name all the time." 
 
 Sarah and Netty exchanged glances, but said 
 nothing ; and the voluble Clara ran on and on, 
 with her loose-jointed talk, till they reached the 
 gate of her father s house. After she had gone in, 
 Netty said to Sarah : 
 
 " I m going into that ward to-morrow to write 
 letters for Wilson and Craig. I think I 11 offer to 
 write a letter for Joe, and see what he says to me. 
 I think it s just possible he didn t want Clara to 
 write. She always thinks that she knows the men 
 better than anybody else; but the truth is, she 
 does n t know them half so well as either you or I. 
 She is n t quiet enough with them." 
 
 "Yes, I would if I were you," replied Sarah; 
 "but you mustn t tell Clara if he does let you 
 write. She would be vexed about it." 
 
 " No, indeed," said Netty, " I won t tell her." 
 
 While Netty was writing the letters for Wilson 
 and Craig, she saw Joe Hale watching her wist 
 fully. When she had finished, she went to his bed 
 and said : 
 
 " Is n t there anybody you d like to send a letter 
 to, Mr. Hale? I have plenty of time to write 
 another." 
 
 Joe glanced to the right and the left : the beds 
 near him were empty ; no one was within hearing 
 distance of a low tone. Speaking almost in a 
 whisper, he said : 
 
JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 28? 
 
 " Well, it does feel real lonesome to see all the 
 boys sending off their letters home ; but the fact is, 
 Miss Larned, I have n t got a relation to write to 
 not one." 
 
 " Oh, I am perfectly sure your neighbors would 
 be very glad to hear from you." Netty said, cheerily, 
 
 Joe glanced around again, and then speaking 
 still lower, said : 
 
 " No, there ain t one of them that I d bother with 
 a letter. But there is a letter I d like to send, if 
 you think it s proper," and with his feeble right 
 hand he managed to take from under his pillow the 
 big leather wallet, and laying it near the edge of 
 the bed, he tried to open it. 
 
 Let me open it for you," said Netty. " Is the 
 letter you want to answer in here ? " 
 
 " Taint exactly a letter," said Joe. " That s it," 
 he said, pointing to the little bit of pink paper in 
 one of the compartments, as Netty held them open. 
 
 " It ain t a letter," he continued. " It s only a 
 name. It was in one of those red stockings I took 
 to please Wilson. Do you remember ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I remember all about it." 
 
 " I did n t dislike the color," said Joe, " though 
 the boys did make most too much fun of them. 
 Well, this paper was in the toe of one of those 
 stockings, and I suppose it s the name of the girl 
 that knit them. Should n t you think so ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think it must be," said Netty. 
 
 " I ve been thinking," said Joe, " that it would n t 
 
288 JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 be any more than civil, seeing she put her name in 
 them, just to write and thank her for them. May 
 be she d like to know the name of the man that 
 wore them. I thought may be it was some little 
 girl that would be pleased to get a letter from a 
 soldier." 
 
 "Why, certainly, Mr. Hale," replied Netty. "I 
 think it would be a very nice thing to write and 
 thank her for them. I dare say it was some little 
 girl who would be proud enough to have a letter 
 from a soldier. What did you say the name was ? " 
 
 "It s on the paper," said Joe, languidly. He 
 was growing tired. " Matilda s the first name. I Ve 
 forgotten the last, but she lives in Provincetown." 
 
 "Miss Matilda Bennet," said Netty, reading it 
 from the paper. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Joe, "that s it." 
 
 Netty wrote the address on an envelope, and 
 then, taking a sheet of note paper, looked at Joe, 
 inquiringly, and said : 
 
 " Well, what shall I say ? " 
 
 " Oh, anything you like," was the embarrassing 
 reply, and Joe closed his eyes with an expression 
 of perfect content and assurance that all would be 
 right. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Hale," she said, " I m afraid I don t 
 know what to say. What do you want said ? " 
 
 "Oh, just thank her that s all," murmured 
 Joe, sleepily. " I guess it s a little girl. I suppose 
 a grown-up woman would n t have sent her name 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 289 
 
 that way, would she ? You might ask her to write 
 to me. Then I d have somebody to write to me 
 It s the only thing makes me feel lonesome, when 
 the boys all get letters." 
 
 " I d better write in my own name, I think," she 
 said, " and tell her about you. Shall I do it that 
 way ? " 
 
 "There isn t any use in telling her anything 
 about me," said Joe, more energetically than he 
 had spoken for some time ; only just to thank her, 
 - that s all." 
 
 This is what Netty wrote : 
 
 " DEAR Miss BENNET : You will be surprised 
 to receive this letter from an entire stranger. Per 
 haps you remember putting your name on a piece 
 of paper in a pair of red stockings you sent to the 
 soldiers. Those stockings came to this hospital, 
 and were given to a soldier by the name of Hale 
 Mr. Joseph Hale, of New York. He is very ill 
 now> n ot able to sit up ; and he asked me to 
 write and thank you for the stockings. If you 
 would like to write him a letter, he would be very 
 glad to hear from you. There is no greater pleas 
 ure to soldiers in hospital than to get letters from 
 friends. Yours truly, 
 
 " HENRIETTA LARNED." 
 
 The coming in of the stage, and the distribution 
 of the mail it carried were the great events of eacn 
 19 
 
2QO JOE HALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 day in Provincetown. When the stage was on time 
 it got in at six o clock ; but its being on time de 
 pended on so many incalculable chances all the 
 way along that sandy promontory, that nobody in 
 Provincetown thought of placing any dependence 
 on getting his letters the same night they came. 
 Least of all did the Bennets, who lived over on 
 Light-house Spit ; they had kept the light-house for 
 twenty-five years, ever since Matilda, or " Tilly," 
 as she was universally called, could remember. It 
 was a strange life that she had led on that lonely 
 rock, child, girl, woman, she had known nothing 
 else. Her father had been a sea-captain. He had 
 had a leg broken by the falling of a mast one night 
 n a terrible storm ; had been brought into Prov 
 incetown harbor with the leg rudely spliced and 
 lashed to a spar, and had never walked without a 
 crutch again. The light-house was the next best 
 thing to a ship, and Captain Bennet was glad to 
 get it. The worse the storm, the more the old 
 tower none too safe at best rocked, the hap 
 pier he grew. His wife used to say : 
 
 " I believe, Lisha, you 11 never be contenteo 
 till we break loose here some night, and go heao 
 foremost out to sea;" and the old man would 
 reply: 
 
 " Well, Lyddy, I d as soon go that way s any. 
 I never had any kind o fancy for rottin in a grave 
 yard. The sea s always seemed to me whole 
 $omer ; and if ye could manage it anyhow, I d 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 29 1 
 
 like to be buried in it j but I s pose ye could n t fix 
 it so very well." 
 
 Mrs. Bennet did not in the least share her hus 
 band s love of the water. It frightened her, and it 
 bored her, and she hated the isolation with which 
 it surrounded her. She paced the narrow sand- 
 spit which linked the light-house rock to the main 
 land like a prisoner. When Tilly was a baby she 
 carried her in her arms ; as soon as the little thing 
 could toddle, she led her by the hand back and 
 forth, back and forth, on the narrow belt, always 
 gazing across at the town with a hungry yearning 
 for its streets and people, and with a restless watch 
 ing for some boat to put out toward the light 
 house. The child soon shared her mother s feeling, 
 and the earliest emotion which Tilly could recol 
 lect was an intense consciousness of being impris 
 oned. In the summer there were visitors at the 
 light-house almost every day. All travelers who 
 visited Provincetown came over to see the beauti 
 ful Fresnel light, and the townspeople themselves 
 frequently sailed across and anchored for fishing 
 just beyond the spit. These visitors were Mrs. 
 Bennet s one consolation ; by means of them she 
 seemed to keep some tangible hold on life and 
 dry land ; and, moreover, they were the only foun 
 dation of her one air-castle. Poor, lonely, circum 
 scribed, discontented woman ! she had but one, 
 yet that one seemed at first as far removed from 
 the possibility of her attaining it as could the wild- 
 
JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 est dream of the most visionary worldly ambition, 
 Mrs. Bennet wanted a melodeon for Tilly. When 
 she went on Sundays to church in Provincetown 
 and heard the first line of the psalm-tune played 
 over and over on the wheezy melodeon, she thought 
 that if she could only sometimes hear such sounds 
 as that in the light-house, instead of the endless 
 boom and thud and swash of the water, life might 
 become endurable to her. She had a marvelous 
 knack at crocheting mats, tidies, and the like ; and 
 as soon as Tilly s little fingers were strong enough 
 to hold a needle, they were instructed in the same 
 art. In the long winter months a great stock of 
 these crocheted articles was accumulated to be 
 sold to the summer visitors. Braided rugs, also, 
 Mrs. Bennet made to sell, and bed-quilts of scarlet 
 and white cottons sewed in intricate patterns. The 
 small sums thus saved she hoarded as religiously 
 as if they were a trust and not her own. She did 
 not reveal her purpose to Tilly for years, not 
 until the child herself grew impatient of the mys 
 tery, and of being told that it was " for something 
 nice " the quarters and half-dollars were being put 
 away. When Tilly knew what they were for she 
 worked harder than ever ; and at last, one June, 
 when she was sixteen years old, there came a day 
 a proud day for Mrs. Bennet and a joyful one 
 for Tilly when a small sloop pushed out from 
 the Provincetown wharves and made straight for 
 the light-house, bearing the melodeon, spick-span 
 
JOE HAL&S RED STOCKINGS, 293 
 
 new, smelling horribly of vainish, and not much 
 more musical than a jew s-harp ; it was yet beauti 
 ful beyond words to the two lonely women who 
 had worked so many years to buy it. In Mrs. Ben- 
 net s early youth she had made some pretense of 
 being a piano-player, and she thought that she 
 could now recall enough of her old knowledge to 
 give Tilly the elementary instructions ; but she 
 was sadly disappointed ; the working of the pedals 
 was a hopeless mystery to her, and the action of 
 the keys, so unlike that of piano-keys, threw her 
 all "out," as she said. "I never mistrusted t was 
 so different from a piano," she cried. " It s worse n 
 a sewing-machine." 
 
 There was nothing to be done now but to let the 
 child go to Provincetown to be taught. Luckily 
 the purchase of the melodeon had not exhausted 
 the treasury of the crochet money. There was 
 enough left to give Tilly a winter s schooling in 
 Provincetown; and if she spent more time over 
 her melodeon than over her arithmetic, and tried 
 all her teachers by her indifference to books, it was 
 only a filial carrying out of the instructions of her 
 mother, whose last words to her had been : " Now, 
 learn all you can, Tilly. It s the only chance you 11 
 get ; but don t let anything hinder your learning to 
 play the melodeon." 
 
 How long the lonely winter seemed to Mrs. Ben- 
 net, nobody, not even her husband, knew. For 
 lays at a time all communication between the 
 
294 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS, 
 
 light-house and the town was cut off, and the pool 
 mother lay awake by night, and walked the floor 
 by day, praying that all might be well with Tilly. 
 But when, early in May, Tilly came home one 
 afternoon, looking as fresh and blooming as a rose, 
 and sat down at the melodeon and played " The 
 Soldier s Joy, with Variations," Mrs Bennet was 
 more than repaid for all she had borne. The six 
 months had told on Tilly in many ways. She had 
 smartened up in the matter of clothes ; wore bows 
 like other girls, and liked a bit of color in her hair ; 
 had learned to talk in a freer way, and could even 
 toss her head a little, when a young man spoke to 
 her. All the little awkward arts of the Province- 
 town belles Tilly had observed, and in a manner 
 caught. Yet she was not spoiled. She was glad 
 to come home : her mother was still more to her 
 than all the rest of the world ; and when Mrs. Ben- 
 net saw this she was content. Captain Lisha took 
 little notice one way or another of either of them. 
 His heart had always been, and always would be, 
 on the sea. He tended and scrubbed and loved 
 <-he light-house as he used to tend and love his 
 ship. He always called the light " she," and if a 
 point of its machinery seemed clogged, worried 
 and fussed over " her " as another man might over 
 a woman who was ill. But of the two women 
 whose days were spent on this rock because of him, 
 and whose whole lives revolved around him as hus 
 band and father, he thought comparatively little, 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 295 
 
 They were housed, fed, clothed, and busy ; what 
 more did they want ? They seemed good-humored 
 and contented ; and so was Captain Lisha. 
 
 The melodeon made a change. Captain Lisha 
 had a better ear for tunes than either his wife 01 
 his daughter. His whistling was worth hearing, 
 and in his youth he had sung a good tenor. When 
 he first heard Tilly s little feeble tunes mingling 
 with the roar of the wind and water, he laughed, 
 and thought it would do very well to amuse the 
 women ; but as time went on, and Tilly, who prac 
 ticed with an untiring faithfulness worthy of a bet 
 ter instrument and a better talent, began to play 
 something finer than " Fisher s Hornpipe " and 
 " Soldier s Joy," the old man came to take pleasure 
 in it. And this drew the three nearer together, so 
 that after the melodeon had been in the house a 
 couple of years the family were really much hap 
 pier and had more animation in their life. 
 
 " Practice psalm-tunes, Tilly ; practice psalm- 
 tunes," her mother continually said. " There s no 
 knowing what may happen," by which Mrs. Ben- 
 net meant that out of her first air-castle had sprung 
 up a second, in this wise : who could tell but that 
 some day Tilly might be asked to play the melo 
 deon in church. The Bennets were good Meth 
 odists and never missed a Sunday when the weather 
 was fair enough for their sail-boat to get across to 
 own. The melodeon in church was played by the 
 minister s wife ; but he would be going away pretty 
 
2Q6 JOE BALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 soon, his two years were nearly up, and why 
 should not Tilly be asked then to take Mrs. Sharp s 
 place ? 
 
 Into the placid, monotonous and innocent dreams 
 of these lives in the Provincetown light-house, the 
 first news of the first days of our great war broke 
 like a thunder-bolt; nobody in all these United 
 States felt the shock, felt the strain, felt the power 
 of the war, as did lonely and inexperienced women 
 in remote places. Every word of news from bat 
 tles was pondered by them and wept over ; long 
 intervals of no news, harder still to bear, were en 
 dured in the meek silence which is born in women 
 who live in solitude. Tilly and her mother were 
 not exceptions to this. They were transformed by 
 the excitement of the time. The melodeon was 
 shut, and for a few weeks Tilly did nothing but 
 implore her father to go to town for news ; and on 
 days when he could not go, she watched on the 
 rocks for the sight of somebody who might tell her 
 the latest tidings. At last, one Sunday, when the 
 minister called from the pulpit for all the women of 
 the church to meet in the meeting-house the next 
 day, to sew, to scrape lint, and to roll bandages, 
 Mrs. Bennet could stand inaction no longer. 
 
 11 1 tell you what it is, Tilly," said she. " We ll 
 go home and cook up a lot of things for your father, 
 and then we 11 come over here, and just stay an 
 work till this box is sent off. He can get along 
 ivithout us for a few days. It s the least he can 
 rlo." 
 
JOE BALE S RED STOCKINGS. 297 
 
 Captain Lisha made no objection, and on Tues 
 day morning he took Mrs. Bennet and Tilly over to 
 the town, and left them there. 
 
 Tilly s cheeks were crimson with excitement. She 
 was the swiftest-handed maiden in the meeting 
 house that week and her mother was not behind 
 her. When on Saturday they went home they took 
 with them an enormous bundle of shirts to be 
 made. 
 
 " We can t be idle, either of us," said Mrs. Ben- 
 net. " Can we, Tilly ? " 
 
 "No, indeed," said Tilly. " I wish I had a hun 
 dred hands." 
 
 All day long they sewed, saving every minute of 
 time possible from their household toils. 
 
 At twilight one evening, Tilly said : 
 
 " Oh dear, I wish we d brought over some yarn 
 too. There s just this time between daylight and 
 dark when we can t do anything, and I might be 
 knitting." 
 
 " So we might," said Mrs. Bennet. " We have n t 
 got any yarn, have we ? " 
 
 " There s that scarlet worsted," said Tilly. " I 
 don t see why that would n t do. There s enough 
 for two pairs I guess ; and we sha n t ever use it 
 up in the world." 
 
 This scarlet worsted was one of good Captain 
 
 Lisha s blunders. He had been commissioned on 
 
 a certain day, to buy in Provincetown, a few ounces 
 
 of scarlet worsted. Mrs. Bennet wanted it for 
 
298 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 making narrow scarlet edges around some of her 
 tidies and mats. Captain Lisha had made the 
 mistake of buying pounds instead of ounces, and 
 the shop-keeper had refused to take it back except 
 in exchange for other goods ; whereupon Mrs. Ben- 
 net, not wanting any other goods, and wanting the 
 money very much, had lost her temper, and carried 
 the unlucky worsted home with her. 
 
 " It s pretty bright," said Mrs. Bennet, " but I 
 don t suppose the soldiers 11 be very particular 
 about colors ; and we Ve got it, that s a good deal ; 
 t won t cost anything. I guess you d better set up 
 a pair." 
 
 So Tilly set up the red stockings ; and after her 
 hard day s sewing was done, she used to take the 
 bright knitting-work and go out and sit on the 
 rocks and knit, till her mother lighted the lamp in 
 the kitchen, and her father lighted the lamp in the 
 tower. Then she would go in and sew again till 
 nine o clock. While the women sewed, Captain 
 Lisha read them the newspaper. Since the war 
 began, Captain Lisha sailed to town every day ; 
 rain or shine, blow high or blow low, his newspaper 
 he must have. In the old times he had not cared 
 if he did not get it for a week ; and sometimes 
 when they had accumulated, did not even take the 
 trouble to bring the whole pile home, which was a 
 sore trial to his wife and daughter. 
 
 And this was the way the red stockings were 
 knitted, at short intervals of twilight on the 
 
JOE HALKS RED STOCKINGS. 299 
 
 rocks ; sunset hues, and quivering lights on the fai 
 ocean, and an honest-souled girl s reveries and sor 
 rows about the war, all went into them stitch by 
 stitch, by stitch. What put it into Tilly s head to 
 send her name in the stockings there is no know 
 ing. She said : 
 
 " I do wonder what poor fellow 11 get these. 
 I d just like to stick my name in ; it would seem 
 sort of friendly, would n t it mother ? " 
 
 " Why, yes, Tilly, I d put it in. Some poor fel 
 low might be real glad to know who was a-thinking 
 of him." 
 
 And Tilly put it in. And the big box from Prov- 
 incetown was sent up to Boston ; and from the 
 rooms of the Sanitary Commission there it was sent 
 on to the Menthaven Hospital. 
 
 One darkish night at Provincetown, Captain 
 Lisha was just on the point of going home with 
 out his mail, the stage was so late. Not being 
 very firm on his legs in a boat he did not like sail 
 ing across after dark. 
 
 " Hold on, Cap n ! " sang out Tommy Swift, the 
 postmaster. " Hold on, I 11 give ye your mail in 
 a jiff) - here she comes." 
 
 The great, creaking, swinging coach rolled up to 
 the door in a cloud of dust, the mail-bag was thrown 
 from the top of the coach on to the post-office coun 
 ter by a dexterous fling, and without even stopping, 
 die coach rolled away again. 
 
3<X> JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 The Bennets very seldom had letters. They had 
 a daily paper from Boston ; and they had a good 
 many miscellaneous newspapers sent them by a 
 minister uncle of Mrs. Bennet s, who was well to do, 
 and had more newspapers than he knew what to do 
 with. But a letter was an event ; and a letter to 
 Tilly was still more of one. 
 
 Captain Lisha turned Netty s neat little letter 
 over and over again, and puzzled his brains vainly 
 trying to make out the postmark of which only the 
 "... haven " could be read. 
 
 " There s lots of havens all over the country," 
 thought Captain Lisha; "but we don t know any 
 body in any of em. It s a woman s writing ; it 
 might be some one of the last summer s folks writ 
 ing for tidies." 
 
 " Here s a letter for you, Tilly," said Captain 
 Lisha, as he entered the kitchen. 
 
 " A letter for me ! " cried Tilly. " Why, who can 
 it be from ? " 
 
 " I was a wondering myself," said her father. 
 " I did n t know you wrote to anybody." 
 
 " I don t," said Tilly, slowly cutting the envelops 
 with a case-knife. 
 
 Mrs. Bennet dropped the skimmer, with which 
 she was taking doughnuts out of the boiling fat, 
 and came and looked over Tilly s shoulder. 
 
 " Oh, mother, mother ! The doughnuts will 
 burn," exclaimed Tilly. " I 11 read it out loud to 
 you ; " and she followed her mother back to the 
 
JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 30! 
 
 cooking-stove, and standing close by her side while 
 she held the dripping doughnuts over the kettle, 
 and shook them up and down on the skimmer, 
 read aloud Netty s letter. 
 
 " Well, I must say that s a very proper kind of a 
 letter," said Captain Lisha in a gratified tone. 
 "That fellow s got the right feeling, whoever he 
 is." 
 
 " What a pretty name Henrietta Larned is ! " she 
 said. " How pretty it looks written ! She must be 
 real nice, I m sure." 
 
 " Well, the man s got a nice name, too," said 
 Mrs. Bennet. " I like the sound of his name, 
 Joseph Hale. That s a good name. A New York 
 man, she says ?" 
 
 Yes," said Tilly, slowly. " Perhaps he s dead 
 before this time. She says he was too sick to sit 
 up." 
 
 " Ye 11 answer it, won t ye, Tilly ? " said her 
 father. " T would n t be any more than civil, just 
 to let him know ye got his message." 
 
 " I don t know, " said Tilly, very slowly. " I 
 hate to write letters. I have n t got anything to say 
 to him. I might write to her." 
 
 " But she says write to him," said honest Mrs. 
 Bennet ; " she says they re so glad to get letters in 
 the hospital. Poor fellows, I should think they 
 would be. I expect hospitals are horrid places. 
 I d write to him if I was you, Tilly." 
 
 "You write, mother," said Tilly, laughing. "1 
 don t know anything to say." 
 
3O2 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 "Me, child?" said her mother. "I have n t 
 written a letter for ten years ; I could n t write ; but 
 I think you ought to. He might be a waitin to hear , 
 sick folks think a heap of little things like that." 
 
 " Well, I might just write and say I d got the 
 letter," said Tilly. "Twas real pleasant in him 
 to send me the message." 
 
 " Yes," said Captain Lisha. " That fellow s got 
 right feelings. I tell you that." 
 
 Tilly carried the letter into her little bedroom 
 and stuck it into the looking-glass frame, as she 
 had seen cards placed. 
 
 The next morning her mother said : 
 
 " Now, Tilly, I d answer that letter if I was you. 
 It is n t often we get a chance to hear anything 
 from the rest o the world. I wish you d write. 
 Besides, " she added, " after sending him your name 
 so, it don t seem friendly not to." 
 
 "That s true, mother," said Tilly. "1 never 
 thought of that, and I d just as lieves write as not, 
 if I could think of anything to say." 
 
 That evening after all the work was done, the lit 
 tle kitchen in order, the lamps lighted, the big 
 one for the great, wandering ships at sea, and the 
 little one for the quiet, humble family at home, 
 Tilly took out a small papeterie of dark-blue em 
 bossed leather, and, opening it with a sigh, said : ~^ 
 
 " I 11 try to write that letter now, mother." 
 
 " That s right," said her mother. " I d write if 
 I was you." 
 
JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 303 
 
 This papeterie had been Tilly s one Christinas 
 present the winter that she had been at school in 
 town. It was given to her by a young man, who in 
 a languid and shame-faced way had, in the Province- 
 town vernacular " courted " her a little. But he 
 had never found courage to take any more decided 
 steps than to give her this papeterie rilled with pink 
 paper and envelopes all stamped with cupids, which 
 so far as their mythological significance was con 
 cerned, were as much thrown away on Tilly as on 
 Joe Hale. She merely thought them babies with 
 bows and arrows, quite ridiculous, and not very 
 pretty. But there was no other letter-paper in the 
 house, except the big sheets of ruled paper on 
 which her father sent his official reports to Washing 
 ton, and Tilly would as soon have thought of writ 
 ing a book as of writing on paper of such size, 
 
 It was very hard work writing that letter. Tilly 
 could not think of anything to say. She spoiled 
 several sheets of paper, and at last the poor little 
 letter stood as follows : 
 
 "MR. HALE: 
 
 Respected sir, " 
 
 This last phrase was suggested by Captain Lisha, 
 on being consulted by Tilly and her mother as to 
 what was the proper form of beginning such a let 
 ter. Captain Lisha could not think of anything 
 nore appropriate and dignified than the form he 
 
304 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 himself used when he wrote to an officer of the 
 Light-house Board. 
 
 " Respected sir," therefore, the letter began, and 
 continued as follows : 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for your message. 
 Please thank the lady that wrote it. I hope you 
 are better now. We had the red worsted in the 
 house ; that was the reason the stockings were that 
 color. I knit them on the rocks. We live in the 
 light-house. My father keeps it. We hope you 
 are well " 
 
 " You said that once before, Tilly," interrupted 
 her mother, as Tilly read the letter aloud. 
 
 Tilly looked distressed. 
 
 " Oh, so I did," she said, turning back, " No, 
 not exactly. I said I hoped he was better. Won t 
 it do ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Mrs. Bennet, impatiently. She 
 was quite vexed that Tilly s letter did not sound 
 more like the elegant and flowing epistles which 
 people always wrote to each other in the novels 
 and magazine stories with which she was familiar. 
 " I suppose it will do. It don t seem to me much 
 of a letter, though." 
 
 " I can t think of anything to say," reiterated 
 Tilly, hopelessly; but thus adjured and coerced 
 she added one more sentence. 
 
JOE BALE S RED STOCKINGS. 305 
 
 " It is very pleasant here now ; in the winter it is 
 rery cold." 
 
 Then there came another interval of perplexity 
 and consultation as to the signature. Captain 
 Lisha had nothing better to offer than the " obedi 
 ent servant " which represented his own relation 
 to the officials at Washington. But to this Tilly 
 stoutly objected. 
 
 " I ain t going to say I m his obedient servant ! " 
 she exclaimed defiantly. " I 11 just sign my name, 
 and nothing more." 
 
 "You might say your friend, I should think," 
 said her mother, hesitatingly. " I don t think any 
 body ends off letters with just the name. I never 
 saw one." 
 
 " Well, all the letters we ever have are from real 
 friends or relations, - said Tilly, firmly. "This is 
 very different. I don t suppose it s often anybody 
 does write to a person they don t know." 
 
 Mrs. Bennet persisted in her argument for a more 
 friendly ending ; but on this point Tilly was firm, 
 and the queer, stiff little letter went off, with its in 
 congruous pink cupids hovering, like false colors 
 at a mast-head, above the curt, cool sentences, and 
 the brusque signature, " Matilda Bennet. " 
 
 After the letter had gone, Mrs. Bennet frequently 
 referred to it. The incident had really stirred her 
 jinagination more than it had Tilly s. 
 
 " I shouldn t wonder if that soldier wrote to you 
 20 
 
306 JOE HAL&S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 himself some day when he s a gettin better," she 
 said. 
 
 " Perhaps he died," said Tilly ; " that s just as 
 likely." 
 
 "I suppose tis," replied her mother. "But 
 somehow I don t feel s if he did. I wish you d 
 written him more of a letter, and asked him to 
 write to us. It would be real nice to get letters 
 regular from somebody in the war." 
 
 " Why, mother ! " exclaimed Tilly, " perhaps we 
 should n t like him a bit if we knew him ; we don t 
 know anything about him." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Bennet, " I don t believe that 
 lady would have written for him if he had n t been 
 a real good fellow. And anyhow, it was real good 
 his thinking to thank you for the stockings." 
 
 "Yes. That was real thoughtful of him," said 
 Tilly, candidly. 
 
 How would both Mrs. Bennet and Tilly have 
 laughed and wondered could they have seen Joe 
 when he read his Provincetown letter ! He had 
 looked forward to its coming with considerable in 
 terest. More than once he had said to Netty : 
 
 "Do you think she ll answer that letter that 
 little girl, or whoever t is, in Provincetown?" and 
 Netty always replied : 
 
 " Yes, I rather think she will, before long ; I 
 think she will want to hear from you again." 
 
 When the letter came at last, Joe was really as- 
 
JOE HAL&S RED STOCKINGS. 307 
 
 tonished at himself, for the eagerness with which 
 he tore it open. He read it twice, then folded it 
 up, laughing heartily as he did so, and put it in 
 his wallet in the same compartment with the first 
 bit of pink paper. 
 
 " Now, I guess Miss Larned will say I was right," 
 ne thought. " If that ain t a little girl s letter, I 
 never read one," and Joe watched impatiently for 
 a chance to show the letter to Netty. It did not 
 come for many days. Netty was busy, and did not 
 go to the wards as usual. At last Joe could not 
 wait any longer, and made bold to carry the letter 
 to the linen room. He was so far recovered now 
 that he walked about, and in a very few days would 
 be well enough to go home. He found Netty alone 
 in the linen room. 
 
 " Miss Larned," he said, " I hope you will ex 
 cuse me if I interrupt you. I Ve had a letter in 
 answer to the one you wrote, and I thought, per 
 haps, you d like to see it, so I brought it." 
 
 " Indeed I should, very much," said Netty. " I 
 was wondering the other day whether you had 
 heard." 
 
 Joe watched Netty s face while she read the let 
 ter. The amused expression which stole over her 
 features as she read did not escape him. His own 
 eyes twinkled as he held out his hand to take the 
 letter, and said : 
 
 " You see it s a little girl, Miss Larned. I 11 set 
 all the more by them stockings for that ; could n t 
 
308 JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 I take them home with me if I give you the price 
 of another pair ? I d just like to keep them always, 
 to think of the little thing, sitting out on the rocks, 
 knitting away on stockings for the soldiers." 
 
 Netty was still studying the letter. She was 
 somewhat familiar with the constrained and reti 
 cent forms of rural New England s letter-writing. 
 
 " I m not sure yet about its being a little girl, 
 Mr. Hale," she said. "It maybe; but I incline 
 now to think that it is a grown-up woman, who 
 hardly ever writes a letter." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said Joe, earnestly. " Well, 
 if it s a woman, I d like first-rate to see her. I Ve 
 come to have a real feeling, as if I ought to know 
 her, somehow." 
 
 Netty laughed, 
 
 "Nothing easier, Mr. Hale. It is not a very 
 long journey to Provincetown," she said. 
 
 "That s so," said Joe; "but it s the last place 
 a man s likely ever to go to, especially from New 
 York State." 
 
 " Sarah ! I do believe there s a kind of romance 
 growing out of these red stockings, after all," said 
 Netty, when Sarah came in. " Joe Hale s been 
 here, and showed me the drollest letter you ever 
 saw, from that Matilda Bennet. It begins : * Re 
 spected sir, and has just such droll, stiff, short 
 sentences as country people always write. He 
 thinks it is a little girl ; but I don t believe it. I 
 did n t want to tell him so ; but I Ve a notion it s 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 309 
 
 an old maid a pretty old one, too. Still, some 
 of the phrases did sound simple enough for a child. 
 Joe wants to buy the stockings and carry them 
 home with him. He says he sets a store by them, 
 because this little thing knit them." 
 
 " Give them to him," said Sarah. " They are n t 
 any use here ; nobody else will wear them." 
 
 " I don t know that I Ve any right to give them 
 away, without putting another pair in their place," 
 replied Netty. " I think I 11 let him give me a 
 gray pair for them. He seems to have money of 
 his own ; I think I 11 let him buy them." 
 
 So a few days later, Joe set out for home with 
 the red stockings tucked snugly in a corner of his 
 valise, and a good new pair of gray ones in their 
 place on Netty s stocking shelf. 
 
 * Dear old fellow," said Netty to Sarah, after he 
 had bade them good-by ; " we have never had his 
 like in this hospital, and I don t believe we ever 
 shall." 
 
 " His like is n t very often found," replied Sarah, 
 quietly. " I consider Joe Hale a remarkable man. 
 If he had had education, he would have been a real 
 force in the world, somewhere ; he is, as it is, by 
 the sheer weight of his superb physique and over 
 flowing good-heartedness ; but I d have liked to 
 see what breeding and education could have done 
 for him." 
 
 " Hurt the physique, very likely, and cooled the 
 good-heartedness," replied Netty. " That s the 
 
3IO JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 way, too often ; but I don t call Joe Hale exactly 
 an uneducated man, Sarah." 
 
 "No, not as uneducated as he might be," replied 
 Sarah. " He is just the sort of man, so far ag 
 education goes, which America is filling up with 
 fast ; a creature too much informed to be called 
 ignorant, but too ignorant to be called educated in 
 any sense of the word. I am not at all sure that 
 masses of this sort of well-informed ignorance are 
 desirable material for a nation." 
 
 " Oh, you traitor f o the republic ! " cried Netty. 
 
 " Yes," replied Sarah, severely ; " my countrymen 
 prevent my thinking so well of my country as I 
 would like to." 
 
 " Walpole said that better," retorted Netty. " Of 
 all things to plagiarize a treason ! " 
 
 Joe Hale s home was in Western New York, in 
 the beautiful Genesee Valley. His father had been 
 one of the pioneer settlers in that region, and the 
 log-cabin in which Joe s oldest brothers and sisters 
 had been born was still standing, and did good 
 duty as a wheat barn. The farm was a large and 
 productive one, and the Hales had always taken 
 their position among the well-to-do and influential 
 people of the county. But a strange fatality of 
 death seemed to pursue the family. Joe s father 
 was killed by falling from a beam in his own barn ; 
 and Joe s eldest brother was crushed to death by a 
 favorite bull of his. It was never known whether 
 ttie animal did it in play or in rage. Joe s eldest 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 31! 
 
 sister had married and gone to Iowa to live ; the 
 other had died when Joe was a little boy, and Joe 
 and his mother lived alone on the farm for many 
 years. Mrs. Hale was a singularly strong, vigor 
 ous woman, but she was cut down in a single week 
 by a sharp attack of pneumonia the very spring 
 before the war broke out. This left Joe all alone 
 in the world, and when he found the men in his 
 town holding back from enlisting, and buying sub 
 stitutes, he said, half sadly, half cheerily, " I m one 
 of the men to go, that s certain. There s nobody 
 needs me." 
 
 And now after one short year s fighting, he had 
 come home a crippled man, to take up the old life 
 alone. It was not a cheering outlook ; and as he 
 drew near the homestead, and saw again the grand 
 stretches of old woods in which he had so often 
 made his axe ring on the hickory trees, Joe thought 
 to himself : 
 
 " I don t know what a one-armed man is good 
 for, anyhow." 
 
 The cordiality with which his neighbors wel 
 comed him back, the eager interest with which 
 they all listened to his accounts of the battles he 
 had been in, lessened this sense of loneliness for a 
 short time. But the town was a small, thinly-set 
 tled one ; in a few weeks everybody had heard all 
 Joe had to tell ; nobody said any longer, " Have 
 you seen poor Joe Hale with his one arm ? " The 
 novelty had all worn off, the town went its way as 
 
312 JOE HAL&S RED STOCKINGS 
 
 Defore, and Joe found himself more solitary than 
 ever. 
 
 When he went to the war he left the farm in 
 charge of a faithful laborer who had worked on it 
 for years ; this man had married, and he and his 
 wife and children now occupied the house in which 
 Joe had lived so long with his mother. The house 
 was large, and there was room enough and to spare 
 for Joe ; but it seemed sadly unlike home ; yet any 
 other place seemed still more unlike home. Poor 
 Joe did not know what to do. 
 
 " You 11 have to get married, Joe, now, and settle 
 down," the neighbors said to him continually. 
 
 " Married ! " Joe would answer, and point to his 
 empty coat-sleeve. " That looks like it, does n t 
 it ! " And an almost bitter sense of deprivation 
 took root in his heart. 
 
 One night, when he felt especially lonely, he went 
 up stairs to his room early. He sat on the edge of 
 the bed and looked about the room. It had been 
 his mother s room. All the furniture stood as she 
 had left it ; and yet an indefinable air of neglect 
 and disorder had crept into the room. 
 
 " I can t live this way," thought Joe ; " that s cer 
 tain. But I don t suppose any woman would marry 
 a fellow with only one arm. I 11 have to get a 
 housekeeper ; " and Joe ran over in his mind the 
 r.ames of all the possible candidates he could think 
 of for that office ; not one seemed endurable to 
 nim, and, with a sigh, he tried to dismiss the sub- 
 
JOE BALE S RED STOCKINGS. 313 
 
 ject from his mind. As he undressed, his big wal 
 let fell to the floor, and out of it fell Tilly s little 
 pink letter. He picked it up carelessly, not seeing, 
 at first, what it was. As he recognized it, he felt a 
 thrill of pleasure. There seemed one link at least 
 between himself and some human being. 
 
 " I declare I 11 write to that child to-morrow," he 
 thought. " I wonder if she would n t like to come 
 up here and stay a spell this fall, she and her 
 mother, and get away from those rocks. It would 
 be a real change for them," thought kind-hearted 
 Joe. " I guess I 11 ask them. I reckon they re 
 plain people that would n t be put out by the way 
 things go here." 
 
 And somewhat cheered by this thought, Joe fell 
 asleep. In the morning he wrote his letter and 
 sent it off. It was not quite so stiffly phrased as 
 Tilly s, but it was by no means a fair exponent of 
 Joe s off-hand, merry, and affectionate nature. It 
 answered the main point, however. It continued 
 the correspondence, and it carried Joe s good will. 
 
 "Well, really!" exclaimed Mrs. Bennet, after 
 Tilly had read it aloud to her ; " well, really, I call 
 that the handsomest kind of a letter; don t you, 
 Lisha ? Of course we should n t think of going, 
 but I think it was uncommon good of him to ask 
 as \ don t you, Lisha ? " 
 
 Tilly said nothing. 
 
 " Ye-es," replied Captain Lisha, slowly, as if he 
 were not sure whether he intended to say yes or 
 
314 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 no. " Ye-es, it s a very handsome invitation, cer 
 tain ; nobody can dispute that ; but it seems queer 
 he should want to invite folks he don t know any 
 thing about. It s bounden queer, I think. Let me 
 see the letter." Captain Lisha straightened his 
 spectacles on his nose, and read the letter through 
 very slowly. Then he folded it and laid it on the 
 table, and brought down his hand hard on it, and 
 said again : " It s bounden queer." 
 
 Tilly said nothing. 
 
 " What s the matter with you ? " said her mother, 
 a little sharply. " What s your notion about it." 
 
 Tilly laughed an odd little laugh. 
 
 " He s got the idea I m a little girl," she said. 
 " I see it just as plain as anything. That s what 
 makes him write s he does." 
 
 " No such a thing, Tilly," said Mrs. Bennet, in 
 an excited tone. " What makes you think so ? 
 I m sure I don t see it." 
 
 It was an instinct rather than a specific inter 
 pretation of any one sentence which had made 
 Tilly so sure; she could hardly justify it to her 
 mother, though it was clear enough to herself ; so 
 she replied, meekly : 
 
 " I don t know." 
 
 Mrs. Bennet snatched the letter, and exclaimed : 
 * I 11 read it again ! It s the silliest notion I ever 
 heard of. I don t see what put it into your head, 
 Matilda Bennet ! " 
 
 Tilly said nothing. On a second reading of the 
 tetter, Mrs. Bennet was more vehement than ever. 
 
JOE FI ALE S RED STOCKINGS 315 
 
 " It s no such thing ! " she exclaimed. " Do you 
 think so, Lisha? Do you see anything in it? " 
 
 " I don t know," answered Captain Lisha, slowly 
 as before. " It s bounden queer ; it s a handsome 
 invitation, but it s bounden queer ; " and that was 
 all that could be got out of Captain Lisha. 
 
 " Well, I m goin to answer this letter myself," 
 said Mrs. Bennet resolutely. "I aint no hand to 
 letter-write ; but I m goin to write this time my 
 self." 
 
 " Oh, mother, will you ? " exclaimed Tilly, with 
 great animation. " That s good. I was dreading 
 it so." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Mrs. Bennet. " When I was 
 your age, I d ha jumped at the chance of getting 
 letters from most anybody, ef I d ha been cooped 
 up s you are on a narrow strip o what s neither 
 land nor water. But you need n t answer Mr. Hale s 
 letter if you don t want to. I can make out to 
 write something that 11 pass muster for a letter, I 
 reckon ; and I think the man s real friendly." 
 
 "All right, mother," said Tilly. " I m real glad 
 vou re going to write the letter. You might tell 
 him that I was twenty-six years old last August, and 
 see what he says to that when he writes. You 11 
 find I was ^ght. I know he thinks I m a little 
 girl," and Tilly laughed out a merry and mischiev 
 ous laugh. 
 
 What Mrs. Bennet wrote they never knew ; to 
 neither Captain Lisha nor Tilly would she read her 
 tetter. 
 
316 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 " Seems to me this is a mighty thick letter, 
 wife," said Captain Lisha when he took it from her 
 hands to carry it to the office. " What have you 
 been sayin ? " 
 
 "Oh, not much," replied Mrs. Bennet. "It s 
 on that thick paper o yours. I just thanked him 
 for his invitation and told him how much we d like 
 to come ; but we could n t think on t and a few 
 more things." 
 
 "The "few more things" were the gist of the 
 letter. After the opening generalities of courtesy, 
 which Mrs. Bennet managed much better than Tilly 
 had in her little note, came the following extra 
 ordinary paragraph : 
 
 " Tilly, we always call her Tilly for short, but 
 her name is Matilda, same as she signed your let 
 ter, she s got it into her head that you thought 
 she was a little girl, from her letter. Now, we Ve 
 had some words about this. I don t see anything 
 in your letter to make it out of, and if you would n t 
 think it too much trouble, I d take it very kindly 
 of you if you d write and say what s the truth 
 about it. T ain t often I care which end of a quar 
 rel I come out of, so long s I know I m right ; but 
 there ain t any knowing who is right in this one, 
 unless by what you say ; and Tilly and me we Ve 
 had a good many words about it, first and last. 
 Tilly s twenty-six, going on twenty-seven ; birth 
 day was last August ; so she and me are more like 
 
JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 317 
 
 sisters than anything else. She s a good girl, if I 
 am her mother ; and I d have liked first-rate to 
 bring her out to your place if we could have 
 fetched it about ; but we could n t nohow. It s a 
 lonesome place here for a girl. 
 
 " Yours with respect, 
 
 " MARTHA BENNET. 
 
 " P. S. If you should ever be traveling in these 
 parts, which I don t suppose is any ways likely, we 
 should be glad to see you in our house ; and a room 
 ready for you, and welcome, if you could get along 
 with the water." 
 
 When Joe first read Mrs. Bennet s letter, he said 
 "Whew!" then he read the letter over, and said 
 again louder than before, 
 
 " Whew ! Did n t I put my foot in it that time. 
 I don t wonder the girl got her mother to write for 
 her ! She must have thought me monstrous im 
 pudent to write her to come out here visiting, a 
 woman as old as I am, pretty nearly. By jin 
 goes, I don t know what to do now. I d like to 
 see what sort of a girl she is, anyhow. I don t 
 care! that letter of hers did sound just like a 
 child s letter ! I expect she s a real innocent kind 
 of a woman, and that s the kind I like." 
 
 \t last, out of the honesty of his nature came the 
 solution of the dilemma ; he told the exact truth, 
 and it had a gracious and civil sound, even in Joe s 
 unvarnished speech. 
 
318 JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 " I did wonder if it was n t a little girl," he wrote, 
 " because she spoke so honest about the red yarn 
 and about the light-house, and most of the grown 
 up women I know ain t quite so honest spoken. 
 But the lady at the hospital who wrote for me first 
 Miss Larned said she did n t think it was a 
 little girl ; and of course she could tell better than 
 I could, being a woman herself." 
 
 Then Joe said that he should like to come to 
 Provincetown, but his business never took him that 
 way, and then he reiterated his invitation to them 
 to come to see him. 
 
 "Since I made so bold as to ask you the first 
 time, you 11 forgive my asking you over again. I 
 do really wish you could see your way to come," he 
 said. It s very pretty here in the fall, our apples 
 are just beginning to be ripe, and there ain t any 
 such apples anywhere ever I ve been as in the 
 Genesee Valley." 
 
 Then Joe added his "best respects" to Mrs. 
 Bennet s daughter, and closed his letter. 
 
 If there had been in the circle of Joe s acquaint 
 ance now one even moderately attractive marriage 
 able woman, Joe would have drifted into falling in 
 love with her, as inevitably as an apple falls off its 
 stem when its days of ripening are numbered ; but 
 there was not. Joe s own set of boys and girls 
 were heads of households now, and for the next 
 younger set, Joe was too old. Young girls did not 
 please him , partly perhaps, because he saw, ox 
 
JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 319 
 
 fancied, that they shrank a little from his aimless 
 sleeve. By imperceptible degrees, vague thoughts 
 began to form and float in Joe s mind, akin to 
 thoughts which floated in Mrs, Bennet s before she 
 
 O 
 
 wrote her letter ; not tangible enough to be stated, 
 or to be matter of distinct consciousness, never 
 going further in words than " who knows ; " but all 
 the while drawing Joe slowly, surely toward Prov- 
 incetown. He had thought that he would take a 
 journey to Iowa before the winter set in, and see 
 his aunt and his cousins and his married sister 
 there ; but gradually he fell into the way of think 
 ing about a journey to the East first. Now, to sup 
 pose from all this that Joe had a romantic senti 
 ment toward the unknown Matilda Bennet would 
 be quite wrong. He had nothing of the kind. 
 He had merely a vague but growing impulse to go 
 and see, as he phrased it, " what she was like." 
 As week after week passed and he received no re 
 ply to his letter, this impulse increased. He had 
 thought Mrs. Bennet would write again ; she seemed 
 to Joe to wield rather a glib pen ; he had supposed 
 he should have an active correspondence "with the 
 old lady," as he always called her in his own mind \ 
 but no letter came. Mrs. Bennet builded better 
 than she knew, when she left Joe to himself so 
 many weeks. His letter had given her great satis 
 faction. She read it aloud to Tilly and to her 
 husband, and consoled herself by her partial defeat 
 n her argument with Tilly by saying: "Well, he 
 
320 JOE HALKS RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 only says he wondered ; and the lady told him it 
 was n t a child, and he knew she knew best ; that 
 ain t really making up his mind ; I don t call it so 
 by a long shot ; " and there the quarrel rested. 
 Tilly was content, and if the whole truth were 
 known, a little more than content, that " the sol 
 dier," as she always called their unknown corre 
 spondent, knew now that she was "grown up." 
 Tilly had built no air-castles. She often thought 
 she wished she could see " the soldier," but she 
 had no more expectation of seeing him than of 
 seeing General McClellan. Tilly was, as her mother 
 had said, a good girl. She loved her melodeon; 
 and she still spent two hours a day at her practic 
 ing. She had for several weeks now played in 
 church, and that gave her a new stimulus to prac 
 tice. For the rest, she helped her mother, she 
 sewed for the soldiers, and still knitted at twilight 
 on the rocks, stockings of gray yarn, now to 
 be sent to hospitals. 
 
 One night, late in October, when the stage drove 
 up to the Provincetown Hotel, the loungers on the 
 piazza were surprised to see alighting from it a one- 
 armed man, in a heavy army overcoat. His speech 
 was not that of a military man, and his reticence 
 as to his plans and purposes was baffling. 
 
 "Been in the war, eh?" said one, nodding to 
 ward the empty sleeve. 
 
 " Yes," said Joe, curtly. 
 
 ** Discharged, I suppose." 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. $21 
 
 " Yes," said Joe. " They don t have much use 
 for men in my fix." 
 
 " Got leisure to look round ye, a little, now, 
 then," said the first speaker. 
 
 " Yes," said Joe. 
 
 They could not make anything out of him, and 
 the street speculated no little before it went to 
 sleep that night, as to what that " army feller " 
 was after. If anybody had said that the " army fel 
 ler " had come all the way to Provincetown solely 
 to see what "Tilly Bennet was like," the town 
 would have given utterance to one ejaculation of 
 astonishment, and wondered what on earth there 
 was in Tilly Bennet to bring a man all that dis 
 tance. 
 
 But Joe did not think so the next morning, when, 
 having hired a man to take him over to the light 
 house, he landed on the rocks at noon, just as Tilly 
 was hanging out clothes. The clothes-line was 
 fastened to iron stanchions in the light-house it 
 self, and in high cliffs to the back of it ; a gale was 
 blowing; in fact, it had been so high that the 
 boatman had demurred at first about taking Joe 
 across, as he was not used to the sea. 
 
 "Go ahead," said Joe. "If you can stand it, I 
 can " 
 
 But, if the truth were told, Joe was pretty white 
 about the lips, and not very steady on the legs 
 *hen he stepped ashore. 
 
322 JOE HALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 " A half hour longer d have made you sicker n 
 death," said the man, eying him. 
 
 " That s so," said Joe, with a desperate qualm. 
 " Dry land for me, thank you." 
 
 " How long do ye want to stay ? " said the boat 
 man. 
 
 Joe looked up at the light-house then at the 
 tossing white-capped waves. 
 
 "Always," he said, laughing, "if it s going to 
 heave like that not more than an hour, or may 
 be half an hour," he added, seriously ; " it is n t 
 going to blow any worse, is it ? " 
 
 "Oh no," said the man, "it 11 quiet down before 
 long," and he prepared to make his boat fast. 
 
 Tilly was hard at work trying to fasten hei 
 clothes on the line. They never waited for quiet 
 weather before hanging out their clothes at the 
 light-house. It was of no use. Tilly s back was to 
 ward the wharf where Joe had landed. Her sleeves 
 were rolled up to her shoulders, and her arms shone 
 white in the sun. She had twisted a red silk hand 
 kerchief of her father s tight round her head; a 
 tew straggling curls of dark hair blew out from 
 under this ; her cheeks were scarlet, and her 
 brown eyes flashed in her contest with the wind. 
 Nobody ever called Tilly pretty; but she had a 
 healthy, honest face, and at this moment she was 
 pretty ; no not pretty ; picturesque, which is far 
 better than pretty, though Joe did not know that, 
 wid in his simplicity only wondered how a woman 
 
JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 323 
 
 could look so handsome, blowing about in such a 
 gale. 
 
 Tilly saw a stranger walking up to the light-house 
 door ; but she did not pause in her work. Stran 
 gers came every day. Joe s left side was farthest 
 away from Tilly. She did not see the loose, hang 
 ing sleeve ; and the blue of the army coat did not 
 attract her notice, so she went on with her clothes 
 without giving a second thought to the man who 
 had disappeared in the big door of the light-house. 
 Somebody to see her father, no doubt, or to see the 
 light. 
 
 When Tilly went into the kitchen and saw the 
 stranger sitting by the table talking familiarly with 
 her mother, she was somewhat surprised, but was 
 passing through the room with her big clothes- 
 basket, when her mother, with an air of unconceal- 
 able triumph, said : 
 
 " Tilly, you could n t guess who this is." 
 
 Tilly halted, basket in hand, and turned her scar 
 let cheeks and bright brown eyes full toward Joe. 
 
 "No, I haven t the least idea," she said, and 
 as she said it she looked so pretty, that Joe, absurd 
 as it might seem, fe 11 in love with her on the spot. 
 
 The words "I haven t the least idea," had 
 hardly left her lips, when her eyes fell on the empty 
 sleeve ; and, although in no letter had it ever been 
 said that Joe had lost an arm, this sight suggested 
 him to her mind. 
 
 "Why, it isn t Mr. Hale, is it? " she said, turn 
 ing still redder, 
 
324 JOE HALF S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 " It is, though," said Joe, rising and coming to 
 ward her, offering her his one hand. " You and 
 your mother would n t come to see me, and so I 
 came to see you." 
 
 Tilly s hand having been all the morning in hot 
 soap-suds, was red and swollen and puckered, but 
 it looked beautiful to Joe ; so did Tilly s awkward 
 little laugh, as she said, half drawing back her 
 hand : 
 
 " I Ve been washing ; that s what makes my 
 hands look so." 
 
 There was something in the infantile and super 
 fluous honesty of this remark which reminded Joe 
 instantly of the sentence in Tilly s letter: "We 
 had the red worsted in the house. That is the 
 reason the stockings were that color," and he 
 smiled at the memory. His smile was such a cor 
 dial one that Tilly did not misinterpret it, and his 
 spontaneous reply, as he took her hand in his, was 
 worthy of a courtier. 
 
 " I often saw my mother s hands look like this, 
 Miss Bennet. She always did a great part of the 
 washing." 
 
 Tilly stood still looking ill at ease, and Joe stood 
 still, also looking ill at ease. There seemed to be 
 nothing now to say. Mrs. Bennet cut the Gordian 
 knot, as she had cut one or two already. 
 
 "Go along, Tilly," she said. "Get off your 
 ttasning duds ; it s near dinner time." 
 
 Tilly was glad to escape to her own room. Once 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 32$ 
 
 safe in refuge she sank into a chair with a most be 
 wildered face and tried to collect her thoughts. She 
 seemed like one in a dream. " The soldier " had 
 come. How her heart ached over the thought o r 
 that armless sleeve ! 
 
 " He never said anything about his arm being 
 gone," thought Tilly. " It s too bad. How blue 
 his eyes are ! I never saw such blue eyes ! " in a 
 maze of innocent wonder and excitement. Her 
 thoughts so ran away with her that when her 
 mother called through the door, "Dinner s ready, 
 Tilly," poor Tilly was not half dressed, and kept 
 them waiting ten minutes or more, which drew 
 down upon her from her father a rebuke that it 
 hurt her sorely to have " the soldier " hear. But 
 "the soldier" was too happy to be disturbed by 
 small things. Since his mother s death Joe had not 
 seen anything so homelike, so familiar, as this 
 dinner in Mrs. Bennet s little kitchen. He made 
 friends with Captain Lisha at once ; the old man 
 could not ask questions enough about the war, 
 and Joe answered them all with a patience which 
 was perhaps more commendable than his accuracy. 
 Tilly sat by, listening in eager silence not a word 
 escaped her ; when her eyes met Joe s she colored 
 and looked away. 
 
 " I don t care if she is wenty-six," thought Joe, 
 * she is just like a child." 
 
 Mrs. Bennet, with hospitable fervor, had insisted 
 that Joe should not go back to the town, but should 
 
326 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS, 
 
 stay with them ; " that is," she added, " if you 
 think you can sleep with the water swash, swash, 
 swashing in your ears. T was years before I ever 
 could learn to sleep here ; and there s times now 
 when I don t sleep for whole nights together." 
 
 Joe thought he could sleep in spite of the water, 
 and with the greatest alacrity sent his boatman 
 back to town for his valise. 
 
 " After all," said the citizens, on hearing this, 
 "after all he was only some relation of the Ben- 
 nets." 
 
 But when day after day passed, and he did not 
 return, the town began again to speculate as to his 
 purposes. Some fishermen going or coming, had 
 seen him walking on the rocks with Tilly ; and 
 very soon a rumor took to itself wings and went up 
 and down the town, that the one-armed soldier was 
 "courting Tilly Bennet." 
 
 The seclusion of the light-house had its advan 
 tages now, very little could the Provincetown 
 gossips know of what went on among those dis 
 tant rocks. Very safe were Joe and Tilly in the 
 nooks which they explored in the long bright after 
 noons. How strangely changed seemed the lonely 
 spot to Tilly ! Each rod of the wave-washed 
 beach was transformed as she paced it with Joe by 
 her side. No word of love-making did Joe say 
 not because L was not warm and ready in his heart, 
 but he was afraid. 
 
 " Of course she can t care anything about me, all 
 
JOE HALES RED STOCKINGS. 327 
 
 of a sudden so," said sensible Joe, "She haint 
 been a longing and a longing for somebody s I 
 have." 
 
 So at the end of the week he went away, 
 merely saying to Tilly and Mrs. Bennet as hu bade 
 them good-by, that he would write very soon. But 
 Tilly s heart had not been so idle as Joe thought, 
 and she was not surprised one day, a few weeks 
 later, when she read in a letter of Joe s that he 
 did n t know whether she knew it or not, but he had 
 come to the conclusion that she was just about the 
 nicest girl in all the country, and if she thought she 
 could take up with a fellow that had n t but one 
 arm, he was hers to command for the rest of her 
 life. 
 
 Tilly had a happy little cry over the letter before 
 she showed it to her mother. 
 
 " Do you think you can like him, Tilly ? " asked 
 Mrs. Bennet, anxiously. 
 
 " Yes," said Tilly, " I do like him ; and he s 
 real good." 
 
 And when they told Captain Lisha, he said, ve 
 hemently, that nothing short of going to sea again 
 could have pleased him so much. 
 
 So it was settled that at Christmas Joe should 
 come back for Tilly. 
 
 When the engagement became known in town, 
 there was great wonderment about it. How did 
 the acquaintance begin ? What brought the New 
 Yorker to Provincetown ? 
 
328 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 But Tilly and her mother kept their secret to 
 themselves, and not a soul in Provincetown ever 
 heard a word of the red stockings, which was much 
 better for all parties concerned. 
 
 The wedding was to be on Christmas day. Two 
 weeks before that day, there swept over Province- 
 town harbor a storm the like of which had not been 
 seen for half a century. The steeple of the old 
 church fell ; the sea cut new paths for itself here 
 and there among the low sand-dunes, and washed 
 away landmarks older than men could remember ; 
 great ships parted anchor, and were driven help 
 lessly on the rocks, and the light-house swayed and 
 rocked like a mast in the tempest. In the middle 
 of the night the storm burst with a sudden fury. 
 At its first roar Captain Lisha .sprang up, and 
 said, 
 
 "Martha, this is going to be the devil s own 
 night. I must go up into the light. I can t leave 
 her alone such a storm s this." 
 
 From the dwelling-house to the light-house tower 
 was only a short distance ; the rocks were shelving, 
 but a stout iron railing protected the path on one 
 side. Whether Captain ; Lisha failed to grasp this 
 rail and slipped on the icy rocks, or whether he 
 was swept off by the violence of the gale, could only 
 be conjectured, but in the morning he did not come 
 back. As soon as the storm had lulled a little, 
 Mrs. Bennet crept cautiously across the slippery 
 path-way, and climbed the winding stair to the light; 
 
JOE HALE 1 S RED STOCKINGS. 329 
 
 In a short time she returned, with a white, horror- 
 stricken face, and in reply to Tilly s cry of alarm, 
 gasped : 
 
 " Your father s gone ! " 
 
 After the first shock of the death was over, Mrs. 
 Bennet saw much to be grateful for in its manner; 
 in her own inimitable way, she dilated on the satis 
 faction it must have been to Captain Lisha. 
 
 " It s just what he was forever a sayin he d 
 like, to be buried in the sea, and especially to be 
 washed overboard ; if I ve heard him say so once, 
 I ve heard him a hundred times, and the Lord s 
 took him at his word, and I don t believe there s a 
 happier spirit anywhere than Lisha s is, wherever 
 tis he s gone to." 
 
 In the Provincetown way of thinking, Captain 
 Lisha s death was no reason why Tilly s marriage 
 should be deferred, but rather why it should be 
 hastened. It took place, as had been planned, on 
 Christmas day. 
 
 The next day when Tilly and her mother bade 
 everybody good-by, and went away with Tilly s 
 manly, tall, kindly-eyed husband, everybody said, 
 " What a Providence ! " and I make no manner of 
 doubt that Joe and Tilly got on quite as well to 
 gether, and were quite as happy as if they had 
 known each other better and taken more time to 
 consider the question of marrying 
 
 It may not be foreign to our story to add that 
 
330 JOE H ALE S RED STOCKINGS. 
 
 after Joe had been married a week he recollected 
 to send to Miss Henrietta Larned, at the Menthaven 
 Hospital, a newspaper containing the announce 
 ment of his marriage. When Netty read it, she ex 
 claimed in a low voice : 
 
 " Good ! Good ! " 
 
 " What is it ? " said Sarah. " Who s married 
 now ? " 
 
 " What put it into your head it was a marriage ? " 
 said Netty. 
 
 " I don t know," said Sarah, " your tone, I sup 
 pose." 
 
 Netty read the notice aloud. 
 
 " The very girl ! " cried Sarah. " What a queer 
 thing ! " 
 
 " It s perfectly splendid ! " said Netty. "What 
 a nice husband Joe Hale will make ! And now 
 we 11 tell Clara Winthrop I " 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 I NEVER heard of a girl who had her own way so 
 completely, so delightfully, and so respectably as 
 Susan Sweetser did. She was an only child. Her 
 mother died when she was a baby ; her father, who 
 had never married again, died when she was six 
 teen. He left a large fortune, the income of which 
 was to be paid to Susan until she was twenty-one, 
 and at that time the whole estate was to come into 
 her hands as unreservedly as if she had been a 
 man. Her guardian, whose function was simply a 
 nominal one, was her uncle by marriage, Thomas 
 Lawton, a man not more than a dozen years older 
 than herself, an easy going, indolent, rich fellow, 
 who never gave himself any concern about Susan 
 further than the depositing in the bank each quarter 
 the thousands of dollars which she might spend as 
 she liked. Mrs. Thomas Lawton was a girl only a 
 few years older than Susan, and one after her own 
 heart ; and when, two years after the death of her 
 father, Susan took up her abode in the Lawton 
 
332 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 Household, nothing could be jollier than the life 
 the two women led together. The death of her 
 father was no personal loss to Susan ; she had 
 seen him only in her brief school vacations ; he 
 was a reserved and silent man, wholly absorbed in 
 making a fortune. He had always had the theory 
 that when the fortune was big enough, and Susan 
 was old enough to leave school, he would take 
 some leisure, enjoy himself, and become acquainted 
 with his daughter. But Death had other plans for 
 Mr. Sweetser. He cut him down one night, before 
 that interval of leisure had arrived, and before Su 
 san was old enough to leave school, but not before 
 the fortune had grown large enough to satisfy the 
 utmost wants of any reasonable being. More be 
 cause of her own interest in study than from any 
 exercise of authority or even influence on her 
 guardian s part, Susan remained at school two 
 years after her father s death. During these two 
 years she held, by virtue of her independence and 
 her riches, a position in the school which was 
 hardly that of a scholar. A young lady who had 
 a carriage and horses at her command, and thou 
 sands of dollars every quarter for the expenditure 
 of which she was responsible to nobody but her 
 self, was not likely to be held in much restraint by 
 her teachers. Madame Delancy was only too glad 
 to avail herself of Miss Sweetser s carriage on oc 
 casion ; ard Miss Sweetser s generosity, in count 
 less ways, smoothed difficulties in the Delancy 
 
SUSA N LA WTON S SCAPE. 333 
 
 household, which was like all boarding-school house 
 holds, straitened at times, and forced to keep up 
 show at expense of comfort. If Susan had not 
 been of a singularly sweet nature, this abnormal 
 freedom and independence, at the age of sixteen, 
 would have hurt her sadly. As it was, the chief 
 fault developed in her by her situation was an im- 
 periousness of will, or impatience, if obstacles of 
 any sort hindered her in carrying out a project. 
 But as her projects were usually of a magnanimous 
 and generous kind, this impatience did not seem 
 unlovely ; and the imperious manner was often 
 charming. Her schemes could not be said to be 
 unselfish, because they usually were for pleasures 
 or profits which she desired for herself ; but on the 
 other hand they could not be said to be selfish, be 
 cause she made them so wide in their scope, includ 
 ing everybody she could easily reach. If she wanted 
 to go to an entertainment of any sort, she took her 
 whole class, sometimes the whole school ; when she 
 went to drive in her pretty, blue-lined carriage, 
 somebody else always went too, Madame De- 
 lancy herself, or some teacher, or some friend. 
 When she wanted strawberries, she ordered them 
 into the house by the dozen boxes, and had them 
 given to everybody at breakfast. And she did not 
 do this with the least air of patronage or condescen 
 sion ; she did not think about its being any favor to 
 people, or that she laid them under an obligation ; 
 *he simply liked to do it ; it was her way ; there was 
 
334 SUSAN LA WTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 no special friendliness in it; no exalted notion 
 either about conferring happiness ; why she liked to 
 do so, she never thought ; and if she had thought 
 and questioned, would have been puzzled to tell ; 
 she did it as little children gregariously by- instinct 
 do, when they exclaim, " Oh, let s do " this, or that, 
 or the other " it will be so nice ! " That this was 
 a surface and sensuous view of life, cannot be de 
 nied ; but then, we are not drawing an ideal char 
 acter ; we are merely telling the exact truth about 
 Susan Sweetser. She was not a saint by any man 
 ner of means, nor the stuff of which saints are made. 
 She got no end of preaching to from pastors and 
 from self-elected advisers, who saw in the free- 
 souled young heiress a great opportunity for that 
 obnoxious practice known as " doing good." But 
 against all their lectures and sermons Susan s light- 
 heartedness was a more effectual barrier than the 
 hardest-heartedness in the world could have been. 
 When they came, asking her for money, she pulled 
 out her purse and gave it to them ; not always so 
 much as they asked for, because on some such 
 points Susan had her own ideas of proportion and 
 disproportion ; yet she always gave liberally. But 
 when they came preaching to her that she herself 
 should do this and that, should go here and there, 
 should be this and that, Susan smiled pleasantly, 
 said little, but went on her way undisturbed. The 
 odd thing was that she kept this undisturbed pla 
 cidity of being comfortable in her own fashion, in 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 33$ 
 
 spite of the most dogged orthodoxy of religious 
 belief. 
 
 Just before Susan was eighteen years old, and a 
 few weeks before her graduation at Madame De- 
 lancy s, Mr. Thomas Lawton died. Mrs. Lawton 
 was now left as free and independent, and nearly 
 as rich, as Susan. Her love for her husband had 
 been very sincere as far as it went, but it had not 
 been of such a nature as to make his death a heart 
 breaking thing to her. Life looked very attractive 
 to Mrs. Thomas Lawton as one morning, a few 
 months after her husband had died, and six weeks 
 after Susan had left school, she and Susan sat to 
 gether in the handsome library, planning what they 
 would do for themselves for the winter. 
 
 " Bell," said Susan, energetically," it s perfectly 
 splendid that you can chaperon me everywhere ! 
 I Ve always had a terror of the time when I d have 
 to hire some lay figure of respectability to live with 
 me and go about with me, and all that. I know I 
 should have hated her. I expect I should have 
 changed her as often as poor papa had to change 
 cooks. But now it s all right. You and I can go 
 all over the world together. You can do what you 
 like, because you re a widow." 
 
 " Oh, don t Susan ! " exclaimed Mrs. Lawton, 
 deprecatingly. " How can you run on so ? " 
 
 " Why, Bell, dear, I did n t mean to hurt your 
 teelings," said Susan ; but it s true a widow can 
 50 anywhere. If you had n t been married, you 
 
336 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 could n t chaperon me, don t you know ? And your 
 being my aunt makes it all the better. You d 
 never do for my chaperon in the world if it wer n t 
 for that, you young-looking thing, you ! I declare 
 you don t look a day older than I do ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bell Lawton did, indeed, look very young 
 in her widow s cap, which lay in its graceful Marie 
 Stuart triangle very lightly on her pretty blond 
 hair, and made her look, as widow s caps always 
 make young and pretty woman look, far less like a 
 mourner than she would have looked without it. 
 
 "Now, Susan, don t talk nonsense," said Mrs. 
 Lawton. " You know I m twenty-five next month, 
 and I m sure that is antiquated. Oh, dear, if I 
 were only eighteen, like you ! " 
 
 "What then?" asked honest Susan. "Why is 
 eighteen any better than twenty-five, Bell ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don t know," replied Bell, confusedly. 
 " I don t suppose it is any better ? " 
 
 " I don t think it s half so good," said Susan 
 " or, at any rate, half so good as twenty-one. I m 
 dying to be twenty-one. I wan t all my money ! " 
 
 "Why, Susan Sweetser ! " exclaimed Bell. "What 
 on earth would you do with any more money ? You 
 $an t spend all your income now." 
 
 " Can t I ? " laughed Susan. " You just try me 
 and see ! I m overdrawn on this quarter already ; 
 and it s so disagreeable to be told of it. Dear 
 Uncle Tom never told me. He was a great deal 
 nicer for a guardian than this old Mr. Clark is." 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 33? 
 
 Mi , Clark was the family lawyer, who was to act 
 as Susan s guardian and business agent for the 
 next three years, and who had already made him 
 self tiresome to her, by trying to instill into her 
 mind some ideas of system and economy in expen 
 diture. 
 
 "Overdrawn!" cried Bell. "You extravagant 
 girl ! What have you been doing ? " 
 
 " I don t really know," laughed Susan. " I never 
 keep accounts. I let poor Madame Delancy have 
 a thousand ; that was one thing. She 11 pay me in 
 the spring ; and those riding parties were awfully 
 dear. Mr. Clark says I must n t pay for my friends 
 horses any more \ but I don t think it is any of his 
 business. Lots of the girls I want to have go can t 
 go any other way ; their fathers can t afford it." 
 
 "You re a dear generous soul," said Bell, ad 
 miringly. 
 
 " No I m not," said Susan. " There is n t any 
 generosity in my sending Sally Sanford a horse, 
 when I want her in my party, and know she can t 
 come any other way. It s to please myself I do 
 it." 
 
 "Well, I think it s generous for all that," said 
 Bell, " and anybody in the world would say so." 
 
 " Anybody in the world will say anything," re 
 plied Susan, satirically ; " there is one thing I made 
 up my mind about long ago, and that is, never to 
 mind what the world says, either for or against a 
 thing or a person. " 
 
 22 
 
338 SUSAW LA WTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 " You can t afford to do that way, Sue," said 
 Mrs. Bell, who was conservative by nature and 
 training. " You 11 get talked about awfully, the first 
 thing you know. " 
 
 " Let them talk ! " laughed Susan. " They 11 talk 
 anyway. It might as well be about me." 
 
 " No, it might n t ! " persisted Bell, who had her 
 own reasons for laying stress on this point with 
 Susan. " No, it might n t. I tell you, Sue, a woman 
 can t afford to be talked about." 
 
 "Can t afford? What do you mean by that? 
 How much does it cost ? " said Susan, scornfully. 
 
 Mrs. Bell was not clever enough to answer Susan 
 in her own phraseology, and say, " It costs loss of 
 position, loss of the best regard of the best people, 
 loss of absolute trust from men whose trust would 
 be honor, and might be love ; " she only said, 
 meekly : 
 
 " You know as well as I do, Sue, that nobody 
 really thinks so well of a woman who is much talked 
 about. I don t think a woman can be too careful, 
 for my part ; especially, Sue, women situated as you 
 and I are ; we have got to be very careful indeed." 
 
 This was an opportunity Mrs. Bell had been anx 
 iously awaiting for a long time. She had felt that 
 it was necessary to define their positions and have 
 some such matters thoroughly understood in the 
 outset of her life with Susan, but she had lacked 
 moral courage to open the discussion. 
 
 " I m never going to be careful, as you call it, 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 339 
 
 Bell," cried Susan. " Never ! and you 11 have to 
 make up your mind to that. I hate it, the sneaking, 
 time-serving, calculating thing. It is next door to 
 lying and stealing. I m going always to say what 
 I think, do what I like, have what friends I please, 
 without the slightest reference to what the world 
 says j whether they call it strange or not, proper or 
 not, right or not, it s nothing to me. I don t care 
 a straw for the whole world s opinion, so long as I 
 am sure I am right." 
 
 " Then you 11 get into horrible scrapes ; that s 
 all ; I can tell you that," said Bell, hotly. 
 
 " Why, I m never going to do anything im 
 proper," retorted Susan ; " and how shall I get into 
 horrible scrapes ? " 
 
 " Oh, millions of ways," replied Bell, despair 
 ingly. "When you re as old as I am, you 11 know 
 the world better. I tell you women can t do that 
 way ; and I don t think it s womanly." 
 
 " What is n t womanly ? " said Susan, in a pettish 
 tone. 
 
 "Why, not caring," said Bell; "I think it s a 
 woman s place to care very much what people think 
 of her, and to try not to offend anybody s prejudices , 
 and above all things, not to go against custom." 
 
 Susan groaned. 
 
 " Oh, pshaw, Bell," she said, " what kind of a 
 life would that be ? I d as soon be a cartridge in 
 \ cartridge case, numbered and packed. But don t 
 et us quarrel over this. We shall never think alike 
 %bout it." 
 
34O SUSAN LA WTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 " No, I suppose not," replied Bell, gravely. 
 " But if we re going to live together all our lives, 
 it s a great pity we should not, especially if, as you 
 say, I m going to be your chaperon. " 
 
 " Oh, you motherly, grandmotherly old girl ! " 
 cried Susan, kissing her. " Don t you worry your 
 self I won t do anything you don t want me to. I 
 believe in caring what one s friends say." 
 
 " You sweet, dear Sue ! " cried Bell, kissing her 
 warmly in turn ; " I know you won t." 
 
 From all which it is easy to see that Mrs. Thomas 
 Lawton s chaperonage of Miss Susan Sweetser 
 would not be a very rigid one. 
 
 Susan s phrase, " What friends I please," had 
 not been a random one. For more than a year her 
 intimacy with Professor Balloure had been such as 
 to give rise to some ill-natured comment in the town, 
 and to no little anxiety in the minds of her friends. 
 Edward Balloure had been professor of belles-lettres 
 in one of our large colleges in his youth, but marry 
 ing early a woman of fortune, he had at once relin 
 quished his professorship, and had ever since led a 
 life of indolent leisure, dabbling in literature in an 
 die fashion, now and then throwing off a creditable 
 pamphlet or paper, but for the most part doing 
 nothing except enjoy himself. He was a hand 
 some man and a brilliant talker ; everybody liked 
 him ; nobody loved him, not even his wife, who had 
 soon found out that he had married her for her 
 ttioney and not from affection. This knowledge, 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 34! 
 
 instead of crushing her, as it would a woman of 
 weaker nature, had turned her into a cold, hard, 
 bitter, ill-natured woman, whom it. seemed, now, 
 nobody could like or live with ; yet those who 
 knew both her and her husband when they were 
 young said that Martha Balloure, at the time of her 
 marriage, had been an impulsive, loving, lovable 
 girl. Be that as it may, she was now an unlovely, 
 cynical, sharp-tongued, heartless woman, without a 
 friend in the community, and the verdict of the 
 world was always, " Poor Professor Balloure ! 
 What a sad fate it was that tied him to such a 
 woman ! " Mrs. Balloure herself perpetually fed 
 this expression by her unconcealed contempt for 
 and dislike of her husband. She had a sad lack of 
 dignity of character, and could never forego an 
 opportunity of a fling at the man whose name she 
 bore. When people praised him to her, said, for 
 instance, " How well Professor Balloure talks ! " 
 Mrs. Balloure would reply, with a sneer, " Yes, out 
 side his own house." Professor Balloure, on the 
 contrary, never spoke of his wife but with the ut 
 most respect ; always treated her with the utmost 
 courtesy, in the presence of others. Some close 
 observers noticed that his eye never rested on her 
 face never met hers if it could be avoided ; and 
 when Mrs. Balloure replied bitterly, as she had been 
 Viore than once heard to, on his offering her some 
 small attentions, " Oh, pray don t trouble yourself ; 
 you know you would n t do it if there were no one 
 
342 SUSAN LAWTOWS ESCAPE 
 
 here ! " these same close observers wondered 
 whether, after all, the brilliant Professor Balloure 
 might not be a hypocrite. But he talked so well 
 on high themes, he was so full of noble sentiments, 
 so sure to be on the right side of all questions, 
 theoretical or practical, it was hard to believe 
 the man hollow-hearted. And yet, hollow he was 
 to the very core, always excepting his sentiment 
 toward Susan Sweetser. This was the one true, 
 genuine thing he bore about him. He had been 
 irresistibly attracted toward her while she was a 
 mere child. Her frankness, her courage, her gen 
 erosity, all allured him by the very greatness of the 
 contrast they bore to his own traits. Out of his 
 own meagerness was born his appreciation of her 
 nobility. He looked back at his own youth, at 
 the time when he sold himself for money, and 
 he wondered, with passionate admiration, at the 
 fearlessness, generosity, independence of this girl. 
 Susan had no beauty to thrill a man s senses ; but 
 she had the perpetually varying charm of over 
 flowing life and activity, and fullness of thought. 
 When Professor Balloure was inquired of b;y 
 Madame Delancy if he would give a course of 
 lectures, accompanied by recitations, to the young 
 ladies of her senior class, he recollected instantly 
 that Mrs. Lawton had told him that this would be 
 Susan s last year at school, and he consented to 
 give the lectures for the sole and simple purpose 
 of thus bringing himself into relation with her 
 
SUSAN LA WTON S ESCAPE. 343 
 
 How kind of Professor Balloure ! " everybody 
 said. " Such a help to Madame Delancy ! How 
 kind of him ! " 
 
 " Do you think so ? " sneered Mrs. Balloure. 
 She did not know what her husband s motive was, 
 out that it was not kindness she was sure. She 
 did not trouble herself to find out, for she did not 
 care. She spoke of the lecture course as " one of 
 Mr. Balloure s whims," and dismissed it from her 
 mind. 
 
 She never went into society with him, and really 
 knew nothing of his habitual manner of half-in 
 sidious, half-chivalrous gallantry toward young 
 women. If she had she would not have cared ; she 
 despised him too thoroughly to be wounded by any 
 thing he might do ; and the one great flaw in her 
 nature her lack of personal dignity would have 
 prevented her suffering as most women would from 
 mortification. If anybody had gone to her and 
 confided to her proofs of her husband s having had 
 even an intrigue, she would most probably have 
 said in her usual bitter tone, " You are surprised, 
 then ! " and have dropped the subject, as one of 
 entire indifference to her. 
 
 It is an odd thing how very much franker a man 
 ner some types of hypocrites wear than a really 
 .Tank person ever has. Edward Balloure had an off 
 hand, hilarious, half-confidential way with everybody* 
 He seemed almost lacking in proper reticence and 
 secretlveness, so familiarly did he talk with people 
 
344 SUSAN LA WTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 whom he desired to please ; and he had a large, 
 clear, light-blue eye, which looked full in every 
 body s face, and never wavered. It is only after a 
 long and more or less sad experience of the world, 
 that we learn to recognize such eyes as the eyes of 
 traitors. I know to-day two women who are base 
 and treacherous as if the very blood of Judas Isca- 
 riot filled their veins, and they both have sunny, 
 clear, unflinching, light-blue eyes ; and I have 
 known a man who could, on occasion, tell cowardly 
 lies with as steady a gaze into your face as an hon 
 est man could give, and he too had light-blue 
 eyes, sunny, clear, unflinching. 
 
 If anybody had said to Susan Sweetser, that Pro 
 fessor Balloure was not an upright, sincere man, 
 she would have blazed with indignation. His 
 beauty, his brilliancy, his seeming kindliness, im 
 pressed her in the outset ; and when by degrees he 
 singled her out from all her class, and made evi 
 dent and especial efforts to interest and instruct 
 her, her admiration took on an affectionate and 
 grateful quality which made her very attractive, and 
 gave Edward Balloure great pleasure. Nothing 
 was further from his intention than to have any 
 flirtation with Susan. He was too cold-blooded and 
 conscious ever to compromise himself for any wom 
 an ; and he really did care for Susan herself too 
 truly and warmly to be willing to compromise her. 
 But he did intend to enjoy himself ; and he did find 
 a greater pleasure in teaching Susan Sweetser, in 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 345 
 
 watching her quick comprehension, her originality 
 of thought, her eager impulsiveness, than he had 
 found in anything for many a long year. The very 
 best of him came out to, and for, and with, Susan. 
 Gradually their intercourse dropped from the rela 
 tion of pupil with teacher into that of friend with 
 friend. The technical instruction continued, but 
 its atmosphere was new; there was a partial re 
 newal of the old bond. Edward Balloure could not 
 help reverencing this girl, whose belief in him, he 
 knew, had its foundation in her immovable belief 
 in honor and truth; whose affection for him in 
 dividually was, he knew, also, based on her belief 
 that he was honorable and truthful. Probably 
 Susan was the only human being to whom he would 
 have found it difficult to lie. He said to himself 
 sometimes when he looked in her face : 
 
 " Now, such a woman as that I never could have 
 had the heart to deceive." 
 
 It soothed his uneasy consciousness of his hypo 
 critical past to assume that, if his wife had been a 
 stronger person he might have been saved from his 
 deceit. But he was mistaken. If it had suited his 
 purposes, and the purposes had been strong enough, 
 he would have deceived Susan Sweetser as readily 
 to-day as he had deceived his wife fifteen years be 
 fore. For a year and a half now the relation be 
 tween Professor Balloure and Susan had gone stead 
 ily on, growing warmer and closer. When the lect 
 ures at Madame Delancy s ceased, and Susan had 
 
346 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 left school, nothing was more natural than that she 
 should continue some of her studies under Pro 
 fessor Balloure s guidance. And this was the os 
 tensible pretext under shelter of which there con 
 tinued an amount of intimacy which would have 
 been otherwise inadmissible. But that it was partly 
 a pretext, and that the intimacy was for Susan an 
 undesirable one, Mrs. Lawton had come to feel 
 most decidedly ; and there had been several earnest 
 conversations between them on the subject. The 
 most baffling thing to Mrs. Lawton in these con 
 versations was the utter impossibility of making 
 Susan comprehend what was objected to. She sim 
 ply could not understand. Professor Balloure had 
 been her teacher; he was her teacher still ; he was 
 forty and she was eighteen ; and above all he was 
 a married man, and to Susan s mind there was 
 something absurd as well as indelicate in any sug 
 gestion that there could be harm either to her or to 
 him in their friendship. 
 
 " Why, I should as soon think of your objecting 
 to an intimacy between me and papa, if he were 
 alive," said Susan, vehemently ; "if I ever could 
 have had an intimacy with papa," she added, sadly. 
 " Papa was only forty when he died ; he would 
 only be as much older than Professor Balloure, 
 now, as you are than I ; there s no real difference 
 of age between you and me." 
 
 At such times as this, poor Mrs. Lawton always 
 fell back hopelessly on the assertion that Susan 
 
SUSAN- LAWTON S ESCAPE. 347 
 
 did not know the world ; to which Susan always 
 retorted that she hoped she never should know it , 
 and there matters rested, in no wise altered by the 
 discussions, except that Susan was somewhat hurt 
 by them, inasmuch as each one inevitably took 
 away a little of her fresh innocence and inability to 
 comprehend evil. Mrs. Lawton loved Susan better 
 than she loved any one else in the world, and the 
 purpose had been growing stronger and stronger 
 for weeks to take Susan away from home and break 
 up her intimacy with Edward Balloure. The pur 
 pose coincided also with her own wishes, for the 
 great air-castle of her life had been to spend some 
 years in Europe. The one short and hurried trip 
 she had taken there with her husband, soon after 
 their marriage, had been merely sufficient to make 
 her long to go again. She had often spoken of this 
 to Susan, so there seemed nothing abrupt or unrea 
 sonable when on the present morning, as they sat 
 together in the library, discussing plans for the 
 winter, she suddenly said : 
 
 "Susan, we ll go abroad." 
 
 Susan sprang to her feet, her face flushed with 
 pleasure. 
 
 " You don t mean it, Bell ? " 
 
 " But I do ! " said Mrs. Lawton ; " I Ve been 
 meaning it all along." 
 
 " You blessed creature ! " cried Susan. " I Ve 
 Seen dying to go ever since I could recollect. I 
 nave had it on my tongue s end five hundred times 
 
348 SUSAN LA WTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 in the last three months to propose it to you ; but I 
 did not like to. I was afraid you would not want 
 to go and would think you must go for my sake." 
 
 " Why should n t I want to go ? " exclaimed Mrs, 
 Lawton, wonderingly. 
 
 " Oh, I was afraid you might not feel like it," 
 was Susan s evasive reply. She did not like to be 
 tray to Mrs. Lawton that she had doubted whether 
 she would be willing to leave her parents, now both 
 very old ; also whether her afflictions were not yet 
 too fresh in her mind to permit her full enjoyment 
 of travel. Neither of these considerations having 
 entered into Mrs. Lawton s mind, she did not sus 
 pect any hidden meaning in Susan s words, and 
 went eagerly on in the discussion of their plans. 
 
 Nothing is easier than for two women of large 
 fortunes and assured incomes to set off on a de 
 lightful tour of foreign travel. All paths become 
 easy, thus smoothed by money, and so Mrs. Law- 
 ton and Susan Sweetser found. Probably no two 
 women ever had a " better time " in the world than 
 did these two for the next three years. I pass by 
 all details of these years spent abroad, because I 
 am not telling the story of Susan s life, only of two 
 days in her life of an escape she had. This two 
 days story is worth telling, partly because each 
 hour of the two days was dramatic, partly because 
 there is in the story a lesson a moral which 
 Any two who love may sometime come to need. 
 
 There are several years now of Susan s life to be 
 
SUSAN LAWTOWS ESCAPE. 349 
 
 sketched in outline before we come to those days 
 of danger and escape. 
 
 When she and Mrs. Lawton returned from Eu 
 rope and settled themselves again in their old home, 
 the event produced no small stir in all circles. 
 The two richest women of the town, each young, 
 each enjoying absolute control of her property, 
 each bright and individual, each gay and pleasure- 
 loving, and keeping together a house of free and 
 gracious hospitalities. What Susan Sweetser and 
 Bell Lawton did, said, wore, afforded all the mate 
 rial that a whole town full of first-class gossips could 
 need ; and what Susan Sweetser and Bell Lawton 
 offered and provided and arranged for in way of 
 hospitable entertainment was enough to keep social 
 life going from one year s end to the other. It is 
 not necessary to say that they became the leaders 
 of the town ; that their house was its social centre. 
 First and foremost among the men who sought the 
 pleasure and the honor of familiar and friendly 
 footing in the house was Professor Edward Bal- 
 loure. He found his warm-hearted little pupil and 
 friend changed into a brilliant woman of the world ; 
 no less warm-hearted, no less impulsive, than of 
 old, but educated, trained, developed, into such a 
 woman as nothing but years of European travel 
 and culture could have produced. It was not neces 
 sary now for Bell to explain social convenances to 
 Susan. It was not necessary for her to point out 
 to her the dangers of intimacies with men who had 
 
350 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 wives. Many men had loved, or had seemed to 
 love, Susan during these years. She had been 
 somewhat moved two or three times by their pas 
 sion and devotion ; but she had never really loved. 
 It began to look as if she were obdurate of nature, 
 in spite of all her warm-heartedness. Sometimes a 
 fear came into Bell s mind that her old relation with 
 Edward Balloure still stood between Susan and 
 all other men ; and when she saw the professor at 
 his post again, handsome, brilliant, fascinating, as 
 ever, devoted as ever, plausible as ever, in his as 
 sumption of the role of a privileged mentor, Bell 
 Lawton groaned and said within herself, " How is 
 such a man as this ever to be circumvented ? " A 
 sort of hate grew up in her heart toward him. 
 Edward Balloure recognized it ; he had the keenest 
 of instincts, and knew on the instant the woman 
 who trusted and admired him from the woman who 
 unconsciously shrank away when he approached 
 her. But he only laughed cynically when he saw 
 poor Bell s desperate efforts to be civil to him, and 
 said in his cold-blooded heart : 
 
 " She s much mistaken, if she thinks she can 
 come between Susan and me." 
 
 Bell had too much good sense to try. Beyond 
 an occasional half laughing or satirical reference to 
 Professor Balloure s devotion, she avoided the sub 
 ject. She made no attempt to exclude him from the 
 house. On the contrary, she endeavored to make 
 \ evident to the whole world that he was one of 
 
SUSAN LA WTON S ESCAPE. 35 1 
 
 their established, intimate friends, her o\\n, as 
 well as Susan s. And she absolutely compelled 
 poor Mrs. Balloure s continual presence with her 
 husband on all occasions of special festivity, until 
 the poor woman relaxed a little from her rigid se 
 verity, and became, as Susan ungenerously re 
 marked one day, " a little less like the death s head 
 at the banquet." 
 
 Susan s own manner to the professor baffled 
 Bell s utmost scrutiny ; it was always open as day \ 
 always affectionate ; always reverential ; but there 
 was a look now in her eyes when they rested on his 
 face which made Bell uneasy. It was a groping, 
 questioning look, as if she were feeling her way in 
 the dark ; it was a great change from Susan s old 
 child-like trust. Edward Balloure himself felt this, 
 and was more disconcerted by it than he would 
 have been by any form of direct and distrustful in 
 quiry. It put him perpetually on his guard ; led 
 him to be always discreet, even in his closest and 
 most intimate moments with Susan : much more 
 discreet than he would otherwise have been ; for 
 day by day, Edward Balloure was learning to love 
 Susan Sweetser more and more warmly. The 
 vague remoteness in which she held herself ; the 
 strange charm of mingled reverence and doubt, af 
 fection and withdrawal in her manner toward him, 
 held him under a spell which no other woman could 
 have woven. She was an endlessly interesting study 
 to him, and that is the strongest fascination which 
 one human being can possess for another. 
 
352 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 Among all the men who visited at the house, ard 
 who were evident admirers of Susan, the only one 
 whom Edward Balloure feared was Tom Lawton, 
 a distant cousin of Bell s husband. If Professor 
 Balloure had said to any one in the town that Tom 
 Lawton was the one man he thought Susan Sweet- 
 ser might possibly marry, the remark would have 
 been greeted with exclamations of surprise, and 
 possibly laughter. 
 
 Tom Lawton was a lawyer ; a plodding, hard 
 working lawyer, not a pleader ; there was not a 
 trace of the rhetorician about Tom ; he could not 
 have made a speech in court to have saved his life 
 
 He made very few anywhere, for that matter 
 But for a good, sound, common-sense opinion ; for 
 slow, sure, accurate working-up of a case ; for 
 shrewd dealing with, and reading of, human nat 
 ure, men went to Tom Lawton. When Susan and 
 Bell returned from Europe, Tom, being the nearest 
 relative Bell had at hand, drifted very naturally into 
 the position of chief adviser in the affairs of the 
 two women. He was a man of such habitual quiet 
 of manner, that one grew almost immediately ac 
 customed to his presence, and felt at home with 
 him. All dogs and all children ran to him ; and 
 his dark, blue-grey eye, which had usually a half 
 stern look, twinkled instantly whenever he stoopea 
 to them. He was not good-looking. His face had 
 nothing striking about it, except its expression of 
 absolute honesty, good-will, and a certain sort oi 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 353 
 
 indomitableness which came very near looking like 
 obstinacy, and no doubt did often take on that 
 shape. His figure was stout and ungraceful ; and 
 long years of solitary, hard work had given him the 
 manners of a recluse, and not of a man of the 
 world. Before Edward Balloure had seen Tom 
 Lawton one hour in Susan Sweetser s presence, he 
 knew that he loved her. Tom made no effort to 
 join the circle of gay talkers of which she was the 
 centre ; he did not pay her one of the most ordi 
 nary attentions of society ; but he watched her 
 with a steady, contented gaze, which to Edward 
 Balloure s sharpened instinct was unmistakable. 
 
 Professor Balloure had had occasion to know 
 some of Tom Lawton s traits very thoroughly. 
 They had encountered each other once, in some 
 business matters where trusts were involved, and 
 where the professor s interests and Tom s sense of 
 honor had been at variance. The calm immova- 
 bleness which Tom had opposed to every influence 
 brought to bear on him ; his entire superiority to all 
 considerations save the one of absolute right ; and 
 his dogged indifference to any amount of antago 
 nism and resentment, had altogether made up an 
 aggregate of opposition such as the professor rarely 
 encountered. He chose to call it Quixotic obsti 
 nacy ; but in his heart he admired it, and respected 
 Tom Lawton more than any man he knew. 
 
 " If he makes up his mind to marry Susan he 11 
 Urin her sooner or later," said the professor to him- 
 23 
 
354 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 self. "They re made of the same stuff; but she 
 does n t care anything about him yet," and Edward 
 Balloure groaned inwardly and cursed the fate 
 which stood in shape of a poor helpless woman 
 between him and this girl whom he so wilfully and 
 sinfully loved. 
 
 It was quite true, as the professor had said, that 
 Susan did not as yet care anything for Tom Law- 
 ton. In her girlhood she had been used to seeing 
 him come and go in her uncle s house, quietly and 
 familiarly ; his silent presence had produced no im 
 pression on her fancy ; in fact she hardly remem 
 bered him when she first met him after her return 
 from Europe. But it was not many weeks before 
 the quality in Tom s steady gaze, which had pene 
 trated Edward Balloure s consciousness, penetrated 
 Susan s also. She became afraid that Tom was 
 beginning to love her too well. 
 
 " Dear Tom ! " she thought to herself. " The 
 dear fellow ! What shall I do ? Whatever put 
 such a thought into his head ? How shall I stop 
 him ? I don t want him to fall in love with me," 
 and in the most right-minded way Susan set herself 
 to work to prevent what had already happened. It 
 had once been Susan s belief that any woman 
 could save any man the pain of a direct refusal ; 
 but the fallacy of this belief in individual cases she 
 had been taught by some trying experiences. How 
 ever, she still clung to her theory, and endeavored 
 to carry it out in practice as conscientiously as if 
 
SUSAN LAWTOWS ESCAPE. 355 
 
 she had never discovered it fallible ; and nianv a 
 man had in his heart reverently thanked Susan 
 Sweetser for having graciously and kindly made it 
 clear to him that he must not love her. But this 
 Tom was not on a footing to be dealt with by the 
 subtle processes which told on a less familiar friend. 
 If he had been Bell s own brother, Bell could not 
 have trusted him or loved him more, or have given 
 him mere unqualifiedly the freedom of the house. 
 That she never once thought of the possibility of his 
 falling in love with Susan was owing partly to the 
 quiet, middle-aged seriousness of his manner and 
 ways, partly to her absorption in her anxiety about 
 Professor Balloure s relation to Susan, and hers to 
 him. And so the months went on, and the girls 
 lived their gay and busy life, and every hour that 
 could be spared from his business, Tom was with 
 them, as unquestionedly and naturally as if he had 
 been their legal protector. Indeed it was not in 
 frequently supposed by strangers, that he was the 
 head of the house. 
 
 Susan was uneasy. She was distressed. She 
 had come to have so true an affection for Tom that 
 the thought of having to inflict on him at some not 
 very distant day so cruel a hurt as to refuse his 
 love was terrible to her. 
 
 " If only he could know beforehand," she said, 
 " he could leave off loving me just as well as not. 
 He is one of those quiet, undemonstrative men 
 l hat can make up their mind to love any woman 
 Uiat they think best to love." 
 
356 SUSAN LAWTOWS ESCAPE. 
 
 From which it is plainly to be seen that Susan 
 did not yet know men analytically. She was yet 
 too much under the influence of the presence of 
 an idealist who could talk eloquently and mysteri 
 ously on the subject of unconquerable passions. 
 Susan made several blundering attempts to make 
 Tom see what she wanted him to see ; but Tom 
 was obtuse ; he was basking in the sun of Susan s 
 presence, and not acknowledging to himself dis 
 tinctly that he wanted her for his wife. Susan was 
 right in one respect : Tom was quite capable of 
 leaving off loving her if he resolved to. But it 
 would take more to make him resolve to than 
 Susan supposed. At last, one day, in one of those 
 sudden, unpremeditated, accidental moments which 
 are always happening between men and women 
 whose relations are not clear, there came a chance 
 for Susan to say, exactly what she never knew, 
 and Tom never could tell her, but something which 
 made Tom understand clearly that she wanted to 
 save him from falling in love with her. 
 
 Tom looked at her for one second with a gaze 
 which was stern in its intensity ; then he said : 
 
 " You re a good, kind, true girl, Sue. Don t you 
 worry about me. I m all right." 
 
 And poor Susan was seized with the most mor 
 tifying fear that she had spoken needlessly. " Oh, 
 dear ! " she thought, " if it were anybody but Tom 
 how I should feel ! But he is so good, h , d never 
 misunderstand a woman nor laugh at her 1 " 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 357 
 
 And everything went on the same as before. 
 Tom s eyes told just as plainly as ever that he 
 loved the very spot where Susan stood. Bell 
 looked on unconscious. Edward Balloure looked 
 on in sullen despair. The world began to say that 
 Tom Lawton cared about Susan Sweetser, and how 
 absurd it was ! He might know that a brilliant 
 girl like that was never going to marry a plodding, 
 middle-aged fellow like him ; and Susan, mean 
 while, poor, perplexed Susan! was perpetually 
 asking herself whether, after all, Tom had really 
 loved her or not. Weeks, months, a year went by, 
 and to outside observers no change had come to 
 any member of the little group. But the years 
 write their records on human hearts as they do on 
 trees, in hidden inner circles of growth, which no 
 eye can see. When the tree falls, men may gather 
 around and count the rings about its centre, and 
 know how many times its sap has chilled in winter 
 and glowed in spring. We wrap ourselves in the 
 merciful veils of speech and behavior, and nobody 
 can tell what a year has done to us. Luckily, even 
 if we die, there is no sure sign which betrays us. 
 As I said, at the end of a year no change which an 
 outside observer would detect had come to any 
 member of the little group. But if at any moment 
 the hearts of Susan Sweetser, Tom Lawton, and 
 Edward Balloure had been uncovered to the gaze 
 Df the world, there would have been revelations 
 startling to all. 
 
358 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 Tom loved Snsan now with a calm, concentrated 
 purpose of making her his wife. There was in his 
 feeling for her none of the impatience of a fiery 
 passion. He would not have rebelled had he been 
 told that she would not be his for years, so that he 
 had been sure of her at last. He had gradually 
 taken his position with her as her constant attend 
 ant, protector, adviser. In a myriad of ways he 
 had made himself part of her daily life, and this, 
 too, without once coming on the ordinary lover s 
 ground of gifts, attentions, compliments. He never 
 even sent her flowers ; he never even said a flatter 
 ing thing to, or of, her. He simply sat by her side, 
 looked at her, and took care of her. How Edward 
 Balloure chafed at all this is easy to imagine. 
 When he met Tom in Sue s presence, and he was 
 seldom out of it except in business hours, he eyed 
 him sometimes fiercely, sometimes almost implor 
 ingly. Tom had for Edward Balloure but one look, 
 but one tone, that of concealed contempt ; the 
 barest civility was all he could wrench from himself 
 for the man whom he knew to be base, but whom 
 Susan reverenced and loved. And Susan ! It must 
 be a more skillful pen than mine which could an 
 alyze the conflicting emotions which filled Susan s 
 heart now. Professor Balloure occupied her imag 
 ination to a greater degree than she knew. She 
 dealized him, and then let her thoughts dwell on 
 the ideal she had made. She was full of sentiment 
 ibout him, she leaned on his intellect, sought his 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 359 
 
 opinions, was stimulated by his society. She talked 
 better to him, and before him, than under any 
 other circumstances. She yielded to him in many 
 matters, small and great, as she had yielded when 
 he was her teacher. She knew, also, her great 
 power over him. In the bottom of her heart she 
 knew that he loved her, though never once had he 
 said to her a word which could offend her delicate 
 sense of right. But one day, in a sudden and irre 
 pressible mood, he had poured out to Mrs. Lawton 
 such passionate avowals of his long admiration and 
 affection for Susan that Bell had been terrified, and 
 had spoken to him with the utmost severity. He 
 pleaded so persistently to be forgiven, and more 
 over argued so plausibly that she had totally mis 
 conceived the real meaning of all he had said, that 
 he made Bell feel ashamed of having resented his 
 words, and half guilty herself of having misinter 
 preted them. Wily Edward Balloure ! He thought 
 that Bell would tell Susan of their conversation, 
 and he watched the next day for some trace of its 
 influence upon her. No trace was there. Her man 
 ner was as cordial as ever, no more, no less so ; 
 and the professor could never make up his mind 
 whether she had been told or not. 
 
 One day when Tom had been taking unusual 
 pains about some matters for Susan, she looked up 
 at him and said with a sudden and shame-stricken 
 sense of how much she was perpetually receiving 
 at his hands : 
 
360 SUSAN LAW TON 1 S ESCAPE. 
 
 "Oh, Tom ! how good you are ! It is n t fair foi 
 you to be with me all the time, so " 
 
 " Is n t fair ! " exclaimed Tom. " What do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 Susan colored, but did not speak. He under 
 stood. 
 
 * Do you dislike to have me with you all the 
 time ? " he asked, emphatically. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " cried Susan ; " no. You know it 
 is n t that" 
 
 "Then I am content," replied he. "It is all 
 right." 
 
 Susan made no reply. Her eyes were fixed on 
 the ground. Something he saw in her face made 
 Tom bolder than one moment before he would 
 have dared to be. 
 
 " One of these years, Sue, you and I will be mar 
 ried," he said, quietly. 
 
 She started, turned red, then pale, and stam 
 mered : 
 
 " Why, Tom, I told you long ago 
 
 "Oh, yes," he interrupted her in a placid tone, 
 " that s all right. I understand it. It will be 
 just as you say ; but one of these years you 11 think 
 it right," and Tom began to talk about something 
 else as naturally and calmly as if no exciting topic 
 had been broached. 
 
 When Susan thought over this extraordinary con 
 versation she laughed and she cried. At one mo 
 ment she thought it the most audacious imperti 
 
SUSAN LAWTON^S ESCAPE. 361 
 
 nence a man ever committed ; the next instant she 
 thought it the sweetest daring that love ever dared, 
 and a strange surrender of herself to its prophecy 
 began in that very hour. No wonder. The predic 
 tion had almost a preternatural sound, as Tom said 
 it ; and while he spoke his eyes rested on hers with 
 an authoritative tenderness which was very compel 
 ling. 
 
 After this day, Susan never felt sure that Tom 
 was not right. After this day, Tom never felt a 
 doubt; and from this day, Edward Balloure per 
 ceived in Susan a change which he could not de 
 fine, but which made him uncomfortable. The 
 searching, probing, questioning look in her eyes 
 was gone. The affection remained, but the eager, 
 restless inquiry had ceased. Had she found out? 
 Or had she left off caring to know? 
 
 One day, in an impatient and ill-natured tone, 
 Professor Balloure said to Susan : 
 
 " Does Mr. Lawton really live in this house ? I 
 confess it is something of a trial that none of your 
 friends can ever see you without having his com 
 pany inflicted on them. He is a very stupid man." 
 
 Susan fixed her brown eyes steadily on Professor 
 Balloure s face. 
 
 " If any of our friends find Mr. Lawton s com 
 pany an infliction, they know how to avoid it. We 
 do not think him a stupid person, and I trust him 
 more than any other man 1 know," and, with this 
 sudden and most unexpected shot. Susan walked 
 %way and sat down at the piano. 
 
362 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 Edward Balloure was, for once, dumb. When 
 Susan stopped playing, he bent over her and said 
 in a low tone : 
 
 " I hope you will forgive me. I never dreamed 
 that you had so strong a regard for Mr. Lawton. 
 I thought he was Mrs. Lawton s friend, and some 
 how I had often fancied that he bored you." 
 
 " You were never more mistaken in your life, 
 Professor Balloure," answered Susan, composedly. 
 " Mr. Lawton is a person who makes you contented 
 by his simple presence, he is so quiet, and yet 
 so full of vitality." 
 
 " She has studied Mr. Lawton then, feels a 
 charm in his presence, and has reflected upon it 
 enough to analyze it." All this passed through the 
 professor s mind, and gave a peculiar bitterness to 
 the coldly civil tone in which he replied, " Ah ! I 
 should not have thought that possible. It is only 
 another of the many illustrations of the difference 
 between the feminine and the masculine standards 
 of judging men." 
 
 Susan colored, and was about to speak indig 
 nantly, changed her mind, closed her lips and 
 smiled, and when Edward Balloure saw the smile, 
 his heart sank within him. By that smile he knew 
 that his reign, so far as it had been a reign, was 
 ,wer, and Tom Lawton s had begun. 
 
 Two weeks from that day Professor and Mrs. 
 Balloure sailed for Europe. The sudden announce 
 ment of their plans caused no astonishment ; it had 
 
SUSAfi LAWTCN S ESCAPE. 363 
 
 always been tbi professor s way to set off at a 
 day s notice. He had been a restless and insatia 
 ble traveler. But when it was known that his 
 house was offered for rent, furnished, for three 
 years, then people did wonder what was taking him 
 away for so long a time. Nobody but Edward Bal- 
 foure knew. Bell Lawton suspected, but said noth 
 ing, and Susan did not so much as dream. She 
 was surprised at herself, and had a half-guilty feel 
 ing that she did not more keenly regret his going. 
 When she bade him good-by, she said, lightly : 
 
 " Who knows where we shall meet next ? Bell 
 and I may run over next summer. We have talked 
 of it." 
 
 " If I could think that, I should be very glad, 
 indeed," replied the professor, earnestly. " But 
 you will not come." 
 
 "What did he mean by that, Bell ? " said Susan s 
 ifter he had gone. " How does he know what we 
 will do ? " 
 
 Mrs. Lawton laughed, and skipping up to Susan s 
 tide, kissed her on the forehead, and sang : 
 
 " How does anybody know what anybody will 
 do? 
 
 " Wooed and married and a, 
 
 Kissed and carried awa , 
 
 Is na the lassie well aff 
 
 That s wooed and married and a ? " ; 
 
 This chorus of an old Scotch ballad had been 
 much on Mrs. Bell Lawton s lips of late. 
 
364 SUSAN- LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 "Bell ! " exclaimed Susan ; " are you going to be 
 married ? " 
 
 " Perhaps," said Bell. " And you, Miss Susan ? " 
 
 " No," said Susan, stoutly. " No ! And you 
 sha n t be. I can t spare you." 
 
 At this moment Tom entered, and Bell ran out 
 of the room, singing : 
 
 " Wooed and married and a , 
 Kissed and carried awa ! " 
 
 "Who s married now? " asked Tom. 
 
 " Nobody," replied Susan. " But I m afraid Bell 
 will be." 
 
 "Why, Sue ! " said Tom ; " it is n t possible that 
 you have not seen all along that Bell would surely 
 marry Fred Ballister ? " 
 
 Susan looked aghast. 
 
 " I never thought of such a thing," she ex 
 claimed. " Why, what will become of me ? " 
 
 Tom looked in her face without speaking. If 
 he had been a less reticent, less obstinate man, he 
 would have poured out a voluble torrent of words 
 just then ; but he did not open his lips. He knew 
 that Susan knew what his look meant. Yet he 
 might have made it less hard for her. What could 
 she say ? She flushed and lowered her eyes, and 
 finally said : 
 
 " Oh, Tom ! " 
 
 There was a world of appeal in the exclamation, 
 
SUSAN LAW TON S ESCAPE. 365 
 
 if Tom would only have understood it; but he 
 would not, would not or did not. 
 
 " All right, Sue ! All right ! " he said, cheerily. 
 " I shall never urge you. One of these days you 1\ 
 think it right to marry me. You 11 know when the 
 time comes. All must be clear." 
 
 Susan could have cried with vexation. Did he 
 mean to punish her for having gratuitously refused 
 him before he had ever offered himself to her in 
 words ? No, surely Tom was too noble for that. 
 Did he expect her to say to him in so many words, 
 " Dear Tom, I am ready to marry you now ? " Did 
 she really and heartily want to marry him after all ? 
 She was happier when he was with her than when 
 he was away. If a day passed without her seeing 
 him she was restless and ill at ease. She found 
 herself in all her plans and projects leaning on 
 him, including him as inevitably as if they belonged 
 to each other. But was this love ? Susan was not 
 wholly sure. Altogether Susan was quite misera 
 ble, and none the less so, it must be acknowledged, 
 because Tom seemed so light-hearted, so content, 
 so thoroughly at rest and satisfied with the state of 
 things. Wise fellow ! he had reason to be. 
 
 " I don t believe he really cares very much for 
 me," said Susan, pettishly, to Bell one day. " If I 
 were to tell him positively to-morrow that I would 
 never marry him, I don t believe that he would 
 urind it much." 
 
 " Oh, Sue, how can you say so ? " cried Bell 
 
366 SUSAN LAWTOlv^ ESCAPE. 
 
 " Look at these last two years. Has Tom been 
 out of your presence one hour when he could be in 
 it; ? " 
 
 No," said Sue. " That s one way he s brought 
 me into this uncomfortable state about him. I in 
 so used to him, I never could do without him in 
 the world." 
 
 "Of course you can t," said Bell; "and when 
 I rn married " Bell s engagement to Mr. Ballister 
 was now formally acknowledged "you can t go 
 on living here alone ; and as for your getting any 
 lady companion to live with you, that s out of 
 the question. You 11 never find another such 
 saint as I Ve been to put up with your ways. My ! 
 what I Ve borne in these last five years ! No, 
 Miss, you d better take to yourself a husband, and 
 of all the good, true, sterling men in this world, 
 Tom s the best, excepting Fred." 
 
 " I know it," said Sue, forlornly. " I told Pro 
 fessor Balloure not long ago that I trusted Tom 
 more than I trusted any other man in the world." 
 
 " Did you?" cried Bell. "Did you say that to 
 Edward Balloure? Oh, I m so glad. Oh, Sue, 
 you 11 never know how I Ve worried about that 
 man s influence over you. I don t believe in him, 
 and I never did, and if his wife had died any time, 
 you d have married him as true as fate." 
 
 " I think not," said Susan, reflectively. " I am 
 Afraid I don t believe in him either, and yet it seems 
 so horribly ungrateful after all he has done foi 
 
SUSAN LA WTON^S ESCAPE. 367 
 
 " Well, he s safe out of the way now, thank 
 heaven," said Bell. " That s one good thing. 
 And you Ve got to make up your mind about 
 Tom." 
 
 " Well, why does n t he make me ? " said Susan. 
 
 " Susan Lawton," said Bell, " you ought to know 
 Tom better. He knows that you know that he is 
 ready and longing to make you his wife at any hour, 
 and he will never urge you, not if you keep him 
 waiting on and on till you are both gray." 
 
 " I wonder," said Susan . 
 
 "No," replied Bell, "he never will. He s as 
 obstinate as a rock, and more than that, he does n t 
 want you for his wife till you want him for your 
 husband. Tom is proud as Lucifer in his heart." 
 
 " But, Bell," pleaded Susan, " I can t go to Tom 
 and say, * please take me. He had a good chance 
 a few days ago when he first told me you were going 
 to marry Fred, and all he said was : * All right, Sue, 
 all right, " and Susan laughed in spite of herself 
 at the recollection. 
 
 Bell laughed too, but she was vexed and anxious 
 to see two people at such cross-purposes. Her 
 own wooing and winning had been so smooth, so 
 entirely in accordance with the conventional usages 
 and customs, that she sympathized freely in Susan s 
 position. 
 
 " I should n t like it myself," thought Bell. " 1 
 should never stand it if Fred treated me that way. 
 But I know Fred would n t really do any more foi 
 
368 SUSAN LAWTOM S ESCAPE. 
 
 me than Tom would for Sue. I believe I 11 speak 
 to him." 
 
 " Speaking to him " was not so easy. Several 
 well-meant and carefully planned little speeches of 
 Bell s died away on her lips when she found herself 
 face to face with Tom. And time was slipping 
 away. Her own wedding was to come off in a few 
 months, and what could poor Sue do ? Mrs. Bell 
 Lawton was much perplexed. At last one day she 
 took a desperate step. Tom had dined with them. 
 After dinner they were all sitting together in the 
 library. Bell rose, looked them both in the face 
 for a moment with a half comic, half severe glance, 
 and said : 
 
 " Now, I tell you what it is ; it is high time you 
 two decided what you were going to do. Something 
 has got to be done. Now, I m going to leave you, 
 and if you don t straighten out things, I won t 
 speak to either of you again," and she marched 
 out of the room. 
 
 Tom looked at Susan, who said, nervously. 
 
 " Oh, how queer Bell is ! " 
 
 " She is right," said Tom. And then he looked 
 at Susan, and continued looking at her, and said 
 nothing. 
 
 Moments passed. 
 
 Susan could not bear the silence another mo 
 ment. 
 
 " Tom ! " she cried, " tell me just once, would 
 fou really mind very much if I did n t marry you ? 
 
SUSAN LAWTON 1 S ESCAPE. 369 
 
 Tom thought for a second that this must mean 
 that after all, his hopes had been unfounded ; that 
 Susan had at last decided that she ought not to 
 marry him. He turned pale, and spoke very 
 slowly. 
 
 " Yes, it would be a very great disappointment 
 
 to me," he said. " But " He would probably 
 
 have finished his sentence with his characteristic 
 phrase, "It s all right, Sue, all right," if he had 
 not just then looked up. Tears were in Sue s eyes, 
 and her hands were stretched toward him. 
 
 " Oh, Tom ! " she cried, " if you really have been 
 so sure, why have n t you made me come to you 
 before ? " 
 
 " So there was never a day without a Mrs, 
 Thomas Lawton in town, after all," wrote Bell, de 
 scribing her own and Sue s wedding to a friend. 
 
 " We were married first, Sue and Tom would 
 have it so, and as soon as the ministei had made 
 me into Mrs. Fred Ballister, he hurried on to make 
 Sue into me. It is really very odd to hear her 
 called Mrs. Lawton. I don t get used to it. But, 
 my dear, if you want to see two happy people, you 
 just ought to see Tom and Sue. I declare it is 
 inarvelous. You would n t think they were in the 
 least suited to each other. You know, dear Tom 
 is queer to the last degree. Much as I love him I 
 never could live with him. I ve always said so 
 But Sue manages him most beautifully, and no won- 
 
370 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 der, for she never even looks at him without such 
 love in her eyes I did n t think Sue had it in her. 
 Fred is quite jealous. He says that the other Mrs. 
 Tom Lawton is the woman he ought to have mar 
 ried. She is a woman that knows how to appre 
 ciate a husband." 
 
 And now, where other stories end, this story 
 begins. For it was four years after Susan Lawton s 
 marriage that she had the " escape " which it is the 
 purpose of my story to tell, and all this which has 
 gone before has been merely what it was necessary 
 that one should know in order to understand the 
 rest. 
 
 The relation between Tom and Susan had grown 
 constantly closer and sweeter. It was a very pecu 
 liar one. People did not always understand it. 
 There were those who were shallow enough to say 
 that Tom Lawton did not appreciate his wife ; but 
 nobody would have laughed more heartily than Sue 
 herself at such an accusation against Tom. He 
 was still as reticent, undemonstrative, as he had 
 been in the days of his strange loverhood ; but he 
 was as sensitive yet to Susan s voice, look, touch, 
 as if he were still her lover, and not her husband. 
 What woman does not know how much this means . 
 How few women, alas, have had it given to them 
 ro know the joy of it ! 
 
 One day a letter came to Sue from Bell, who was 
 ira/eling in Europe with her husband. 
 
 "Only think," Bell wrote, "poor Mrs. Ballourc 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 371 
 
 has died at last. We found her here, in this hotel. 
 She had been ill for a day or two, but nobody 
 thought anything of it. She had the Roman fever 
 last winter and has never been well since. What 
 makes it worse is that Professor Balloure is away. 
 He has gone with a party of scientific men into 
 Russia. They say he has not been with her half 
 the time since they came abroad, and that the poor 
 thing has been quite broken has just sat still 
 patiently wherever he left her till he saw fit to come 
 back. Oh, I ve no patience with that man ! Well, 
 she died last night, and nobody knows where to 
 telegraph to him. Her maid is a stupid thing, and 
 does n t seem to know anything. We can t find 
 the professor s address anywhere among her pa 
 pers, and so Fred is seeing to everything, and 
 we Ve actually got to bury the poor soul to-mor 
 row. Is n t it the strangest thing you ever heard of, 
 that we should have come way out to this outland 
 ish spot, to bury this townswoman of ours, and, 
 a woman we always hated so, too ? Poor thing, 
 what a life she has led of it. And oh, have n t you 
 had an escape ! I declare, the second thing I 
 thought of was, how glad I am Sue s married all 
 safe. I never could have stood your marrying Ed 
 ward Balloure." 
 
 The letter ended abruptly, giving no more details, 
 \nd, to Susan s great relief, no more comment on 
 Professor Balloure. To Sue s loyal, loving, wedded 
 heart there was something inexpressibly shocking 
 
3/2 SC7SAJV LAWTOWS ESCAPE. 
 
 in Bell s light way of referring to him. And it was 
 with a real sense of relief that she threw the letter 
 into the fire after having read Tom all of it except 
 the last paragraph. 
 
 " That s the first time in my life," thought Susan 
 " that I ever had anything I did n t want Tom to 
 see. " 
 
 The consciousness of it hurt her to the core, and 
 still more, she felt the hurt of it the next morning. 
 She had been talking with Tom about Mrs. Bal- 
 loure s death, and saying that she hoped the pro 
 fessor would now marry a woman he could love. 
 
 "Well, he can t have you, Sue," said Tom, 
 dryly. 
 
 Susan gazed at him in wonder. 
 
 " Why, Tom Lawton ! " she said, " what do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 Tom looked at her with a grave face. 
 
 " I think you would have married him, Sue ? " 
 
 " Never ! " exclaimed Sue, " and it is horrid of 
 you to say such a thing. I never trusted Professor 
 Balloure, and besides " - Sue stopped, colored 
 " I think I always loved you, Tom." 
 
 This speech of Tom s rankled in Sue s mind all 
 day. It troubled her by its reflected implication 
 as to the past. During all those years had Tom 
 really believed that she loved Professor Balloure ? 
 Was that the reason he had left her so free from 
 the urging with which men usually seek women to 
 marry them ? Had he had her frank, open- 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 3/3 
 
 hearted Tom a secret capacity for jealousy ? Ah ! 
 if he could only know how immeasurably higher 
 she held him than she had ever held any other man \ 
 how absolutely his strong integrity and loyalty of 
 nature had won her trust and her love ! 
 
 Later in the day Sue sat down to answer Bell s 
 letter. When the letter was half finished, she was 
 called away. She left the letter lying open on her 
 desk. 
 
 When Tom came home at night and did not find 
 Sue, he had a vague sense of discomfort, as he al 
 ways did when she was not in the house. Roaming 
 about the library, idly, he sat down at Sue s desk, 
 saw the open letter, turned the sheet over to find 
 out to whom it was written, saw Bell s name, and 
 proceeded to read what Sue had written. Bell s 
 letters to Sue and Sue s to her were always common 
 property; there was nothing in the least strange 
 in Tom s reading that letter; but this, alas! was 
 what he read. After some comments on Mrs. Bal- 
 loure s death and references to what Bell had said 
 in regard to the professor s character, Sue had gone 
 on to repeat what Tom had that morning said : 
 " What do you suppose, Bell, " she wrote, " ever 
 put such an idea into his head ? Bless him ! Dear 
 old fellow ! How much happier, safer a woman I 
 am, in every way, with him than I ever could have 
 been with any other man ; Now, Bell, do be care 
 ful what you write about Professor Balloure, for I 
 never have a secret thing in the world from Tom, 
 
3/4 SUSAN" LAJVTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 and he might look over my shoulder any minute 
 and read your letter." 
 
 This was the way the thing had lain in Sue s 
 mind. Tom s speech in the morning had startled 
 her very much by its revelation that at some time 
 or other, if not now, he had felt a jealousy of Pro 
 fessor Balloure s regard for her. If he had that 
 feeling, nothing could so strengthen it as this sort 
 of light reference which Bell seemed to be inclined 
 to make to her old notion that Sue would have mar 
 ried the professor. 
 
 " I can t have Tom hurt by such things being 
 said," thought Sue. " Bell might know better than 
 to write so: she always was thoughtless. Why, 
 if he feels sensitive on the subject now, one such 
 speech as that of Bell s might make him believe all 
 his life that I had married him, loving some one 
 else better," and so Sue wrote that fatal sentence: 
 " Do be careful what you write." 
 
 Tom sat still a long time looking at the words. 
 
 " So there are secrets in connection with Ed 
 ward Balloure," he thought, "which I am not to 
 know." 
 
 The blow was a more terrible one to Tom, from 
 the fact that one of Sue s greatest charms to him 
 was the frankness, the bold truthfulness, of her 
 character. Tom s long experience as a lawyer had 
 made him distrustful of average women. In Sue, 
 he had thought he had found one who was incapa 
 ble of deceit ; and here she was not only concealing 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE, 375 
 
 something from him, but warning her accomplice 
 to conceal it too. 
 
 " There was nothing which one of them knew 
 that the other did not," thought Tom, as he sat 
 glued to the chair, and gazing at the mute, terrible 
 lines. Finally he sprang up and left the house. 
 
 Sue came home late, hoping to find Tom as 
 usual in his big arm-chair, reading the evening 
 newspaper. The library was dark ; no one was 
 there. 
 
 " Has not Mr. Lawton been in yet ? " 
 
 "Yes, ma am," replied the servant. "He has 
 been in and gone out again." 
 
 " How very strange," thought Sue. " I wish he 
 was here." 
 
 She sat down and finished her letter in few words ; 
 then went to the window and watched for Tom. It 
 was long past the dinner hour when he came in. 
 He seemed preoccupied and grave. After asking 
 him tenderly if he were ill, and if anything troubled 
 him, Susan became silent. She had learned, and it 
 was one of the hardest lessons of her married life, 
 that when Tom was tired or worried about business 
 matters, it was better not to talk to him. After 
 dinner, he sat down near Susan s table, and glanced 
 over the columns of the newspaper. The letter to 
 Bell lay on the table. Taking it up he said casu- 
 illy, 
 
 " May I read it, Sue ? " 
 
 " Oh, I guess you don t care to read it, this time, 
 
376 SUSAN LAWTON^S ESCAPE. 
 
 dear," she replied laughingly, and took it out of his 
 hand. He made no answer, but turned back to 
 his newspaper. Presently he said he must go down 
 town ; he had an engagement. He kissed her 
 good-by in an absent sort of way and was gone. 
 
 " Poor dear Tom ! " thought Susan. " He cer 
 tainly is worried about something. It is too bad," 
 and she set herself to work to make the best of a 
 lonely evening. The evenings which Tom spent 
 away from home were so rare, that it always seemed 
 to Susan a fresh and surprising deprivation when 
 one occurred. The loneliness of the house to her 
 when Tom was out of it, could not be expressed ; 
 the very furniture seemed to take on a totally dif 
 ferent expression. The clock struck ten, eleven, 
 Tom did not return. Finally, Susan went to bed, 
 and fell asleep, wondering what had become of him. 
 The next morning his face wore the same grave 
 and unnatural look. He hardly spoke, and when 
 he did speak, the words were constrained. Susan 
 was now thoroughly uneasy. 
 
 " Dear Tom," she said, " do tell me what is the 
 matter." 
 
 " Nothing," was the only reply she could extract 
 from him. 
 
 " Tom, I know something is the matter," she ex 
 claimed, vehemently. " Are you ill ? " 
 
 " Not in the least." 
 
 " Then something has gone wrong in business 
 something worries you." 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 377 
 
 " Nothing has gone wrong : nothi/ig worries me 
 
 Cool, curt replies : no relaxation of his face ; iot 
 a smile ; not a tender look in his eye. Was this 
 Tom ? What did it mean ? Susan was bewildered ; 
 she could do nothing but reiterate helplessly her 
 piteous cry, " Tom, what is the matter ? " 
 
 He left her immediately after breakfast, with the 
 same strange formal kiss he had given her the 
 night before. 
 
 After he had gone, the impression of his altered 
 manner faded somewhat ; it was all so new, so 
 strange, that as soon as he was out of her sight, she 
 thought she must have exaggerated it imagined it. 
 
 " I dare say he really was ill without knowing it," 
 she said. " It must be that. He is n t in the least 
 himself. Perhaps he will be better by noon." 
 
 Noon came ; Tom came. The same cool, re 
 served manner; the same cool, distant tone; the 
 same terrible silence ! Susan now grew seriously 
 alarmed. As soon as the servant had left them 
 alone, she exclaimed : 
 
 " Tom, you shall not treat me in this manner any 
 longer. What have I done ? " 
 
 " How do I treat you ? " he asked coldly. 
 
 Susan could not keep the tears back. 
 
 "Why, Tom," she said, "you treat me as if I 
 had displeased you most seriously : as if you were 
 mortally offended with me for something. What 
 have I done ? I do implore you to tell me." 
 
 "You have not done anything. I am not of- 
 tended/ he replied. 
 
3/8 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 Susan was clinging to him, and looking up in his 
 face with streaming tears. 
 
 "Tom," said she, you are not telling me the 
 truth. You are as changed as a human being can 
 be, and yet keep the same body. Something has 
 happened ; and you shall tell me. I have certainly 
 displeased you, and I cannot imagine how." 
 
 He loosened her arms from his neck, and put 
 her away, not ungently, but very firmly. 
 
 " There is nothing to tell," he said. " I am not 
 displeased. I must go now." 
 
 Susan s arms fell, her whole figure drooped. 
 She stopped weeping, and looked piteously into 
 her husband s face. 
 
 "Tom," she said; you are very hard. I would 
 not hurt you so for all the world," and she turned 
 and left him. 
 
 All the long afternoon she sat like one in a 
 dream of misery. It seemed to her as if the very 
 sun had gone out. How helpless she was ! How 
 long could she live she wondered over and over 
 if Tom continued like this ! 
 
 When he came home at night, she studied his 
 face timidly, and in silence. She tried to converse 
 about indifferent subjects. There was no change 
 in him; still the same frigid, distant civility; the 
 glance, the tone of a stranger and not of a husband. 
 By a great effort she kept back the tears. She 
 was growing calmer now and more resolved. In 
 & few minutes after tea was over, Tom said, with 
 in attempt at ease : 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 3/9 
 
 " I am going to leave you now. I must go down 
 town." 
 
 Susan sprang up, closed the door, and standing 
 with her back firmly against it, said, in a low tone, 
 breathlessly, 
 
 " You shall not go till you tell me what has so 
 changed you in this one twenty-four hours. Why, 
 Tom ! Do you know how you look at me ? How 
 you speak to me ? Why, I should be dead in one 
 week, if it kept on like this. What have I done ? 
 What has come to you ? " 
 
 He looked at her curiously and observantly. 
 
 " How do I look at you ? How do I speak to 
 you ? " he said. 
 
 Susan was crying hard, now. She could hardly 
 speak. 
 
 " You look at me," she sobbed, " as if I were 
 not your wife, and never had been. You speak to 
 me as if you hated me ; all that is in your tone. 
 Oh, you d know it quickly enough, if I looked at 
 you even once with such an expression ! Tom, I 
 shall go mad if you don t tell me ! You can t de 
 ceive me. You need n t think you can. I know 
 every slightest intonation of your voice, every shade 
 of your eye. T ve seen you vexed about little 
 things, or out of patience, or tired but this is dif 
 ferent ; this is horrible. I know I must have of 
 fended you in some way, and it is cruel in you not 
 to tell me, cruel, cruel, cruel ! " 
 
 He still stood looking at her with a cool observ- 
 
380 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE 
 
 ant expression, and made no reply for a moment j 
 then he said, taking hold of the door : 
 
 " I must go now, I don t want to talk any more. 
 I will be back soon." 
 
 " You shall not go," said Susan, more slowly, and 
 in a voice of anguish. " I will follow you ; you 
 shall not leave me ! Oh, Tom, Tom, tell me what 
 I have done ! " Suddenly, by what preternatural 
 intuition I know not, possibly, because, in her 
 great excitement, she was lifted into a state of clair 
 voyant perception, she stopped like one hearing 
 a distant sound, leaned forward, and said in an 
 altered tone, "Was it because I would not let you 
 read my letter to Bell ? " 
 
 As the words passed her lips, she saw his face 
 change, the first break which there had been in 
 its fearful rigidity. She knew she had touched the 
 truth at last. 
 
 " Tom, Tom ! " she cried, " was that it ? Was 
 that it? I see it was. Why, how could you have 
 minded that so much ? " and she led him, half by 
 main force, to a chair, and threw her arms around 
 his neck. 
 
 " Ought I not to have minded it ? " he asked, in 
 a stern tone. 
 
 Susan was reflecting. How distinctly before her 
 eyes at that moment, stood out the fatal sentence, 
 " Be careful what you write." ^ 
 
 " Tom," she said, " I will write this very night 
 Jo Bell, and ask her to send back the letter, that 
 you may read every word of it." 
 
SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 381 
 
 " I have no wish to read it," he said coldly. 
 Susan was in despair. 
 
 " Tom, what else can I do ? " she said. " Oh, 
 tet me send for it? I never dreamed that you 
 would mind not seeing it. Why, you don t see half 
 my letters to Bell." 
 
 He made no reply. Susan sat silent for a mo- 
 men-t. She seemed no nearer her husband than 
 before. The same intangible icy barrier which had 
 rilled her with such anguish all day was there still. 
 Suddenly, with one of those lightning impulses, by 
 which men in desperate need have often been 
 saved as by a miracle, Susan exclaimed: 
 
 " Tom, I can tell you all there was in the letter. 
 I mean all there was which I did not want you to 
 see." She paused. Her husband fixed his eyes 
 on her with as piercing a gaze as if she had been a 
 witness in a case of life and death. " This was it," 
 continued Susan. " It was about Professor Balloure. 
 You know what you said to me the other morning, 
 that at any rate he could n t have me." 
 
 Tom nodded. 
 
 " Well, I can t tell you how that shocked me. I 
 never dreamed of your having had any feeling like 
 jealousy about him, or any thought about him in 
 any way in connection with me. Oh, Tom, Tom 1 
 how could you ever help knowing that with all the 
 ove of my whole nature I have loved you ! Well, 
 you see, Bell had always talked to me about the 
 professor s caring for me. She always thought he 
 
382 SUSAN LAWTON S ESCAPE. 
 
 wished he could marry me, and in this letter telling 
 about his wife s death she said several things that I 
 did n t like ; I did n t read them to you ; and in my 
 letter to her I told her how much safer and happier 
 I was with you than I ever could have been with 
 any other man in the world, and " 
 
 Susan hesitated. How hard it was to quote that 
 unfortunate sentence just as it stood ! " and there 
 really was only one sentence in the letter I was un 
 willing you should see. I thought you would n t 
 understand. I told Bell to be careful what she 
 wrote to me about it, because I had n t any secrets 
 from you, and you might look over my shoulder 
 and read the letter." 
 
 While Susan was speaking these last words, 
 Tom s eyes seemed to grow darker and darker, 
 with the fixity of their gaze. As she finished, he 
 put his arms around her, held her tight and kissed 
 her. She felt that the ice was broken. Weeping, 
 she kissed his cheek and nestled closer. 
 
 " Sue," said Tom, it was his old voice, " Sue, 
 now I will tell you. I had read that letter." 
 
 Sue started, and exclaimed, " You ! read that 
 tetter!" 
 
 " Yes," he said. " I came in and saw it lying 
 here open, saw it was to Bell, and glanced down 
 the pages till I came to that sentence which you 
 have just repeated, and which, you will admit, I 
 had cause to resent." 
 
 She was hardly listening to wha he said. Her 
 (ace was full of awe, almost of terror. 
 
SUSAN- LAWTON S ESCAPE. 383 
 
 " Oh, Tom, Tom ! " she cried, was n t it like an 
 inspiration, the impulse which made me tell you 
 that sentence ? Supposing I had not told you, you 
 would never have believed in me again never ! " 
 
 "No," said Tom. 
 
 " Don t you see, dear love," continued Susan, 
 " just how I said that ? simply to save you pain ? 
 not in the least because there were any secrets in 
 the past I was afraid of Bell s letting out, but be 
 cause by your speech to me about the professor, I 
 knew that you had had some feeling about him, and 
 I thought, if Bell said any more of her light, jest 
 ing, thoughtless things in regard to him, they would 
 only strengthen your feeling and give you annoy 
 ance. Do you see ? Oh, do say that you see just 
 how it was !" 
 
 " Yes, I do see," said Tom, kissing her. " I do 
 see, and I thank God that you told me yourself of 
 the sentence. That took the load off my heart." 
 
 Susan shuddered. 
 
 u Oh, suppose I had forgotten it ! " she said. " 1 
 might have, though I don t believe I ever could, 
 for the sentence hurt me when I wrote it." 
 
 Susan was weak from nervous exhaustion ; the 
 twenty-four hour s strain had been a severe one. 
 She laid her head on her husband s shoulder and 
 closed her eyes. Without a word, without a sound, 
 without a motion, she knew that they were one 
 again. 
 
 After a time she said softly : 
 
384 SUSAN LAWTOX S ESCAPE 
 
 " Tom, what do you suppose put it into my head 
 that it could possibly have been the letter which 
 had troubled you ? I never once thought of it at 
 the time. I did not dream of your caring to see it. 
 Don t you think it must have been an angel which 
 made me think of it ? " 
 
 " I don t know, dear," said Tom, solemnly. " It 
 would have been worth while for an angel." 
 
 " Tom," continued Sue, " should you have seemed 
 all the rest of our life as you did this day ? " 
 
 " I can t tell," replied Tom. 
 
 " But you could never have trusted me again ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " Never," he answered. 
 
 After another long, peaceful silence, Susan lifted 
 her head again and said : 
 
 " Tom, will you promise me now one thing ? 
 Promise me that, as long as we live, you will never 
 bury anything in your heart as you did this. Only 
 think by what a narrow chance we have escaped 
 terrible misery. Promise me that if ever again any 
 act of mine seems to you wrong, you will come in 
 stantly to me and tell me. Will you ? " 
 
 " Yes, Sue, I will," said Tom fervently. 
 
 And this was Susan Lawton s escape. 
 
RIEF LIST OF BOOKS OF FICTION 
 PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER S 
 SONS, 743-745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
 
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 AN HONORABLE SURRENDER. (I6mo, $1.00.) 
 
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SCRIBNER S BRIEF LIST OF FICTION. 
 
 H. C. Bunner. 
 
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 cellent Story of a New York House. " The New York Times. - 
 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett. 
 
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 HAWORTH S. Illustrated (I2mo, $I.25)-THROUGH ONE ADMINISTRA 
 TION. (I2mo, $I.50)-LOUISIANA. (I2mo, $I.25)-A FAIR BARBARIAN. 
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 R. B. Birch (Sq. 8vo, $1.00). 
 
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 KATHLEEN (40 cts.)-THEO (30 cts.)-MISS CRESPIGNY (30 cts.). 
 
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 William Allen Butler. 
 
 DOMESTICUS. A Tale of the Imperial City (I2mo, $1.25.). 
 
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SCRIBNER S BRIEF LIST OF FICTION. 3 
 
 George W. Cable. 
 
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 New York Tribune. 
 
 Mary Mapes Dodge. 
 
 THEOPHILUS AND OTHERS. (I2mo, $1.50.) 
 
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 Edward Eggleston. 
 
 ROXY. Illustrated (I2mo, $1.50) THE CIRCUIT RIDER. Illustrated (I2mo, 
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 Erckmann-Cbatrian. 
 
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4 SCRIBNER S BRIEF LIST OF FICTION* 
 
 Harold Frederic. 
 
 SETH S BROTHER S WIFE. (I2mo, $1.25.) 
 
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 Robert Grant. 
 
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 Buffalo Express. 
 
 Edward Everett Hale. 
 
 PHILIP NOLAN S FRIENDS. Illustrated (I2mo, $1.75). 
 
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 Marion Harland. 
 
 JUDITH: A Chronicle of Old Virginia. (I2mo, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1 00) 
 HANDICAPPED (I2mo, $1.50). 
 
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 Brooklyn Daily Times. 
 
 Joel Chandler Harris. 
 
 FREE JOE, and Other Georgian Sketches. (I2mo, $1.00.) 
 
 "The author s skill as a story writer has never been more felic 
 itously illustrated than in this volume. The title story is meagre 
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 Augustus Allen Hayes. 
 
 THE JESUIT S RING. A Romance of Mount Desert (I2mo, paper, 50 cts.; 
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 "The conception of the story is excellent. It indicates a scholarly 
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SCRIBNER S BRIEF LIST OF FICTION, 5 
 
 E. T. W. Hoffmann. 
 
 WEIRD TALES. With Portrait (I2mo, 2vols., $3.00). 
 
 " Hoffmann knew how to construct a ghost story quite as skilfully 
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 Dr. J. G. Holland. 
 
 SEVEN OAKS THE BAY PATH ARTHUR BONNICASTLE MISS GIL- 
 BERT S CAREER-NICHOLAS MINTURN. 
 
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 of many friendly hearts." The New York Tribune. 
 
 Thomas A. Janvier. 
 
 COLOR STUDIES. (I2mo, $1.00.) 
 
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 Virginia W. Johnson. 
 
 THE FAINALLS OF TIPTON. (I2mo, $1.25.) 
 
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 rising young doctor, the sentimental painter, the rival grocers, etc. , 
 are quite up to her best work." The Boston Commonwealth. 
 
 Lieut. J. D. J. Kelley. 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. (I2mo, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00.) 
 
 " This novel is of the good old-fashioned, exciting kind. Though 
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 Brooklyn Union. 
 
 The King s Men : 
 
 A TALE OF TO-MORROW. By Robert Grant, John Boyle O Reilly, J. 8., 
 of Dale, and John T. Wheelwright. (I2mo, $1.25.) 
 
6 SCRIBNER S BRIEF LIST OF FICTION. 
 
 Andrew Lang. 
 
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 George P. Latbrop. 
 
 NEWPORT. (I2mo, paper, 50 cis.; cloth, $I.25)-AN ECHO OF PASSION. 
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 novels have the refinement of motive which characterize the analytical 
 
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 Christian Union. 
 
 Brander Matthews. 
 
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 cloth, $I.OO)-THE LAST MEETING. (I2mo, paper, 50 cts,; clo h $1 00)- 
 
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 Rochester Post-Express. 
 
 Donald G. Mitchell. 
 
 DR. JOHNS. (I2rno, $1.25.) 
 
 - ., .saintly _ 
 
 and women, their ways, habits ; in short, alt the warp and woof 
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 writers in this country who have ever surpassed the author in the 
 description of rural New England life." The San Francisco 
 Bulletin. 
 
 Fit^-James O Brien. 
 
 THE DIAMOND LENS 
 $1.00.) 
 
 "These stories are the only things in literature to be compared 
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 certainly do not yield to it in originality. " The Philadelphia Record 
 
 THE DIAMOND LENS, with Other Stories. (I2mo, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, 
 
SCRIBNER S BRIEF LIST OF FICTION. 7 
 
 Thomas Nelson Page. 
 
 IN OLE VIRGINIA M ARSE CHAN, and Other Stories. (I2mo, $1.25.) 
 
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 Howard Pyle. 
 
 WITHIN THE CAPES. (I2mo, $1.00.) 
 
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 ture." The Boston Journal. 
 
 Saxe Holm s Stories. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. Draxy Miller s Dowry The Elder s Wife Whose Wife 
 Was She? The One-Legged Dancers How One Woman Kept Her Husband 
 Esther Wynn s Love Letters. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. Four-Leaved Clover Farmer Bassett s Romance My 
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 Julia Schayer. 
 
 TIGER LILY, and Other Stories. (I2mo, $1.00.) 
 
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 Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 
 STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. (I2mo, paper, 25 
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 reading, and which refuses to be forgotten long after the book which 
 revealed it has been closed and put away." The New York Mail 
 and Express. 
 
8 SCRIBNER S BRIEF LIST OF FICTION. 
 
 J. S., of Dale. 
 
 GUERNDALE. (I2mo, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.25) THE CRIME OF HENRY 
 VANE. (I2mo, $I.OQ)-THE SENTIMENTAL CALENDAR. Head Pieces 
 by F. G. Attwood (I2mo, $2.00). 
 
 "The author of that very bright, witty, and audacious story, 
 Guerndale/ has written another, The Crime of Henry Vane, 
 which is just as witty in many of its chapters and has more of a 
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 seems better equipped than Mr. Stimson is. He shows unusual gifts 
 in this and in his other stories." The Philadelphia Bulletin. 
 
 Frank R. Stockton. 
 
 RUDDER GRANGE. (I2mo, paper, 60 cts.; cloth, $1.25; illustrated by A. B. 
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 fresh achievement, the least of which would be riches from another 
 hand." W. D. Ho WELLS, in Harper s Magazine. 
 
 Stories by American Authors. 
 
 Cloth, i6mo, jjoc. each; set, 10 vols., $5.00; cabinet ed., in sets only, $7.J"0. 
 Circulars describing the series sent on application to the publishers. 
 
 " The public ought to appreciate the value of this series, which 
 is preserving permanently in American literature short stories that 
 have contributed to its advancement. American writers lead all 
 others in this form of fiction, and their best work appears in these 
 volumes." The Boston Globe. 
 
 T. R. Sullivan. 
 
 ROSES OF SHADOW. (I2mo, $1.00.) 
 
 " The characters of the story have a remarkable vividness and 
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 John T. Wheelwright. 
 
 A CHILD OF THE CENTURY. (I2mo, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00.) 
 
 " This is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable novels that has 
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 from cynicism or morbid realism, and brimming over with good- 
 natured fun, which is never vulgar." The Christian at Work. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
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 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY