LIBRAR 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Received 
 Accession No. 
 
 , 189*7. 
 Class No...;. 
 
THE KAATERSKILL SERIES, 
 
 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER, 
 
 H E 1ST R I DAUGE, 
 
 AUTHOR op "THE GEORGIANS." 
 
 ^ 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 GEORGE W. HARLAN & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 44 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 
 
 1882. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1882, BY 
 
 GEORGE W. HARLAN & Co. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE " STUDY CLUB " 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 DANGEROUS GROUND 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 DHOSEE S PHILOSOPHY 60 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 STRAWS IN THE WIND 85 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 DROSEE S JOURNAL 113 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Jo s LOVER 151 
 
 [iii] 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CLOUDS 169 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 WIND AND RAIN 203 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ClIRISTAIAS-TlDE 245 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 NEW YEAR S EVE. . . 259 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 IN THE DAWN , 273 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE LIGHT OF DAY. . , , M . . , .,.,.., 279 
 

 
 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 STUDY CLUB." 
 
 " Never take into your confidence or admit often to your 
 company, any man who does not know, on some important 
 subject, more than you do. Be his rank, be] his virtues, what 
 they may, he will be a hindrance to your pursuits, and an ob 
 struction to your greatness." W. S. LANDOK. 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Henry Fielding, soon after her coming 
 down in June from New York to her charming country 
 house near Fairvalley, received the earliest visit of the 
 rector of St. Luke s, whose church she had made the 
 fashion by leading in its choir, she said to him, after 
 some due and conventional conversation : 
 
 " I have promised myself, Mr. Bell, the pleasure of 
 introducing to my Fairvalley friends this summer one 
 
 [5] 
 
8 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 of the loveliest girls I know. I fell in love with her 
 summer before last at Newport, and now she is coining 
 here to live, and I am going to let the best of you 
 know her. I have a picture of her which you may 
 look at, if you like. 1 do not submit it to every one s 
 inspection." 
 
 The gentleman thus addressed put on the eye 
 glasses with which he had been idly toying, and silent 
 ly followed his graceful hostess through her suite of 
 parlors to that little room, half -library, half -boudoir, in 
 which the lady had her own special cozy chairs, favorite 
 books, and bits of bric-a-brac picked up during some 
 years of foreign travel. She was a handsome and a 
 clever woman, wife of the president, of the railroad 
 which ran through Fairvalley, and the real and half- 
 acknowledged leader in Fairvalley s " best society." 
 Flattered, disliked, imitated, gossiped over, this brown- 
 eyed, imperious, nonchalant young matron calmly held 
 the even tenor of her way, apparently careless of 
 everything but her own good will and pleasure. One 
 must be her ally or be nothing to her; she was never 
 concerned, except by her friends, it seemed ; she was 
 unconscious of slights and stings. Some years ago she 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB." 7 
 
 had been tested by these ; she was newly-married, im 
 prudent, gay, admired ; gossip did not spare her, and 
 Mrs. Geoffrey Howard, then the head of the aristo- 
 *eratic circles of the town, had set her face against 
 the new-comer. The ladies visited now ; Mrs. Field 
 ing s force of character had made her old enemy her 
 half -conscious dependent : but did Mrs. Fielding guess 
 how Mrs. Howard had formerly regarded her ? No 
 living soul could say. 
 
 Mrs. Fielding paused, and drew aside in order that 
 her companion might advance. 
 
 " That is the face of my fair philosopher, as I call 
 her," she said, in her full, well-modulated voice. 
 
 Upon a dark, richly-carven bracket in a corner of 
 the room stood a gilded and enameled cabinet frame, 
 whose doors, now open, disclosed a young woman s 
 delicate and thoughtful face. The Rev. Upton Bell 
 stepped up to it, and lifting his near-sighted gray eyes, 
 looked earnestly through his glasses at the finely- 
 colored picture. It was a lengthened oval, this fair 
 face; the features were regular, the cheeks faintly 
 flushed, the lips sweet but firm, the eyes deep-set, far 
 apart ; and a blue shade lying between the first under- 
 
8 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 lashes and the nose gave the face a look of extreme 
 delicacy. Spirited were those deep eyes, set in their 
 melancholy shadows: full of thought and power the 
 soul shone through the frailer clay. A philosopher? 
 Was she then happy? Was she at least content? 
 Inscrutable were those mysterious eyes; calm, those 
 faintly-smiling lips. 
 
 " It is Drosee, but she is older," said Upton Bell, 
 turning to his hostess at last. 
 
 " So you then recognize her?" Mrs. Fielding asked. 
 " I understood that you were once acquainted." 
 
 "If it is old Alwyn s elder daughter, I was cer 
 tainly acquainted with her," he replied, with the rude 
 directness which frequently marked the speech of a 
 decidedly unclerical clergyman. "She was a lovely 
 young thing when I knew her, a few years ago. I 
 was a divinity student in New York at the time. 
 And they are coming to Fairvalley for the sum 
 mer?" 
 
 " For longer, I fancy. They are going to live in 
 that brown cottage on Fifth street which belong 
 to Mr. Adrian Seaford, who is married to Mr. Alwyn s 
 sister. He gives them the rent, I suppose, and they 
 
TUE "STUDY CLUB." 9 
 
 are coming here to economize. Mr. Alwyn s life is 
 a series of ups and downs, as we all know, and those 
 two pretty girls have had changeful experiences." 
 
 "I knew Drosee best." 
 
 " And admired her ?" 
 
 " I don t mind telling you, after this lapse of time, 
 that I doted on her very apron-strings !" said the Eev. 
 Upton Bell, with a short laugh. " She was not fool 
 enough to care for me no woman could do that but 
 she was kind to me with all her cruelty. I shall like 
 to see her again, just to be sure that I m glad to have 
 escaped. Consider the father-in-law I should, have 
 had, to say the least of it I" 
 
 " He is a bore, of course, and a braggart, putting on 
 airs as a genius, and doing the work of a very average 
 writer ; but he might easily be worse. He is steady, 
 and temperate, and kind-hearted, with all his egotism 
 there are worse men." 
 
 " He is loud, selfish, and pig-headed to the last 
 degree," asserted Mr. Bell, warmly. " And as to his 
 kind heart can you tell me the right of that story 
 about his poor wife?" 
 
 " I would rather not speak of that," Mrs. Fielding 
 
10 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 said, gently bat coldly. " I met her during the first 
 years of their marriage, and she seemed certainly an 
 admirable and superior woman then. I shall never 
 think of her except as she was then ; and neither her 
 friends nor her daughters ever name her. Let her 
 rest." 
 
 . " But I have never believed that she was to blame," 
 began the young man, impetuously. A slight cloud 
 Grossed the lady s face. 
 
 "Do not speak to me of her, please," she said, 
 slowly and decidedly. 
 
 Mr. Bell bowed a little, by way of apology, and 
 passed on to another theme. 
 
 " Tell me of the little one Josephine the one 
 who called herself i Josephus Appleblossom how is 
 she?" 
 
 " They call her Blossom still, sometimes, and she 
 looks the name ; she is the freshest, gayest, most be 
 witching young thing barely eighteen yet, and as in 
 nocent and honest as possible. She is also one of my 
 favorites, you see." 
 
 " And what has Drosee grown up to be ?" 
 
 " She shall speak for herself. I cannot describe 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB" 11 
 
 what Drosee is," Mrs. Fielding said. Her fine, full 
 voice had a sudden tremor in it ; a mist had unexpect 
 edly softened her brave brown eyes. " I owe Drosee a 
 great kindness ; I would give my ears to be all that she 
 is, said Mrs. Fielding, with an enthusiasm which was 
 touching in its soft and swift uprising. " Were she my 
 own young sister, whom I have mourned my life long, 
 I could hardly love her more dearly !" 
 
 Mr. Bell, amazed and unwillingly moved, looked 
 aside and half hung his head. 
 
 You must not make me fall in love with her be 
 forehand;" he said, with an uneasy effort to say some 
 thing. 
 
 " I forbid you to fall in love with her !" Mrs. Field 
 ing ejaculated with reviving spirit. I have already 
 made up my mind to win her for somebody else !" 
 
 " Heaven forbid that I should be so indiscreet as to 
 hazard a guess on the subject ! Good-bye. You will 
 be at the meeting of the choir on Saturday ? If I ve 
 forgotten to welcome you back properly, excuse me. 
 I am none the less pleased. Good day." 
 
 And the young rector of St. Luke s walked away. 
 
12 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 At about eight o clock on the evening of a later day 
 in June, a tall and rather remarkable-looking young 
 man descended the wide front steps of Fairvalley s big 
 summer hotel. The evening was strangely chill, and its 
 fine persistent, drizzle was enough to exasperate any but 
 the healthiest nature ; but this pedestrian, with a broad- 
 brimmed felt hat set rather on the back of his head, 
 and an open umbrella held carelessly across his right 
 shoulder, walked serenely down the street, eying the 
 darkened sky with a look of apparent satisfaction. He 
 was possibly not thinking of the weather at all ; but of 
 what he thought it would be hard to guess. His mask 
 was down a serene and moveless face, with large and 
 gentle eyes, whose power yon felt but dared not ex 
 plore, and dark, thoughtful, heavy brows. He walked 
 with a free but leisurely stride down the line of pave 
 ment bordered by wet grasses, and turning a corner by 
 a druggist s window idly crossed the street at this 
 point ; his musing eye failed to discern an unsteady old 
 drunkard in a bottle-green coat, who here, after much 
 hesitation and aimless pausing, had rapidly started to 
 cross from the opposite curbstone ; and suddenly the 
 toper reeled against the gentleman. The latter but 
 
THE " STUDY CLUB." 13 
 
 slightly felt the shock of collision, and grasping his 
 swaying opponent with a muscular hand, steadied him 
 on his feet. 
 
 " Heigho ! my batrachian friend," he observed, with 
 an instant and comic perception of the old man s re 
 semblance to a frog, " you make astonishing leaps, sir. 
 Take care of yourself, now." As he reached the op 
 posite side of the street he glanced back to see that the 
 old fellow was safe, and the next thing that caught his 
 eye, as he then passed on, was a flaunting poster an 
 nouncing an approaching temperance meeting. He 
 stopped before it a moment, reflecting on the obvious 
 argument for the cause against which he had just 
 stumbled, and then, admonished by a few rain-drops on 
 his face, raised his umbrella to a more perpendicular 
 position, and strode away in the direction of Mrs. Field 
 ing s house, apparently evolving some fine absurdity 
 into words as he went on, while an occasional smile lit 
 his eye, quivered in the brief flicker of a nostril and the 
 quizzical twist of the lip, and died again. 
 
 " So turn up thy nose at temperance frogs, 
 And gently blink thine eye 
 
14 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 I ll write that by and bj, and present old Stark with a 
 copy," he said, taking off his hat, and swinging it in his 
 hand, as he went. His heavy masses of coal-black hair 
 were shaken like the mane of a young lion in the damp 
 night air ; his high, full forehead, with its serious, half - 
 frowning line between the eyebrows, added dignity to 
 his fine and striking fa>ce ; it was scarcely a handsome, 
 but a peculiar and attractive-looking man who entered 
 Mr* Fielding s parlor five minutes later, hat and um 
 brella both laid aside. 
 
 "Much better late than never," Mrs. Fielding said, 
 
 r"5 
 
 giving this gentleman, who was her second cousin, a 
 gracious welcome. " I had almost given you up, and 
 was beginning to think ill of you. Come and be intro 
 duced to a friend of mine, who will give you a cup of 
 tea, if you are good." 
 
 He obediently followed her into her pet room ad 
 joining this, where, for comfort and for beauty s sake, a 
 little wood fire, w,hich had been lit on the brass and 
 irons of the fireplace, took the chill and dampness out 
 of the air drifting liberally in through the swaying lace 
 drapery of the long window. Before the shining, old- 
 fashioned brass fender stood a graceful and slender 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB." 15 
 
 woman s figure, clad in a white robe, he named it to 
 himself, for it was made with quaint and antique sim 
 plicity, and fell close and straight. Her head was 
 beautiful and small, with close-drawn waves of dust- 
 brown hair coiled low at the back. She held in her 
 hand one of Mrs. Fielding s priceless little Chinese tea 
 cups, and was looking down at Mrs. Fielding s little 
 terrier dog, which fawned upon her as she stood. As 
 they advanced, she glanced up ; and Wilmer, without 
 moving a muscle of his serious, half -troubled face, said 
 to himself that he saw the loveliest eyes under heaven. 
 Shadowed, deep-set, and serene, they were clear, dark 
 blue, and the rarest beauty of a beautiful, unusual face. 
 
 " Drosee, I am particularly glad to present to you 
 my favorite cousin, Mr. Wilmer. Miss Alwyn will 
 give you some tea, Will, she has been dispensing it to 
 us all," said Mrs. Fielding. " Jo, excuse me," turning 
 towards the parlor through which she had led Wilmer, 
 " won t you come and have another cup ?" 
 
 " No, thank you," a fresh voice replied cheerily. 
 " I am planted by this piano. Come back to me and 
 to this sonata at your pleasure." 
 
 "At once! and Wilmer " 
 
16 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " Yes, if you please," Wilmer said in response to an 
 inquiring look from Miss Alwyn, as she hesitated over 
 sugar or cream for his tea. 
 
 " He takes very little of either, Drosee. That is 
 right, "Won t you sit down, both of you ? And since 
 you have come at last, Wilmer, where have you left 
 your shadow, your Mephistopheles or Mentor, or what 
 ever he may be called ?" 
 
 " Madam, he is to be blamed for my tardiness, as in 
 general for all my faults. He has not yet come from 
 the city ; I could wait for him no longer, and have left 
 a note for him. He will doubtless be here by and by, 
 and tell us some rare tale of a pressing emergency in 
 the office, or of some wonderful leader or review for 
 to-morrow evening s paper that he was working off. 
 Don t mind him if he does." 
 
 " Hear him ! He is railing at his most devoted 
 friend," Mrs. Fielding says to Drosee; "the very clev 
 erest of all my acquaintances, and a man without a 
 weakness for any human being except this young man." 
 
 " And who is he, then ?" Drosee asks, looking at 
 this strangely impressive face before her, though evad 
 ing the gaze of its serious eyes. 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB: 17 
 
 "He is one of the editors of the N. Y. ," 
 
 Mrs. Fielding replies, naming the leading evening 
 
 paper. 
 
 "Yes, even so," Wilmer says, in that deep and 
 pleasant voice whose subdued music is a gift of nature, 
 making rich the poorest words it ever utters. " And 
 he is considered by Mrs. Fielding to be a friend of 
 mine. I find, indeed, after some months of intimate 
 association with him, that we feel more at liberty to 
 abuse each other than any one else is ; this, and a dis 
 similarity of opinion on nearly every subject of thought, 
 affording us fine opportunities for argumentation, are 
 the bonds of our amiable relation." 
 
 " Candid youth !" Mrs. Fielding exclaims, laughing. 
 " There, I ll say no more. I shall return to Jo and my 
 piano, and leave you two, who are quite at home, to sup 
 without me ; we musical ones are interested in that 
 sonata." 
 
 "And we shall be," Drosee says, while Mrs. 
 Fielding goes. And accordingly the young man and 
 young woman left together converse little, moving 
 away from the tea-tray presently, and listening silently 
 to the swell of music pouring its full tide through the 
 
18 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 air. Insensibly, at first only in the pauses, they begin to 
 converse with each other ; of what, at first, they will 
 never remember : but each is impressing the other with 
 the fact that they have here confronted a character 
 new to their experience. It is in less than ten minutes 
 that Drosee has set Mr. Wilmer forever apart from the 
 throng of men whom she has known, and is aware that 
 he is more and of a finer quality than even the most 
 highly reputed of her acquaintance. She does not look 
 unconcernedly into his face, as she is wont to look into 
 that of any other man ; but though with timid half- 
 glances she surveys him, she has a clear idea of his per 
 sonal appearance as he sits beside her, at first with head 
 slightly bent, -in attentive silence. The look of power 
 and repose on his fine brows strikes her ; the gravity of 
 his expression ; then the rare smile she is proud to have 
 evoked ; she marks the sudden ray of the eye, the 
 doubting lift of the eyebrow, the abrupt convulsion of 
 laughter, the swift turn of the head and the occasions 
 when he looks full at her. This glance only at inter 
 vals, for habitually his eyes are thoughtfully averted 
 as he considers any abstract statement, but when with 
 this sudden movement he turns full upon her, Drosee 
 
TUK "STUDY CLUB." 10 
 
 can look no more : for his eyes are in some mysterious 
 way dreadful to her, threatening her self-possession and 
 her will, and she guards these jealously. She feels a 
 vafue and unexampled fear and fascination as he looks 
 thus upon her : all tales of diablerie and witchcraft, of 
 the evil eye and of mesmeric art dimly recur to her ; 
 she feels, as if by instinct, that if their eyes ever long 
 aiid earnestly gaze into each other liis will could over 
 master hers. 
 
 All this time she is talking with apparent ease, her 
 companion making brief but appreciative replies and 
 suggestions, and she is filling him with a calm and 
 simple pleasure. She seems to him more beautiful, 
 more graceful, more innocently gay and unconsciously 
 wise than any woman he has ever met and he has 
 known many, North and South. But now it seems to 
 him as if it were the first time that he has met a woman 
 who thinks without pretension, who laughs without 
 a thought of self, who pleases without consciousness or 
 effort. 
 
 Their talk is not personal, except so far as personal 
 ity is betrayed in their opinions. Wilmer listens to 
 Drosee s expression of convictions, the reverse of his 
 
20 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 own, with a novel willingness ; whatever she says is 
 very beautiful in her he thinks. By and by he 
 remarks : 
 
 " Your views seem to coincide with those of that 
 friend of mine who was spoken of by Mrs. Fielding. I 
 am glad that you are to meet him. I hope that I may 
 get some better understanding of him when I hear you 
 talk together. Personally, he is a peculiar man," he 
 adds, pausing. 
 
 " In what way ?" Drosee asks. 
 
 " He is an elderly man, and better-read than I. Po 
 litically, he is an extremist ; socially, a hermit ; moral 
 ly, he is simply and bitterly honest. He is called a 
 skeptic, but though he doubts much that I am ac 
 customed to accept, he scarcely deserves that name, in 
 my mind. Who is it says that i the true skeptic doubts 
 for the sake of doubting, and therefore ends, as he be 
 gan, with doubt ?" 
 
 " Was jit not Descartes ?" Drosee asks, after a slight 
 pause. 
 
 " It was," Wilmer answers, with one of his sudden 
 but mildly attentive looks. "Stark quoted it to me, 
 and I have accepted it as true. I do not, then, call him 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB." 21 
 
 a skeptic ; he is a hard, honest thinker. I hope you 
 will take the trouble to know him, Miss Alwyn. Per 
 sonally unattractive, and rather repellent in manners, he 
 is yet a kind-hearted and superior man. He likes my 
 cousin, Mrs. Fielding, and she is almost the only woman 
 who attracts him even slightly. He would be a delight 
 ful member of society, if only the right woman could 
 move him to enter it." 
 
 I think," Drosee says, lifting her deep and beauti 
 ful eyes, " that you are describing some one I once 
 knew. He was then the editor of a magazine ; was 
 elderly, and considered extremely crabbed, and it could 
 not be denied was so, sometimes, as a reviewer ; but in 
 private life he was one of the most devoted of sons and 
 brothers, and to me, whom he fancied, he was the 
 gentlest of critics and friends. His name was Stark, 
 too but I have no idea w r here he is now, though I can 
 never forget him. Is your friend Stark called i Doctor, 
 and is his name Archibald ?" 
 
 " That is the very man !" Wilmer says. " The very 
 man ! And now, perhaps " 
 
 He pauses, for on the instant a harsh, croaking voice 
 is heard in the adjoining room, which says, 
 
22 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 "Mrs. Fielding, I am here to make you an ex 
 planation, and to tell Wilmer that lie hasn t a memory 
 as long as my nose." 
 
 " It is he," Wilmer says, glancing composedly at 
 Drosee, who rises; and then calmly following her 
 movement he stands up, and looks down on her from 
 his altitude of six feet and one or two odd inches. 
 
 "Drosee!" Mrs. Fielding s summoning voice is 
 heard in one musical note. 
 
 Dr. Stark starts, and looks quickly at his hostess 
 and all about him ; a young girl, with an open book in 
 her hand, sits near the light at the piano s end, but his 
 eye passes her indifferently by. 
 
 "Ah ! Miss Dorsee, is this you in the flesh?" he ex 
 claims, still in that hoarse voice, but with an earnest 
 note of pleasure in it, as he meets the slim, white, ad 
 vancing figure of his " auld acquaintance." The ugly, 
 stooping, bearded man and the fair and smiling young 
 woman clasp each other s hands cordially. 
 
 " And this is Jo, whom yon know by hearsay, Dr. 
 Stark," Drosee says, turning towards the piano. " We 
 have wondered so often what had become of you ; and 
 here she is grown up since I saw you last." 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB." 23 
 
 " I am very glad to know you. Dr. Stark," Jose- 
 phus Appleblossora says, drawing near, and extending 
 her frank and rosy little hand. 
 
 " Joseplms, let me introduce my cousin, Mr. "Wil- 
 mer Randolph Wilmer," Mrs. Fielding says, bestowing 
 on her cousin his full name, the last one having been 
 his since his adoption by his mother s father. Jo bows 
 haughtily to the long name, hardly glancing at its pos 
 sessor. But Wilmer, walking beside her as they all 
 proceed to take possession of the boudoir, whence a 
 servant has removed the tea-tray and its adjuncts Dr. 
 Stark declining refreshments looks attentively at this 
 proud young face. It is dimly like her elder sister s, 
 but its expression is so unlike Drosee s that the differ 
 ence is more noticed than the resemblance. Jo s face 
 sparkles or clouds ; it is darker, and has richer tints ; 
 Drosee s pales beside it, but only to shine with a con 
 trasted and serener light. 
 
 "Your father, where is he, Miss Drosee?" Dr. 
 Stark is asking. 
 
 " He is in New York to-night, as it happens," Drosee 
 says, "but we live in Fairvalley now, since Monday." 
 
 " He is not gone abroad then, this year 2" 
 
24 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " No ; he has not been since year before last." 
 
 " Strange ! When I returned from Colorado I in 
 quired for him, in the hope of learning how you did, 
 and every one has told me he was in Europe. And 
 now you are come to live in the country. Do you like 
 it, Miss Jo?" 
 
 " The country ? I shall make it a point to like it. 
 It s very trying to dislike the inevitable." She turns 
 her sparkling face towards him as she speaks, but Wil- 
 mer catches a glimpse of a most bewitching dimple. 
 
 "Is that your best reason for enduring it, Jose- 
 phus ?" Mrs. Fleming asks. 
 
 "It is the wisest. You are the pleasantest," Jo 
 answers, with ready wit. " Oh, I think I shall like 
 Fairvalley very much. I only wish people wouldn t 
 let cows go on the roads ; I object to them. I have a 
 weakness for cows, in a landscape, cattle grazing near a 
 stream, and so on, but I can see nothing but terror in 
 them unless there s a five-barred gate between us ; I am 
 then prepared to admit that they look pleasing, pas 
 toral, innocent. But the gleam in a cow s eye when 
 she knows the five bars are all down I Exit 
 
 me : 
 
 A burst of laughter greets Jo s plaint. 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB." 25" 
 
 " You must have some lively recollections of such a 
 situation, Miss Alwyn," Wilmer says to her. 
 
 " Lively doesn t express it," Jo returns. " But it 
 taught me to respect the masculine element of society 
 as never before. I have never hectored my cousin 
 Louis as I used to, since," with a glance at Mrs. Field 
 ing, whose smile implies a knowledge of the cousin 
 referred to. 
 
 " And what have you been doing since I saw you ?" 
 Dr. Stark asks of Drosee. " Your face does not tell 
 tales. Have yoa been a student or a belle these three 
 years ?" 
 
 A faint smile curves Drosee s lip, but Jo answers 
 for her promptly. 
 
 "She has been everything, Dr. Stark! She is 
 called a saint and a blue-stocking, a flirt and a philoso 
 pher. < You pays your money and you takes your 
 choice. " 
 
 " I do not ask what she is called, but what she is," 
 Dr. Stark replies, looking at Miss Jo rather severely. 
 
 " Oh, that she can never tell you she is as busy 
 finding out as others are," Jo says, but slightly abashed. 
 
 "I have been reading I have been writing," 
 2* 
 
26 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Drosee says, in a low, quick voice, as if bound in duty 
 to answer her questioner. " I think in doing both I 
 have profited by your instructions ; I have never for 
 gotten any of your advice." 
 
 " I shall come and examine you on that point some 
 day, " Dr. Stark replies, well pleased. " Wilmer, I 
 wish you could say as much for yourself !" 
 
 " I wish Miss Alwyn and I could compare notes on 
 your lectures, most learned professor. I am sure you 
 uttered fewer paradoxes and absurdities when you 
 talked with her." 
 
 " I remember one thing you said to me, which I 
 shall never forget," Drosee says, looking at the doctor. 
 " Do you remember telling me that my stories had not 
 sufficient plot and incident ?" 
 
 " Yes ; it was your diction and character-painting 
 that was good." 
 
 " Thank you ; but you said to me once it was a 
 fine illustration The incident of a story is what the 
 skeleton is to a body : it justifies the movements and 
 accounts for the form. r 
 
 " That was a good word, professor," Wilmer says, 
 and Mrs. Fielding nods assent. 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB." 27 
 
 " And yon have tried to act on this suggestion ?" 
 
 " I have tried earnestly." 
 
 " And with all your studying and writing, you have 
 found time to go into society ? I am surprised." 
 
 " We were discussing the uses of society," Drosee 
 says, with a certain naivete, turning her deep blue eyes 
 on Wilmer, and pausing for him to reply. 
 
 "Study does not unfit one for society, surely," 
 Wilmer says ; " although with some people a bookish 
 man is considered a synonym for a recluse. Books 
 really ought to form in one true social instincts. 
 Similar tastes for them, forge bonds stronger than 
 iron; and think, if the whole nation admired the 
 same book, what a general handshaking there would 
 be !" 
 
 " That is true !" Mrs. Fielding exclaims. " I know 
 I always have an added respect for anybody who cares 
 for my favorite poems Lowell s and how I thank 
 any one for daring to detest Milton with me." 
 
 " My liking for you, Wilmer, first began in an ex 
 change of remarks on the subject of De Quincey," Dr. 
 Stark observes. " I was pleased with your admiration 
 for a writer too little appreciated now." 
 
28 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Wilmer lifts his large and musing eyes, and smiles. 
 
 " Yes, I admire De Quincey : lie was not a great 
 tliinker, because he did not choose the greatest subjects 
 to think upon : but he spoke clearly ; he never wrote a 
 sentence that didn t sparkle ; and his diction is more 
 superb than Macaulay s it is better bred, and never 
 puts on airs." 
 
 " Capital !" Jo cries, with sudden vigor. Then she 
 stops short, and colors royally. " I beg your pardon 
 for that shout," she says, looking rather timidly at Wil- 
 mer, " but you just hit Macaulay so fairly ! I must 
 thank you." 
 
 "Jo was over-dosed with Macaulay last year," 
 Drosee says, regarding her young sister with a bright 
 and tender smile. 
 
 "Do you read with your sister?" Dr. Stark asks, 
 turning his regard on Jo, too. 
 
 " During the last year we have read together," Jo 
 says, gayly. " I couldn t stand it alone, when she went 
 to reading ; arid so 1 have taken a vigorous plunge, and 
 make for Prof. Draper and Max Miiller, with all my 
 native audacity. I rather like it now. It was a little 
 rough at first." 
 
THE " STUDY CLUB." 29 
 
 "She lightened the way with nonsense," Drosee 
 says ; " when she was reading about Buddhist Pilgrims 
 she likened the great Hionen-thsang to Baron Mun- 
 chausen." 
 
 " And no wonder, with his story of the cave, and 
 the shadow of Buddha, and such stuff," Jo retorts, 
 scornfully. "And the way he went on ! The top of a 
 certain mountain reached to the sky Pile it on ! 1 
 said, meekly, and snow has been accumulating there 
 ever since the world s beginning Oh, pile it on ! I 
 gasped and then Drosee shut the book, and told me 
 that, as Tuckerman said of the French, a frivolous 
 temper everywhere and on all occasions signalizes 
 them, even so it did me !" 
 
 Jo s manner is irresistible ; they are all laughing 
 with her. 
 
 " But don t you read novels ?" Mrs. Fielding asks. 
 
 " Bless me, yes ! We ve been reading Auerbach s 
 through this spring and summer. Why, we re a regu 
 lar literary club ! We read and then we discuss, and 
 quote and copy our favorite bits, and get up regular 
 sermons on some texts our author furnishes. Drosee 
 got thoroughly excited over them sometimes ; but her 
 
30 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 eloquence is sadly wasted on so small an audience 
 as I !" 
 
 " I wish we might increase it," Mrs. Fielding says. 
 "If reading-clubs did not always come to grief " 
 
 "It need not be a reading-club, exactly and it 
 need not go any further than the present company," 
 Dr. Stark suggests, rather eagerly. " Yet I think we 
 few friends might enjoy meeting each other at stated 
 times, and taking up in turn some new or favorite 
 author for joint discussion what say you, young ladies? 
 and you, Wilmer ?" 
 
 " I think we girls could learn a great deal in such a 
 club, and enjoy it very much, if you all would like to 
 try it too," Drosee says in answer. 
 
 " I know that this member could enjoy nothing bet 
 ter," Wilmer assents, cordially. 
 
 " Don t let s have another soul !" Jo puts in. 
 " Let s have just ourselves don t you say so too, Mrs. 
 Fielding unless Mr. Fielding cares to come with you ?" 
 
 " He will not be likely to care for our discussions of 
 authors," Mrs. Fielding returns, suavely. " And poor 
 Henry ! his railroad business takes him away so much 
 that I fear I need not include him in any little plans of 
 
THE " STUDY CLUB." 31 
 
 ours. Yes, it is better to confine the membership to 
 five, or at least to agree to admit no new member ex 
 cept by a unanimous vote." 
 
 "That will be pleasanter and wiser," Dr. Stark 
 says. " Nothing is so fatal to unanimity in a good effort 
 as the presence of one dull or unsympathetic person. 
 But you, Mrs. Fielding, are too popular to undertake to 
 enjoy anything quietly. You will be pestered with ad 
 miring friends who will desire to join any group yon 
 enter." 
 
 " If any one offers to join this club whom we don t 
 want, we have each of us sufficient wit to dispose of 
 the application, I trust," Mrs. Fielding says. " No, a 
 larger or more thoughtless club will be profitless. Are 
 we agreed ?" 
 
 They are agreed. And adherence to this agree 
 ment is to cost most of them some favor, and give all 
 of them much satisfaction. 
 
 " Do you think do you think, Dr. Stark," Drosee 
 says, turning to him with an air of deference which 
 marks her manners to her old instructor, "that we 
 might find it well to arrange it so each writing the 
 name of some author he or she desires to study or dis- 
 
32 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 cuss, to cast our votes together, read the names aloud, 
 and if one is not chosen by the first votes, to try again 
 until two or three agree on one, that one then to be 
 given out to be studied for the coming meeting ?" 
 
 " That will doubtless work well. I see that you 
 have executive abilities. Can you think of some 
 method of directing our disquisitions systematically ?" 
 
 " Can some one suggest something?" Drosee ask?, 
 glancing around. Her eyes meet Wilmer s. 
 
 " We should like to hear you speak," he says gently 
 He is never over-eager to speak himself, and he is 
 now absorbed in observing others. 
 
 " Suppose we appoint one person to give a reading 
 from the chosen author," she says, after a trifling pause, 
 " and another as essayist, and a third to quote any bits 
 he or she wants discussed ; and then have the meeting 
 end in informal conversation on the author s theories, 
 style or subjects, as they suggest themselves for dis 
 cussion." 
 
 "And let it end with music," Jo adds, earnestly. 
 ^ Who says yes ?" 
 
 " Aye, aye," Wilmer s deep voice responds, and 
 " Amen !" Dr. Stark adds devoutly. 
 
THE "STUDY CLUB." 33 
 
 " Music is now in order," Mrs. Fielding observes, 
 rising. " Drosee, come and sing for us." 
 
 "Please to consider the injustice of such a demand !" 
 Drosee replies. You can delight us so easily, Fanny, 
 that you need no assistance in giving us music." 
 
 "People are tired of me by this time," Fanny 
 Fielding answers, rather uncandidly, well knowing that 
 her fine soprano voice is the marvel and delight of all 
 listeners. She sits down at the piano, and begins play 
 ing with careless ease. 
 
 " Find yourself some songs among my books here," 
 she says. I will begin, but I shall not excuse you after 
 this," and forthwith her fingers ripple into a prelude, 
 and she is singing an air from the Grande Duchesse, her 
 full, superbly-trained voice rollicking through the gay 
 notes with the ease and careless grace of a bird s warble. 
 With every style of music her versatile talent has made 
 her familiar ; she will sing German ballads to break 
 your heart, and gay little French chansons to set you 
 laughing ; Italian arias to melt or astonish you, and 
 American songs of every degree, high and low ; and 
 before you know where you are, a burst of Irish min 
 strelsy, or the lilt of a quaint old Scottish lay, have 
 2* 
 
34 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 carried you a thousand miles away again. Her classic 
 music is not less finely rendered for her daring Catho 
 licity of tastes ; in a word, the willful woman who 
 would have her way, in spite of every one is wont to 
 be admired for her independence even by those who 
 would rule the tastes of others strictly by their own. 
 
 " Come, have you found something ?" she asks, 
 breaking off after her first song. 
 
 " I will try this," Drosee says, attempting to lift one 
 of the heavy music books which Dr. Stark has placed 
 before her on a table. Wilmer takes it from her, and 
 carries it to the piano. Mrs. Fielding glances at it, and 
 is prepared to play the accompaniment. Drosee pales 
 a little, and stands very straight beside her friend. The 
 song is that brief and exquisite aria of Mendelssohn s, 
 " O rest in the Lord." Drosee s voice, scarcely so power 
 ful or well-trained as her friends, is still an extraordi 
 nary one, a contralto of unusual range and sweetness. 
 Her manner is excellent, and the deliberate, full notes 
 sound forth, satisfying and pure ; " wait patiently for 
 Him and He shall give thee thy heart s desire ; and He 
 shall give thee thy heart s desire." There is some- 
 
TEE "STUDY CLUB." 35 
 
 tiling royal in the calm from which these words dis 
 tinctly come. 
 
 She sings no more. That one brief song, and that 
 fair and gentle singer go linked in pure companion 
 ship in the minds of Wilmer and Dr. Stark, as they 
 go, rather silently, homeward together. They are 
 spending the summer by agreement with each other at 
 the Fairvalley summer hotel, near Fifth street, on which 
 fashionable street the Alwyns are to live, though not 
 above any of the terraces or behind any of the be-f oun- 
 tained lawns which make beautiful that neighborhood. 
 Theirs is the one little cottage, a brown one, set back 
 behind some ancient elms, which ingloriously fills its 
 narrow space. The gentlemen have been given permis 
 sion to find their way thither, and their club-meeting is 
 to take place there next week. The duties of the even 
 ing have been allotted, and the name of the author 
 to be studied fixed upon ; and so the male members of 
 the party go, and Drosee and Jo, who are to remain at 
 Mrs. Fielding s for the night, are upstairs preparing for 
 sleep. 
 
 " Drosee," Jo asks, stroking her own beautiful long 
 
36 A FA in PHILOSOPHER 
 
 brown hair with her brush. " Drosee, do you think we 
 are going to enjoy that club?" 
 
 " Who can say?" Drosee answers, absently. Then 
 she turns and kisses her sister tenderly. 
 
 " Jo, you will have a good chance to know Mr. Wil- 
 mer. Take the trouble to do so. He is superior to the 
 run of men wise, sensible, and rarely modest withal. 
 You should be more gracious to him than you usually 
 are to men." 
 
 " I will, if you make a point of it," Jo answers, re 
 turning her sister a snatchy little caress, and then hop 
 ping into bed. " I do not mean to be disagreeable to 
 people but, as a rule good heavens, Drosee, how I 
 do hate my beaux !" 
 
 And with a sigh Josephus Appleblossom turns 
 away her face and promptly falls asleep. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 DANGEROUS GROUND. 
 
 " And tell me how love cometh ? 
 
 It cometh and is here ! 
 . And tell me how love goeth ? 
 Of that hath love no fear. " 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN. 
 
 BENEATH the sloping roof of the brown cottage 
 Drosee sits on this warm July afternoon, and, lazily fan 
 ning herself, scans the prospect below. A wide-pathed, 
 ill-kept old garden, shaded by a few fruit trees, is in the 
 rear of the cottage. In the shadiest corner, close by 
 the fence, a broken-spirited and humble-minded dog, 
 who seems to have been rented with the place to the 
 new-comers, lies dozing dreamily. Next door as Dro 
 see can see by craning her head out of the window to 
 look is the beautiful lawn and neat ornamental shrub 
 bery about a new and pretentious dwelling; on the 
 other side, beyond the high fence, one can only see the 
 
 nodding heads of tall and slender locust trees waving 
 
 [37] 
 
38 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 lightly over the green seclusion of a deep glen, in the 
 rear of a solid stately old stone house, built in the form of 
 an octagon, one side partly vailed in ivy. The little 
 cottage, set far back behind its neglected, shady yard, 
 is not at all in keeping with the showy villa, or the 
 stately country-house. But Drosee and her sister look 
 unenviously on the superior elegance of their neigh 
 bors ; they have a calm sense of superiority to their out 
 ward lot, and have come to take their ups and downs 
 in life with serenity. 
 
 " We have been in worse places in our time, Dro 
 see," Jo says, cheerfully. 
 
 " And shall be again, very like," Drosee answers, 
 with a little wry smile. 
 
 Upon a rickety rocking-chair near the bureau Jose 
 ph us Appleblossom has cast the burden of her round 
 and fair young frame. She is grimly enduring the 
 heat, and scorns to temporize with fans. The last half 
 of her nickname suits this girl ; the tender white and 
 soft flush of appleblossoms is in the coloring of her 
 fresh face ; her hair and eyes, her lips and brows, her 
 eyelashes and dimples all have the glow and glint of 
 youth in them ; the early bewitching Maytime is ex- 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 39 
 
 pressed in her, but the name has been hers ever since 
 her babyhood, when her lisping tongue twisted Joseph 
 ine into Josephus, and added " Appleblossom " in com 
 pliment to the color of a new dress. Drosee sometimes 
 shortens the long name to " Jo/ and their father to 
 " Blossom ;" but this latter title displeases her highness, 
 who has no sentiment, and only tolerates a trace of it in 
 Drosee, whom she admires, reproves, laughs at, and 
 truly loves. 
 
 These are the only children of a man whom many of 
 us have seen, dreaded and despised John Alwyn, lit 
 terateur. His face and bearing attract attention, even on 
 Broadway. He is very tall, and only a little too stout ; 
 his head is large, his forehead massive, and graced with 
 silvery curls ; his frosted beard, his gray-blue eyes and 
 ruddy cheeks, make his face seem handsome unless it is 
 closely studied. He has written books, few successful, 
 and many more or less unprofitable ; he has wasted two 
 fortunes, his wife s, and that inherited from an uncle ; 
 he has been dramatic critic, playwright, poetizer, tra 
 veling correspondent, editor ; and now, unvalued and 
 unemployed, he still so loftily holds his head, and so 
 boastfully recites his virtues and honors that he imposes 
 
40 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 on the unwary still, though the wise know him as 
 sponge, braggart and bore. 
 
 His present country retirement he announces is for 
 the sake of his health, which is suffering from too close 
 mental application. His dismissal from that paper of 
 which he was recently an editor ; he represents as a resig 
 nation, and avers that he was killing himself, doing the 
 work of three men of ordinary brains. Fairvalley is a 
 charming place to recruit in, he patronizingly affirms. 
 It lias passed from an old pretty village, in the midst 
 of a pleasant farming country, to be a town, and is lat 
 terly called a city. Farms have been cut up into 
 building sites. Most of the owners of its showy villas 
 are wealthy men going to arid from their busi 
 ness in New York daily. Some very rich people, as 
 the Fieldings, " our friends," as John Alwyn says 
 have handsome country-seats here, and come to them 
 only for a few months in the year. In summer and 
 full the carriages which flash along the pleasant drives 
 of: Fairvalley tell the story of the predominant wealth 
 and ease of this flitting population. The summer 
 boarder comes to Fairvaliey, the " Fairvalley " and the 
 u Statham " houses which have their weekly " hops," and 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 41 
 
 many small boarding-houses flourish through the sum 
 mer season. The little city has it& newspaper, its hand 
 some bank, and public school buildings, and the spires 
 and towers of some six or seven churches rise here and 
 there through the valley. 
 
 The prologue to the little drama, played upon this 
 scone, has been spoken, perhaps ; but before the cur 
 tain fairly rises, before the footlights flare up, let the 
 friend of the two youngest women who move in the 
 play ask you who look on to have no prejudice against 
 them because of the bad blood whicli flows in their 
 veins. No taint of their father s sordid nature is to be 
 found in them ; they botli resemble that once proud 
 and beautiful creature who was their mother, although 
 they know her not. Her sorrow and her patience look 
 dimly sometimes from Drosee s strange, deep eyes ; 
 her native gayety breaks out in Jo s fitful brilliancy ; 
 her proud reserve lies beneath all in the steadfast hearts 
 of her daughters, who in their different ways have 
 learned to rise superior to circumstance and to keep 
 their own counsel. 
 
 Whatever other charms they have, their beauty is 
 an evident one ; and already Fair valley is aware of that. 
 
42 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Jo s fair and glowing loveliness, her keen, observant 
 brown eyes flashing the danger signal above her rosy 
 lips ; and Drosee, with that strange youthful serenity 
 and certain power sealed on her white brows, and 
 shining in her deep eyes they have already become 
 marked amid the throng of new faces in church and 
 promenade ; and already visitors have been admitted 
 through the recently cobwebbed gate to call upon "Mrs. 
 Fielding s friends at the Elm Cottage the Misses Al- 
 wyn, you know." 
 
 Mrs. Geoffrey Howard can show no undignified haste, 
 but her married daughter has called upon our new 
 comers, and expressed a dignified hope that they would 
 attend Trinity church instead of St. Luke s these 
 being rival .parishes, the advantages being decidedly on 
 the side of St. Luke s since Mrs. Fielding became one 
 of the choir. It was an undignified proceeding in the 
 eyes of the Howards, but it had been a very effective one. 
 
 Drosee and Jo chat idly through the drowsy heat of 
 the early afternoon ; it is cooler, and Drosee has begun 
 to dress, when a card is brought up to her by the old 
 and faithful servant who is their maid-of-all-work 
 Mr. Wilmer has called ; has asked for Miss Alwyn. 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 43 
 
 " He asked for us both. Jemima ?" Miss Alwyn half 
 asserts, half inquires. 
 
 " No m, he didn t, neither. He asked for you both 
 when he called yesterday and Miss Jo was gone out. 
 He didn t ask but for you to-day ; and he s got a buggy 
 and a little darkey waiting at the door, so maybe 
 you re going for a drive." 
 
 "That s not likely," Drosee answers, tying a 
 black lace scarf lightly around the neck of her simple 
 white linen dress, and hastily plucking a crimson, sum 
 mer-scented rose from a vase of flowers near. " Get 
 up and dress, Jo. There is some mistake." 
 
 " No, there ain t," Jemima says, retiring. " You 
 keep still, Miss Josephus." 
 
 " He has made friends with you ; Drosee," Josephus 
 says, lazily rocking. " It s very sad, but men do take 
 to you most, I notice. Go to drive if he asks 
 you I shall sit up here consoling myself with the 
 belief that if I had had him all to myself for an hour 
 yesterday, he might have chosen me again to-day. Bless 
 you, my children." 
 
 " It is such a pleasant afternoon for driving," Wil- 
 mer says, almost immediately after Drosee s entering the 
 
44 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 parlor, " that I have ventured to bring a buggy around, 
 and to ask you if it would be convenient to take a turn 
 about Fairvalley with me. If not" as Drosee did not 
 at once reply " I will tell the boy to take the horses 
 back. Don t go if you re not in the mood for it." 
 
 .Drosee lifted her musing eyes to his with a far 
 away look, clear and rather sad, which chilled Wihner s 
 eagerness. He saw that she was not thinking of him. 
 Nor was she, directly, for the moment ; she was con 
 sidering a former resolve of hers to let no man ever 
 again be publicly attentive to her, or privately encour 
 aged by her. She had determined, once for all, she 
 thought, not to go as a young woman with young men ; 
 and her plan of the reading club had been one which 
 meant simply intellectual contact and stimulus. She 
 fancied Wilmer, certainly ; she wanted a friend like 
 this man, though she never wanted to have "beaux" 
 again. But she wanted to know Wilmer at any cost! 
 Her grave and gentle eyes fell before his. 
 
 u I should like to go," she said, hesitatingly. 
 
 %; Then let us go at once," said Wilmer, joyfully. 
 His eyes laughed ; his face had changed its whole exprea? 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 45 
 
 sion. He went to the door, and held it open for her to 
 pass. 
 
 "I will be down in a minute," she said, and ran 
 lightly upstairs. 
 
 In three minutes they were side by side in the buggy, 
 the little darkey had disappeared, and a pair of power 
 ful and spirited horses were whirling them down to the 
 broad avenue. 
 
 " Have you any choice as to the direction in which 
 we shall drive ?" Wilmer asked Drosee. 
 
 " No ; I have been through the city with Mrs. 
 Fielding, and out some distance beyond her place, but 
 1 have been nowhere else as yet." 
 
 " The hills about Fairvalley are beautiful in their 
 way, quiet, safe and placid, nothing rugged nor impos 
 ing ; but the best drives are through and over them. I 
 will take you out this way, I think." 
 
 They left the crowded avenue and whirled through 
 a side street, crossed the railroad, and then were carried 
 at a steady trot down a long turn of level country road. 
 " I want to ask you, Miss Alwyn," said Wilmer, as 
 they rolled along, " to let me take you and your sister, 
 if she will to hear a man in the town to whom I think 
 
46 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 you will like to listen. He always affects me curiously 
 he is a clergyman " looking at her abruptly. 
 
 " Of what type ?" Drosee asked. " I know one clergy 
 man here Mr. Upton Bell. I missed his call the other 
 day ; but I knew him years ago, as a student. He is an 
 Episcopalian." 
 
 " I have met him," said Wilmer. " I do not attend 
 any church regularly, and my family is Presbyterian, 
 but I go to hear this gentleman very often while I am 
 here. He is a New Englander. He is a rare man. Of 
 his private life I know nothing except that he is over 
 fifty, and unmarried. His face and figure are thin- 
 almost emaciated. His wasted appearance and firm, 
 severe mouth suggest the ascetic. But his eyes are 
 limpid and large, and burn with a serene flame ; his 
 forehead is high, but broad also ; his manner of speak 
 ing is composed and forcible, and he is as charitable and 
 liberal in his views as he is thoughtful and pious. A 
 rare compound in short a student, but also no mean 
 orator ; for his eloquence flows as calm, as bright, and 
 as resistless as a mighty river. Many admire him few 
 appreciate him. I wish very much to have yon hear 
 him." 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 47 
 
 " I can go witli you almost any Sunday. My father 
 does not often attend church, so that Jo and I, who 
 always go together, are free to choose our own place of 
 worship. We were bred Episcopalians, though, and I 
 understand that Mr. Bell claims us as his parishioners 
 but then Mr. Bell is a young clergyman yet, and one 
 can scarcely regard him with any feeling but that of 
 good comradeship. One s imagination cannot be useful 
 when one knows a good, jolly, quarrelsome young fellow, 
 through and through. This pale and learned and peculiar 
 preacher whom you describe, would in any case have a 
 stronger hold over me because of my ignorance of his 
 personal history. I I do not like to know people too 
 closely unless I can afford to lose my faith in them. 
 It is good to reverence any one. And if your preacher 
 seems great and good to me, I hope he will never pay 
 me pastoral visits, take tea, and let me learn which he 
 prefers brown bread or white." 
 
 Wilmer looked down at her with attentive eyes, and 
 a slight movement of the lip as if he would like to 
 utter words suggested to him by this speech of hers ; 
 but the questions that sprang up in his mind were too 
 personal, and he put them aside for the present, saying : 
 
48 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " This gentleman Dr. Bampfyle is an Episcopa 
 lian also. His health gave way in the large city in 
 which his parish was, and his doctor recommended rest 
 and change of air. Rest is impossible to this style of 
 man, but he made the change of air by coining here to 
 preach for the rector of Trinity Church during his 
 absence in Europe. Your friend, Mr. Bell, has St. 
 Luke s, the new church. There was a grievous split 
 in Trinity, and a couple of years since certain mem 
 bers withdrew, formed a new parish and called a new 
 pastor. There has been much bad feeling between the 
 two parishes. Trinity Church is an old and decidedly 
 ramshackle edifice, while St. Luke s has been erected 
 on a lot given by a former vestryman of the old 
 church, and is very new and modish indeed. The af 
 fair has many comic aspects. The squabbles of the 
 leading ladies especially divert the curious and idle 
 mind. From all this warring, I doubt not, you will 
 keep aloof." 
 
 " Why do you think so ?" Drosee asked. 
 
 "Pardon me I think you reflect and philosophize 
 too calmly to be hurried into unreasonable action," he 
 said, with, a candid and deliberate air. 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 49 
 
 " I am like other people I reflect very profoundly 
 after acting," she replied, smiling. " Philosophy is 
 apt to come in only to keep the peace among angry 
 consequences." Again Wihner looked suddenly and 
 attentively at her ; and was about to speak when she 
 asked : 
 
 " How did this tempest arise ?" 
 
 " In a mere nothing a question of flowers or no 
 flowers on the altar of Trinity, I believe. A certain 
 lady in Fairvalley began sending floral decorations for 
 the altar during the Sundays following some holy-day 
 four or five years since. Some people objected, the 
 vestry was divided in its views, the rector sustained 
 the flower party and triumphed. The choir was poor, 
 and was recruited by several boys, who sang respon- 
 sively. Another discussion, I forget which, came next, 
 candles or a cross. Finally, the rector was presented 
 with some kind of a purple silk vestment I don t 
 know the name of the thing and he wore it on a high 
 holy-day. It is said that he elevated the bread and 
 wine before administering the communion, and bowed 
 to the altar. Hideous error ! If he had murdered a 
 
 baby he couldn t have been more deeply abhorred by 
 3 
 
50 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 certain people. But, grant me grace, Miss Alw} T n! 
 Here I have been running on, forgetting entirely that 
 you must have your own views on this subject, being 
 an Episcopalian. Forgive me if I have said anything 
 wrong. Are you High Church or Low Church ?" 
 
 He stopped and looked at her with a serio-comic 
 anxiety. 
 
 "You have said nothing wrong, Mr. Wilmer," she 
 observed, smiling. "But you have so interested me 
 with your recital of church difficulties that I have just 
 discovered that this is beautiful along here. Look 
 about you." 
 
 They had begun a long and rather rugged ascent, 
 winding between two hills. On their left trees rose 
 along the steep decline to meet the sky ; at their right 
 lay an old and ruined mill, and a long clear pool of 
 water reflecting the hillside beyond and the blue sky, 
 with its moving fleecy clouds. 
 
 "There lies the reflected landscape," said Drosee, 
 " a rhyme to the eye ; what a beautiful word that was 
 to say of the water !" 
 
 " But this hill at our left leaves us all in shadow," 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 51 
 
 said Wilmer, after a moment s pause " wait a few 
 minutes." 
 
 He urged on the horses, and by and by making a 
 sharp turn around the hill, they came out on a high 
 level bit of road, glorious with fine lights and shadows 
 from the evening sunshine. Far, far ahead the hills 
 lay bluer and bluer, fainter and more faint, capped by 
 golden clouds in shadowy domes and spires. It was like 
 a glimpse into the far " celestial country," dreamlike, 
 faint and golden in a sunlight fairer than that which 
 fell on solid earth. Both of the two young people 
 looked with a half wistful and a lingering delight upon 
 that lovely country. Wilmer s eyes left it first, how 
 ever, and with unobtrusive gaze looked upon the face 
 beside him. There were moments when Drosee s pale 
 loveliness had an unwonted brilliancy more striking 
 than the richest beauty, and this was one of them. Her 
 eyes were larger, deeper, softer and more brilliant than 
 any Wilmer had ever seen ; her exquisite features had 
 lost both the pallor and pathos of ordinary repose, as 
 also the bewildering variety of her animation, and so 
 heavenly sweet was this fair face, transfigured in the rare 
 faint sunlight, that it was no wonder that it moved Wil- 
 
52 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 raer, whose grave countenance and studious ways weie 
 the native mask of quick and keen emotions which 
 sprang responsive to the touch of all beauty and pleas 
 ure, lie was only half aware of the potent charm that 
 was already beginning to be exerted over him ; but he 
 drank deeply of a strange delight, and was called back 
 from his reverie, and Drosee from her dreams, with a 
 sharp shock, as the horses, weary of standing, suddenly 
 began to move. 
 
 He gathered up the reins ; as he did so, Drosee, by a 
 sudden, soft exclamation warned him of some mischance, 
 and glancing around, he saw that her parasol had fallen 
 from the buggy. Bringing the horses to an abrupt 
 stand-still he leaped lightly out, and went back for it ; 
 but as he restored it to her hand, the horses again 
 started away. A sharp turn and a rocky declivity was 
 before them. Wilmer bad no time to regain his seat, so 
 he seized the reins and attempted to check them as iie 
 stood. It was not so easy. He was stalwart and sinewy, 
 with muscles of steel ; but he was at a disadvantage, 
 and the horses, one of which was disposed to be vicious 
 at times, were excited and powerful. As he grasped 
 the reins Wilmer looked up to Drosee. Their eyes 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 53 
 
 me t botli looked as quiet and self-possessed as if in 
 a parlor. 
 
 " If you will keep your seat," he said gently a 
 furious jerk at the reins broke his speech. 
 
 " I will be perfectly quiet," she answered, with, a 
 voice whose composure touched him more than any 
 tremor could. The next two minutes were a whirl of 
 rapid hoofs, hurtling pebbles and stones, flashing tree- 
 trunks then there was a turn, a cruel wrench to the 
 buggy, and Wilmer, still holding the reins with a hand 
 of iron, left Drosee and most of the buggy upon the rocky 
 road. He did not let go. He would check them now 
 they felt him at last, he thought and then some 
 thing leather or buckle snapped he was flung side 
 long, and lay stunned against the wooded road- side, 
 while the horses hoofs ran resounding in rejoicing 
 thunder down the long and sweeping hill. 
 
 When he opened his eyes again to the light of day 
 something cool and wet lay on his forehead, and the 
 pale and beautiful face of Drosee was bent closely and 
 anxiously above him. Half uncertainly he lifted his 
 hand ; it was met and clasped by hers ; she was all 
 pity and gentleness, surely ; a thrill went through his 
 
54 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 frame, and as he struggled to live and listen to her 
 speaking, he lost consciousness at the first word she 
 uttered. 
 
 When he found himself again he was lying in a 
 softly-rolling, roomy, shabby old carriage. His head 
 was supported softly against a woman- s arm ; his eyes 
 sought her face, and then he shut them again for fear 
 that she might move if she found him thoroughly alive ! 
 The next moment he conquered this selfish impulse, 
 and said, in a low voice, " Miss Alwyn." 
 
 " Are you in pain, now, Mr. "Wilmer ?" The soft 
 voice was anxious, but firm. 
 
 " I do not think I am. I feel heavy. Let me rise 
 I should not incommode you so." 
 
 " You had better be quiet, I think," Drosee said, 
 observing how really difficult it was for him to move. 
 "You have been placed here as comfortably as it was 
 possible to bestow you " and she smiled, glancing at 
 the large and long-limbed figure reclining in such nar 
 row space ; " we are nearly home again. That is, we 
 are near Mrs. Fielding s." 
 
 " Havel been unconscious ?" he said, beginning now 
 thoroughly to remember what had passed. " Oh, what 
 
DANGER US GR UND. 55 
 
 did you do ? to leave you alone so it was abandoning 
 
 you!" 
 
 The accent in which he spoke, the struggle with 
 which he lifted his head and let it lean again upon 
 the hard cushions rather than seem father to impose 
 upon the companion of his misadventure, brought the 
 ruddy and unwilling blood to Drosee s cheek. 
 
 " You managed to make me feel less indignation at 
 your desertion than anxiety as to what country you had 
 traveled into," she answered lightly, " I found you 
 stunned or fainting, and tried to revive you with water 
 from the little brook which flowed down by the road ; 
 and then, by and by, a man came by with some wood, and 
 I got him to go to the nearest house for help, and the 
 people very kindly sent us their carriage and two men 
 
 a driver and another who bundled me in here and 
 
 put a plank in after me, and you after that, and since 
 you are alive again, I think we may begin to reckon up 
 our many marcies, as Jemima says." 
 
 Gayly, to cheer him, not rapidly, lest she confuse 
 him, Drosee had given him this account of their res 
 cue, and, as she ceased, the carnage stopped, and then 
 
5G A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 moved on. They looked out. They were entering 
 Mrs. Fielding s gates. 
 
 "You are going to stay here to-night?" he asked. 
 
 " No. But you are going to stay here till a doc 
 tor has seen you and said you are not seriously hurt," 
 Drosee answered, coolly. " I decided for you while 
 you were away. It would be your cousin s choice." 
 
 Wilmer looked at her in silence a moment, and 
 then a smile revisited his wan face. He bowed a little, 
 with that whimsied look on his features. 
 
 " Thank you," he said soberly. 
 
 The carriage stopped. Mrs. Fielding, who had just 
 dressed for the evening, was on the front piazza. Dro 
 see leaned across Wilmer, and called to her from the 
 window : 
 
 " Fanny ! Be good to us ! We have hurt our 
 selves." 
 
 The coachman and his companion on the box had 
 descended, and opened the door to lift Wilmer out. 
 Mrs. Fielding ran down the steps. To every one s sur 
 prise, Wilmer got out with a little help, and stood 
 erect, a little giddy and bruised as to brow and shoulder, 
 but not much hurt after all. He held out his hand to 
 
DANGEROUS GROUND. 57 
 
 Drosee ; but on touching hers found it very cold and 
 lifeless. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" he cried, bending forward. 
 
 " She is so pale ! What is wrong with her ?" Fan 
 ny Fielding asked, hurriedly pressing forward at his 
 side. 
 
 They saw now that Drosee s white dress was torn 
 and muddy, and wet with blood ; and Drosee, courage 
 and good cheer gone, the urgent need being over, had 
 fainted on making the effort to leave the carriage. 
 
 One of the men helped Wilmer to lift her out- 
 helped Wilmer, who, had lie been himself, could have 
 carried her easily upon one arm ; they took her into the 
 house and into Mrs. Fielding s own room, and laid her 
 upon the bed; and presently one of Mrs. Fielding s 
 men galloped off for a doctor. Drosee had received a 
 deep wound just below the knee, and the blood was 
 stiff upon her clothing. On the bruised palms of her 
 tender hands, and on the front of her white dress were 
 the marks of a pilgrimage they could scarcely credit 
 on her hands and knees she had crawled to Wilmer, 
 and from him to the brook for water. The men found 
 her holding his head upon her knees, and bathing it 
 
58 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 and no one had dreamed that she was hurt until the 
 brave lips were silenced and she fainted from exceed 
 ing pain. 
 
 " Wilrher," said Mrs. Fielding, as she sat in the 
 parlor with him that evening for a while, after the 
 doctor had come and gone, and Drosee had gone to 
 sleep at last. " Wi liner," said Mrs. Fielding, not for 
 getting the dear and cherished wish of her heart even 
 at this crisis, " if Drosee gets well, and you. do not love 
 her and marry her, I shall say you have a heart of 
 stone ! If anything could make a man go clean out of 
 his head about a woman, I should think that such hero 
 ism would surely do it, even if the heroine were not 
 that wonderful and gracious creature that Drosee is !" 
 
 " She is wonderful and gracious," Wilmer said, 
 slowly, and in a strange low voice. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me you don t adore her ?" 
 Mrs. Fielding exclaimed, softly but impulsively. 
 
 " I mean that she is the most admirable woman I 
 ever saw, and that, if she will let me, I will marry her 
 faster than even you could desire !" he said, losing his 
 reserve for an instant. Then he checked himself; and 
 then looking at his cousin with a frankness new to her 
 
DANG KRO US GROUND. 59 
 
 he said softly, " Strange ! And I never felt the slight 
 est wish to marry any other woman breathing !" 
 
 Mrs. Fielding laughed a low, brief, musical note, 
 then rose, and pressed her hand caressingly on her 
 cousin s shoulder. 
 
 " I will come back presently, excuse me," she said ; 
 and left him to meditate upon his new found resolu 
 tion. What he had spoken he meant, she knew; and 
 what he had said of his previous lack of inclination 
 towards marriage she also believed. He was the heir 
 of a rich and old house, and much sought after as a 
 " catch ;" but he had always pursued the even tenor of 
 his way, unobtrusive, unspoiled, apparently unaware of 
 the traps laid for him, and caught by none. He had 
 not always been a model young man ; there were wild 
 leaps of mischief and rare freaks of fun hidden in that 
 curiously blended disposition ; but he had the grace of 
 reverence for God, for old age, and for women, which 
 kept him always worthily beloved of them. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ** Whosoever will be free let him not desire or dread that 
 which it is in the power of others either to withhold or to in 
 flict: otherwise he is a slave." EPICTETUS. 
 
 OWING to Drosee s illness the delayed first meeting 
 of the " Study Club," as it came to call itself, was a 
 very informal one, and held, not at her home, but at 
 Mrs. Fielding s. 
 
 " How do you get on at home, Jo ?" she privately 
 inquired of her sister on that first evening of her re 
 turn to the parlor and to society. The gentlemen had 
 not yet come in, Mrs. Fielding was making her toilet, 
 and Jo sat alone by Drosee s sofa. " I feel ashamed to 
 lie here so cozily and comfortably, and leave you to 
 meet the domestic discomforts as you may." 
 
 " Why, I m sure you have had the worst of it, 
 child," Jo said cheerily. " Would you take all human 
 
 afflictions on your own shoulders, you Atlas, you ! 1 
 [60] " 
 
D U OSEE PHIL OS OPHT. 1 
 
 think the hurt you have sustained is enough for one 
 person." 
 
 " But I have had only the hurt," Drosee said, quite 
 seriously. " And you have had a dozen things to en 
 dure." 
 
 " Oh, as to papa, he goes round to the Statham 
 House so much to play whist with some intimates he 
 has there, that he has been very little on my mind. He 
 did not groan a groan the last time I asked him for 
 some money, and he is really interested in the play he 
 is writing ; he has read me two acts of it don t look so 
 pitiful, it was much better than the last and he expects 
 to get it brought out in the fall has really some en 
 couragement." 
 
 And Josephus looked with cheerful confidence into 
 her sister s face. 
 
 " I m all right," she said, " only you go on getting 
 well, and come back as soon as you can. Do you know 
 that you have made another conquest during your sick 
 ness?" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" Drosee exclaimed, with a 
 faint, hot blush rising slowly. 
 
 " That old friend of Mrs. Fielding s Mrs. Johns 
 
62 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 she is dead in love with you ! She almost told me so last 
 time I saw her. Now, Drosee, how could you stand that 
 amiable, prosy old soul for two minutes ? I never could, 
 and yet you, sick as you have been, have chatted to her, 
 and looked interested in her, and just won the poor old 
 lady s very heart-strings. I should think it would be 
 so fearfully inconvenient to be doted on." 
 
 " I haven t found it so," Drosee said, laughing. 
 
 " And she thinks you have such sweet, confiding 
 manners," Jo continued; " me she considers a perpendi 
 cular and pokerish porcupine, I see ; but she thinks you 
 so frank and open-hearted ! Now, Drosee, isn t that de 
 ceitful? Because you know you don t confide in her a 
 bit !" 
 
 " I talk to her as I talk to any one whom I like, and 
 who wants to be indulged with a sight of my soul," 
 Drosee said, with a slightly sarcastic ring in the sweet 
 voice. " I tell her what it can t possibly hurt me to 
 have repeated, and what it pleases her to hear all inno 
 cent gossip and chatter ; no more. It is not a nice thing, 
 Josephus, to be forced to learn caution, but I have taken 
 some lessons, malgre moi. And I tell nobody every 
 thing." 
 
DROSEE S PHILOSOPHY. 63 
 
 " Not -me? Jo cried, turning upon her. " Why, 
 Drosee ! I, who never tell any one anything, I had 
 just as soon tell you every thought I have as fast as 
 I think it ! And to have you not tell me ! you, who 
 are of the confiding kind !" 
 
 " Josephus," Drosee said eagerly, " I tell you I 
 tell you things I resolve never to breathe ; I trust you 
 without stint ; but I cannot say that I have told you my 
 every thought. Even babblers have their fits of silence ; 
 and sometimes there are deep places under the shallows 
 of the lightest glancing pools." 
 
 " Drosee," Jo answered, with great eyes, " you can 
 not deceive me. You do tell me everything. You 
 couldn t keep it ! Drosee, do I not know every man that 
 has ever asked you to marry him ?" 
 
 " Y yes, I think so I am sure of it," Drosee 
 
 said. 
 
 " Drosee, did you keep- anything from me about 
 about your engagement ?" Jo asked, her blossom-like 
 face shadowed a little, and her gay voice altered. " 1 
 often wonder and ponder over that. Are you are you 
 ever sorry for all that now ?" 
 
 " No," Drosee said, after a pause. " One must en- 
 
64 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 dure the torment of love at one time or another. It all 
 comes in the day s work. I am glad I have known that 
 pain and conquered it. Now I am free !" 
 
 Jo looked at her sister, subdued, inquiring. 
 
 " The world is so much wider to-day than it was two 
 years ago, Drosee said, with warmth. " It was all for 
 the best. One must be lessoned by experience, and 
 pay his heavy price, before one learns what bondage, 
 what egotism, is in love ; how free is the soul that fears 
 and hopes for no personal and selfish loss or gain." 
 
 She had raised herself on one arm ; her beautiful 
 face was flushed ; her voice eloquent. Poor, fair 
 philosopher ! so young, so confident of having at 
 tained! As she ceased speaking there entered Mrs. 
 Fielding at one door, and Dr. Stark, followed by Wil- 
 mer, at the other. 
 
 " Now this looks extremely like an invalid !" Dr. 
 Stark exclaimed, with a pleased, if unmelodious r croak. 
 " How are you, my fair pretender?" He took her left 
 hand, with unwonted gayety and gentleness in his look 
 and air. 
 
 Drosee welcomed him gayly, and then extended the 
 same hand to Wilmer, who bowed over it silently, but 
 
DROSEE S PHILOSOPHY. 65 
 
 with a look into her eyes which said much. Her eye 
 lids fell beneath it, and even when the greetings be 
 tween the other members of the " Study Club " had 
 been exchanged, she wore still that fine color in her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " And upon what were you lecturing, Professorin ?" 
 Dr. Stark said, turning back to her. " I know you 
 were lecturing don t deny it ! What was the theme, 
 Miss Jo-sephus?" 
 
 " I forget," said Jo. " No, I don t that is too im 
 polite. It was Drosee s favorite theme the folly of 
 personal desire or ambition." 
 
 " A queer theory for you to hold," Dr. Stark says, 
 sitting down near them, and looking with gravity at 
 Drosee. " You are too young to have learned quiet 
 ism by experience, are you not ?" 
 
 " Am I a quietist ?" she asks. 
 
 " Are you not ? What is this doctrine this philos 
 ophy of yours ?" 
 
 She hesitates : her eyes are attracted by Wihner s ; 
 he listens, as do they all. She is sure she has learned 
 a truth ; yet it is not just riovv easy to declare it. 
 
 " Will you tell us ?" Wilmer asks. 
 
G6 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " I think," Drosee says, making the plunge, but 
 speaking slowly at first, " that the emptiness of success 
 and the inevitable disappointment of desire, are suf 
 ficiently demonstrated by the general history and the 
 private experiences of mankind. I think that it is 
 proven that God alone is and can be sublimely good 
 and great. No glory yet attained by man is worth at 
 taining, so far as it gave pleasure to its owner: for 
 who would be content with the lot of any of the great 
 dead who would be Napoleon, or Charlemagne, 
 Csesar, Solomon, Cleopatra, Elizabeth ; or even Paul, 
 or Moses, or Shakespeare, or Jeanne d Arc ? All high 
 ambition overleaps the bounds of past success; we 
 would be more than any of these men or women, blem 
 ished and unhappy as they stand revealed in the splen 
 dor of their lot. But we learn limits ; and, by and by, 
 learn to be content that God is, and is alone great and 
 good. So it seems to me natural, just, sensible, to re 
 nounce all passionate and disturbing effort, and con 
 tinue only a calm, serene and reasonable activity, whose 
 ends are not unduty exalted or desired." 
 
 " And what ends do you allow to be worthy of this 
 calm and rational effort ?" Wilmer asks gravely. 
 
DROSEE ^S PHILOSOPHY. 67 
 
 " The necessities of life ; the study of the one ex 
 cellent Being, and of His creation : the cultivation of 
 wisdom and virtue. I wish it were one object of all 
 men to have let toleration mark their attitude towards 
 all nations and sects, and charity their dealings with 
 individuals. I wish we all would gladly broaden the 
 ground on which all men kneel together to worship 
 one Creator, and all men acknowledge in unison 
 There is one God : the one God known under various 
 names, by the Pharoahs, the Chaldees, all the nations 
 of the East and West since the creation of man." 
 
 " Drosee ! you talk like a heathen !" Mrs. Fielding 
 exclaims, startled. 
 
 " That is the cry with which the philosophers are 
 always greeted," Dr. Stark says, with a bitter smile. 
 " You talk like a philosopher, child ; a lover of wis 
 dom." 
 
 Wilmer, who says nothing, is regarding Drosee 
 with a serious and half-apprehensive air. 
 
 " I am talking too much," she says gently, with an 
 apologetic look in her dark blue eyes. She withdraws 
 her- right hand from beneath her head, and lies back 
 upon the sofa cushions. 
 
68 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " Not for us," Dr. Stark says, sturdily, regarding 
 her, however, a little anxiously. " Are you tired so 
 soon ?" 
 
 " I liave said what it may perhaps take me a year 
 a life-time to explain and qualify," she says, glancing 
 quickly at Mrs. Fielding and her cousin. 
 
 "No, indeed, Drosee," Mrs. Fielding says in 
 stantly ; " I do not understand you always, dear ; but I 
 trust and believe in you without limit." 
 
 " And I would like to beg you to tell us more of 
 what you hold to be true,* Wilrner says, still earnestly 
 regarding her. Then, with a smile which hides a 
 slight tremor of the lip, " You have not told us 
 whether love is a rational object of desire." 
 
 She looks up at him ; their eyes meet, and seem to 
 flash as steel and flint ; she answers in a low voice, chill 
 and quiet, unaware of how very deep an interest at 
 least two of her listeners feel in her reply : 
 
 " 1 think that there is no greater illusion in all this 
 world than that which surrounds this matter of love. 
 Most women crave it, I believe ; many men desire it ; 
 take it with the rest to be beloved, to be envied, to be 
 rich, to be glorious these are the objects of the am- 
 
DR OSEE S PHIL OS PR 7. 60 
 
 bition of nine-tenths of those who have ambition ; and 
 each expects in the attainment of desire to be happy. 
 On love, on political or ecclesiastic intrigue, on social 
 or artistic effort, on money-getting on these motives 
 the play of life is written ; and one man in his time 
 tries many parts, and at the end of the play departs, 
 cheated of desire to the last. Love, perhaps, is the 
 most universal of all follies ; but each such personal 
 desire is petty, and attainment is disappointment. 
 There is none of them worth a desire or a regret, and 
 your only free soul is that which has broken away from 
 the thraldom of its own wishes." 
 
 There is a chill silence. No man likes to hear a 
 pretty woman utter such words sincerely. As Drosee 
 slowly lifts her eyes they meet Wilmer s again, intent, 
 powerful, almost reproachful. Mrs. Fielding s eyes are 
 on the floor ; Jo s pretty head is held sideways, with a 
 half defiant dimple in her uppermost cheek; and Dr. 
 Stark no one is thinking of Dr. Stark is looking up 
 on the two who gaze upon each other. 
 
 ""We have wandered far from our author," Mrs. 
 Fielding says, almost immediately recovering herself, 
 and speaking with great self-control and good humor, 
 
70 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 though privately longing to give Drosee a good shak 
 
 ing. 
 
 Not so far after all," Dr. Stark says, glancing into 
 a folded paper Drosee had previously held. " This 
 first quotation from Waldfried touches one of the 
 points discussed: 1 love to recall the passage in 
 Plutarch s Lycurgus : The old men are singing, 
 " We were once power/id youths;" the men sing, " But 
 we are now strong;" and the youths sing, " But we 
 will le stronger than you are ! " 
 
 " Wilmer, you were appointed reader," Mrs. Field 
 ing says, turning to him graciously. "I hope you 
 have selected a cheerful passage to read us ! Will you 
 begin?" 
 
 "Wilmer rises in silence, takes a book from the table 
 on which he has laid it, sits down nearer the lamp, and 
 opens to his place. 
 
 " Auerbach is entirely new to me, as, I confess, are 
 most of the writers of the day," he says. "But, un 
 der advice, I have read, in preparation for this meet 
 ing, his < Villa on the Rhine, < On the Heights, Eedel- 
 weiss, and a book of his shorter tales." From the 
 
DROSEE S PHILOSOPHY. 71 
 
 latter he has made his selection, and he begins to read 
 it. 
 
 The story is simple, but life-like. His manner is 
 unaffected, calm and modest, as always ; his effects ap 
 parently unstudied ; but the reading is perfect in its 
 way, and pleasant and moving is the sound of his rich 
 and varying tones. There is no one present who does 
 not enjoy listening to them. 
 
 "What he says of his ignorance of most of the writ 
 ers of the day is true. He is by birth and education 
 a Southerner; adopted, after his Southern father s 
 death, by his maternal grandfather, to whose name and 
 comfortable estate he is sole heir. Wilmer came to 
 New York to live after his college education had been 
 completed in his native State. An observer will soon 
 find that the education of the Southern student and 
 man of letters is that of the past. Wilmer, naturally 
 studious, is singularly well acquainted with Greek, 
 Latin, and English classics ; his own style of writing 
 and speaking often seems to bear a quaint and not un- 
 pleasing likeness to that of the day of Pope and Ad- 
 dison ; elegant, easy, deliberate, are his wonted words 
 and ways ; and they sit so well upon him, with his fine 
 
72 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER 
 
 Southern grace, varying at times between languor and 
 fire, and so well accord witli the idea called up by his 
 dark eyes, long limbs, and quiet air of a gentleman, 
 that the peculiarity is dear to his friends, who would 
 not have him changed for the world. No one can 
 mistake him for an unlearned man, although he is still 
 unlearned in many authors of the day. 
 
 "Wilmer having finished his reading, he is thanked 
 warmly, and returns to his seat near the sofa. 
 
 " Drosee was to give us the quotations," Mrs. Field 
 ing says. 
 
 " Dr. Stark will read those 1 have penciled out," 
 Drosee says, and Dr. Stark, without leaving his seat, 
 begins to do so. 
 
 " Scraps semi-proverbial forms of wit and wisdom 
 these are to be the quotations, I understand," he says. 
 "I have read you the first. Here is a suggestive 
 one c When a rose is cultivated to great perfection, 
 other thorns grow on it, but still they are thorns. 
 
 " Oh, Drosee, are they all going to be like that ?" 
 Mrs. Fielding says, in soft, reproachful tones. Drosee 
 smiles, and holds out her hand. Her friend impulsively 
 clasps it, and continues to hold it as the dqptor reads on : 
 
DROSEE S PHILOSOPHY. 73 
 
 " Hatred and contempt are not good, for they injure 
 the soul. The art of life is to acknowledge the base as 
 lose, lut not to demean one s self ly passionate feeling 
 against commonalty. You must remove hatred out of 
 your heart, and be at peace in your mind. Hatred 
 destroys the soul? 
 
 " The King spoke of his consort, and of her pecu 
 liar frame of mind. The King and Irma spoke of the 
 Queen for the first time. That Irma did so, and that 
 the King not only allowed it, lut really challenged it, 
 was the germ of an incalculable catastrophe. In the 
 first utterance of a husband regarding his wife to a 
 third person, there lies a fatal estrangement and separa 
 tion. 
 
 " Honor pledges us to morality, fame still more, 
 and power most of all? 
 
 " No teaching, not even the highest, changes the mind 
 of man. Only life, reflection, the experience of facts 
 on one s self and others this alone converts the mind. 
 It is the misery of dogmatism that it wishes to teach 
 as only life can do? 
 
 " i Most misery arises from the fact that people who 
 have understanding, culture, and some talent, esteem 
 
74 A FAIR PHILOSOHHER. 
 
 themselves as more endowed, more highly gifted mor 
 tals than others, and hence allow themselves the right 
 of disregarding ordinary Carriers, and stepping be 
 yond the circumscribed spJiere of duty allotted to 
 them. 
 
 " c There are hours when / am the ideal of myself, 
 and there are hours too, when I am the caricature of 
 myself. How shall 1 conceive the real being f What 
 amir 
 
 " Throughout the world they boil with water. 9 
 
 " I have suffered much through others but I 
 
 still believe that there are no thoroughly bad men, but 
 that there are thoroughly egotistical ones, and that the 
 pushing of egotism beyond its true bounds is the source 
 of all evil? 
 
 " I consider it a happiness for mankind that there 
 is no unity of confession / by this alone is humanity 
 preserved, for we must learn that there are different 
 forms and languages of the soul for one and the same 
 thing. In the multitude of confessions there lies a se 
 curity against fanaticism,as well as a confirmation that 
 one may be indifferent to the outward forms of religion 
 
DROSEE S PHILOSOPHY. 75 
 
 1 mean that one may be an honest man in any relig 
 ion, or even without an outward religion? 
 
 " All the churches, ours and the Protestant, and the 
 Jewish, and the Turkish, and as they are all called, 
 each has thus its voice in the song, and each sings ac 
 cording to his power, and all harmonize together, and 
 iip yonder in heaven it must sound beautiful; and each 
 has only to sing as our Lord God has given hi7navoice : 
 He knows how it will harmonize, and does harmonize, 
 of course, beautifully 7 I think you have made some 
 fine selections, Miss Drosee," says Dr. Stark, laying 
 down the paper. 
 
 " And now, Jo, you will point these readings with 
 your essay, and open up the line of discussion," Mrs. 
 Fielding says, with a smiling inclination of the head 
 towards the youngest member of the Club, who has 
 been appointed essayist. 
 
 " I could not write an essay under the most favor 
 able circumstances," Jo says, rising with a most becom 
 ing color on her dimpling cheeks, aud walking towards 
 the table. " I never should have understood the mat 
 ters I have written a little about, if Drosee and I had 
 
 ; 
 
76 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 not talked of them together. I don t claim any origin 
 ality for these few remarks." 
 
 Her modesty and beauty are sweet enough to pre 
 possess a more unfriendly audience in favor of her 
 " essay ;" and all listen attentively as Jo reads, in her 
 own natural and conversational tone : 
 
 " I think the quotations made by Drosee illustrate 
 sufficiently the moral tone and purpose of the novels 
 and tales of our author. They diffuse about them an 
 atmosphere of toleration, fairness, sympathy with hu 
 manity and fine and delicate feeling. Auerbach and 
 George Eliot are two of the greatest living novelists, 
 and both are apostles of charity. Drosee says that it 
 is a question to be considered whether it works most good 
 in us to admire those better than ourselves, or to sym 
 pathize with those who are only as good. Auerbach 
 and George Eliot both teach us rather to consider the 
 commonplace with loving attention than to admire 
 the ideal, though there are ideals they uphold. 
 
 " Of course we cannot read these books of Auer- 
 bach s without enjoying the simplicity and vigor of his 
 style, the absence of heat and hurry in the lives he 
 paints, the fresh kind of characters he draws for us. 
 
DRO SEE S PHILOSOPHY. 77 
 
 We have never known people like Walpurga and 
 Hausei, Irrna and the Queen, or Martella, or Wald- 
 f ried ; but we feel their life-likeness, and pronounce 
 them true to nature on instinct. I have had the pleas 
 ure of meeting some American relatives of Mr. Auer- 
 bacli s," Jo goes on, lifting her eyes, and speaking in 
 such an easy and conversational tone that no one can 
 tell if this be impromptu or written, " and I am told 
 that most of his characters are real people whom he 
 knows, and who live about him ; and that exquisite 
 and life-like character of Waldfried s wife is like the 
 novelist s own wife. He is twice lucky, it appears to 
 me ; he owns a treasure, and he knows that he does !" 
 
 " Brava, Jo !" Mrs. Fielding exclaims heartily. 
 
 Jo drops her eyes and goes on : 
 
 " The character of Martella was compared by one 
 of these relatives to that of Goethe s Mignon. I don t 
 think it a happy comparison. And if I may venture 
 to make any comparison between these two great men, 
 ^1 must say that I think Goethe often appears, morally, 
 at a disadvantage beside Auerbach ; he lacks the dis 
 tinct respect for marriage, the fine appreciation of 
 moral dignity in women, the delicacy and the con- 
 
73 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 science shown in Auerbach s novels. I don t mean to 
 deny Goethe s claim to the title of the German Shake 
 speare, his versatility, largeness and artistic truth, but 
 I like the world Auerbach portrays better, and better 
 still Auerbach s way of looking at it. 
 
 " A picture of our novelist which I have been 
 shown by his brother shows him with large, open, 
 kindly eyes, and benignant forehead, white hair, and a 
 well-rounded and happy-looking face, pleasant to dwell 
 upon. He is about sixty years old, I think. I have 
 nothing further on my mind to say." 
 
 " The words of Josephus are ended !" Mrs. Field 
 ing exclaims. 
 
 " Miss Jo, let me thank you," Dr. Stark says, as she 
 returns to the little circle. " I see now that this club 
 of ours is to be a delightful thing. If we do not all of 
 us learn something at each meeting this is no fair 
 promise of what is to come." 
 
 " It is the pleasantest method of study I ever tried," 
 Wilmer adds. 
 
 "If Mrs. Fielding will only give us some music 
 now," Jo says. 
 
 And this, Mrs. Fielding proceeds to do. 
 
DliOSEE S PHILOSOPHY. 79 
 
 Afterwards, they cast their votes for tho next 
 author; Mrs. Fielding reads aloud from the slips of 
 paper : 
 
 " Goethe, Kant, Prof. J. W. Draper, Max Miiller 
 Robert Browning." 
 
 They each write again. The next vote reads : 
 
 " Goethe, the Brownings, John Stuart Mill, Her 
 bert Spencer, Prof. Draper." 
 
 " Shall we talk it over, or write ? " Mrs. Fielding 
 asks. 
 
 " Write !" say three of them. 
 
 The next, by a vote of three, decides on Prof. 
 Draper, but it is immediately urged by certain mem 
 bers of the club that it will take more time than the 
 interval between club meetings to study Prof. Draper 
 for the first time ; and so the meeting to be devoted 
 to him is fixed for a month hence, and a final vote 
 makes the Brownings, with whom all are at least 
 partially acquainted, the study of the next meeting. 
 
 Of the further meetings of the Study Club, no de 
 tailed account will be found herein ; this first is so 
 specially recorded because of its influence in making 
 its members better known to each other, and as a spe* 
 
80 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 cimen of the workings of a private club, whose mem 
 bers were afterwards most severely and uncharitably 
 arraigned by public criticism. 
 
 The cloud was no bigger than a man s hand, but it 
 arose next day when the Rev. Upton Bell, visiting at 
 Mrs. Fielding s, picked up four or five slips of paper 
 carelessly left on a table, and reading aloud : 
 
 " Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Kant, 
 Goethe, Prof. Draper," asked, " Who is interested in 
 these men ? " 
 
 " All of us !" said Jo, who sat by Drosee s couch. 
 
 " You girls are not reading these authors, I trust," 
 he exclaimed, with a mixture of familiarity and com 
 mand very displeasing to Her Highness. Jo lifted 
 her haughty head. 
 
 " And if we are ?" 
 
 "I venture to object, as your c spiritual pastor and 
 master, " he answered, with a jesting tone but a ser 
 ious eye. 
 
 " You are not our pastor yet," cried Jo, in a ; tone 
 of cordial dislike. "It is ten to one we go to Dr. 
 Bampfyle s church is it not, Drosee ?" 
 
 " Dr. Bampfyle s church is nearer us," Drosee an 
 
DROSEE S PHILOSOPHY. 81 
 
 swered, gently. " But we Lave heard only you preach 
 as yet." 
 
 " I don t care a straw which church you attend," 
 Mr. Bell said, sitting down near Drosee. "I hope you 
 don t give me credit for being one of the squabblers 
 over this division of interest ? Dr. Bampfyle is an 
 older man than I, and I dare say will suit you much 
 better as a preacher. He is a nonentity out of the 
 pulpit, because he gives up his whole time and study 
 to his sermons, a thing I don t believe in doing. But 
 go where you like only I claim the privilege of old 
 friendship, Miss Drosee, and I beg you not to get 
 mixed up in this sort of thing. Give that old Stark a 
 wide berth ; he s no tit teacher for you a musty, fusty, 
 cross-grained, unbelieving old bachelor !" 
 
 " Dr. Stark has been my friend as long as you have, 
 Mr. Bell," Drosee answered, still gently. "He is a 
 very good man, and I have the sincerest respect and 
 affection for him." 
 
 Jo had left the room, and they were alone. 
 " And I have the sincerest respect and and affec 
 tion for you, Miss Drosee," said the young man, with 
 nervous directness. " You know how well I loved you 
 
82 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 years ago ; and I I don t be afraid, I won t make a 
 fool of myself again but I think you have only 
 altered since then to grow lovelier and when I saw 
 you the first time after you came here, and heard that 
 you had met Stark here already, I vowed to to be 
 your friend, if you would let me, and to warn you of 
 the danger you were in." 
 
 "I thank you, Mr. Bell. What danger do you fear 
 for me ?" 
 
 " Are you sure he cannot alter your beliefs ?" 
 
 " I am sure that he does not wish to. He congrat 
 ulates me on being able to believe what he would de 
 sire to believe if it were possible to him." 
 
 " That is a wily opening he makes ! But besides 
 are you aware that he is intensely disliked here ?" 
 
 " I have never known myself to like any one less 
 for that cause. Indeed, I have to fight an unreason 
 able feminine disposition to like a man better for be 
 ing frowned upon. But why is he unpopular ?" 
 
 " He is cross-grained, bitter in politics, an infidel in 
 religion, sharp and sarcastic of wit, and excites aversion 
 in every man and woman who meets him ; and already 
 I have heard it spoken of with wondering disapproval 
 
VIWSEE S PHILOSOPHY. 83 
 
 that you were seen taking a walk with him just a day 
 or so before your accident." 
 
 " I had no idea that my movements were already a 
 subject for gossip." 
 
 " They will be a subject for gossip as long as you 
 live here. Do you not know how you are described 3 
 < The beautiful Miss Alwyn the talented one, you 
 know great friend of the Fieldings, and so on. All 
 this before your accident. Now you are the town 
 talk, of course. Every one is on the gul vive for your 
 reappearance. It is but fair to warn you you are con 
 spicuous ! You will be Fairvalley s belle or lete noir 
 within six months, accordingly as you guide your steps 
 with discretion." 
 
 " Fairvalley is smaller than I thought." 
 " It is your world, while you live here. So take 
 care." 
 
 "No, never my world. The blue heavens are 
 above one even here." 
 
 " You seem to dislike the place." 
 You you have made me ill at ease in it, for the 
 present. But I shall be myself again soon. Mr. 
 Bell !" 
 
84 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " Miss Alwyn !" 
 
 " You will not take it amiss if I ask you one favor ? 
 No?- Well do not ever repeat to me any more 
 gossip, please. I mean "seeing the young clergyman 
 flush fleeply at the insinuation which he knew himself 
 to deserve "I mean, it would be unreasonable to 
 believe that people fail to say unpleasant things behind 
 one s back I give them credit for doing so, and I do 
 not care, so long as I do not hear what they say. It is 
 the precise nature of what they say which is apt to 
 move one to resentment not the abstract, accepted 
 fact of their gossip. I wish to keep clear from world- 
 liness, anger, and all uncharitableness. Do not think 
 it a friend s part to tell me what is said of me. Now I 
 will thank you for your kind intentions, and we will 
 dismiss the subject forever." 
 
 He did not reply, for on the instant Mrs. Fielding 
 entered. He made only a formal call of a few min 
 utes and then left. Drosee, on her sofa cushions, fell 
 sweetly and carelessly asleep, soon after, and vexed her 
 self not a whit about the "cloud no bigger than a 
 man s hand." 
 
CIIAPTEK IY. 
 
 STRAWS IN THE WIND. 
 
 " If it be so. yet bragless let it be." SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 " What then remains but well our power to use, 
 And keep good humor still, whate er we lose ?" POPE. 
 
 " CAN you give me five dollars, father ?" Drosee asks 
 meditatively, gazing at the millinery in her lap she is 
 reconstructing a summer bonnet with no unskillful 
 hand -and addressing Mr. Alwyn, who sits smoking 
 his pipe on the little side piazza, in a fit of rare silence. 
 
 " Yes, [ can," Mr. Alwyn says, not removing his 
 pipe from his lips as he speaks, and running his hand, 
 with some difficulty, into his trousers pocket, he brings 
 up an old wallet and opens it. " Have you no money 
 at all, Drosee ?" he inquires, without passing to her the 
 desired amount, which is beneath his fingers, toge^ iier 
 with other bank bills. 
 
 " Not ten cents," Drosee says lightly. 
 
 " Have you written nothing lately ?" he asks, taking 
 [85] 
 
8G A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 his pipe between the fingers of his right hand again, 
 and holding his money in the left. 
 
 " I paid Jemima up with my last accepted verses," 
 Drosee answers in a low tone. 
 
 " Yes yes that was some time ago," Mr. Alwyn 
 says, hastily. " Have you done nothing since ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have written something," Drosee replies, 
 quietly. She volunteers no information as to her ven 
 tures, though she will answer truly if questioned her 
 father s method of receiving her confidence being as 
 unpleasant to her as she will ever permit herself to ac 
 knowledge anything to be. However, he is relentless 
 to-day. 
 
 " Have you sent nothing away ?" 
 
 " I sent some verses to Mr. Starr," Drosee answers, 
 naming the editor of a well-known magazine. 
 
 "Refused?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Poetry is a drug in the market, Drosee. I have 
 told you so. I have some little experience in such 
 matters which might serve you if you would condescend 
 to make use of it. Your stories are good have you 
 tried any lately ?" 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 87 
 
 " I sent a story to the ," Drosee returns, with a 
 
 nonchalant air. " The editor said it was well written, 
 but not sufficiently dramatic. He says my verses are 
 always good, however." 
 
 " I wish I could give you some of my dramatic in 
 stinct, 1 Mr. Alwyn says, entirely unconscious that he 
 writes, as a rule, the most wretched stuff a fairly edu 
 cated man ever dreamed " dramatic ;" " but you are not 
 at all like me there. However, I suppose you sent 
 him the poem, then ?" 
 
 "I did," Drosee answers, with a glint of quiet 
 amusement in her eye, " and he said it would suit a 
 religious periodical better. He thought it was too 
 pious, /thought it would just do for them it was, to 
 my mind, a piece of wickedness sufficiently refined to 
 please a magazine whose taste for a dish so dressed is 
 epicurean." 
 
 " Drosee, you have a fine mind, and all that pre 
 vents your success is your intolerable languor," Mr. 
 Alwyn remarks severely. " You really care for noth 
 ing. You seem as happy when an unsuccessful 
 attempt is curtly thrust back on you as when you 
 receive a check and a compliment. You have no 
 
8G A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 his pipe between the fingers of his right hand again, 
 and holding his money in the left. 
 
 " I paid Jemima up with my last accepted verses," 
 Drosee answers in a low tone. 
 
 " Yes yes that was some time ago," Mr. Alwyn 
 says, hastily. "Have you done nothing since?" 
 
 " Yes, I have written something," Drosee replies, 
 quietly. She volunteers no information as to her ven 
 tures, though she will answer truly if questioned her 
 father s method of receiving her confidence being as 
 unpleasant to her as she will ever permit herself to ac 
 knowledge anything to be. However, he is relentless 
 to-day. 
 
 " Have you sent nothing away ?" 
 
 " I sent some verses to Mr. Starr," Drosee answers, 
 naming the editor of a well-known magazine. 
 
 "Refused?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Poetry is a drug in the market, Drosee. I have 
 told you so. I have some little experience in such 
 matters which might serve you if you would condescend 
 to make use of it. Your stories are good have you 
 tried any lately ?" 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 87 
 
 u I sent a story to the ," Drosee returns, with a 
 
 nonchalant air. " The editor said it was well written, 
 but not sufficiently dramatic. He says my verses are 
 always good, however." 
 
 " I wish I could give you some of my dramatic in 
 stinct," Mr. Alwyn says, entirely unconscious that he 
 writes, as a rule, the most wretched stuff a fairly edu 
 cated man ever dreamed "dramatic;" "but you are not 
 at all like me there. However, I suppose you sent 
 him the poem, then ?" 
 
 "I did," Drosee answers, with a glint of quiet 
 amusement in her eye, " and he said it would suit a 
 religious periodical better. He thought it was too 
 pious, /thought it would just do for them it was, to 
 my mind, a piece of wickedness sufficiently refined to 
 please a magazine whose taste for a dish so dressed is 
 epicurean." 
 
 " Drosee, you have a fine mind, and all that pre 
 vents your success is your intolerable languor," Mr. 
 Alwyn remarks severely. " You really care for noth 
 ing. You seem as happy when an unsuccessful 
 attempt is curtly thrust back on you as when you 
 receive a check and a compliment. You have no 
 
83 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 enthusiasm, which is the one thing that makes me 
 doubt your genius. And your lack of sympathy with 
 me in the burden I carry is a defect in your womanli 
 ness. Family cares and expenses are wearing upon me, 
 and making me an old man before my time. I am living 
 mainly on charity ; and you, in your selfishness, leave a 
 father who craves genuine sympathy and practical 
 kindness at your hands, to be satisfied with an amiable 
 manner and a petty attention. The battle of life is too 
 much for me," Mr. Alwyn concludes, puffing out an 
 immense cloud of smoke, and wiping an invisible tear 
 away with his wallet, he adds, " I stand or fall, lonely 
 lonely to the last !" 
 
 DroseVs face has not moved a muscle during this 
 harangue. Her father throws himself back in his 
 chair, pressing his hand to his brow as if a "maddened 
 brain" a favorite expression with him were even 
 now beating there. His ruddy cheek and ponderous 
 frame seem to indicate so sturdy a physical condition 
 that this drooping condition appears inexpressibly droll 
 in one of its aspects. But in Drosee s face neither 
 contempt nor pity may gleam or glint in eye or on lip. 
 She sometimes, as now, experiences a strong internal. 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 89 
 
 revolt against well-known pretense and tricks of man 
 ner ; and, at this moment, even for the sake of peace, 
 she cannot answer him with the soft and politic blan 
 dishments which may appease a petty tyrant. Her calm 
 silence chills the egotist. He misses the gentleness of 
 speech which sometimes rewards his pathetic plaints. 
 He pulls away at his pipe again, and drops his hand 
 from his head. 
 
 "You must consider, Drosee," he says, coldly, 
 " that I am unable to maintain you in idle vagaries. 
 You had better save your money for hairpins than 
 waste it on stamps for sending ill-considered articles. 
 My brain has been coined for money to support you 
 two girls in idleness. "When, weary and broken, I ask 
 you to help yourself a little, you smile and say, I 
 can t. " 
 
 "Father," Drosee replies, rapidly and decidedly, 
 "both of your daughters, thanks to the education our 
 Uncle Seaford gave us, are able as they are willing to 
 support themselves. We have desired to do this ; but 
 you have insisted on the semblance of leisurely ease for 
 your family, and Uncle Seaford has added generous 
 arguments. Meanwhile I write, with the best directed 
 
90 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 efforts toward success that 1 can plan. But I am not 
 so foolish as to expect fortune to come at the first beck. 
 I shall succeed," she adds, gravely, lifting the strong, 
 serene face. " < Everything comes to him who waits ; 
 and I have one element of power in me 1 am patient. 
 If I seem never despondent, I do not think to prove 
 myself a sensitive genius by fits of melancholy and 
 despair. I prefer to bear my small woes in silence, 
 and to laugh, for the sake of family comfort, which is 
 surely as dear to me as you could desire." 
 
 Neither Drosee nor Mr. Alwyn feel, as she speaks, 
 that she is sharply contrasting her mental tone with 
 his. Jo would perceive it instantly, if she were pres 
 ent; but Jo is in the kitchen making her father s 
 favorite pudding for dinner. Drosee s swift and 
 pointed summary of their real situation has its effect, 
 however. Mr. Alwyn rises. 
 
 " You justify yourself, as is your wont," he says, 
 in a voice between bluster and tears. " I trust, Drosee, 
 that when it is all too late you may never reproach 
 yourself." 
 
 He enters the house with heavy tread. Drosee sits 
 still and finishes putting the bonnet together with an 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 91 
 
 untroubled air. Success is on its way to her now, 
 little as she counts upon it ; her last venture on the 
 seas, left without a troubled thought to the care of 
 wind and currents, is successful ; Drosee s ship is com 
 ing in, and she sits, unwitting, curving the stem of a 
 rose. 
 
 " Done ?" Jo says, at her side. 
 " Just," Drosee answers, snipping off a thread, 
 and lifting the cream colored trine in her hands she 
 places it daintily on Jo s head, and falls back to admire 
 the effect. Jo s face is a little over-flushed from the 
 heat of the stove ; but she looks bewitching in that re 
 modeled bonnet, and Drosee expresses her satisfaction, 
 Jo prances no other word will express it into the 
 hall, to view herself in a looking-glass, and Drosee 
 gathering up her working materials, is about to follow, 
 when she hears a step on the front piazza, and rising, 
 meets her only cousin, Louis Seaford. 
 
 "Embrace me, Drosee!" cries the young man, 
 laughingly. " I came to bring you the news from 
 New York. Your book is to be brought out, and the 
 publishers have come down handsomely." 
 
 Drosee s blue eyes fill with sudden radiance ; then. 
 
92 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 with an otherwise serene, unstartled appearance, she 
 takes her cousin s hand, lifts her delicate face, and re 
 ceives from him a brotherly salute. 
 
 " It is very kind of you to come yourself, Louis," 
 she says, with friendly warmth. 
 
 "Oh, very kind!" he replies, mockingly. "I al 
 ways was too good natured ; I can t help feeling anx 
 ious to make any little sacrifice to please you girls. 
 Jo is alive ? " 
 
 Sans bonnet, Jo conies to greet him just now, and 
 opens her lips to say : 
 
 " Will you be good enough to talk quick ?" In 
 the midst of which query she is unceremoniously 
 kissed. She draws back ; but her eyes dance, her color 
 deepens, and she looks twice as much excited as 
 Drosee, entirely saving her the trouble of asking ques 
 tions. Louis answers in his. own way, but his answers 
 are so gratifying, the facts so promising, that Jo an 
 nounces that she considers Drosee s future eminence 
 assured ; and laughs and chats away in a rapture, 
 which would be laughable if it were not so unselfish 
 and so sweet ; finally dancing off the piazza and round 
 
STIIAWS IN THE WIND. 93 
 
 to the back door to tell the faithful Jemima, and to see 
 about bringing the dinner to the table. 
 No one thinks of Mr. Alwyn just now ! 
 When Jo had gone, Louis asked carelessly : 
 " I think one of you girls has a birthday to-morrow. 
 Which is it, Drosee ?" 
 
 " It is Jo s ; my birthday is past long ago." 
 " Then it must be nearly here again ! At any rate, 
 1 had an idea it was one of you, maybe both ; / don t 
 wish to be partial," jesting to cover some nervousness. 
 " I ve brought you a birthday present apiece, my dear, 
 and will you please give hers to Josephus Appleblos- 
 som ?" 
 
 "But you must stay all night, Louis!" 
 " Yes, if you ll let me ; but do you give the things 
 to Jo, please." 
 
 The u tilings" turned out to be gloves of various 
 dainty shades and numerous buttons ; and as Drosee 
 unhesitatingly rejoiced in her share, and herself handed 
 Jo s to her, my Lady Appleblossom, who sometimes re 
 fused the presents Louis was prone to offer her, thanked 
 him graciously, and took the gloves. 
 
 " Mrs. Johns little pug nearly chewed up one of 
 
94 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER 
 
 my very last pair," she said, frankly, the next morning, 
 displaying the mangled remains, which she pulled out 
 of a drawer in a parlor table. " Look, Louis !" 
 
 Louis looked at the dimple in her cheek, appar 
 ently. 
 
 "You re a perfect raven in the wilderness," Jo 
 pursued, thawing entirely. 
 
 " Your compliments have a flavor to which I am all 
 unused," said Louis, laughing. " Try me with another, 
 do, Josephus !" 
 
 Then he hunted about for his hat, and surreptitious 
 ly possessed himself of the mangled glove, kissed 
 Drosee s cheek, and Jo s hand, and went back to the 
 
 city and his desk in his father s office. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The news that Miss Alwyn had a novel in press 
 went about Fairvalley in a very brief space of time. 
 Mr. Alwyn was not the slowest to announce it. He 
 was noisily proud of Drosee, and oppressively affection 
 ate both in public and in private. He went up to 
 spend an evening at the Statham House to play whist 
 with other lovers of the game ; and obtrusively in 
 formed his acquaintance how his care and tact had de- 
 
STBAWS IN THE WIND. 95 
 
 veloped his daughter s "genius." Statements of his 
 came back to Drosee sooner or later. Probably they 
 tried her soul ; but she had learned much self-control ; 
 she showed no heat, no confusion, no distress. 
 
 Dr. Stark and Wilmer both congratulated her on 
 the prospects of her book, and prophesied kindly con 
 cerning it. She received such remarks with a manner 
 which led Wilmer to quote to Dr. Stark the well-worn 
 line of Pope s : 
 
 " Graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride," 
 
 and then to frown slightly, when Dr. Stark completed 
 the couplet, as they walked alone towards their hotel. 
 Her modesty and candor at this time, when she was re 
 ceiving a premature applause from her acquaintance, 
 strikes her friend, Mrs. Fielding, with a fresh admira 
 tion for her. 
 
 " From her manner you would never think of her 
 as an aspiring blue-stocking, or anything at all remark 
 able," she says to Wilmer. " She seems just like any 
 other girl, does she not ?" 
 
 " She seems unlike any other woman I have ever 
 known," Wilmer replies, with gravity. " Pardon me ; 
 
06 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 I know what you mean. She is not at all preten 
 tious." 
 
 "Not uplifted superior formidable in any way," 
 
 Fanny amends. 
 
 Wilmer answers by a doubting lift of the eye 
 brow. 
 
 " What do you mean?" Mrs. Fielding insists. 
 
 "She is extremely formidable to me," he says. 
 His look puzzles his cousin ; but he gives her a chance 
 for 110 more questions, and habitually evades all dis 
 cussion of the " fair philosopher." 
 
 But not every one speaks so highly of Miss Al- 
 wyn s approachability as her friend indicates. Mrs. 
 Geoffrey Howard, the great lady of Trinity Church, 
 and her married daughter, Mrs. Estwick, who sings in 
 its choir lately, and superintends her husband s super 
 intendence of the Sunday-school, accept the Misses Al- 
 wyn as members of their church now, for they go reg 
 ularly to hear Dr. Dampfyle, whose cogent reasoning, 
 philosophical tendencies, and pure moral teaching more 
 than satisfy them as listeners ; and these two ladies call 
 upon Drosee and Jo, and desire their assistance in 
 teaching classes. 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 97 
 
 " Have you ever taught in Sunday-school, Miss Al- 
 wyn ?" Mrs. Howard has asked. Mrs. Howard is still 
 beautiful at fifty -five ; her complexion is fresh and del 
 icate, her snow-white hair is exquisitely arranged, and 
 her severe but perfect profile is like that of some del 
 icate cameo. She turns her fair face full on Drosee, 
 who notes the beauty and the flash of the diamonds in 
 the fine, small ear- tips with a ready admiration of so 
 much cold splendor. 
 
 " Yes, I once taught a class," Drosee replies. " I 
 was younger than I am now, and thought that I knew 
 much more. I cannot venture to teach now ; I am too 
 busy learning." 
 
 " You would have only the plainest kind of work 
 in our school," Mrs. Estwick says, quickly ; she is vol 
 uble, ready, and of coarser clay than her beautiful 
 mother. "The catechism and lesson-books are all 
 printed, ready to your hand ; surely there is no need of 
 much talent or scope for individuality in this," she adds, 
 with a kind of prompt spitefulness too familiar to this 
 young matron s lip. 
 
 " I do not mind taking a class," Jo says, abruptly. 
 
98 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " I rather like it. I am used to it. Can you give me 
 some to begin on next Sunday ?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed," Mrs. Estwick answers, diverted 
 from Drosee an instant by Jo s gallant sally, but re 
 turning to the charge at once. " Cannot you agree to 
 teach catechism, Miss Alwyn?" 
 
 " I cannot teach at all, Mrs. Estwick," Drosee says, 
 with decision. And then " for our sins," as Jo says, 
 the door opens, and Mr. Alwyn enters . The ladies are 
 not particularly overjoyed at his advent, for he is an 
 egotist so abandoned as to acknowledge feminine 
 charms but slightly, and Mrs. Howard s sensitive nose 
 scents strong tobacco from afar. But they are forced 
 to listen to his flow of conversation for a time. He 
 lifts his eyebrows loftily on learning of Jo s promise. 
 
 " I leave my daughters quite free in these matters 
 quite free," he observes, patronizingly. "I never 
 go to church myself. I can t without criticizing ; my 
 critical faculties are natural to me, and practiced by a 
 long literary career. I never hear a sermon that 
 doesn t offend me ; I always want to re-write it and 
 touch it with a little novelty and common sense. And 
 Drosee resembles me. Stark says you have heard 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 99 
 
 of Dr. Stark? that she has a strikingly analytical 
 mind. lie thinks great things of my daughter." 
 
 " Dr. Stark is an atheist, I believe," Mrs. Howard 
 says, slowly. "One must admire his abilities, but it is 
 with a shudder I think of his responsibilities. I hope 
 Miss Alwyn is not under his influence." 
 
 " Dr. Stark is not an atheist," Miss Alwyn says, 
 calmly, " and I am proud to consider him my friend. 
 I wish I could have obliged you, Mrs. Estwick," as 
 the ladies rise ; " I would be glad to prove my affection 
 for the church in which I have been bred, by serving 
 it in any way but not all of us have the gift of teach- 
 ing." 
 
 " Ask her to sing in your choir," Mrs. Fielding says, 
 when Mrs. Estwick narrates this conversation to 
 Drosee s friend, not for the first time in their round of 
 visits on that day. " She will be a great acquisition to 
 you in that way. Isn t Jo Alwyn a lovely girl ? Mr. 
 Alwyn now, I beg Mrs. Estwick, that you won t think 
 anything he says worth remembering. He is a man 
 who has attained a certain position, of course," Fanny 
 throws in, with a vague touch of grandeur, " but then, 
 people of that ilk are always uttering unconsidered 
 
100 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 trifles. Drosee will sing in your choir, if you ask her, 
 no doubt. I only wish she could be in ours. But 
 Trinity is so near her, and of course I understand her 
 choice." 
 
 "But is it true that Dr. Stark and these young 
 ladies, and one or two more, have formed a secret 
 society, and refuse admission to all applicants ?" Mrs. 
 Howard asks. " I have heard that every member of 
 the society is a skeptic, and that they discuss German 
 metaphysics and modern infidelity con amore amongst 
 them." 
 
 " I beg to say that / am a member of that club," 
 Mrs. Fielding says, with great dignity. " I am a church 
 woman in good standing, I hope. The club is confined 
 to a few members of studious tastes, and discusses 
 everything in a liberal spirit. I have some curiosity to 
 know who so distorted an account of it." 
 
 But this she did not learn. 
 
 The summer went on, July and August of it 
 being intolerably hot. It was the Centennial summer, 
 and excursions went over to Philadelphia from Fair 
 valley often. Otherwise the little town remained un- 
 usually quiet, and Mrs. Fielding gave none of her usual 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 101 
 
 garden parties during the season. She was enjoying 
 the rare luxury of the society of a congenial few, and 
 attempting the role of a match-maker for her favorite 
 Drosee. And her club and her companions became 
 obnoxious to Fairvalley society, ignored and left out. 
 
 Much of the idle talk that floated about was due to 
 Mr. Bell, an inveterate gossip, and unconsciously ir 
 ritated against the young women, who had begun to 
 be noticeable members of the rival parish for Drosee 
 had really begun to sing in the choir when Jo took up 
 her labors in Sunday-school he allowed himself to 
 make ill-natured and petty criticisms and remarks upon 
 them. He perhaps never realized how much he was to 
 blame for the rise of the gossip against which he had 
 himself warned the woman whom he believed he loved. 
 
 Our fair philosopher was walking with unswerving 
 feet a narrow ledge between popularity and hatred, ad 
 miration and envy, praise and calumny. And what 
 philosophy will be a perfect defensive armor for a fair 
 and young woman against all the darts of vanity or of 
 scorn? 
 
 One afternoon in July Drosee Alwyn sat by an open 
 window, her elbow on the sill, her forehead on her 
 
102 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 hand, and a book open on her knee. She was reading 
 intently, and unconsciously twisting on a finger of the 
 hand which held open her book a skein of fine crimson 
 worsted which she had picked up in her room when she 
 brought from it the book which now absorbed her. It 
 was Prof. Draper s " History of the Conflict between 
 Religion and Science," and this Drosee was reading 
 more earnestly, more unweariedly, than most women a 
 new novel. As she read, every now and then pausing 
 to reflect over and re-read passages which stirred her, 
 she sometimes broke off a bit of the gay worsted, and 
 laid it between the leaves of her book. A fine, ragged 
 edge of these impromptu marks showed her progress 
 through the work. It was one of Drosee s methods of 
 study ; she had as many methods as moods. Her mind 
 was very quick and active, and study was to her de 
 light and not weariness. She readily grasped the 
 meaning of her author, and followed fast and far the 
 reasoning or the facts before her ; but she always re 
 read and collated in her own fashion the most striking 
 passages of works she so rapidly and fearlessly read ; 
 thus grasping a clear, assured and general idea of what 
 she had been over. Her fine memory was often re- 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 103 
 
 marked upon; and it was due to this careful, self- 
 tanglit attention to leading ideas and passages in works 
 like the one before her. The pleasure of understand 
 ing gave her the delight that exercise gives to power ; 
 in hard thinking, her vigorous and growing mind 
 strengthened joyously, as on its natural aliment, just as 
 her gracious heart was fed by opportunity to give 
 pleasure. 
 
 Jemima s heavy step in the hall was quite unheard ; 
 but Jemima put her head in at the door and called her. 
 " There s an old lady come for you in a kerridge," 
 Jemima observed, and went back to her kitchen. 
 
 "Thank you," Drosee said, and glancing out of the 
 window, put her whole skein of worsted in her book, 
 laid her book upon the table, and ran lightly down the 
 two or three piazza steps and out to the gate, all inten 
 sity, all meditation, vanished from her brow and eyes, 
 and an alert and gracious readiness in her look and air. 
 To her surprise, Mr. Alwyn was before her, and stood 
 bareheaded by the carriage step, talking to the ladies 
 within. She had not known of his acquaintance with 
 Mrs. Johns ; but then she immediately reflected that the 
 good lady boarded at the Statham House, whither Mr. 
 
104 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Alwyn frequently repaired to play whist, and doubtless 
 lie had there met her. 
 
 Mrs. Johns, a stout, motherly-looking old lady, 
 rather too tightly encased in her rich brown silk to look 
 entirely at ease, beamed benevolently through her gold- 
 rimmed glasses on Drosee as she advanced ; her full, 
 smooth face, with its rabbit-nose and mouth, was as 
 opulent in kindness as her poppy-wreathed bonnet in 
 color. 
 
 " Come, my dear, and take a little drive with Miss 
 Ball and me, this nice cool evening. Here is my friend, 
 Miss Ball " the other lady bowed " come right along 
 in, and bring your sister, if she would like." 
 
 This was the "prosy old soul" of whom Jo de 
 clared Drosee had made a conquest during her illness. 
 She never would be on formal terms with any one she 
 fancied at all, and calling at Mrs. Fielding s for the first 
 time in her life, to return a visit she owed to Mr. 
 Fielding s acquaintance with her husband, she had 
 chanced to see the convalescent, and from that time had 
 been assiduous in her attentions to her. In spite of 
 her simple ways and occasionally peculiar grammar, she 
 was a true gentlewoman, and Drosee, like a wand of 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 105 
 
 witch-hazel detected the pure fountain hid from view, 
 divined the goodness in the heart of this parvenue, and 
 dared to enjoy her favor. She accepted the invitation 
 to drive for herself, but Jo was spending the day with 
 the Seafords at the Exposition. 
 
 " If you would go now, Mr. Alwyn," Mrs. Johns 
 said, as Drosee went back to the house for hat and gloves, 
 and Mr. Alwyn, for some reason, accepted the invita 
 tion with much readiness. When Drosee came back 
 she found a seat ready for her beside Mrs. Johns, and 
 opposite, with their backs to the horses, sat Miss Ball 
 and her father. The coachman gathered up his reins, 
 and Mrs. Johns beamingly bore away her friends. 
 
 " There s grander scenery, of course, and all that," 
 the good lady observed, gently settling herself in her 
 easy carriage, " but there ain t any country I know that 
 looks as bright and thrifty as it does around here. 
 We re going to take the old Bridge road towards 
 Brakesburg, and I want you to see how pretty and 
 orderly and nice all these little farms about are kept, 
 Miss Drozy. I was brought up not far from here, and I 
 like to come back to the neighborhood in summer time 
 and drive all round the country. You wouldn t know 
 5* 
 
106 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 our old place ; the farm s all cut up, and the new road 
 runs right through the old pasture; the house they ve 
 pulled down, it was getting old in father s time. I love 
 it out here, anyhow. Somehow no air seems so sweet ; 
 and if Mr. Johns thinks he can get along, I mean to 
 stay till every leaf is red before I go back to the city. 
 October s the prime o the year ; you ll be here foi 
 that, and I m real glad of it." 
 
 As she prattled away thus confidingly, there was an 
 apparently agreeable conversation going on between 
 the two opposite. Mr. Alwyn was evidently purposed 
 to " roar softly," but still he was impressed with the 
 idea that he was to play lion, and his companion list 
 ened with a flattering appearance of taking him at his 
 own estimate. 
 
 Drosee noted the appearance of this fourth member 
 of the party without being much impressed. Miss 
 Ball looked about thirty years old, though really older ; 
 she had a handsome, rather Irish face, rich color, curly 
 black hair, short nose, and well-cut mouth and chin. 
 She was dressed in well fitting black, and had a red 
 rose with many leaves in her bonnet of black straw 
 and lace. She had the misfortune of blushing inces- 
 
8 THAWS IN THE WIND. 107 
 
 santly, in a juvenile and embarrassed manner, when 
 ever pleased or interested; and yet, though her face 
 lacked a certain look of refinement that marks a well- 
 bred woman, it was not unattractive, being good- 
 humored and honest. She was known to Mr. Alwyn 
 as a distant relative of Mrs. Johns ; with a very small 
 independent income, and occupying the position of 
 " companion " to her wealthy cousin. She had read 
 all of Mr. Alwyn s books one before she met him 
 and every other one since and felt a kind of awed 
 delight in the notice of " an author." 
 
 The party was driving by a broad stone fence be 
 yond which they caught a glimpse of a more neglected 
 place than any other which they had passed, an old- 
 fashioned farm-house just glimmering through the 
 trees, when Mr. Alwyn suddenly addressed his 
 daughter. 
 
 "Drosee, that was the old homestead of your 
 mother s family." 
 
 A flash of the most vivid expression of surprise 
 that had passed over Drosee s face in many a long day 
 revealed itself to those who looked at her. She col 
 ored, and her eyes expressed displeasure for an instant. 
 
108 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Her father, with all his garrulity, had not named her 
 mother in DroseVs presence for years. Why should 
 he so noticeahly have named her in the presence of 
 strangers ? 
 
 But the flash went as it came, and a softer look 
 shone in Drosee s eyes as, without reply, she looked 
 earnestly at the old house they were passing. 
 
 " You knew that your mother was born near 
 here ?" Mr. Alwyn asked, with a persistent following 
 up of his first move. 
 
 Drosee did not look at him, but at the passing trees. 
 Her face said absolutely nothing. Her lips said : 
 
 " I knew that she was a native of this county." 
 
 " Was your mother Emily Windham ?" inquired 
 Mrs. Johns, laying her hand on Drosee s arm. " Well, 
 I never ! Why, I never did hear who Miss Em mar 
 ried ! Was it you ?" to Mr. Alwyn. 
 
 " She was my wife," Mr. Alwyn said, with an air 
 indicative of mingled pride and grief. 
 
 Mrs. Johns lowered her voice. 
 
 " And is she dead, then ? She was younger than 
 me ! And such a beautiful creature ! Oh, it is her 
 eyes you have got, my dear !" suddenly caressing Dro- 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. 109 
 
 see s small, cold hand. " Not the color, but the look. 
 I wish you would tell me a little." 
 
 But Drosee s gentian-blue eyes looked with a pite 
 ous sorrow into her questioner s. 
 
 " I cannot bear to speak of my dear mother, Mrs. 
 Johns. I I want her yet !" And then she turned 
 away a little. 
 
 Mr. Alwyn flushed to the deepest red, but Mrs. 
 Johns, still pressing Drosee s hand, changed the con 
 versation hastily by asking : 
 
 " What kind of trees are the best for shade, Mr. 
 Alwyn ?" And as he had an opinion on every subject, 
 his reply \vas prompt, and long-winded. 
 
 Before the subject of trees was exhausted for Mrs. 
 Johns had some remarks to make about the " ellums " 
 in the yard of her old home, and on other trees in par 
 ticular, Miss Ball suddenly called to the coachman to 
 stop, and beaming with excited blushes, explained that 
 they had passed a bed of the very ferns she wanted, 
 growing in that wet spot. 
 
 u Mayn t I go get some ?" she asked of Mrs. Johns ; 
 and, of course, receiving consent, Miss Ball opened the 
 carriage door and was about to hastily descend, when 
 
110 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Mr. Alwyn stepped past her and out into the road, and 
 then, bowing, offered his hand to help her to alight. 
 
 As he did so, with a manner more graceful and 
 courtly than any his daughter had seen him wear, and 
 as the sunlight smote his dark, but silver-threaded 
 curls and handsome ruddy cheek, it glanced through 
 Drosee s mind that after all her father must have been 
 once was still, some people said an eminently hand 
 some man ; and the reason of her mother s early love 
 for him, formerly undiscerned by her, flashed across 
 her. He was basely selfish, he was unreliable, vain, a 
 thorough egotist ; but he had possessed a handsome 
 presence and attractive manners in his youth, very like. 
 Ah, well! 
 
 Mr. Alwyn had accompanied Miss Ball back to the 
 bed of ferns. The horses stood quietly, and Mrs. 
 Johns waited placidly for their return. She talked on 
 to Drosee of indifferent matters in a friendly tone. 
 Drosee at last rose a little in the carriage and looked to 
 see if the absentees were returning. Mr. Alwyn was 
 giving his companion a little bunch of small ferns. 
 Their hands were meeting were lingering were ap 
 parently clasped together, and they looked at each 
 
STRAWS IN THE WIND. Ill 
 
 other. Drosee started had she spoken aloud, or only 
 thought the exclamation, "But my mother is not 
 dead!" She looked with startled eyes at her com 
 panion. 
 
 " Did I did you speak ?" 
 
 " What s the matter ? I said the cows did it ain t 
 they coming?" referring not to the cows, but the 
 couple in the road. 
 
 Yes, they were coming now, rather rapidly, and 
 walking apart from each other. Miss Ball had a vivid 
 color but of course it was from the exertion and 
 Drosee was as self-possessed as ever, and talked as 
 smoothly, while inwardly rejoicing that she had not 
 thought aloud just now. Her mother w r as dead to all 
 the world but that which knew her truly. Drosee re 
 flected, and asked a question. 
 
 " Do you play whist, Mrs. Johns ?" she inquired, 
 before she left that good lady. 
 
 " Not often, dear sometimes, to make up the game 
 for Mr. Johns. He plays. And Miss Ball she plays 
 very well, too." 
 
 Drosee bowed with gentle and not unkindly gravity 
 to Miss Ball, when the carriage stopped at the gate of 
 
112 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 the cottage. But she did not shake hands with her, 
 though submissively receiving the kiss Mrs. Johns be 
 stowed on her. 
 
 Mr. Alwyn rode on with the ladies to the Statharn 
 House. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 DKOSEE S JOURNAL. 
 
 " But Thelymnia! our lives are truly at an end when we 
 are beloved no longer. Existence may be continued, or rather 
 may be renewed, yet the agonies of death and chilliness of the 
 grave have been passed through ; nor are there Elysian fields, 
 nor the sports that delighted us in former times awaiting us; nor 
 pleasant converse, nor walks with linked hands ... nor 
 looks that shake us to reassure us afterwards, nor that bland in 
 quietude, as gently tremulous as the expansion of buds into 
 blossoms, which hurries us from repose to action and from 
 action to repose. O! I have been very near loving! cried 
 Thelymnia. Where in the world can a philosopher have 
 earned all this about it ? " W. S. LANDOR. 
 
 THE story of tlic next few weeks is best written by 
 
 Drosee s pen. 
 
 " 20th July. 
 
 " In tins book, which is less the journal of my in 
 dividual emotions and actions than a picture-book for 
 me of persons and places which successively impress 
 me, I ought to make some pen-and-ink sketches of the 
 
 people I met a few days ago at Mrs. Howard s evening 
 
 [110] 
 
114 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 party. It was a gathering in honor of Miss Sands, a 
 niece of Mrs. Howard s, who is visiting her. Miss 
 Sands herself is blonde, fluent and superior, is very 
 rich, and very well educated ; names all the foreign 
 cities she has visited with the foreign names. Dr. 
 Stark accuses her of Fireme, but I did not hear that. 
 In fact, I did not see very much of her : I left those 
 two discussing the Hegelian philosophy, and went 
 away with a Mr. Keene. There were a great many 
 men there, but nobody worth specially sketching, 
 though I talked with a great majority of them, it seems 
 to me. There was a Mrs. Lawrence I was thrown with 
 for awhile a wiry, sallow, tall, short-haired lady, a 
 visitor here, who has a nimble tongue and a quick wit, 
 and paints wild-flowers exquisitely, I am told. There 
 was a Mrs. Gage, who dresses magnificently, and is rude 
 till you wonder at a person so constituted ; but even to 
 wonder is to pay too much attention to the disagreeable. 
 I met Mrs. Estwick s husband an absurd phrase ! 
 but he simply impressed me as such, being much older 
 than she, tall, portly, and gallant, and evidently much 
 admired by her; her eyes followed his every move 
 ment, and she ceased her conversation when we came 
 
DRO8E&8 JOURNAL. 115 
 
 near her in promenading, and finally, when I had 
 worsted him in some trifling argument, she, who had 
 just joined us, answered some slight raillery which he 
 received very graciously with an appearance of resent 
 ment and annoyance! Dr. Stark took me away then, 
 and talked about Miss Sands until I was vexed at him, 
 and at myself for listening. 
 
 " The chief thing I want to write down is a scrap of 
 conversation with Mr. Wilmer that night alas ! if I 
 could but catch his inimitable manner of saying things ! 
 
 " We were in that lovely little glen which I see I 
 have not described! "Well, it is in the rear of that 
 large and stately house of the Howards that there is a 
 glen whose artificial nature is disguised by time ; tall 
 and slender young trees have grown up upon the side 
 of the small ravine, a view of which is commanded by 
 a rustic arbor at the starting-point of the paths which 
 lead down its terraced descents. In the depths of this 
 glen lies a little lake, long and narrow, spanned by a 
 rustic bridge with seats on either side ; and in the 
 lake s farther end a fountain springs in a slender wind- 
 tossed jot, whose spray wets the light leaves of the 
 young and whispering trees. The spot is so beautiful 
 
116 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 as to quite justify the owner s pride in it. On the, 
 night of this party a row of Chinese lanterns lit its 
 darkest recess, but where we sat, on the bridge, we saw 
 the moon, rising, send her yellow splendor through the 
 trees, quivering on limb and leaf. I remember draw 
 ing my white shawl about me, as we sat there, and Mr. 
 Wilmer s asking if I was cold ; to which I replied no, 
 quite comfortable ; adding that I thought only the rheu 
 matic were excusable for preferring the parlors to the 
 glen ; when he observed : 
 
 " I once had a fearful experience with the rheuma 
 tism. 
 
 " f You ? I asked, hardly ready to believe my ears if 
 Mr. Wilmer was about to become that hateful thing, a 
 man who narrates his physical distresses. 
 
 " < Yes ; with a room-mate at college. 
 
 " 1 knew he was going to say something amusing, 
 in his solemn manner. And this room-mate f 
 
 " < "Well, he suffered from it acutely every night for 
 about two weeks, Mr, "Wilmer said, in that fine, de 
 liberate, dreamy tone, always apparently unaware of 
 making any comic turns. It didn t seem to bother 
 him much in the day-time, you know, he could swear 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 117 
 
 at the servant boy, then, or indulge in any like friend 
 ly passages wit h any wandering comrade for he was 
 very profane and this seemed to lighten his mind and 
 cheer him. I used to wonder at the pleasant effect 
 it had on him. But let midnight come, and with it a 
 search after rest from the toils of Alcestis or Calculus, 
 and then, amid the quiet darkness, upon the verge of 
 grateful slumber, back would I be recalled by the most 
 piteous and unearthly yells ! For the first two or three 
 nights I used to rise, and mix him up a dose of turpen 
 tine, and camphor, arid borax, and mildly urge him to 
 swallow it ; I used to tell him it would certainly do 
 one of us good, you know ; but the suggestion always 
 appeared too grim to him, and I believed that he pre 
 ferred to howl anyway, for he wouldn t take it ! 
 
 "I was convulsed with laughter, but he went on, 
 musingly : 
 
 " After that I used to lie awake and listen to him 
 whoop because it was interesting to listen ; nothing 
 could have been more so, though some things might 
 have been more agreeable and I used to marvel at 
 the capabilities of his lungs, and wonder if they were 
 always so powerful, and if his parents were yet alive, 
 
118 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 or Lad died when he was an infant ; and if so, whether 
 he was too young at the time to remember if they for 
 gave him on their death-beds, but said they were will 
 ing to die perfectly willing ! Yes, I used to ponder 
 over these things, and occasionally I d howl a little 
 myself to keep him company, or heave a chair over in 
 his direction to divert his mind and let him know I 
 was thinking about him. 
 
 " 24th July. 
 
 "Dr. Stark was here alone this afternoon. He 
 surprised me by telling me that Mrs. Estwick, who is 
 an unamiable woman, was my special enemy. I do 
 not know how I can have offended her, unless it is 
 that I sing most of the solos in the choir, and the 
 organist prefers my voice rather too frankly. Her 
 husband joined me on the street, day before yesterday, 
 walking home from the depot, and he talked to me 
 with apparent cordiality. Dr. Stark could not or 
 would not explain. However, I should not deeply 
 consider such trifles, and never ought to. record personal 
 annoyances. I should not have thought of it twice 
 had any other friend wiirned me ; but shall obey hi 
 in being careful in all my intercourse with her. 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 119 
 
 "25th July. 
 
 "Fanny Fielding is a warm-hearted, impulsive 
 woman. It is two years now that we have been 
 friends. I have studied, loved, pitied her. I believe 
 few people knew her at all. Her husband s intemper 
 ate habits are known to very few, and her struggles to 
 rescue him to fewer. This task is all the harder for 
 her because she married him without duly loving him. 
 She treated him very coldly when they were first mar 
 riedhe loved her then, devotedly. But of late years 
 she has tried to win him back, and bears everything 
 beautifully. With those bonny brave brown eyes of 
 hers, she looks the world in the face boldly, serene, 
 smiling, and apparently without a care. Her husband 
 is a man of influence and wealth ; and as he walks up 
 the church aisle on Sundays, tall, with bent gray head 
 and reverent air, he looks the dignified and decorous 
 gentleman. He passes the plate with an inimitable 
 grace, and people drop in their small sontributions 
 shamefacedly, feeling that he who holds the plate 
 could double the sum total of all their alms without 
 ever feeling it, I went to church with Fanny last 
 Sunday, and sang a duet with her during the offertory. 
 
120 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Mr. Bell came up to us as we were getting into the 
 carriage, and graciously said that it was beautiful, and 
 that lie wished I would join his choir ! Trinity Church 
 is closed for the present, and undergoing some slight 
 repairs as few as possible, for they will build again 
 next spring. 
 
 " Fanny told me to-day, with a mixture of candor 
 and reserve which is one of her mostpiquante charms, 
 of her condition and her hope of good through it. In 
 the second year of her marriage she became a mother, 
 and her husband was passionately attached to the child, 
 who died. Henry is devoted to children notices 
 every baby we pass on the street, she said. He will 
 be another man when he has one of his own to care 
 for, she added, softly. I hope he will ! He is at least 
 more attentive to her of late ; and she may redeem the 
 old error in the day of new joy and pain. Heaven 
 help her ! 
 
 " 27th July. 
 
 " Mr. Wilmer is wonderful to me. I admire his 
 ways of saying things. The other day he said, dryly, 
 after some mocking speech of Jo s she was chaffing 
 Louis What an exquisite blending of fact and fiction 
 
DRO SEE S JOURNAL. 121 
 
 a woman is ! In her extremes are met and, with a 
 quizzical smile, by her men are driven in extremis / 
 
 " lie and Dr. Stark, last night, were talking of the 
 wide harm done by evil-speaking. Dr. Stark is some 
 times satirical, but I never saw a man detest gossip 
 more. Mr. Wilmer said carelessly : 
 
 " A man may very well afford to let others make 
 remarks about him, but he cannot afford to make re 
 marks about himself. It were better to have two men 
 speak ill of me than to speak well of myself once. 
 
 " There is a rare clearness and serenity of judgment 
 displayed in many of his chance sayings. I had rather 
 have this man, young as he is, to be my friend, than 
 any I ever knew, old or young. 
 
 " August 1st. 
 
 " If he is as wise as he seems to me to be, how can 
 any one help marveling at this friend of mine? I 
 have never found so young a man very interesting, be 
 fore. I copy these things from a note-book he used to 
 carry : 
 
 " To a truly great man compliments are worthless ; 
 flattery and adulation the emptiness of folly. They 
 may move him an instant; but his o\vn capacity to be 
 
122 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 moved by them he recognizes as a weakness, and must 
 deplore. 
 
 " < I have seen men of genius lose their influence and 
 become contemptible, aud finally doubt and despise 
 themselves, for the want of exercising judgment in 
 their actions trying to make opportunities to display 
 themselves. If one will only pursue his business 
 quietly, prosecute his studies diligently, never expend 
 his fire on false alarms, but be observant without talking 
 too much, opportunities frequently enough present 
 themselves, without one s forever trying to drag them 
 up by the locks ! Nor need a man be afraid of not 
 realizing that he has an opportunity ; for the fitness of 
 things will impress him so strongly that he cannot 
 mistake it, and if he has prepared himself for action by 
 study and reflection he will find himself abreast with 
 the occasion. But one should ever feel the necessity of 
 being unobtrusive ! It is the very negative essential of 
 positive influence. 
 
 " How different is he from my poor father ! I could 
 love him for those last two sentences ! 
 
 " Here are a few vigorous lines whose enthusiasm 
 
 o 
 
 stirs me (he is writing of Daniel Webster) : 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 123 
 
 " * In the subtleties of metaphysics Calhoun was his 
 superior ; in that genial and hearty eloquence which at 
 once captivates and delights us, Henry Clay was his 
 master ; in fiery and vehement partisanship ITaync 
 surpassed him ; but in dignity of port, in magnanimity, 
 in loftiness of purpose and sublimity of imagination, no 
 man was ever his equal except Socrates! Calhoun 
 appealed to the understanding of men, and was their 
 instructor Clay appealed to their hearts, and he was 
 their idol Hayne appealed to their passions, and he 
 was their leader ; but Webster appealed to their imagi 
 nation, and he was their hero 1 
 
 " Every fact contains a truth. Facts are varied ; 
 truth is always the same. Facts are forms in which 
 ith doth express itself. Facts are new ; truth is old 
 older than the hills, or the earth, or the sun ! It ante 
 dates chaos, and is coeval with divinity, whose attribute 
 it is! 
 
 " I have seen in the calm attention of his eyes as he 
 patiently considered some apparently trifling things, 
 .that very thought, Every fact contains a truth. 
 
 " And and I wonder if he has ever met his ideal 
 woman ? I read : 
 
124 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " O ideal woman, thou art clothed with modesty as 
 with a garment ! It is an atmosphere about thee, as 
 the lambent summer air lit by the evening star. Thou 
 hast it as a flower its sweet perfume as the rose its 
 wondrous odor, or the violet its dreamy scent. It is a 
 principle of grace that speaks in all thy actions : that fires 
 the blush that burns upon thy cheek, and draws about 
 thy softest glances the fringed curtains of the eyes. 
 
 " I will copy no more to night. 
 
 " It was a great confidence in him to intrust this book 
 to me. People sometimes do trust me strangely. 
 
 " I wonder if he would tell me if he has ever been 
 in love ? 
 
 " 2d August. 
 
 " The book has told me. In a little side pocket of 
 it I found some leaves cut out from the body of its 
 pages, as if to throw them away ; and then, as if re 
 penting of the intention to bestow a half-confidence, 
 they are put back again into this little place at the side. 
 Across the outside leaf is scrawled a line of Swinb irne s 
 this : 
 
 " * Time turns the old days to derision. 7 > 
 
DUO SEE S JOURNAL. 125 
 
 Within are verses. Their orderly connection is 
 more recent than the poems, and their title, as a whole, 
 is newly written. As they stand, they are five little 
 poems called 
 
 A LOVER S MOODS. 
 
 " Like sunshine enter, O bright Love, my mind, 
 Gloomy and dark as caverns of the wind; 
 There shall what gems soever thou may st lighfc 
 Resplendent in thy presence flash so bright, 
 That all the world, though it be lit by me, 
 Still for the cause shall ever turn to thee ! 
 
 Charming ! she was to be his inspiration, thenf 
 
 IT. 
 
 " My soul is a lake; 
 
 My love is a star ; 
 When on me divinely 
 
 She shines from far, 
 Calm the lake s surface, 
 
 Serene are its deeps, 
 While round it unheeded 
 
 The dark shade sleeps. 
 
 " * Her message is the zephyr 
 
 With sweetest perfume fraught; 
 Her smile the softest radiance 
 Upon its surface caught. 
 
126 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 The day withdraws too slowly, 
 
 But in its fading light 
 The lake glows, longing only 
 
 For shadow, silence, night I 
 
 " Break forth in thy beauty, 
 
 O radiant star! 
 Kest, rest on my bosom 
 
 Thy smile from afar. 
 Sweet the wave s ripplings wake, 
 
 Joyous and low 
 When lit with thy brightness 
 
 Its murmuring flow ! 
 
 There s music and fancy in this : but was it love ? 
 
 in. 
 
 " * By me, I ll swear, nor ode, nor verse, 
 
 Henceforth shall woman s charms rehearse I 
 
 Sapphic odes and metric lays, 
 
 Wreaths of flowers, crowns of bays, 
 
 All honors of poetic art 
 
 Are here discarded by my heart ; 
 
 This song s the last in beauty s praise 
 
 Long life be hers, and happy days. 
 
 What called forth that, I wonder ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 " And yet I know for I have seen 
 How small a space there lies between 
 The memory of some rapturous kiss, 
 And fixed resolves e en such as this I* 
 
DHOSEE S JOURNAL. 127 
 
 Afterthought! But come he has begun to laugh 
 
 at himself, and to name a rapturous kiss lightly 
 
 there is hope for him. 
 
 v. 
 
 " Alas! and who shall say: 
 
 " I ve done with love, 
 Nor tears nor laughter gay 
 
 My mind can move : 
 Nor can all witcheries 
 
 Of coquettish art, 
 Nor beauty s sweetesu treacheries 
 
 Beguile my heart "? 
 Lo ! still rebellious ocean, well I ween, 
 Obedience yields, though to a faithless queen. 
 
 This is very pretty, but I should not like a man to 
 write it of me, were he my lover ! 
 
 "Well ! In glancing back to see if this is correctly 
 copied, I find I have treated these poems in a remark 
 able manner. Pray, Miss Ahvyn, are these literary 
 criticisms so interspersed among these stanzas ? Ah ! 
 Drosee, Drosee, what are you thinking of ? What are 
 you forgetting ? 
 
 " It is impossible. 
 
 " Even if he loved me as he (Joes not impossible. 
 
128 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " August 3d. 
 
 " I have had a strange conversation with Fanny 
 Fielding. I shall try to write down all that we said, 
 each of us. 
 
 " Aunt Mary, who has paid her usual summer visit 
 to her father-in-law s country house, has invited one of 
 us girls to go with her to the White Mountains. 
 Uncle Adrian is going, too, and leave Louis to attend 
 to his business alone this year. 
 
 " Jo is going to insist on my accepting it, I said to 
 Fanny. But I don t think I shall, though she says it 
 is my turn. I may, though. 
 
 Then without more ado Fanny Fielding turned 
 abruptly to me and said : 
 
 " i Drosee, what are you going to do with Wilmer I 
 T believe that he loves you. I know it ; he told me so 
 long ago. 
 
 " Fanny, said I, lightly, i don t try to be a match 
 maker, dear. You ll spoil the nicest, most comfortable, 
 reliable friend I possess, if you take a notion like that. 
 I won t have it, my dear, and there s an end on t. I 
 won t be made love to do you hear ? 
 
 " * Drosee, she said, with a sadden and unexpected 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 129 
 
 seriousness in her manner, if I believed that you 
 would never marry, I should be the most unhappy 
 woman alive. I should feel that my wicked folly had 
 spoiled your life ; that I had broken your one dream, 
 and that you 
 
 " < Hush ! I said. If I had truly loved my fiance, 
 do you think that I could not have forgiven him ? I 
 could forgive anything to a man who had entirely 
 won me ! He told me a falsehood about his former 
 engagement to you; he paid you, when a married 
 woman, attentions which might possibly have com- 
 promised you ; he was cruel to you and false to me 
 but what of that f if I had loved him / 
 
 " He was the most elegant and captivating gentle 
 man I have ever known, Fanny slowly said. / know 
 how charmingly he can befool both girl and woman ! 
 When I was engaged to him well, I have never loved 
 since as I did then, and though he left me, and I mar 
 ried Henry in a fit of pique, and tried to forget him, 
 his memory haunted me through nearly fifteen years, 
 and until two years ago he was never truly wrenched 
 from my heart. And you, whom he truly loved you 
 
 did not love him at all ? It is hard to believe ! 
 6* 
 
J30 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " i I can scarcely understand my own conduct, I re 
 plied to her. < I did admire him ; I believed him good 
 and refined ; he was rich, he was handsome, he had 
 ready and graceful manners; I admit all that. He 
 seemed to me the best of our circle, and was considered 
 a catch, a little elderly, fastidious, and difficult. Of 
 course his devotion, which made a belle of me, flat 
 tered me immensely. The worst of it is, you know, 
 that girls like to have things happen. I had made up 
 my mind then to love and be married some day ; and 
 with this foreordained and expected, I mistook the 
 fluttering of vanity for the flutter of love. I believe 
 that many girls marry on just so shallow and fleeting a 
 fancy, and think that they know what love is ! Thank 
 Heaven, I escaped ! 
 
 " And yet went on this irrational woman, * if 
 you and I had never met at Newport, and you had 
 never heard the gossip about us, and had not, unlike 
 any other woman, taken my part and saved me from 
 myself by the infectious power of your courage and 
 candor if this had not come to pass, my dear, you 
 would be by this time nearly two years married to one 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 131 
 
 of the " ornaments of society," and have queened it as 
 the prettiest and wisest young matron of them all. 
 
 " I think I must have shuddered even as she uttered 
 these last words fondly. 
 
 " I thank heaven I was fair to you, and am a free 
 woman, I said ; i I don t wholly regret that experience, 
 after all, though once I did, bitterly. It has set me to 
 live a more calm and unexpectant life, looking for 
 changes from within, not without. But I am thankful 
 to believe that Jo will never go through this. If she 
 once falls in love, it will be for once and all, for life or 
 death. I shall never see her resign herself to a series 
 of " engagements," as other girls have done ; never 
 have her know bless her ! the cheap, the " handled," 
 the light feeling of a woman who has been gracious to 
 more than one lover ! 
 
 " Drosee, I am not thinking of Jo s future love- 
 affairs, Fanny broke in, impetuously, ( I am thinking 
 of yours ! You have made one mistake 
 
 " ( And I shall not repeat it ! I said, hotly, smarting 
 yet with the revived sting of that old hurt, never 
 name me " love " again ! 
 
132 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER 
 
 " And it was not until after I left her that I began 
 to realize what she had told me. 
 
 " She had no right to betray his confidence in order 
 to gratify herself. It was unjust to him to tell me he 
 had said that. 
 
 " He has given me no sign of loving me. He is 
 proud and reserved, and he would never offer his love 
 to a woman whose heart he knew so little. Our ac 
 quaintance has had in it little of the sentimental. He 
 is apparently as likely to be Jo s lover as mine. 
 
 "But he is wonderful! He makes me happier, 
 clearer-headed, more high-minded, more sincere, by his 
 very presence. I would be a better woman with him 
 than without him. 
 
 " I prefer him to any man I ever knew. I admire 
 and trust him. But do I love him ? 
 
 " I will not if I can help it ! 
 
 "6th August. 
 
 "I have clone a strange thing. Yet not so 
 strange ; for lately we have chanced to be so much 
 together that it is as if we had known each other 
 a long time. But now I have given Mr. Wilmer my 
 confidence as to things I have never named to any 
 
DROSEE JO URNAL. 1 33 
 
 other person since I have been a woman grown. I 
 have told him about my mother. It is a sad and 
 shameful story. I did not doubt but that it was new 
 to him. When I had finished, he said gently, I can 
 never tell you how I appreciate your confiding in me ; 
 some part of this I had indeed heard 
 
 " * It is known even in Fairvalley, then ? I ejacu 
 lated. 
 
 < No do not be disquieted. Your father is gen 
 erally looked upon here as a widower, he said. I did 
 not hear this from any chance gossip. I would not 
 have listened to it from a malicious tongue. 
 
 " It was Fanny, then ? 
 
 " You are not displeased f 
 
 " < Not at all. She is an honest woman P I was 
 glad Fanny had not attempted to make him think well 
 of me in ignorance of our family disaster. 
 
 " It was Fanny, he acknowledged. 
 
 " < And from the first you have known, I began. 
 
 " I have known for some time, he said, with great 
 gentleness, of this loss and grief of yours. It has 
 invested you and your sister with a new sacredness in 
 
134 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 my eyes. Should you think it could do aimlrirg 
 else? 
 
 " His tone, and look, and words moved me strongly. 
 The tears rushed to my eyes. He bent his head, and I 
 felt his lips touch my hand. Then we both started 
 apart ; there were steps in the hall, and in another mo 
 ment Jo came into the parlor. Mr. Wilmer had risen. 
 Dark as he was, he had colored deeply, and looked em 
 barrassed. Jo was all unsuspicious. She said, laugh 
 ingly : 
 
 " It is too bad for you to have started to go just as 
 I came in. I have scarcely seen you lately, Mr. Wil- 
 mer. Sit down again, and tell me what you are going 
 to say about Laudor in your essay don t you wish you 
 were reader instead ? 
 
 " No, for I shall hear your sister read, he said. 
 
 " He staid only a few minutes longer, laughing and 
 talking with Jo. They have become friends enough 
 to quarrel Jo s surest sign of favor. They discourse 
 like children together; and grave and serious as he may 
 be the instant we are alone, when she comes in he is 
 wonderfully transformed, and is like a boy, ready for 
 mischief and nonsense. 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 135 
 
 When be left and all this time he had not once 
 looked me in the face he bowed to us both ; but his 
 face was grave and his eyes lowered when he turned 
 to me. There is something more winning in his 
 silent deference than in another s most eloquent 
 praise. 
 
 " 8th August. 
 
 " Fanny asked me to spend the day with her yester 
 day, and Mr. "Winner was invited to tea. As it was 
 our club night, she ought not to have had two of us 
 to tea and not the other two ; but she is willful, and a 
 transparent little matchmaker. After early tea she 
 soon managed to desert us, we having gone out with 
 her on the lawn. After she had left us, we walked on 
 together, slowly, down the path through the shrubbery, 
 across the little rustic bridge over the smoothly wind 
 ing stream, and over to the shady avenue under the 
 elms. 
 
 " i Had you not some difficulty in selecting a read- 
 ng for to-night V he asked. 
 
 " The embarrassment of riches, I answered. 
 There was a world of fine writing before me, and 
 whether in poetry or prose Landor displays more bril- 
 
136 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 liant, fanciful, and varied powers it is hard enough to 
 tell. 
 
 " You should read more than one selection, he sug 
 gested. Indeed, one is sure to be too short. He is 
 as dainty and light upon the wing as a butterfly, and 
 takes very brief, though sometimes exquisitely loitering, 
 flights. Each color and odor attracts him, and he flut 
 ters past us to another just as we are fascinated in watch 
 ing him hover about one near at hand. 
 
 " This simile the prodigal young man wasted on me ! 
 I listened for it, but heard not a trace of it in the fine 
 essay he read later in the evening ; I answered, 
 
 " And that is why, though he often piques, lie 
 never tires his readers. " As temperate as a butter 
 fly ne deserves George Eliot s graceful phrase. 
 
 " < And so you have selected more than one passage V 
 
 " I lingered lovingly over some of the " imaginary 
 conversations," which were quite long enough; but in 
 a mere one of them he was not sufficiently represented 
 in his variety : I collated some of his Hellenics " Iph- 
 igeneia," and " The Shades of Agamemnon and Iphi- 
 geneia," with the "Death of Clyteinnestra " and the 
 "Madness of Orestes;" I am not sure but I would have 
 
DROSEE^S JOURNAL. 107 
 
 done best to decide on these ; they seem to me the 
 most moving and powerfnl of all his poems. Bnt I de 
 cided at last on some of the letters of Pericles and As- 
 pasia, as showing forth alike wit, tenderness, fancy, 
 and power. When I read them, I hope you will think 
 the choice made with discretion. 
 
 " * I am sure I shall," he said ; l your taste, like your 
 self, is beyond cavil ; beyond praise, I might say, if I 
 dared. to speak my mind. 
 
 " Ho spoke with that air of deliberate reflection and 
 gravity which always flavors his rare compliments, and 
 though they may be extravagant one can scarcely pre 
 sume to laugh at him, so earnest and dignified is he when 
 he thus addresses one. 
 
 " It is in this way he puts me on my good behavior. 
 I feel when I am with Mr. "Wilmer as if I were in the 
 best of good company, and am in much such a mood at 
 times as I should be in if mingling with those I have 
 known and loved in books the wise and fine gentle 
 men of a past time the wits, and statesmen and 
 philosophers, the choice society of Queen Elizabeth s 
 or Queen Anne s reign. The more I compare him 
 
138 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 with other men the more unusual I find him in every 
 way. 
 
 " We went on walking in the avenue and talking for 
 some time. There was nothing which he said or did 
 that was precisely lover-like ; and yet, he could not have 
 said to two women some of the things he has said to me ; 
 and to me, although he is but my friend, he is fast be 
 coming more near and dear than any other. 
 
 " When we were summoned back to the house by a 
 message from Fanny, Dr. Stark had come, but without 
 Jo. He had called for us, but he said that Louis Sca- 
 ford was there, and that Jo had staid at home to 
 entertain him. 
 
 " Mr. Wilmer looked perturbed ; and Dr. Stark, who 
 was talking to me, looked up and said, teasingly : 
 
 " i Are all of us quite unequal to the task of making 
 you forget this disappointment ? 
 
 "Mr. Wilrner did not answer. When he is dis 
 pleased I have noticed that he is immovably silent. 
 
 " The evening passed off pleasantly enough, and 
 when Mr. Wilmer and I, who had agreed to walk home 
 together, started, Dr. Stark naturally joined us. As he 
 called out, 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 139 
 
 " i Hold) Wilmer, I m coming, Mr. Wilmcr said 
 under his breath, As I expected ! But though the 
 frown re- visited his face he responded readily with an 
 apt quotation : 
 
 " Thou canst not come too soon; and I can wait 
 If thou come late. 
 
 " Both left me at the door, and I came up here and 
 have been scribbling ever since. Louis and Jo had 
 left the parlor empty and gone for a walk. There was 
 a note for me on the table by the ice-pitcher, in Aunt 
 Mary s hand. She wants us to decide at once which 
 will go with her, and come up to New York at the end 
 of the week. Jo must go. I do not care for the trip 
 at all. I suppose Louis came down to see about it. It 
 is time those children had returned. When I hear 
 their voices I shall go down-stairs. It is a lovely night 
 for a walk. I should have enjoyed mine more but 
 that is ungrateful to a true and tried old friend ! 
 
 " I must face this matter out sometime. Why not 
 to-night? 
 
 " I will not say that Mr. Wilmer loves me yet. It 
 is perhaps vain in me to think that this rare and 
 
140 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 wonderful man, so strangely compounded of power and 
 gentleness, could ever choose me love me. But it is 
 dishonest in me to deny an influence over him which I 
 feel myself to possess. If I ever tried to please, to con 
 quer, to use those about me, I have usually succeeded. 
 He is stronger, finer, better but he cares for me 
 enough for me to know that he will care for me more, 
 if I will. Dare I ? 
 
 " I am not wicked enough to be willing to hurt him. 
 If I am willing to be loved by him and that indeed 
 I cannot deny that I am ; I would be proud and glad 
 of his love I ought to be willing to give the rein to 
 my own emotions, and to let my love go out to him in 
 return. If I am not willing for this it is the only 
 right and fair and wise thing to do, to recognize possi 
 bilities and leave him to himself. 
 
 "I know that many a woman would shut her eyes, 
 bid chance direct her, and let any man the wiser the 
 better meet his doom, fall a victim to her c modesty 
 and l innocence, so-called to her pride and folly ! 
 
 " I cannot. I always think I always reflect. It is 
 a curse of mine. 
 
 " He is so noble I cannot 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 141 
 
 " I hear voices. I must go ! 
 
 " 9th August. 
 
 " As Mr. Wilmer came by this morning lie stopped 
 and came in. He brought me the latest number of 
 Harper s, in which we are reading Daniel Deronda ; 
 and a single stalk of tuberoses, thickly blooming with 
 those chaste and waxen little lilies whose perfume he 
 knows I delight in. He is obliged to stay in the city 
 to night, he told me. To-morrow night, might he 
 come and hear what 1 thought of this number 2 
 
 "When he had shaken hands and gone I opened the 
 magazine. Daniel Deronda he had read and marked. 
 The first sentence I read therein was this, scored by a 
 ;pencil : < Sometimes, with a sweet irresistible hopeful 
 ness that the very best of human possibilities might 
 befall him the blending of a complete personal love 
 jin one current with a larger duty. He knew, when he 
 jmarked it, that my eye would rest on this. 
 
 " I will wait. My life is no longer my own to make. 
 It is < the very best of all human possibilities, * a com 
 plete personal love if it is offered me by a man who 
 would not hinder but help me to do my duty, live my 
 ife, develop the best of me if, I Kay, it is offered 
 
142 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 me. There is a < sweet, irresistible hopefulness that 
 it may be ! 
 
 " I blush at my own meekness at my own daring. 
 I cannot look myself in the face after writing such 
 words as these. I will write no more ! 
 
 " Night. 
 
 " Oh, I started to put into words what has 
 
 just come to me. But not now. I cannot now ! To 
 morrow I must face it. Oh, Jo, my one little sister ! 
 To-morrow will do to think. To-night I can only feel, 
 and hide what I am feeling ! 
 
 " 10th August. Afternoon. 
 " i Surrender and denial of all that is self. 
 " How often have I set those words before me, and 
 marked with them the height I wished to attain ! 
 How often have I said to myself that all personal and 
 selfish joy is petty, and the end of such anticipations 
 disappointment ? That the only rational life is that of 
 the soul which neither fears nor hopes for its own 
 happiness, but finds virtue enough ? 
 
 " The test of all my theories of life has been ap, 
 plied ; the trial of my deepest philosophy is upon me > 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 143 
 
 Can I deny my personal desires, deny my selfish long 
 ing, and cheerfully become one of the many women 
 who live without deep joys ? 
 
 " To give up happiness surely for Jo s sake I could 
 do that ! But it is not happiness alone I give up with 
 Mr. Wilmer. He does not mean simply joy to me : 
 he means life. The best possible life I could live. 
 His presence is not delight only ; it is thought, anima 
 tion, pure aspiration, love of good, strength against 
 evil. To give him up is to give up some inspiration 
 for soul and spirit, without which I shall never fully 
 live. It is to be an undeveloped nature. He is life ! 
 " I had just begun to know this : to see how he had, 
 by his pure and wise companionship, raised my exist 
 ence to a higher level. I had never fully lived. I 
 i now found there were stirring in me a hundred 
 delicate activities new to me as he. I suppose if I 
 ; were dying I should analyze my sensations ! This is 
 i vain. 
 
 " Jo urged me, before Louis left, to say that I would 
 take the trip Aunt Mary offered to one of us. Louis, 
 too, privately informed me that he thought his mother 
 would rather have me ; but I told him I thought it 
 
144 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 would have to be Jo this time ; I would write to Aun 
 Mary ; and so he left, uncertain. 
 
 " Yesterday afternoon Jo came and stood before me 
 pale and palpitating, but determined. I had neve; 
 seen just such a look on her fair young face. 
 
 " t Drosee ! I wish, seriously and selfishly not t< 
 go away. It is not for your sake I am putting the trij 
 aside. Honestly, I do not want to go. Please make 
 up your mind to that. I am not to be forced to go. 
 
 " I looked at her with astonishment. 
 
 " Forced ? My dear child, I never thought oJ 
 such a thing ! If you don t want to go, you need not 
 But it will be a delightful trip, and I thought you wen 
 refusing it for my sake, with your usual unselfishness; 
 
 " It is not that, said Jo, a little unsteadily. Ther 
 she flung herself on her knees beside me and hid hei 
 face on my breast. 
 
 " I am such a fool I would not have told you i 
 you could only have seen for yourself but I I lik 
 Fair valley and he will be here and not there an 
 here I should be happy, and there I shouldn t ! 
 
 " Jo ! I said, after an instant s pause, and as quiet j 
 as I could, i tell me fairly. Can it be that you love 1 
 
DROSEE- S JOURNAL 145 
 
 There was no need of the name between us. Her arm 
 tightened about my neck, and my heart seemed to 
 break within me, as she spoke. 
 
 " I can t help it ! she said, in a muffled voice. < I 
 have always laughed at him, and quarreled with him, 
 and tried to stave him off in every way. And all the 
 time he was making me love him in spite of myself. 
 And when it comes to choosing between all these weeks 
 with him or without him Drosee, why should I be 
 such a fool as to go and be wretched ? 
 
 "She moved to lift her head, and I stooped hastily 
 and put my cheek against hers, and kissed her, for I 
 could not speak. She lay against my breast, and T 
 looked down at her. There were tears beneath her shut 
 lashes, and her lips looked soft and tremulous. There 
 was a pathos in Jo s quiet, childish beauty that wrung 
 my heart. She turned and hid her face again, asking, 
 6 Are you sorry ? If it had been any one else but you 
 know how good he is! and father father has always 
 angled for him, because he is to be rich that was a 
 
 great objection 
 
 " Hush, hush, Jo P I said (to what eligible man 
 tfiat ever came near us was not father painfully 
 
146 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 cordial ?). i If he loves you, love him truly. But be 
 sure he loves you well. 
 
 " She lifted her head ; her eyes were brave and a 
 little indignant, but she smiled faintly. 
 
 " Loves me ? she said, If he does not, he 
 
 but give me these three weeks, Drosee, and I ll tell you 
 for true ! 
 
 " i You shall stay in Fairvalley, I said. 
 
 " And will you go to Aunt Mary to-morrow or 
 Saturday? 
 
 " I have not said that I should go at all, I 
 answered, rising. Do not let us talk of that any 
 more to-day, and so I left her. 
 
 " But I ought to go ! If he has been at all unde 
 cided between us if it be possible I ought to go, if I 
 would give Jo a fair chance. It is natural that he 
 should love her ! He has been to me a friend. We 
 accord. We like to think over things together. He 
 may approve of me : but yet love Jo ! Her sweet, flash 
 ing, tempting beauty, her gayetyand youth, her wit and 
 piety Jo is better than I. I am elder, paler, with less 
 variety and less goodness. Yet, if it be true as Fanny 
 id as I have sometimes felt that he is attracted by 
 
DROSEE S JOURNAL. 147 
 
 me, the only thing for me to do is to remove my influ 
 ence from him, and leave Jo s beauty and excellence to 
 work, with unrivaled force, their natural effect upon 
 him. 
 
 " For me, my philosophy has been < Virtue is enough. 
 " My religion has been to love God. I have desired 
 to be truly religious and wise. 
 
 " Then must I now renounce my desire of love. 
 Amen." 
 
 When Drosee had finished this last line she dropped 
 her pen, and sat silently, with her face looking heaven 
 ward. The evening sky was bright with sunset still. 
 She sat moveless for many minutes. Her face was 
 quite calm but pale. She did not stir until she heard 
 a step on the stair ; then rising hastily she closed the 
 book before her as Jo entered. This is the way a 
 woman slurs over a tragic mood. 
 
 " Jo ! shall I take your trunk or mine 2 And do 
 you think I ll have any use for that buff lawn ?" 
 
 " Sensible girl ! You have made up your mind to 
 enjoy yourself," Jo said, and sat down on the bed to 
 consider Drosee s queries. 
 
148 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 u You are going away to-morrow ?" Wilmer asks, 
 that night, in a low, troubled voice. He has come to 
 spend the appointed evening with Drosee, but when he 
 enters finds Mr. and Mrs. Fielding before him, Drosee 
 having dispatched a request to her friend to come and 
 spend her " last evening in Fairvalley" witli her. There 
 is to be no tete-d-tete over that book to-night, she has 
 resolved. 
 
 Wilmer is informed of the meaning of his cousin s 
 visit. His cousin is at the little cottage piano now, 
 playing brilliant and noisy music. Mr. Fielding and 
 Jo are by the table, and Mr. Alwyn, who has culled 
 Drosee aside a moment, now leaves her and joins them. 
 Fanny gives Wilmer a quick look, and he is not slow 
 to perceive his opportunity. He joins Drosee before 
 she can leave the window. 
 
 " Yes, it is sudden to me. But I found all my 
 plans made for me yesterday, " she answers, smiling and 
 outwardly calm. 
 
 " You are going to the Crawford House," Wilmer 
 says. "My grandfather happens to be there, and my 
 grandmother my only near relatives. May I write to 
 them to call upon you and Mrs. Seaford 2" 
 
DROSEE ^8 JOURNAL. 149 
 
 "I should be very much gratified; but is it not 
 strange you never told me where they were before ?" 
 
 " Their whereabouts has not particularly interested 
 me till now," he answers, with the ghost of a smile. 
 " But now, I may run up to see them soon. May I ?" 
 
 A flash of some vivid emotion surprise, as "VVilmer 
 interpreted it passed over her face. 
 
 " You should not ask ine" she faltered. 
 
 " Excuse me. I will come without your permission. 
 Yet had you bid me come I should not have presumed 
 to hope too much from it." 
 
 The gentle, deferential, manly tone carried with it a 
 thrill so sharp as to be near a pang ; then Drosee lifted 
 her eyes, but dropped them suddenly, answering 
 coldly : 
 
 " Do not come because of my being there, please." 
 
 Not another word was said. Wilmer s lips tightened, 
 and his eyelids contracted slightly it was his only 
 betrayal of pain. Drosee could scarcely have been 
 paler, but she looked calm, cold and serene. She 
 turned her head and listened to the nmsic. 
 
 Fanny had begun to sing. The sweet invitation of 
 
150 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 the song went through and through Drosee s soul in 
 shuddering strains 
 
 "Ernani, Ernani, fly with me!" 
 
 Drosee never afterwards could listen calmly to that 
 song. 
 
 When it was done, she rose and joined her friend. 
 Wilmer rose too, and stood with bent head for her to 
 pass. He left immediately after the Fieldings took 
 leave, without other word to Drosee than " Good-bye," 
 as he took and then relinquished rather slowly her 
 small, cold hand. 
 
 Thus briefly and significantly was the hard word 
 spoken. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 "I notice fickleness of weather 
 
 In that strange climate of the heart: 
 People forget love when together 
 
 I think we won t do worse apart." W. D. HOWELLS. 
 
 DROSEE is far away. Mr. Alwyn has gone in to 
 New York to make some final arrangements with the 
 unwary purchaser of the play he has been writing all 
 summer, and which he has now sold by a wonderful 
 chance for a moderate sum. He is much elated by 
 this small triumph, boasts noisily about his " new play," 
 and has asked Miss Ball to go in to the city with his 
 daughters and himself to see it acted on the great " first 
 night." Miss Ball is extremely flattered ; she believes 
 Mr. Alwyn, who is the only literary man she lias ever 
 known, to be one of the greatest modern authors, taking 
 him at his own price with a simple loyalty of belief 
 which has grown to be immensely pleasing and soothing 
 
152 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 to this baffled genius ; for egregiously vain as the man 
 is, he is naturally keenly stung by the fact sometimes 
 tbrast upon him, that he is lightly esteemed. Miss 
 Ball s admiration of him is sincere, ignorant, and 
 sweet. Mr. Alwyn is thinking much of Miss Ball in 
 these days, and rating her charms and ab dties higher 
 and higher as she more and more falls unaer his influ 
 ence. 
 
 Ignorant of this, Jo has been living a happy life for 
 these past two weeks. Louis Seaford, whom she has 
 known ever since she was a baby, and he was a boy in 
 round jackets, has come out to the Fairvalley House, 
 and goes in and out to his business every day. It is 
 the only change of air he can make this summer, he 
 says, " since the governor has up and taken to himself 
 a holiday." 
 
 " You know, Louis, I think hard as it is to 
 believe " Jo says, demurely, as she and Louis sit in 
 the front piazza in the yellow moonlight of a Septem 
 ber night, alone for Mr. Alwyn has not yet returned 
 from New York " I think you must have come to be 
 some sort of a comfort to Uncle Adrian at last ! It is 
 the first time in ages that he has ever left his business 
 
JO S LOVER. 153 
 
 and taken a summer holiday ; you used to go every 
 summer, and let him fag it out alone." 
 
 " Yes, it s pleasant to remember. Thank you for 
 reminding me," Louis says, with rather a vicious grip of 
 his teeth on his cigar. His blonde, manly young face, 
 and his usually gay and even mischievous eyes are 
 cloudy enough now. The dimple fades in Jo s cheek. 
 "I suppose I nag a good deal, do I, Lou?" she 
 says, half coaxingly. 
 
 Louis moves his chair a half inch nearer. 
 " Jo," he says, seriously, " I have a good deal t> 
 Aiank you for, you know, in just this way. You have 
 always been so truthful, so keen, so just, in your scorn 
 of me" 
 
 Scorn, Louis ?" 
 
 " Yes, Jo. You fairly despised me after I left college, 
 for a year or so. And it used to stay by me that there 
 was one girl I couldn t coax, or wheedle, or laugh at, 
 or __l 10W ever I tried please, while I went dilly-dally 
 ing along, trying to play the brilliant, idle young beau. 
 You even mocked at my mustache, Jo, when its 
 length was the pride of my young life." 
 
 The laugh returns to his grave blue eyes now. Jo 
 7* 
 
154 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 feels more at ease. I think it is Jo moves her chair 
 a little nearer this time. 
 
 Louis throws away his cigar. He puts his hand on 
 Jo s, which is in her lap ; and Jo allows him he is her 
 cousin, she argues to slip his fingers around and 
 beneath it, and inclose that soft, small hand in his own. 
 
 " Do you remember the day in the Park, Jo ?" he 
 asks, in a low tone. 
 
 " I said some dreadful things to you, I remember," 
 Jo says softly, " I did not mean them all Louis." 
 
 " You told me I had no right to call myself a man, 
 unless I could do a man s work ; and no right to talk of 
 love, until I could prove that I knew of any better sort 
 than self-love." 
 
 " Louis," Jo says, quickly, " do not recall all our 
 old quarrels. I used to be a regular vixen, and fancy I 
 was preaching. I did not like your ways, Louis but 
 I always liked you !" 
 
 " What did you like in me, Jo ? You never men 
 tioned anything," Louis observes, demurely. Jo shoots 
 a keen side glance at him, and then replies frankly : 
 
 " I liked you because you had some sense. You 
 could argue well, when you chose ; you read books 
 
JO S LOVER. 155 
 
 worth reading ; you did not affect to be anything par 
 ticular, but you were always on a level with the best 
 men and women who came to the house, and up to the 
 times in every way. How you kept up, I couldn t 
 guess ; but somehow you knew all about everything 
 Drosee and I cared for. I liked that. I hate a fool !" 
 " Ye gods ! So you liked me because I wasn t a 
 fool ?" 
 
 " I liked you because you were a reader and a 
 thinker, and had more brains than any other young 
 fellow I knew," Jo says earnestly. " And I always 
 thought you had a respect for religion," she adds, 
 softly. " You never used your wit to ridicule anything 
 sacred in the eyes of your fellow-men. Ah ! if you 
 knew how detestable Guy Farnham made himself, just 
 that way." 
 
 "I never see Guy now," Louis replies quietly. 
 " Jo, I begin to have some hopes that you did not use 
 to quite hate me. Was was there any thing else you 
 liked in me, dear ?" 
 
 They are very close together, now. Louis bends 
 toward her. 
 
156 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 . S< I I always thought you handsome, Louis," Jo 
 liters. 
 
 It is too much ; Louis gives a little short, happy 
 laugh, and catches Jo in his arms. 
 
 " You dear, blessed, absurd little Josephus !" he ex 
 claims softly. " And I Jo, I always thought you the 
 prettiest, sweetest, best, and most impossible little 
 woman in this world ; but I have meant, ever since 
 that day in the Park, to have you at last !" 
 
 " But you haven t got me I" Jo says, struggling. 
 
 " Yes, I have, my darling !" Louis ant v^ers, holding 
 her fast ; and, taking her unawares, he kisses her as he 
 has never before, in all thvsir days as cousins, kissed 
 those tender lips. 
 
 Jo buries her face in his collar an instant after that 
 and then she sits up as straight as his arms permit. 
 
 " Please to let me go," she says, in a low, displeased 
 voice. 
 
 "My little Jo, have I offended you?" Louis asks, 
 releasing her. Jo stands up. She is trembling slightly. 
 She is quite paK 
 
 " You had no right to treat me so," she says, in a 
 strange, hard tone. 
 
JO S LOVER. 157 
 
 Louis rises alrfO. 
 
 " Not unless you give me the right, Jo," he answers, 
 gravely, tenderly. " But I thought you would, my Jo. 
 I thought you would be my wife, darling. I have had 
 this hope always before me. I all these days we 
 have been so happy together, Jo ; I have been watching 
 your face every hour we were together ; sometimes the 
 fulfillment of all my expectation seemed so near that I 
 thought I could only put out my arms, and clasp it to 
 me forever." 
 
 " You have thought I loved you more than a cousin 
 all this time ?" 
 
 " I have hoped so lately Jo, you do !" 
 
 These three words, his sudden step tow\ Is her, 
 ruin all his chance. Jo s pride flames up in a breath. 
 
 " I do not !" she ejaculates, a burning blush rushing 
 over her fair face and body, and the lie uttering itself 
 unawares in her tremor of maiden shame. 
 
 Louis steps back. He looks at her with a strange, 
 severe expression i a his eyes. 
 
 "Jo, are you a flirt?" he asks. "Would you flirt 
 even with me? You have given me every reason of 
 late to believe that you would accept me ; you have 
 
158 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER, 
 
 been anothei woman from the one I loved List year. 
 You have behaved as if yoa loved me, Jo, 77 
 
 " Go away. Lonis,~ Jo says, in a strangely suppressed 
 voice. " I will not listen to yoa any longer. I never 
 threw myself at any man IB jm assert. I aew - 
 loiittkeyoathinklkpfij- Cbffcetna as you are, 
 the beggar-maid OMB* aolae wf fcer mamd to royal 
 
 And wii kii^ in ifcji [ 
 door and sa*fck*wiftlT. Thrill i t ;Aedoori8 
 
 e empty 
 kam, 
 
 V ; .-,,.-, 
 
 
 
XOFKfiL 159 
 
 woman ! Anybody wbo only knew her in her lightest 
 moods might have made such a blunder. I ll see her 
 and 
 
 He afcara p; he goes to the door. He knocks 
 gently ; there is mo answer. He seps o3 the piazza 
 
 a:: .: - ..-.- -. .- ~... ~ :::!:-: 
 
 turf, and loots intte Ac pozior. Thae is the glimmer 
 
 o: .-. . .._ . _ :"_. . "..- -:: . -.-. 
 
 "J:." 1- ,.-. i:. .---::_:.: -;-:;.;. 
 
 "J:. :.:l-i : .-7 .!_-;. :_:-,: : . -:.-: .. ^ .:-..-. ! 
 can t go." 
 
 Thr mnnrf^f <! iali ttfir i nm ml ntlinrn 
 his head and atwrfdoB m dbadd*r on Hie floor. The 
 waving diadcMr f due bcaodi of a kssfj tne flutter* 
 on Ac carpet. The flMam if *H dark, exef4 for Ui w 
 1:;::... - . - 
 
 "Jo! SroEcfteairt! -1 d ttot make me 
 
 He fancies tiwne if j. jfOTmf~--a nob. Or mil 
 
 b;;:^; -..-.. 
 
 Ji* 
 
160 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 hand, and touches the white shape. It is nothing but 
 a long white tidy neatly pinned along the back of the 
 sofa. 
 
 Of all the men who have inveighed against these 
 innocent products of feminine idleness, Louis is one of 
 the most sincere. 
 
 He turns away, and calling " Jo " still softly and 
 in vain, opens the door into the hall. He wanders 
 through all of the down-stairs rooms ; but Jo is in none 
 of them. For a moment he is tempted to rush up 
 stairs and beat a tattoo on her door as he used to in his 
 school boy days ; but he dares not. Jo is not to be ap 
 proached with the lightest assumption of cousinly 
 familiarity ; he must come a-wooing with all the defer 
 ence of a strange lover, he perceives at last. He loves 
 her better already for this very distance she has put 
 between them. He sits down in an easy-chair in the 
 dining-room, his head between his hands, and thinks 
 some very gentle and reverential thoughts of her 
 whom he has loved so long. He recalls with new 
 force her beauty her spirit her goodness her truth 
 her glimpses of rare lovingness. jSfever in his life 
 Las Louis so clearly understood how he loves his 
 
JO S LOVER. 1G1 
 
 cousin. Could Jo have come to him then, he would 
 have wooed her with a reverential tenderness that 
 would have satisfied her that she was loved as deeply 
 and purely as she desired. 
 
 The stillness grew around the silent young man ; 
 the unquiet shadows and changing lights out of doors 
 were banished from this dark room ; he was fallen into 
 deep thought, and marked neither the flight of time, 
 nor the faint sound of a latch-key which was softly fit 
 ted in the lock of the front door, about midnight. 
 Rousing suddenly with the sense of a presence in the 
 room for Mr. Alwyn had entered the dining-room to 
 get a glass of water he rose to his feet, stammering, 
 " Sir." 
 
 "Ow! Oh! Get!" roared Mr. Alwyn, darting 
 backward, almost deprived of the power of speech by 
 fright. And then, recovering himself by an effort, he 
 yelled in terror : 
 
 " Thieves ! Help ! Murder ! Jemima !" and beat 
 the air with his cane in a perfect panic. 
 
 Louis attempted to speak, but his laughter over 
 came him ; x.ud suddenly it occurred to him that he 
 could give 0.0 very rational account of his presence, 
 
162 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 and bad best use his cbance to escape. Parrying a 
 stroke of Mr. Alwyn s cane by a light blow that sent 
 his uncle s arm up, he dashed by him, leaped out of 
 the open parlor window, snatched his hat from the 
 piazza steps, and in half a minute had cleared the 
 grounds and was walking leisurely towards his hotel, 
 laughing to himself in a strangely cheerful manner for 
 a discarded lover. 
 
 Next morning Louis came by the cottage on his 
 way, apparently, to take an earlier train to the city than 
 usual ; but, as if thinking better of it, paused, opened 
 the gate, and entered. Mr. Alwyn was upon the front 
 porch, smoking. 
 
 " Good morning, good morning," the uncle said, 
 with his usual heartiness of welcome to this young 
 man. " Heard of the excitement, I suppose ? I m 
 quite knocked up, I assure you. The most astonishing 
 thing in life how the fellow got away. I ve marked 
 him, though he s got a mark he ll carry for life, I ll 
 be bound." 
 
 " How was it, sir?" 
 
 u I came in about midnight been to New York to 
 pt) some actors, old chums of mine, and had H pleasant 
 
JO S LOVER. 163 
 
 evening couldn t get away from them, in fact and 
 coming in quietly and entering the dining-room, I 
 found a tall fellow in a mask in the very act of rifling 
 the sideboard of the silver careless of the girls to 
 leave it there, but they won t carry it up to their room 
 at night to save me ! I gave one jump at the fellow, 
 and struck a blow with my cane he dodged me, and 1 
 chased him around the room, and hit him one sounding 
 blow. He gave a groan, and then rushed at me, nearly 
 disabled my arm, and before I knew what Lad hit me, 
 he had gone. I roused the house, and Jo and the girl 
 helped me light it up, and look in every nook and 
 corner of it. We found the parlor window wide open, 
 and I suppose he got in that way. I never had a thing 
 give me such a shock in my life." 
 
 " Where is Jo ? Was she much alarmed ?" Louis 
 asked, with genuine concern. 
 
 " She was, at first, but when we discovered no one, 
 she went back to bed, and she has not come down 
 yet." 
 
 " Can Jemima be sent up to see how she is ?" 
 
 " I ll go myself ," Mr. Alwyn answered, rising. It 
 
164 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 dawned pleasantly upon him that Louis seemed very 
 much interested in Jo s health. 
 
 " Jo !" he shouted at the foot of tlip stairs. 
 
 "Coming!" answered Jo s cleaj voice; and in 
 another minute she came down the sf dr. 
 
 "Louis is on the porch; come out," said Mr. 
 Alwyn. Jo stood still. Louis arose from the steps 
 where he had seated himself, and came in. 
 
 " Good morning," said Jo, very coldly. 
 
 "Good morning," said Louis, gently. His eyes 
 sought here with an entreaty in them. 
 
 "I have been telling Louis about the robbery 
 attempted here last night," Mr. Alwyn said. Jo 
 flushed, and gave Louis a strange look. 
 
 " If it had not been for my opportune return, we 
 shouldn t have had a spoon to eat breakfast with," 
 went on Mr. Alwyu. " I only wish I had trapped the 
 rogue. But he ll remember me, I imagine, to the last 
 day he lives. I hear that cane go co-thump on his 
 ugly pate this minute !" 
 
 Louis eyes twinkled in spite of himself. Jo looked 
 at him again, half apprehensively, half indignantly. 
 
JO S LOVER. 1C5 
 
 Mr. Alwyn puffed out his chest, and nodded. It was 
 almost too much, but Louis did not give way. 
 
 " Well, I m glad you escaped so lightly," he said, 
 with a curious quiver in his voice. " I must go on, I 
 believe. Jo will you just walk to the gate with me ? 
 Good morning, sir." 
 
 " Wait a minute, Louis, I ll walk with you. I m 
 going in on this train too," said Mr. Alwyn, taking his 
 hat from the peg. And then, remembering that he 
 was probably standing in Jo s light by this offer, he 
 attempted to atone by saying, " And you must come 
 home with me this evening and take tea." 
 
 They walked away together, and Louis carried a 
 heavy heart. Jo had never in her life looked so gravely 
 and coldly at him never in her life given him so lifeless 
 a hand as that he touched at good-bye. 
 
 Louis did not come to tea with Mr. Alwyn. He 
 concluded that he should only offend Jo by treating her 
 as usual, and find the meal an awkward one. And so 
 Joj in her pale-blue muslin, coming down to meet her 
 father at tea-time, with a fitful color coining and going 
 in her cheek, and her coldness melting at the prospect 
 of seeing Louis again, was disappointed and hardened 
 
166 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 again. She was a very snow-maiden when he came in 
 at the gate an hour after tea. But she was alone. 
 
 " Good evening, Jo," Louis said, offering to toko 
 her little hand. 
 
 u Good evening," said Jo, plucking a yellow leaf 
 from the rose-vine. 
 
 " Were you much alarmed last night ?" Louis asked, 
 sitting down on the steps at her feet. 
 
 Not at all, " said Jo, coldly. " I knew it was you." 
 
 " You did f Well, of all things. And you wouldn t 
 tell on me !" 
 
 Jo said nothing, but blushed hotly. 
 
 "How did you know, Joseplms?" said Louis, 
 gently, leaning forward. 
 
 " I found the flower I had put in your button-hole 
 on the dining-room floor," said Jo, rather bitterly. 
 She was not candid enough to say that she had watched 
 at her window to see him go ; had lingered there, fancy 
 ing him gone, and been miserable a couple of hours ; 
 and that when her father s shouts alarmed the house, 
 and she started up, she had stopped to see who dashed 
 by the piazza and out of the gate, and had known 
 his figure and his laugh as he passed the fence. 
 
JO S LOVER. 167 
 
 " You got in at the parlor window, I suppose," 
 she added. 
 
 " Do jcu know whom I came to look for ?" he asked. 
 
 " I don t know why you should have staid." 
 
 " I staid because I could not bear to go away ; 
 because I loved you so that it was hard to leave the 
 house you were in, Jo." 
 
 That said, Jo melted. The color burned hotter 
 and redder on her cheek. Louis saw it. 
 
 " And when your father came in, I was lost in 
 thoughts of you, Jo. And and when he called out so 
 I fled to escape questioning or being slain. You have 
 no idea how he thrashed around with that stick, and 
 how he yelled at me." 
 
 Unlucky Louis ! He has done it now ! Sentiment 
 on his part is yielded one instant to a perception of the 
 ridiculous and sentiment on Jo s is merged in morti 
 fication and displeasure. She does not laugh. Her 
 color fades. She rises. 
 
 " Everything is a subject for your mirth," she says, 
 with a severity very like her lost mother s, had she but 
 . known it. "My father and I and everything. 
 You are the most frivolous man I ever knew !" 
 
168 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 If she had called him wicked or base, the young 
 fellow might have borne it. But frivolous ! It car 
 ried him back to his old despised, trifling, airy days, 
 and set him down as a spoilt and scorned mere " col 
 lege boy." Jo, then, thought as slightly of him and 
 his manliness as ever ! He was hurt past cure this 
 time. 
 
 He rose up, too. He did not say a word Jo 
 wished, afterwards, with an unutterable pang, that he 
 had used but one harsh word and looking at her half 
 a minute, he turned, and walked unhesitatingly down 
 the path, closed the gate, and was gone. 
 
 The next morning Jo looked for him to go by. 
 She had passed a bad night, and there were hollows 
 under her brown eyes. But he did not pass. At 
 seven that morning he had received a telegram from 
 his mother : 
 
 " Come to us immediately. Your father has had a 
 fall, and is dangerously injured. Have telegraphed to 
 Dr. S." 
 
 Half an hour later Louis was on his way to the 
 White Mountains. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CLOUDS. 
 
 u Strange and large the world is growing: 
 Speak, and tell us where we are going, 
 
 Where are we going, Rubee ?" J. G. WHITTIER. 
 
 " I DID not consult any one, because I should 
 have been thwarted if I had, or at least bothered," 
 Jo observed, quietly. " But as soon as I knew 
 that Uncle Adrian that he that he was dying" 
 she went on, with repressed tears, "I made up 
 my mind. I have borne to feel that we were 
 living on his bounty, because father because I 
 had to, in short. But I am not going to receive my 
 daily bread from Louis in his turn. And besides, I 
 want to work. Work is a great cure-all, Drosee ! So 
 I wrote to Ada Marston you knew she married a rich 
 old widower a year after we left school ? and I knew 
 iblie would do what she could for me. Well ! It turns 
 oat that the widower himself had a colony of children 
 six and I am to teach the four younger ones, and 
 8 [169] 
 
170 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Ada will give me three hundred dollars a year. So 
 I m going, Drosec, to be a governess, and thatfs the 
 meaning of this." And Jo went on sewing buttons 
 down the front of a new dress. 
 
 Drosee had listened quietly. She stood by the 
 mantel-piece, leaning an elbow on it, and looking down 
 on Jo s industrious fingers. Drosee looked no better 
 for the trip she had taken ; but then the last three 
 weeks she had spent in nursing the dying and serving 
 the living. She looked pale, and the delicate blue 
 shade about her eyes was more vivid. Her lips were 
 compressed as Jo spoke, but she gave no other sign of 
 pain. By and by she spoke very gently. 
 
 " Have you considered, Jo, that Aunt Mary earn 
 estly wishes one of us to make our home with her, and 
 that in New York you would be near a certain person 
 and in Philadelphia " 
 
 " I should never see him ? It is the best of rea 
 sons. Drosee, do not talk to me, in Heaven s name. 
 You know how willful and obstinate I can be. And I 
 tell you, once for all, that I would not for the world 
 throw myself in his way. I could not bear it. I can 
 not bear to have even you refer to him in that Hglit; 
 
CLOUDS. m 
 
 it hurts me to have you merely look at me as if you 
 remembered that I said I loved him once. Drosee, I 
 must go away, even from you, no matter what opposes 
 me. You might understand, at least ! Make it easy 
 for me, and not hard. You have all the influence and 
 power to decide family matters. Just say you think I 
 ought to be let alone." 
 
 " Dear little Josephus !" Drosee said, putting her 
 hand on JVs cheek an instant ; but Jo, pale and pas 
 sive, did not respond to any hint of a caress. Drosee 
 took her hand away, and looked out of the window. 
 Then she said firmly, " I do understand, Jo. I will 
 help you to go, and not let them interfere or make any 
 disturbance. I will not even say not even say how I 
 shall miss you, Jo!" 
 
 Jo answered not a word. She rose, with the fin 
 ished garment in her hand, kissed Drosee silently, and 
 left the room. When she returned Drosee was still 
 standing by the window motionless, looking out. Jo 
 walked over to the sofa. They were in the little room 
 which was both sitting-room and parlor. 
 
 " Sit down there, Drosee, and sing to rne awhile," 
 
172 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Jo asked, lying down 071 the sofa. Drosee went to the 
 piano and opened it. 
 
 " Is Dr. Stark still here ?" she asked impulsively, as 
 her hands touched the keys. 
 
 " Yes. He says he shall stay here all the fall," Jo 
 answered. " It was early in September Mr. Wilmer 
 left; you know." 
 
 u You did not see him often before he left ?" Dro 
 see asked, in spite of herself. 
 
 " He called only twice. And Louis was here both 
 times, and he did not stay long," Jo answered, a " red 
 and restless spark " kindled upon her cheek. 
 
 Drosee s hands fell on the keys, and she began 
 playing softly. The belief was quite fixed in her mind, 
 now, that Jo s love for Wilmer had gone deep, and that 
 its disappointment was as severe as Jo s nature was 
 serious ; u for except upon the surface, Jo s is even a 
 graver disposition than mine," Drosee thought, silently. 
 " I can forget grief easier. I remember saying so once 
 o him and he talked Greek to me !" A little smile 
 revisited her cheek. Wilmer had quoted to her 
 " They heal their griefs, for curable are the hearts of 
 the noble." Then she was penitent in an instant. 
 
CLOUDS. 173 
 
 " Not that I am wiser than Jo only she is younger ; 
 and and it is in some sort easier for me, because it was 
 I he could have loved." 
 
 " Why don t you sing, Drosee ?" Jo asked from her 
 sofa. And Drosee opened her music-books and sang 
 forthwith. It was that same aria of Mendelssohn s 
 " O rest in the Lord : wait patiently for Him ; and He 
 shall give thee thy heart s desire." 
 
 She sang it well and earnestly. " Heart s desire " 
 love or simply, virtue ? 
 
 Drosee was singing : and she had made up her mind 
 that she could resign love. 
 
 " So it is really you 2" said a voice at the window. 
 
 Drosee turned from the piano : Jo sat up, and to 
 the surprise of both, the Eev. Upton Bell was standing 
 on the piazza. 
 
 " I heard you singing," said the visitor ; " and as I 
 found the window open I ventured to assure myself by 
 this means that you were at home again. Mrs. Field 
 ing told me yesterday that she did not know when you 
 would be back." 
 
 The friendly ease of his manner was inimitable. 
 Drosee could not help smiling to herself at the calm 
 
174 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 audacity witli which this " auld acquaintance " returned 
 to her now and then, and laid claim to the position of a 
 friend. She had scarcely seen Mr. Bell twice since 
 their conversation on gossip, in Mrs. Fielding s parlor. 
 
 " You are coming in, I hope ?" she said smiling. 
 
 " Certainly, if I may," he replied ; and stepped 
 through the window without more ado. " Good after 
 noon, Miss Jo," and he offered his hand to the younger 
 sister. 
 
 " Good afternoon," said Jo, demurely. She dis 
 liked Mr. Bell on the whole ; but he was a clergyman, 
 and Drosee tolerated him, and in indifferent matters she 
 was usually led by her sister. Drosee shook hands with 
 Mr. Bell also, and offered him a chair. 
 
 "Have you been having a good time?" he asked. 
 "I mean I beg pardon before your trip was so un 
 fortunately interrupted ?" 
 
 " I saw some new places, and made some new ac 
 quaintances and met some old ones too ; yes, it was 
 quite gay with us, for a time." 
 
 11 You met the Goodales again, I heard." 
 
 "Yes; I believe you knew them? Mrs. Fielding 
 told you?" 
 
CLOUDS. 175 
 
 " She read me bits of some of jour letters. Miss 
 Jo, you should have heard what your sister said about 
 those young ladies and their parents." 
 
 " Mr. Bell !" 
 
 " I couldn t help laughing at it," he retorted cheer 
 fully. " This was about it : * Their mother is a saint, 
 I understand ; their father has claims to being a mar 
 tyr. These very pious wives often secure that palm to 
 their husbands, I notice ! " 
 
 " You got it by heart, I think," Drosee said smooth 
 ly, looking him in the face. " Pray, Mr. Bell, have 
 you repeated my bit of naughtiness before ?" 
 
 A sudden color rushed to the young clergyman s 
 face. He was evidently disconcerted, but he answered 
 truthfully : 
 
 " I think I have. I know I have, in fact. But 
 I do not think I have injured your reputation for piety. 
 You all in Dr. Bampfyle s church have little to lose," 
 he added, with superb impertinence. 
 
 " I forgot to tell you, Drosee," Jo began hastily ; 
 but what she forgot was not yet to be told; voices 
 were heard without, and upon their converse entered, 
 
176 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 without warning, Mrs. Fielding and Dr. Stark, who 
 had met her in her pony phaeton at the gate. 
 
 " You here ?" Mrs. Fielding asked brusquely, look 
 ing at Mr. Bell as she passed him. " Drosee, my dear 
 child, I heard not two minutes ago that you were here. 
 You have come back to us a celebrity. Let me kiss 
 you just once, child. Here is Dr. Stark too, dying to 
 congratulate you." 
 
 " Congratulate me on anything you can think of," 
 Drosee said, gayly holding out her hand to her old 
 friend. " But the best thing that has happened to me 
 in ever so long is to see you all again." 
 
 "Drosee, I have read your novel," Mrs. Fielding 
 went on, taking a seat near Mr. Bell, to whom she 
 threw a smile at last. " All Fairvalley has read it, in 
 fact. We are all in fits over it. Every one thinks you 
 are wonderful, and half of us think you are dangerous ! 
 Oh, Drosee, I pity you !" 
 
 " Thank you. But what is the trouble ? Dr. Stark 
 please tell me do you like it ?" She turned her 
 face with some anxiety towards him. 
 
 " I think it one of the most remarkable and prom 
 ising works I ever saw from a young author s pen," 
 
CLOUDS. 177 
 
 said Dr. Stark. "You are praised in high quarters. 
 Have you read none of the reviews ?" 
 
 " Have you not read Dr. Start s ?" Mrs. Fielding 
 exclaimed. " He gave you more than half a column 
 it was two weeks ago. Every one here has seen it !" 
 
 " I have not seen many notices of it," Drosce re 
 plied quickly. " I it came out, you know, just when 
 my uncle was so ill. And then afterwards really I 
 have not looked at the papers," Drosee said simply. " I 
 thank you, Dr. Stark. You must let me have a copy 
 of your review of me." 
 
 " Upon my life, Drosee, here comes some one else ;" 
 glancing out of the window as the gate creaked. " This 
 is your first afternoon at home, isn t it ? Well, you 
 are holding a levee. Here is Mrs. Estwick arrayed in 
 purple and fine linen Drosee " in a quick undertone, 
 " I am going to stay. Be careful what you say till 
 she s out of the house. That woman hates you. Good 
 afternoon, Mrs. Estwick. Yes, all her friends are here 
 to welcome her home again. Do sit here, will you 
 not?" 
 
 " I had not heard of your return, Miss Alwyn," said 
 Mrs. Estwick, with the calm sullenness of demeanor 
 
ITS A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 which that lady wore when she meant to be unpleasant. 
 " I came to see you about a little matter of business, 
 Miss Josephine," turning to Jo. " But I am very glad 
 to see you. Miss Alwyn. The choir has missed your 
 voice sadly. It is not true that you hare left it perma 
 nently, I trust !" 
 
 "I shall be in my place on Sunday," Drosee 
 answered, quietly. 
 
 "It is about your Sunday-school class I came, Miss 
 Josephine,^ said Mrs. Estwick, turning to Jo again. 
 
 "I must give up my class next Sunday, Mrs. 
 Estwick," said Jo, calmly ; and the rest of the company, 
 about to turn to each other for conversation, paused in 
 surprise. " I am about to leave Fairvalley for several 
 months at least." 
 
 " What is thatr asked Mrs, Fielding of Drosee. 
 
 " Jo is going away. She is going to a friend of 
 hers in Philadelphia," began Drosee. 
 
 " To be a governess," said Jo, very clearly. 
 
 " Why, I am very sorry," said Mrs, Estwick, stam 
 mering with surprise, 
 
 "What do you mean by it, Jo?" exclaimed Mrs. 
 Fielding abruptly. 
 
CLOUDS. 179 
 
 " To amuse myself/ said Jo, saucily. " Amuse 
 ment is always a great consideration with me. The 
 other reasons are really not worth mentioning." 
 
 Mrs. Fielding laughed good-naturedly, and turned 
 back to Drosee. 
 
 " But you will stay with us, and amuse yourself 
 writing books, I hope,- she said. 
 
 " Your book is one of the most graceful utterances 
 of modern skepticism that I ever read, Miss Drosee," 
 said Mr. Bell, flinging the apple of discord daringly in 
 that moment s chance silence. 
 
 " Skepticism, Mr. Bell 3" said Fanny, with a sudden 
 angry glance at him. 
 
 " Your book has attracted much attention amongst 
 ns," began Mrs. Estwick. 
 
 " The skeptics are more fortunate in their champion 
 than the orthodox, if that be true," Dr. Stark observed, 
 in an undertone. Drosee looked at none of the 
 speakers. She turned her eyes on Mr. Bell with serene 
 intrepidity. 
 
 " I am sorry, Mr. Bell, to provoke your censure/ 
 she said, with proud composure. " But really, you are 
 not very much concerned about my fancied errors, are 
 
180 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 you ? You and I so seldom meet that it is scarcely 
 worth while to discuss any such accusation as that you 
 make." 
 
 " Certainly not," he retorted quickly, as Mrs. Field 
 ing opened her lips. " If I were you, I would decline 
 to discuss any matters of belief in Fairvallcy. Your 
 rector, Dr. Bampfyle, has just fallen into that error, and 
 Trinity Church is in a terrible excitement is it not, 
 Mrs. Estwick ?" 
 
 A grim smile came over Dr. Stark s visage. 
 
 " He will have it," he observed dryly, to Drosee, at 
 whose side he was. " There is going to be a battle 
 now." 
 
 " But what is it ?" asked Drosee, aside. 
 
 " Dr. Bampfyle s sermon has been grossly exagger 
 ated," said Mrs. Estwick, promptly. " He said no such 
 things as his enemies declare. He preached a thought 
 ful, eloquent sermon upon heaven r.nd a future life. 
 The merest nothings have been twisted into a hereti 
 cal theory as to immortality. I have it on the best 
 authority, though I was not present that morning. I 
 have regretted my absence ever since. Miss Jo, were 
 you there?" 
 
CLOUDS. 181 
 
 "Yes," said Jo, with her usual decision. "And 
 that was what I forgot to tell you, Drosee. Dr. Barnp- 
 fyle preached a great sermon on immortal life. It was 
 the finest sermon I ever listened to," with a defiant look 
 at Mr. Bell. 
 
 "And perfectly orthodox?" added Mrs. Estwick, 
 triumphantly. 
 
 " And very different from the common view of it," 
 said Jo, relentlessly. " Dr. Bampfyle certainly does 
 not believe in the unconditional immortality of the 
 soul ; and no more do Drosee and I." 
 
 "Oh, for goodness sake do not let us talk theol 
 ogy," exclaimed Mrs. Fielding, resolutely. "It is 
 worn threadbare in Fairvalley. It has positively been 
 the fashion, but, thank goodness, has already become 
 passee. Joseplms, my dear, have I not left a book of 
 my music here ? Do help me look for it, and then I 
 must go." 
 
 That was a bold stroke of Fanny s, and effected a 
 general rising and movement ; but Mrs. Estwick was 
 not to be frightened by the word "passee" 
 
 " The difficulty is that every one seems to be trying 
 to make the Doctor s sermon fit his or her own pecu- 
 
 
182 A FAIR PUILOSOPIIKR. 
 
 liar views," she said, not without acumen. " But Miss 
 Josephine surprises me. People who have read your 
 book say you have some strange ideas, Miss Alwyn. 
 Is it true that you doubt the immortality of the 
 soul?" 
 
 No one present knew what the answer to that 
 would be. Mrs. Fielding devoutly hoped that Drosee 
 would not prove heretical ; Dr. Stark wondered if she 
 would attempt a discussion; Jo believed that she 
 would answer with her distinct belief ; Mr. Bell 
 listened. This was what Drosee said, not without dig 
 nity : 
 
 " When I publicly express my private beliefs, Mrs. 
 Estwick, I do it in print, that I may escape the misap 
 prehensions which you say surround the Doctor. I 
 decline to talk of my beliefs." 
 
 "Oh, certainly," said Mrs. Estwick, slightly con 
 fused, " I dare say your views are expressed only too 
 clearly in your book," she added, maliciously. " Really, 
 it takes so much time to hear what people say of it, 
 that I haven t had a chance to read it. Good evening, 
 Mrs. Fielding Dr. Stark. Good evening, all of you." 
 A.nd Mrs. Estwick retired, rustling. 
 
CLOUDS. 183 
 
 " If yon are going, Mrs. Fielding " began Mr. Bell. 
 
 c: But I am not going, now that this woman is gone," 
 said Fanny, very decidedly. " Do not wait for me. I 
 am going to stay I don t know how long." 
 
 " Have I offended you, Miss Alwyn ?" said Mr. 
 Bell, advancing frankly before all the rest, and offering 
 his hand to Drosee. " I dare say I have been very dis 
 agreeable. I beg your pardon if I have." 
 
 He looked at her with a pair of frank, honest eyes. 
 Ill-tempered and perverse as this young man could be, 
 there was something likeable in him, because, when all 
 was said, he was honest. He seldom abused people be 
 hind their backs as severely as he did to their faces ; 
 and he never denied anything he had really said. His 
 rudeness was proverbial among his acquaintances ; he 
 had so established a reputation for it, that he had become 
 somewhat of a " privileged character " in that respect. 
 But just at this moment he was sincerely penitent for 
 the manner in which he had annoyed this fair young 
 woman ; the one unruly, unreliable sentiment of his 
 life was for Drosee, and served him as a conscience just 
 then. 
 
 When he offered her his hand, Drosee lifted her 
 
184 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 eyes to his, and then gave him a sincere and charming 
 smile as she placed her hand in his. 
 
 " You have annoyed me, but I will forgive you," 
 she said. "You are excellent discipline, Mr. Bell. 
 Come and try me another time, if you like." 
 
 Thus dismissed, the young clergyman took his leave, 
 with a nod to the others, and Dr. Stark offered to 
 follow. 
 
 " Oh, no, stay, stay !" said Mrs. Fielding urgently. 
 " We can say what we like before you, Dr. Stark ; and 
 in fact you know better than any one the facts I have 
 to set before this child. Drosee, my dear, Mr. Fielding 
 insists on my going to our house in New York next 
 week, and I am going to leave you with more regret 
 than I can say. There s not a soul I shall leave behind 
 me to stand your friend except Dr. Stark." 
 
 Drosee turned her softly shadowed blue eyes in 
 quiringly on her impetuous friend. Dr. Stark had 
 seated himself at her right, and Jo was on the piano- 
 stool near ; Mrs. Fielding sat opposite the three, looking 
 a little flushed, and remarkably handsome. Her 
 usually nonchalant air, and the calmness of her brown 
 eyes, were gone. She was in earnest now. 
 
CLOUDS. 185 
 
 " Fairvalley is inexpressibly petty and pretentious, 
 as you know. You have always attracted the greatest 
 notice here. Whenever you two girls have gone out, 
 you have received attention enough to make you the 
 belles of such society as tis. But I made the mistake, 
 and we all made the mistake, of being rather exclusive ; 
 you, Dr. Stark, and you, Drosee and Jo, and Wilmer 
 and I, were very happy together, and we all refused 
 some invitations, and neglected some social duties in 
 order to enjoy our club. We were talked about, and 
 it got out that we were all of us free-thinkers, and the 
 like which is abominable nonsense, though all of 
 us haven t the same ideas of religious duty" with a 
 shy smile towards Dr. Stark. " Then, my dear Drosee, 
 I must confess I fear Mr. Bell was illiberal enough 
 to say some spiteful things about you, as a member of 
 the other church the man hates Dr. Bampfyle, and 
 everything about him. And then you made powerful 
 enemies in your own church and you know society in 
 Fairvalley is churchly, or it is nothing." 
 
 " You remember that I warned you against this 
 Mrs. Estwick ?" said Dr. Stark, quietly. " I saw how 
 the wind blew at that party at her mother s in July. 
 
186 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 She had brought out that blue-stocking heiress simply 
 to ontdo you if possible; and your innocent enjoyment 
 at that party, and the way that old Wilmer, whom she 
 had specially destined for the heiress, dangled after you, 
 was gall to her vinegar. And then when her own 
 husband went over to you, and you snubbed him so 
 deliciously to her very face " 
 
 " But, Dr. Stark, I do not remember a word of all 
 that," said Drosee, quite seriously. " Her husband is 
 quite an old man as old as my father and I only 
 talked to him a short time and since then I have met 
 him, and he lias been very polite, and just as friendly 
 and courteous as can be." 
 
 " No doubt that he still admires you, child," said 
 Mrs. Fielding, quickly. "Indeed, I have heard him 
 defend yon publicly when Mrs. Estwick made some 
 sharp speech about you but that did you no good, in 
 any way." 
 
 Dr. Stark had risen restlessly, and begun to pace 
 the floor. 
 
 " It is just this," he said turning, as Mrs. Fielding 
 ceased ; " Mr. Estwick is an old man, and you are a 
 beautiful, innocent young woman. You have nevrr 
 
CLOUDS. 187 
 
 done or said a single wrong thing since you came to 
 this miserable little town. But Mrs. Estwick is a 
 coarse, jealous creature, and her husband has sometimes 
 justified her jealousy by his elderly gallantries. And 
 all the harm one venomous tongue can do", will be done 
 you here. That is the whole story, and I wish to 
 heaven you need never hear a word of it. But it is 
 necessary, if you intend to live here. Avoid all 
 that set. Understand that you even you ! have 
 enemies ; and -feel that you have friends !" 
 
 He paused just an instant before her, and then 
 walked on again, and stood looking out of the window. 
 
 " What do people say f asked Drosee, after a little 
 pause. 
 
 " Since your novel came out, they say that you are 
 oh ! a thousand things," said Mrs. Fielding, impatiently. 
 " Some of them admire it ; most of them don t under 
 stand it ; and the most definite as well as the most ab 
 surd charge I have heard against you is that c the chief 
 singer in Trinity choir is an atheist. I think our 
 people have the credit of originating that racy rumor." 
 
 Drosee had started to her feet. A stern, indignant 
 light shone in her beautiful eyes, and her lips were 
 
188 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 shaped into an expression of dumb protest. Mrs. 
 Fielding caught her hands, and Jo exclaimed : 
 
 " It is the kind of thing she might expect ! They 
 dare not utter a syllable against her as a woman, and 
 so they accuse her as a thinker ! And this is what 
 comes of envy and senseless jealously, is it ? Drosee, 
 if I were you, I would shake the dust of Fairvalley 
 off my feet, and turn my back on it for ever and 
 ever!" 
 
 " I suppose," said Drosee with a faint sigh, sitting 
 down again, " that this c all comes in the day s work ? 
 I never had such an experience as this before. It will 
 be valuable to me as an experience, perhaps ! It shows 
 me how slight a motive can in real life make a woman 
 malevolent and ready to injure a girl who never con 
 sciously offended her. It is not worth while to regret 
 it, I suppose. It is a fact, and I must face it." 
 
 Dr. Stark came back from the window, gravely 
 took up DroseVs hand, pressed it, relinquished it, and 
 sat down again at her side. 
 
 " I am going, Drosee," said Mrs. Fielding, rising, 
 with a mist coming over her brown eyes. " Oh, my 
 little philosopher," she whispered, as she kissed her, 
 
CLOUDS, 189 
 
 " your spirit is fate s recompense to you for all your 
 ills." 
 
 Drosee kissed her, and went with her to the door. 
 
 " Good-bye, Jo," said Mrs. Fielding. " Good even 
 ing, Dr. Stark. No, Drosee, do not come out with me. 
 Good-bye to you all I shall see you out at home soon, 
 I hope ;" and so saying, she was gone. 
 
 " You have been traveling, and you are tired, I 
 fear," said Dr. Stark, turning back into the parlor, 
 nevertheless. " But it is a great pleasure to see her 
 back again, isn t it, Miss Josephus 2" 
 
 " Sit down, Dr. Stark," said Jo. " Drosee never 
 was so tired in her life that she wasn t glad to see you. 
 You must take tea with us to-night. I am going to 
 have a place put for you, and make your favorite muf 
 finsso make yourself at home, like a good boy." 
 And Jo, with a glimpse of her native gayety, appro 
 priated Dr. Stark s umbrella and hat, and walked away 
 with them. 
 
 Those who only knew Dr. Stark as a politician and 
 a trenchant and sarcastic reviewer, would have been 
 amazed to see these two young women so familiar with 
 him ; but bitter and terrible as this stooping, plain little 
 
100 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 man could be to those he disliked or despised, lie was 
 another creature here. 
 
 lie sat down by Drosee, and said, with, a gentle 
 sigh : 
 
 " And so our club is dispersed and scattered abroad. 
 Mrs. Fielding and Miss Jo go next week, and you 
 and Wilmer broke the charm six weeks ago." 
 
 "Where is Mr. Wilmer, and how is he?" asked 
 Drosee, quietly, but not without a slight change of 
 countenance as she put the question. 
 
 "Pie is in JSfew York, pegging away at his law 
 books, and going nnshaved," said Dr. Stark, with a 
 shrewd but smiling eye. " 1 think the lad is in love, 
 and I suspect that it is going rather hard with him ; 
 but he s such a proud, shy young Lucifer, that I try to 
 pretend I don t see it." Drosee s color deepened, and 
 Dr. Stark changed the subject lightly. " He gave me 
 a rough copy of some verses the other day not a love 
 poem some nonsense about an inebriated frog. He 
 says he wrote them when a temperance meeting 
 held here in Fairvalley last June. Would you like to 
 have a laugh over them ?" 
 
CLOUDS. 191 
 
 "Yes," said Drosee, simply. " You have them 
 with you ?" 
 
 " I think so," said Dr. Stark, pulling from his breast 
 pocket a handful of letters and papers, and shuffling 
 them like a pack of cards. " Yes, here it is if you 
 want to see what fantastic ideas can come into a wise 
 man s head. That lad is as full of humors and conceits 
 and as variable as the wind in spring. ]STow here he 
 goes " A dozen verses on an inebriated frog. (Heaven 
 knows how such an idea occurred to him cold water 
 drinkers, I always thought but it must have made this 
 fellow a more glaring instance of frailty.)" 
 
 Drosee, laughing, held out her hand for the paper. 
 Dr. Stark gave it her. It was a scrap of tumbled " legal 
 cap," written in a small, decided, orderly hand, with a 
 hard lead pencil nothing remarkable about it. But 
 there shot a strange thrill through every sensitive fiber 
 of Drosee s frame, as her fingers touched this bit of 
 Wilmer s writing ; and the whimsical lines were 
 folded up, rmietly appropriated, and treasured by her 
 afterwards as if they had been the choicest specimen of 
 amatory verse. 
 
 As she folded the paper with an assumed air of 
 
103 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 absent-mindedness, Dr. Stark carelessly replaced his 
 letters in liis pocket, and went on to say : 
 
 " That poem of yours in your novel was a fine one, 
 Drosee. I am proud of your book, child, and "Wihncr 
 admires it vastly." 
 
 "Does he?" said Drosee, the rich color leaping in 
 stantly to her pale cheeks, and then fading swiftly. 
 
 "But you will do better yet," went on this Mentor, 
 earnestly. u Your promise is beyond your performance 
 as yet." 
 
 " That is the kindest thing you can say !" she re 
 turned gratefully. 
 
 " You give a prominence in this story to one pas 
 sion that you must learn to estimate more truly," Dr. 
 Stark went on. " Love is not all of life, you know, nor 
 even most of it, to the majority of us. It has its placo 
 in life ; but it is neither the greatest good nor chief est 
 misery of a noble life." 
 
 Drosee sat with her hands clasped in her lap, look 
 ing seriously and fixedly at one spot in the carpet. 
 
 " It is the best thing, but not the only thing," sho 
 said quietly. " And," smiling, " it proves a fine cliscip- 
 
CLOUDS. 193 
 
 line for some natures. I think I used it in that way, 
 in the book." 
 
 Dr. Stark shook his head. 
 
 " Lovers may think that part of it very true and 
 sweet," lie said. " But you made a mistake. Great 
 miseries rise from profounder depths than conjugal 
 relations. True, an old poet says : 
 
 u Those we love best have most the power to harm us : 
 We lay our sleeping lives within their arms 
 
 but it is a young character who says it. When older, 
 we find these but bodkin scratches compared to those we 
 get from other quarters, when the professional torturers 
 of the universe take rope and wheel in hand and 
 begin operations." 
 
 Drosee lifted her eyes suddenly and looked at her 
 friend. The bitter accents of his tongue were not 
 matched by any expression in his face. He looked as 
 calm and phlegmatic as he ever did. 
 
 u There is little in life which has any other than a 
 comparative value," said Drosee, thoughtfully. "The 
 best of everything is in being, not in having, good." 
 
 " You are learning the art of life," said Mentor, 
 
194 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER 
 
 gravely. " Indeed, this life does seem to me inex 
 pressibly petty and insignificant in all its activi 
 ties." 
 
 " And yet !" cried Drosee. and stopped, with a 
 sudden sigh. She was trying to grow quiet, to desire, 
 to strive for nothing ; this very day she had taken a 
 lesson in indifference to the world ; but the direct ut 
 terance of a sentiment so unlike Wilmer s, who was 
 full of fine and hopeful ideas as to a definite aim in 
 life, gave her a momentary shock. Her theories might 
 accord more with those of the elder man, but her heart 
 went with the younger. 
 
 <c> Life is the instrument by which we are rounded 
 and molded," Drosee went on, more quietly. " Acts 
 and emotions all come into play in that, and go to 
 shape or break us. There is some reason for every 
 turn, and some object for the result." 
 
 " Our life has some reason some object? Proof 
 on that point would be acceptable but grant it ; has it 
 any reason or object for -us?" 
 
 " Its reason and object is to form in us that temper 
 and spirit towards God which shall be worthy of life 
 hereafter," said Drosee, boldly. 
 
CLOUDS. 195 
 
 " Pish !" said Dr. Stark, turning aside. But Drosee 
 went on : 
 
 "There isn t any tiling of some people to live. 
 Take away their little vanities and harsh habits of 
 mind and worldly interest, and there isn t the ghost of 
 an individuality left. The immortal part of us is love 
 of truth and right and goodness. Nothing can be 
 everlasting, nothing in the universe of God lasts for 
 ever, but holiness. 
 
 " Is that your theory as to the immortality of the 
 soul ?" said Dr. Stark abruptly, as she ceased. Jo had 
 come in quietly during the last minute, and now sat 
 looking from one to the other with attentive and 
 thoughtful eyes. There was no trace of the dimpling 
 and childish expression in her serious face. Jo was a 
 woman now, and no ordinary one. 
 
 " I believe," said Drosee, without hesitation. " that 
 i the wages of sin is death absolute death ; and that 
 eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. That is my belief and Jo s " with a glance 
 at her younger sister, whose soft hand was now thrust 
 into hers. 
 
 Dr. Stark smiled, and took a turn down the room. 
 
196 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " The soul is immortal, child," he said, grimly. 
 " As to personal immortality no man can tell. But 
 that the life once given can ever be withdrawn no 
 reasoning can successfully maintain. I know there 
 have been instances of your way of thinking from the 
 times of the early fathers of your church down to 
 these. I cannot myself see that your notion is alien to 
 the spirit of Christianity. But it is too much and too 
 little to believe." 
 
 " You are a pagan, Dr. Stark," said Drosee, but 
 with mildness. She had risen, and taken a small book 
 from the shelves, and now began to read aloud : " The 
 prevailing doctrine respecting our immortality is, and 
 has for the most part been, that the soul is naturally 
 and essentially immortal ; that the life imparted to it 
 at its creation is a thing that having once been, must 
 forever be ; that it is dependent on nothing outside of 
 itself for sustenance and support, but is in such a sense 
 self-supporting that no withdrawal of the favor or the 
 upport of its Creator on the one hand, nor any inflic 
 tions of his wrath on the other, can in the least affect 
 the strength of its hold upon life, or the conditions 
 upon which the perpetuity of its existence depend ; in 
 
CLOUDS. 197 
 
 spite of itself, and in spite of all assaults of finite evil, 
 and all withdrawal of divine support, living by the 
 inherent necessity of its own nature. This is not only 
 the pagan doctrine, but, strange to say, the prevalent 
 Christian doctrine, notwithstanding that it finds no 
 support in scripture, and is contrary to reason, and to 
 the analogy of nature and Christianity. 
 
 " That will do ! What book is that ?" 
 
 " The Philosophy of the Trinitarian Doctrine, by 
 the Rev. A. G. Pease. I wish you would read it." 
 
 " I will, if you desire it, but it is not likely to impress 
 me much," said Dr. Stark, smiling. "No, Drosee. 
 The soul lives because it comes from a living God, and 
 exists while he exists. It cannot be dissociated from 
 him, and therefore it is held in life. For in words 
 which I profoundly believe, in him we live, and 
 move, and have our being. We are part of him, or 
 we are nothing : we are already in eternity ; we cannot 
 escape from it." 
 
 " I see what you mean," said Jo, suddenly. " It 
 agrees with this book. Drosee, give it to me. May I 
 read this ?" 
 
 " I listen," said Dr. Stark, courteously. 
 
198 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Jo began. 
 
 " All life is organic , . , . . beneath the 
 throne of God there is not such a thing as life that 
 does not belong to a living species. And moreover, 
 there is no such thing as a species that does not consti 
 tute an organic unity, consisting of its fountain-head 
 and members. " 
 Dr. Stark nodded. 
 
 " You are quick and right, Miss Jo. How does 
 your author dispose of his own admission, though ?" 
 
 " It is impossible, " went on Jo, " that there 
 should be any such thing as life in an individual which 
 he does not derive from the life-principle or fountain- 
 head to which he belongs . . . The life of the body 
 implies the life of the members. The member that is 
 separated from the body instantly dies . . . The 
 soul has no alternative. It must maintain its normal re 
 lations with the life of God, or it must perish. For 
 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever belie veth in him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life ! " 
 
 "Some of that is good so far as it goes," said Dr. 
 
CLOUDS. 199 
 
 Stark. "But what is strong enough to sever the 
 relation of my soul to God s ?" 
 
 " Willful sin," said this youngest theologian, softly. 
 " Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death/ 
 
 " I see that you two girls have considered your 
 theory and studied it," said Dr. Stark quietly. " It is 
 au unusual thing for two young creatures like you to 
 think so much on these themes. You, Jo, I had 
 always believed orthodox." 
 
 " I am," said Jo, serenely. " The church is large 
 enough to include all shades of belief. While I say the 
 Creed, and believe it, I am an orthodox church woman. 
 There are many who believe as we do, though they 
 will not say so ; and many who would so believe, if 
 they were not in the habit of thoughtlessly accepting 
 current doctrines, and content in believing that the 
 hereafter will instruct them, and that there is no use in 
 bothering about minor beliefs nowadays." 
 
 Dr. Stark could not help smiling : Jo s dry way 
 was inimitable. 
 
 " And are you two agreed, then ?" he said, turning 
 to Drosee. 
 
 " So far," said Drosee, in a low voice. Then she 
 
200 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 added, more clearly ; " the one thing 7 have not yet 
 felt my mind settled about, is whether personal immor 
 tality is to be won." 
 
 " Ah ! there we meet again, " said the Doctor. " It 
 may be a weakness, but I ardently long for personal 
 immortality. I have slight interest in this world, and 
 care not a jot what succeeds me ; I have no longing for 
 posthumous fame, or any such lease of immortality ; 
 mankind may forget me, or set me down either as 
 fathomless fool, or arrant knave ; and if I consciously 
 exist, I shall either not know it, or not care for it ; but 
 yet this desire to live clings to me ; and though I see 
 no proof that I shall, still I want to preserve my indi 
 vidual life in the world to come." 
 
 " How strange !" said Drosee, softly. " I do not 
 think that I care. To return to God as i a flask of 
 water broken into the sea is all I desire. I want to 
 live with a will in unison with his ; and when I die I 
 am willing that his will be done. I wish nothing 
 beyond. Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in 
 thce that is enough. So I do not trouble myself to 
 question anything except that I am continually his." 
 
 There was a perfect, unaffected simplicity in these 
 
CLOUDS. 201 
 
 gently- uttered words. It was a confession uttered in 
 the manner of an opinion slowly and thoughtfully. 
 Dr. Stark looked intently at her fair, unconscious face. 
 
 " Your mind is a philosophers, but your tempera 
 ment is that of a quietist," he said. " Had you been 
 born a few centuries back, and a man, you would have 
 founded a new order of monks, Drosee, or written some 
 great mystical religious work." 
 
 " How strangely you think !" said Drosee, looking 
 at him attentively. 
 
 " But, Drosee, it is not right !" said Jo, quickly. 
 "Personal immortality is just what Christ teaches, and 
 promises to believers. Don t you remember ? i This 
 day tliou shalt be with me in Paradise. 
 
 "Yes that seems very clear," said Drosee, mus 
 ingly. 
 
 " So you desire and expect personal immortality, 
 uniting our differences ?" said Dr. Stark, turning to Jo. 
 
 Jo answered gravely. 
 
 u Not as though I had already attained ---but i if by 
 any means I might attain to the resurrection of the 
 dead. " 
 
 This was the last of that grave talk. A diversion 
 9* 
 
202 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 was created by Mr. Alwyn s entrance, and the bells 
 ringing for supper ; and the rest of the evening was 
 passed in light converse, which touched upon nothing 
 that nearly concerned the speakers. 
 
CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 WIND AND EAIN. 
 
 " I pray the prayer of Plato old : 
 
 God make thee beautiful within, 
 And let thine eyes the good behold, 
 In everything save sin !" J. G. WHITTIER. 
 
 "Love, that what time his own hands guard his head 
 The whole world s wrath and strength shall not strike dead; 
 Love, that if once his own hands make his grave 
 The whole world s pity and sorrow shall not save." 
 
 A. C. SWINBURNE. 
 
 LEFT quite alone by the departure of Jo and of 
 Mrs. Fielding, Drosee was without any near friend of 
 her own sex. Jo had gone away so soon after ac 
 quainting Drosee with her intentions that no line was 
 written to the Seafords of her plans until they were 
 already carried into effect. No explanation as to Jo s 
 unlucky love was ever even begun ; Jo was too proud 
 and Drosee too forbearing for the subject ever to be 
 mentioned. General conversation on theories and 
 books, special discussions of the work their hands were 
 
 [203] 
 
204 A FAIR PIIILOSOPIIP:R. 
 
 busy with, and talk of Fairvalley and its ways suffi 
 ciently occupied their tongues. Jo s one expressed 
 regret at leaving home was that she couldn t stay to 
 fight the neighborhood for Drosee ! 
 
 " I will have it out of some of these old women, 
 yet," she stoutly declared. " Something or other will 
 make them sorry, yet. There are more ways of killing 
 a horse than standing him on his head in a mill-pond." 
 
 Drosee could only laugh at this impromptu prov 
 erb. 
 
 " I would give up going, for your sake, if I could," 
 Jo went on, ruefully. 
 
 " But you cannot, and we won t think of it," Dro 
 see answered, cheerfully. " It is all for the best, as it 
 is. But isn t it a wonder that father acquiesced with 
 such meekness? He hasn t been like himself of late." 
 
 " He could be introduced to himself as a new char 
 acter," Jo said, " he is so mild and sunny. Prosperity 
 is good for him, I think poor old Pater ! The money 
 he got for that play agrees with him wonderfully." 
 
 And so Jo cheery, saucy Jo, with brave eyes and 
 dimpled cheeks, after a laughing struggle in the em 
 braces of Jemima, and one kiss delivered to the Pater, 
 
WIND AND ZAItf. 20") 
 
 and one extra kiss to Drosee, and a faint clinging to her 
 sister s hand was gone from Fairvalley. In two more 
 days Fanny Fielding went, and Drosee was left to her. 
 self. 
 
 The company that offered itself to her was that of 
 men, it appeared. Fairvalley swains noticeably young 
 Thorndike, just home from Europe, and Keene, a ris 
 ing lawyer in the little town were as devoted to her 
 about this time as she would permit ; Dolton, the tenor 
 in the choir, scarcely knew which he was most enam 
 ored of, the deep-set, big bright eyes, the fine flicker 
 ing red of her fair cheek, or the heavenly voice that 
 bore his own along with mellow, measured notes when 
 they sang their famous duet in the Te Deum, the Sun 
 day the bishop was there. These men Drosee treated 
 politely, and gave to them what pleasure she found 
 herself rightly able to give ; but they dropped away 
 again before long, at least to all appearance ; they 
 found her " different from other people ;" they were 
 not at home with her, finding her insensible to flattery, 
 unfavorable to gossip, and able to critically and logi 
 cally dispute any pretentious assumptions of knowl 
 edge and superiority. A candid, simple, intelligent 
 
206 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 mind; not at all assuming the attitude of u distinctly 
 feminine one, and a manner whose subtile aloofness 
 could never be forgotten, was not the thing to attract 
 men like these permanently. " Kings cannot force the 
 exquisite reserve of distance." Miss Ahvyn was dis 
 tant, and her admirers were obliged to yield her up. 
 
 Dr. Bampfyle called upon this parishioner of his 
 twice about this time. Mrs. Estwick saw him go in 
 the first time, and Mrs. Howard met him as he came 
 out the second time ; but when these ladies attempted 
 to fathom the reason of his visits for this rather asce 
 tic divine called rarely on any one, and almost never on 
 the young ladies of his church, though making himself 
 readily approachable to the young men of it he gave 
 very scant satisfaction to them. It was impossible to 
 associate the i ame of this revered and lofty preacher 
 with any pretty woman s, merely because he visited 
 her ; but though these visits were, in fact, those of a 
 pastor, and the conversation on such themes as a 
 thoughtful and religious teacher might think it wise to 
 suggest to an earnest listener, they did not escape atten 
 tion, and when by chance these two happened to walk 
 two blocks together down the street one afternoon, 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 207 
 
 Mrs. Estwick did think that Miss Alwyn s forwardness 
 was becoming town-talk ! 
 
 Nor were the gossips better pleased that Drosee s 
 most constant companion was the bowed and brown lit 
 tle man they all half admired and half disliked. Nothing 
 she did pleased the cavilers, and when Jo had been gone 
 six weeks Drosee woke up to the fact that there was 
 not a lady in Fairvalley to whom she owed a visit, or 
 from whom she had had any recent kindly greeting. 
 Mrs. Burbage, Mr. Keene s sister, had " cut " her on 
 the street soon after she had declined some of Mr. 
 Keene s attentions ; and Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Estwick s 
 cousin, had omitted her name altogether from her invi 
 tations to a rather large and clmrch-y party. She was 
 in nobody s circle ; that was evident at last. 
 
 Drosee realized that her popularity was gone. 
 Perhaps not irretrievably, if she chose to make an 
 effort to re-establish it. She questioned herself to see 
 if there was any bitterness in this loss of popular admi 
 ration, or anything to be gained by winning it back* 
 She knew something of the world, and her own power 
 to please when she exerted herself. She knew that, 
 with due attention, a sufficient expenditure of time, a 
 
203 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 little of what is called " diplomacy," and her native 
 quickness, tact, and address, she could take a sufficient 
 ly prominent place in Fairvalley society to dazzle some, 
 and to mortify those she could not win. She had test 
 ed her skill and power in former days, and been a 
 belle before she was a philosopher. 
 
 Surely, much had already been attained by a young 
 and fair woman, who had learned not to disquiet her 
 self in vain over trifles, and to renounce selfish desires 
 of love, and all care for pretentious ways of living ; 
 who had put aside pride, and love of fame, and heeded 
 not clamor and evil speaking ; but admiration in some 
 form is dear to nearly every heart. How much was it 
 worth to Drosee ? 
 
 She considered, and renounced all effort for it. " I 
 desire nothing that popularity can give me, or revenge 
 afford me, or display supply," she determined. The 
 good of a quiet life she was ready to perceive. She 
 thought, studied, wrote in peace ; she helped Jemima, 
 corresponded with Jo, attended to her father s various 
 requirements, and brightened the dull November even 
 ings to the one friend she saw frequently the bitter, 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 209 
 
 faithful, eccentric, thoughtful little man who stood by 
 her, Dr. Stark. 
 
 And just then, in the brown falling of the leaves, 
 came a sudden whirlwind of angry passion to test 
 and try the composure our philosopher was set to 
 attain. 
 
 Mrs. Johns, her old friend, had been away for some 
 time, but had now returned to Fairvalley, rented a 
 furnished villa from a family gone to New York for 
 the season, and. decided to take up her residence here 
 for the winter. She and her kindly old husband came 
 driving by one clay and called for Drosee to go out 
 with them in their carriage ; as it happened, she was 
 obliged to decline ; and the next evening she went up 
 to see the good lady in her new quarters. 
 
 Miss Ball happened to open the door. She blushed 
 in her usual juvenile and embarrassed manner when 
 she saw Drosee, and following her into the bright sit 
 ting-room where Mrs. Johns sat, took away her work- 
 basket and pile of sewing with great haste, and disap 
 peared. 
 
 "Jane!" called Mrs. Johns, having welcomed Dro 
 see with effusion " excuse me a minute, dear Jane," 
 
210 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 following her, " companion " into the hall, and whis 
 pering, " don t she know yet ?" 
 
 " No, no, Cousin Mercy," said Jane, redder than 
 any peony, " and don t let it out ! He ll tell her soon." 
 
 " Well, it s your affair, child, but I would tell her 
 before it gets out," said the old lady, beaming through 
 her glasses at the " child " of five-and-thirty ; and so 
 went back to the sitting-room. 
 
 But it came to pass that Mrs. Johns did " let it 
 out," under a most unexpected shock. She had been 
 making much of Drosee, taking her about the lower 
 floor of her house to show her all her convenient and 
 pretty arrangements for the old lady was very fond 
 of housekeeping, and glad that her wandering and half 
 invalid husband had been willing to settle down to it 
 for a while ; she had made Drosee eat a bit of cake, 
 and offered her wine, lemonade, and jelly, in turn, only 
 half satisfied to pour out ice-water at last into a goblet 
 almost as thin and light as a bubble ; and then, when 
 they had come back and taken a seat by the deep win 
 dow in the sitting-room, where a flourishing hanging- 
 basket was over-running with vines, Mrs. Johns made 
 some allusion to Drosee s successful novel. 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 211 
 
 " Don t, please !" Drosee said, with a half-comic, 
 half-candid air of entreaty. " So many severe things 
 have been said about my simple little book that I 
 shiver at its name." 
 
 " I thought it was mighty pretty," Mrs. Johns said, 
 stoutly. " T cried over it, and I laughed over it. It s 
 a wonderful book, my dear. I liked it better n any of 
 your father s books," in a deprecatory undertone. She 
 thought that this was, perhaps, too unjustifiable, for 
 of course the elder member of the family knew more 
 about writing than the younger, so she hurried on. 
 " And I heard lots of people speak about it when I 
 was away." 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Johns, it is very kind of you to tell me 
 this, and you don t know how pleasant it is to have 
 you like it," Drosee replied, gratefully. 
 
 " I can t say I understood all of it, my dear. And 
 it might seem wrong in you, to some who didn t know 
 you, to let some of the people go wrong, and some of 
 em talk as if a pagan religion was as good as their 
 own ; but people are cranky and sinful, and I know it 
 ain t you that s to blame." 
 
212 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " Thank you," Drosee said, smiling. " There is a 
 great deal that is beautiful and like our religion in 
 those which people used to ignorantly call idolatrous ; 
 and one ought to be glad of all the beauty and truth 
 time discovers to us, don t you think ?" 
 
 "Y yes, certainly," Mrs. Johns assented, very ^un 
 certainly. " I wouldn t meddle with those things 
 much, though, my dear ; if they agree with the Bible, 
 they don t teach nothing new; and if they don t, 
 they are not safe handling." 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Johns, you are like the Caliph 
 Omar," Drosee exclaimed, laughing. " That was just 
 his idea, so he had a great many valuable books 
 burned, because if they didn t agree with the Koran 
 they were untrue, and if they did they were un 
 necessary." 
 
 " Now, Drosee, what heathenish books you must 
 have been reading ! What have you to do in a 
 Christian country with Caliphs and Korans ? Do, my 
 dear, let these outlandish things alone, and it will be 
 all the better for you." 
 
 Drosee smiled gently, and hesitated to answer ; 
 then she said, iinpuldvely : 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 213 
 
 " All truth must agree with truth, you see ; and I 
 believe the Bible is true, and can stand the severest 
 tests ; but surely God is not revealed in that alone. 
 Don t you know a great man has said, God has 
 written the Gospel not only in the Bible, but in trees 
 and flowers, stars and clouds ; and so " 
 
 "I can t argue with you, dear; that sounds very 
 pretty, but the man who said that " 
 
 "It was Martin Luther, Mrs. Johns!" Drosee in 
 terpolated, before the good lady should commit her 
 self. 
 
 "Martin Luther the Reformer?" Mrs. Johns 
 asked, slightly staggered. " Well, he was a good and 
 wise man, no doubt, but I m no believer in men s 
 wisdom, and no great of a churchwoman, neither ; 
 the Bible is my foundation, and there I take my 
 stand!" 
 
 The beaming, lovely old face was quite flushed 
 with excitement. Drosee saw that it had been a mis 
 take to discuss any religious topic with this old friend 
 of hers ; she did not understand a word Drosee had 
 said, and had only a vague idea that somehow she was 
 not agreed with. 
 
21-1 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " I hope you do not think that I am sorry to have 
 you stand there," Drosee said, in a deprecatory way. 
 " I care for our own Scriptures and our own beliefs as 
 warmly as possible. I am only glad that other people 
 in other times worshipped this same Creator, and I 
 revere every pure desire of him expressed in any re 
 ligion." 
 
 Mrs. Johns looked at the young face before her 
 with a dubious expression, an instant, and then melted. 
 
 " You poor, dear child ! Drosee, 1 loved you long 
 before I knew whose child you were, and I ain t 
 stopped since I knew you was Emily Wind ham s. I 
 can trust her blood, for you re both of you honest 
 through and through. We won t argufy, dear; I ll 
 pray for you, Drosee, and the Lord 11 lead you safe, I 
 know." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Johns," Drosee exclaimed, resting her 
 head upon the wide breast to which she had been sud 
 denly caught in a fond embrace, " I do so want to 
 hear you tell about my mother ! I have often wished 
 I could make up my mind to ask you about her, but I 
 have not talked of her for so long. I shall never cease 
 to regret her; I shall never cease to want the mother- 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 215 
 
 love I have lacked so long ; I always think that she 
 would have understood perfectly !" 
 
 " Poor child ! You must learn to think of her in 
 heaven -" 
 
 " Heaven ! Dead f " Drosee cried, lifting a horror- 
 stricken face. " Oh, I have always hoped that some 
 how, yet that while she was living, somewhere, it was 
 yet possible 
 
 " Living ! Mrs. Johns exclaimed, more bewil 
 dered than Drosee. " Ain t she been dead all these 
 years ? Ain t your father a widower ? Ain t he en 
 gaged this minute to Jane Ball ?" 
 
 "Father? My father?" Drosee said, with sup 
 pressed vehemence of speech, as she rose to her feet. 
 " Would any woman wish to marry my father, who 
 nearly broke the truest heart that ever beat ?" 
 
 "Where is he? Where is Jane Ball?" Mrs. 
 Johns exclaimed, excitedly. " What does he mean by 
 it ? Oh, child, you have given me such a start !" And 
 Mrs. Johns sunk back in attempting to rise, and 
 fainted quietly. 
 
 Drosee bent over her helplessly an instant, then 
 fanned hor, rubbed her hands, and attempted to loosen 
 
210 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER 
 
 her dress, but finding herself unequal to this, and the 
 swoon a serious one, summoned help. In a moment a 
 servant, followed by Miss Ball, had cohie to her assist 
 ance, and the three removed Mrs. Johns to the sofa, 
 and began to apply the usual restoratives. 
 
 " What on earth has done it ? She hasn t fainted 
 before in five months ; I thought she was quite over 
 these attacks," said poor Miss Jane, busily unfastening 
 the rather tight dark silk. " Isn t it strange, well as 
 she looks she weighs a hundred and seventy-five if 
 it s a pound ! Oh ! Cousin Mercy ! Ah, you re better 
 that s nicely, now no, keep still just smell this, 
 dear!" And Miss Jane s crimson face lit up with re 
 lief and joy as Mrs. Johns opened her eyes and feebly 
 moved her hand. 
 
 " Let me sit up," Mrs. Johns said, presently. " No, 
 Susan, you can go. Don t you go scare Mr. Johns 
 telling him when he comes in. Jane, get me a glass 
 of cordial, please. Thank you, dear," to Drosee, 
 who remained fanning her. 
 
 " I want you to tell Jane," she continued, as soon 
 as the others we.e out of hearing. " It s a dreadful 
 thing, but it must be done, and done now." 
 
WIND AKD RAIN. 217 
 
 " No, Mrs. Johns," Drosee answered, decidedly ; 
 " it is not my business to offer any information to Miss 
 Ball. My father is the one to tell her. And perhaps 
 she knows more than you think. My father s divorce 
 is perhaps such that he can legally marry. I will see 
 him, not her. Best a little, and do not worry now." 
 
 " Divorce or no divorce oh ! poor Emily ! if lie s 
 got a wife living he won t have Jane for another with 
 my consent," said Mrs. Johns, with surprising vigor. 
 
 "It ain t Scripture, it ain t decency, it ain t " 
 
 " Do not talk now, Cousin Mercy," said Jane Ball s 
 voice in unusually firm accents. She had come in with 
 the cordial. She was deeply flushed, as always by 
 excitement, but her big blue eyes were brave and even 
 defiant. " Drink your cordial, cousin." 
 
 "Jane, did you know it?" asked Mrs. Johns, in 
 the tone of one deeply hurt and wronged. 
 
 , " Your father," said Miss Ball, addressing herself 
 to Drosee and not to Mrs. Johns, " has told me his 
 whole past. I have accepted it. I alone understand 
 him as no one else does. This is between him and me. 
 You had no right to trouble my cousin so." 
 
 ; It was surprised out of her," Mrs. Johns replied 
 
218 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 for Drosee, " and out of me, Jane, she added, with a 
 sudden sense of having betrayed confidence. 
 
 " Miss Alwyn," said Miss Ball, her eyes filling with 
 sudden tears, and her richly-colored, juvenile face 
 looking even younger in its pathos, " I love your 
 father, I admire him, I will be a good wife to him and 
 brighten his life ; can t we be friends ?" She held out 
 her large, full hand cordially. A pang went through 
 Drosee s heart as she withheld her own. 
 
 " As his wife, I could never recognize you, Miss 
 Ball," she said, in an agitated tone. "As a woman, 
 you compel me to respect your loyalty ; but you do 
 not know my father ; and I am sorry, deeply sorry, for 
 the injury he has done you." 
 
 " I know your father, and I know that he has been 
 hardly and unjustly treated even by his own family, 
 and ill-used by a cruel fate," Miss Ball said, uncon 
 sciously echoing her elderly lover s own words to her. 
 " Your mother your mother was so wicked and harsh 
 as to be unworthy the name of woman !" 
 
 With those words the usually serene face of Drosee 
 was transformed ; a furious and terrible rage shot 
 from her deep blue eyes, and her very lips turned pale 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 219 
 
 with passion. The last effort of her self-control 
 closed them, and she turned aside, walked across the 
 room rapidly, though trembling at every step, opened 
 the door, arid perfectly heedless of Mrs. Johns ex 
 clamations and Miss Ball s hesitating " Miss Drosee !" 
 she passed out of the house, through the gate, and 
 found herself in the shady road leading homewards. 
 She passed along it, conquering her trembling in the 
 bracing air. but still pale and torn with passion, which 
 she still repressed. At the second crossing she paused ; 
 she felt her emotion capable of wildly asserting itself 
 at sight of any familiar face. To see her father now 
 would be unbearable; even good old Jemima s face 
 would be an intolerable weight on the scale against 
 self-mastery. She turned aside, and walked blindly, 
 swiftly, and as if instinctively, toward the strange and 
 straggling end of town, and into the open country. 
 
 It was not until she stood on the brow of the first 
 hill rising beyond Fairvalley that Drosee know that 
 she had been walking toward that old homestead of 
 her mother s family that her father had pointed out to 
 her on that drive with Mrs. Johns last summer. In 
 her present mood, that spot was irresistibly attractive 
 
220 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 to her; she turned her face th. therward, and more 
 calmly continued her walk in that direction. 
 
 As she went, her mind became clearer, and bhe 
 reflected over the discovery of the afternoon, and de 
 cided on her best course of action an appeal to the 
 influence of her father s wealthy and only sister, Mrs. 
 Seaford, to whom he was deeply in debt in case it 
 proved that he was really legally free to marry and de 
 termined to do so. In case he ultimately did so, and 
 even under the present circumstances of his intention, 
 the matter of feeling was more difficult to decide than 
 that of action. The intensest wrath and scorn rose 
 again and again within her, and that difficult lesson 
 of tranquillity seemed harder than ever before to learn. 
 "Will, pride, and anger they are hard to reason into 
 just moderation. Drosee walked on, with fierce and 
 dark companions. It seemed to her that she could 
 never submit to this injustice and wrong with quiet 
 ness, that it must forever embitter her if defeated in 
 Iier will to restrain this open wickedness. No one 
 had ever seen Drosee as she looked on this afternoon, 
 when she walked away from Fairvalley ; it was not the 
 philosopher Mrs. Fielding talked of who went with 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 221 
 
 flaine-lit cheek and sternly-blazing deep blue eyes, 
 through, wayside dust and falling leaves unheeding. 
 
 At "a distance of more than two miles from Fair- 
 valley Drosee paused, having reached the low stone 
 fence bounding the little farm ; fatigued, she went 
 close to it, and leaning against a tree, looked wistfully 
 over it into the shady orchard beyond, with its long, 
 rank, neglected grass. She could just see a corner of 
 the low, old-fashioned house through the trees. She 
 w r anted to go nearer. The place was silent and de 
 serted. She climbed the broad, low stone fence with 
 ease, and jumped down into the long grass of the or 
 chard. Walking up through the trees she soon came 
 within sight of the house. She seemed to remember 
 the place as if she had known it in some former exist 
 ence, but, to her keen disappointment, it appeared that 
 the house was inhabited, after all. A feather-bed 
 hung out in the sun from an upper window. A red 
 rocking-chair was visible at a lower window, and a 
 light table near it was piled with books. A cat was 
 dozing in the sunshine on the porch. Everything was 
 quiet, but orderly ; the flower-beds were weeded, and 
 some autumn flowers yet bloomed there ; the broad 
 
222 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 stone before the doorsteps was clean, the path freshly 
 graveled. 
 
 Drosee turned back. The old house was not going 
 to ruin, then. She must not even pluck one of the red 
 rose-haws on that clambering vine. She could not go 
 around the corner to that old-fashioned well with its 
 long pole, and drink, as somehow she found she had 
 meant to drink, a draught of water from its cool 
 depths. When Drosee was a tiny girl, her mother had 
 taught her the verses about the " Old Oaken Bucket," 
 and told her about the well in the yard at home, and 
 all the poetry of that familiarly-quoted old ballad had 
 been associated in her mind with her memories of her 
 mother s stories of a happy childhood. Drosee knew 
 that two bright, deep eyes, like her own, had peeped 
 over the boards and looked eagerly down into the mys 
 terious depths of water and bit of sky so far, far down 
 below. 
 
 She went along through the orchard, and came out 
 on a grove of young trees sloping down into a small 
 natural glen in whose depths sparkled water. Drosee 
 went down the stony declivity to the brook, which 
 purled between fern-banks. The leaves of the oaks 
 
WIND AND ItAIN.i 223 
 
 and beeches waved above her in the light afternoon 
 breeze. Birds flew through the tree-tops. The world 
 seemed leagues away. Drosee sat down on the grass, 
 leaned back against a large, smoothly- shelving rock, 
 turned, put her cheek against its coolness, and 
 closed her eyes. The shadows kept guard over her ; 
 the brook and the birds sang to her ; peace stole in 
 through every sense. Drosee gave herself up. to the 
 reactionary quiet, and with a sigh which did not all 
 belong to sorrow, she gave herself up to wandering 
 and peaceful thoughts, remote from recent trouble. 
 She was trying to remember herself and Jo as chil 
 dren ; trying to recall the face of the mother she had 
 not seen since her twelfth year ; smiling at sudden recol 
 lections of old frolics with Louis, and softening under 
 the remembrance of the faithful motherly nursing 
 which had guarded her in her most serious childish ill 
 nesses. 
 
 Whether these thoughts had glided into dreams 
 Drosee could not tell, but suddenly she started, and if 
 she had been asleep was awakened. A tall woman 
 dressed in black, with a fair but stern countenance, and 
 dark, familiar eyes, was looking down at her from the 
 
224 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 other side of the glen. Drosee moved and rose slowly; 
 her eyes, and the deep, unforgotten eyes now regard 
 ing her, held each other in one unbroken gaze ; and 
 both women moved silently down the glen, towards 
 the narrow brook ; Drosee reached it first, unconscious 
 ly, and her feet were in the clear, shallow water before 
 she was aware of it. 
 
 "Child! child!" exclaimed the other, in a 
 strange, tender, chiding voice : and then Drosee knew 
 certainly who spoke to her. 
 
 " Mother !" she cried ; and leaping to the opposite 
 shore, she was clasped in a trembling, straining em 
 brace, and held her mother to her with a fervent, pas 
 sionate strength. Their cheeks were together the 
 mother s cold and wan, the daughter s soft and hot ; 
 they moved only to look into each other s faces : and 
 then Drosee saw that the firm lines about her mother s 
 face were melted, her lips tremulous, and her eyelids 
 red. 
 
 " Mother ! My darling mother !" Drosee said, in a 
 voice of such soft and caressing enthusiasm that it was 
 more like a lover s than a child s : and then the two 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 225 
 
 kissed each other with a kind of awed delight in 
 their new-found joy. 
 
 " My daughter !" the mother said, placing her arm 
 in Drosee s, to turn and walk with her up the glen. 
 " You are a woman !" she said, pausing. " A good 
 girl, my child ?" passing her hand lovingly over 
 Drosee s forehead and cheek, and then looking with a 
 fond anxiety into the fair face. The question carried 
 Drosee back more than ten years, on the instant. She 
 remembered the words, the tone, the look ; the confes 
 sional at her mother s knee every night, and the advice 
 and the prayers that came after it, and all the careful, 
 anxious, but ever-loving mother-ways. She answered 
 now only by a confiding look ; and the two went up 
 the hill together. 
 
 " Mother, who lives here now ?" she asked, as they 
 came within sight of the old house again. 
 
 " I live here, my child. The cousin who bought it 
 left it to me in his will. All this is mine again. I 
 have come here to make it my home." 
 
 " And you we have been living so near you ! 
 All of us in this one little town of Fairvalley ! Did 
 
 you know 
 
 10* 
 
226 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " Yes, I knew. I meant to have seen you soon. 
 But my depot, and church, and post-office, are at 
 Brakesburg, which lies in that direction," pointing 
 eastward. " I have only been here a little while. Is 
 my other child well, Drosee ? Is little Jo well and 
 grown, too?" 
 
 " Grown and well, dear mother. It has been so 
 many years since you saw us, hasn t it? I was 
 twelve " 
 
 " Twice since then I have seen you," the mother 
 said. " Once in church I came to New York to get 
 that glimpse of you and once at West Point; you 
 were there with your aunt, I suppose ; I went over for 
 a day with some of the girls of the school. That was 
 long ago. I have been abroad five years." 
 
 "Why didn t you speak to us, mother? Where 
 have you been, darling ? Talk to me talk fast !" 
 
 The grave face smiled and then saddened again. 
 
 " I was bound never to seek you out or address you 
 willfully," she said. " I know now how foolish I was 
 ever to agree to that. I have suffered for it. Drosee, 
 is your father kind to you ? Do you girls love him ? 
 Is is he well?" 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 227 
 
 "He is well," Drosee said, gravely. "He is 
 usually as kind as as it is his nature to be." 
 
 There was a pause. " You have been abroad ?" 
 Drosee asked. 
 
 " For several years I was teaching, in two different 
 large schools ; then I went with Georgine Palliser and 
 her mother, to Europe. Mrs. Palliser needed me and 
 I could not refuse. She was one of my truest and 
 oldest friends : but you can t remernber her, I sup 
 pose." 
 
 " I remember the name. Go on, dear mother !" 
 
 " We educated Georgine abroad. She was married 
 last spring, at Florence, to a Boston gentleman, a Mr. 
 Vincent. Mrs. Palliser died in Paris in June, and I 
 came home with the Vincents. I have been with 
 them until now. This property was bequeathed me 
 last summer by my cousin, and with what I have been 
 able to lay up, I am able now to rest and call my 
 children to me. I am in feeble health, and I must 
 have my children ! I have been very weak. If I had 
 not been so cowardly, I might have found some 
 way to keep you with me all this time, rearing you as 
 a mother should. But 1 will do what I can even now." 
 
228 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 They passed within the low doorway, and up tho 
 crooked stairs. 
 
 It was growing dark before Drosee s brook-wet feet 
 had been rubbed and warmed to her mother s satisfac 
 tion, and re-clad in dry stockings and a pair of slim 
 slippers which were furnished her. The mother s 
 solicitous promptness in attending personally to this 
 matter brought both tears and smiles to Drosee s face ; 
 she, who had felt herself a woman of much independ 
 ence heretofore, enjoyed the novelty of being watched 
 and cared for like a child. This over, the mother led 
 the daughter again down-stairs, into her low dining- 
 room, where a table was spread with supper for two. 
 
 " You are my guest to-night, Drosee," the mother 
 said ; and leaving her standing by a chair passed to 
 her own accustomed seat, and bending a grave face as 
 she stood with her hand on the back of her chair, 
 she briefly uttered a petition for blessing before seat 
 ing herself. 
 
 A small hickory- wood fire snapped and blazed in 
 the great fireplace behind a polished brass fender ; the 
 table was set with a simple supper, and its arrange 
 ments were tasteful and refined. The glass and spoons 
 
WJXD AND RAIN. 229 
 
 and two pieces of old-time silver were polished bright ; 
 there were flowers in a slender vase, the bread was on 
 an oaken platter carved about with the words, " Give us 
 this day our daily bread, and the sharp knife beside it 
 had a handle of the same wood, smooth at the sides 
 but gracefully carven through and through between. 
 A glance at the table and the room showed that the 
 usually solitary inmate of it was not only daintily neat 
 about everything, but had an eye for grace and the 
 harmony of colors. Drosee took up the pretty knife 
 and cut another slice of the white bread just for 
 the pleasure of using it. 
 
 "It is growing night while I linger here, dear 
 mother of mine !" 
 
 " And since Jo is away, there is no need for you to 
 go home. You are to stay all night with me, my 
 daughter. To-morrow I will see about your return. 
 But to-night you need supper and rest after your 
 walk ; and by and by we can talk." 
 
 There was a slight hectic flush on the wan cheek of 
 the mother, and her eyes were bright with excitement. 
 She ate little supper, but assiduously pretended to do 
 
230 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 so, and urged food upon Drosee until she was fun -y 
 obliged to eat heartily. 
 
 They talked of the merest trifles, and with an air 
 of great cheerfulness on each side. When they had 
 finished the mother arranged everything on two large 
 trays which she took from a closet, and touched a bell. 
 The kitchen door opened, and a plain-looking middle- 
 aged woman came in, and removed the trays. Then 
 returning, she folded the table-cloth, and spread in its 
 place a table-cover of some Eastern-looking fabric full 
 of dim mingled colors and shot with threads of gold. 
 On this she placed again the quaint, brightly-burning 
 lamp, and was about to withdraw ; but turning to 
 wards Drosee, who stood by the mantel-piece examin 
 ing a delicately-painted vase there, she asked : 
 
 " Will she be staying here ?" . 
 
 " Yes, Martha. Put a little more wood on my fire 
 and leave an armful beside it. That is all. Good 
 night." 
 
 The servant withdrew, and the mother came up to 
 Drosee and laid a light hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "My retinue is dismissed, you see," she said, with 
 one of those smiles which is so ineffably sad when seen 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 231 
 
 to cover a pain or fear on such a worn, fair face. 
 " Come and sit down and tell me everything, my 
 child." 
 
 * -3f * * * -5f * 
 
 "He might have waited a little longer yet! It 
 would have been a short time enough ! A little longer, 
 for my children s sake ! But, O God, must I bear this 
 too? 1 
 
 The face that had been beautiful Emily Windharn s 
 was wan and drawn, the sunken eyes red with passion 
 ate weeping, the set mouth all tremulous with uncon 
 trollable pain, as it was lifted in the cruel morning sun 
 shine for an instant, from between two thin, wet hands, 
 towards the far, smiling sky, and was streaming with 
 piteous, helpless tears. 
 
 This woman had lived a strange life, between ex 
 tremes of feeling. Her outward appearance was that 
 of a calmly-melancholy bub iirmly self-possessed 
 woman. People said of her, " she has had a history, 
 that woman ;" but few knew how hard and sad the 
 story. She appeared at times something as she had 
 been in youth ready, witty, and interesting in conver 
 sation ; but her prevailing characteristics seemed to be 
 
23-3 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 those of a stern, emotionless woman, fervent in re 
 ligious feeling only. 
 
 But the Emily Windham who married John Al- 
 wyn was an intelligent, loving, charming young girl, 
 full of enthusiasms, fancies and dreams, though with a 
 stern Calvinistic religious rearing. They had been 
 passionately enamored of each other at first, and even 
 when the differences of moral standards, of aims, and 
 of habits, brought the inevitable roughening to the 
 path of married life, they were still fond and happy at 
 times. By degrees they recognized the lack of perfect 
 sympathy between them ; the husband was then fast 
 attaining his brief honors, was popular, worldly, and 
 vanity-struck ; the wife lived for her babies, was re 
 lentlessly pious and clear-sighted ; vexed her husband s 
 false pride daily, and went on to oppose him stanchly 
 in his views of fashionable education and society show 
 for the bright little girls of whom he was more proud 
 than fond. With the years Ernily grew apparently 
 colder and sterner, arid wore a look of early severity 
 between her matron brows ; her passions of lonely 
 weeping and praying arid self-upbraid ings and ques 
 tionings were known to no living soul. Her husband s 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 233 
 
 heart was quite alienated ; he became more and more 
 neglectful of her, and his attentions to other women 
 became subjects for gossip and even scandal. The 
 crisis came at last in one miserable night ; he left her 
 lying face downward in an agony of weeping left 
 her with a confession of his own unfaithfulness, and 
 a scornful and scorching accusation of her heartlessness 
 as the cause of all. He went to the opera and to sup 
 per with his temporary favorite ; and when he came 
 home, at three in the morning, his wife was gone. 
 
 At first his heart was moved, or his pride touched, 
 so deeply that he was ready to plead, promise, yield 
 anything for the sake of a reconciliation, or even an 
 outward show of peace. He traced the fugitive wife 
 to her retreat ; she had gone to an old friend, the lady- 
 principal of a large diocesan school; but she refused to 
 see him. Neither expostulations, rage nor grief had 
 any effect upon her, though they half won the lady, 
 through whom they communicated, to plead his cause. 
 Then followed the last and only cruelty in her hus 
 band s power. Since by her cowardly midnight flight 
 from his house she had, he stated, placed herself for 
 ever in the wrong, her children should never see her 
 
234 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 again. She was at that time penniless, wretched, and 
 with a darkened and difficult life before her. She 
 yielded every claim upon her children, and turned her 
 self steadfastly away from the husband whose conduct 
 she felt with a deep and abhorrent resentment ; and so 
 began a life forever tormented by a stern and mor 
 bidly-indulged remorse, whose outward facts she had 
 told to Drosee at their first meeting ; a life unknown 
 to the world, in which strange stories were afloat about 
 her for a time stories the vain and cruel husband may 
 not have originated, but never confuted, since they left 
 him to play the victim with whatever talent he had a 
 part he preferred to that of the tyrant, since he lived 
 on the approbation and sympathy of his admirers ; and 
 long since the wife was forgotten by the w T orld, which 
 also gradually forgot the unsuccessful author. 
 
 John Alwyn had not, however, as to the main facts, 
 deceived this last loving woman whose heart and faith 
 lie had won. Jane Ball knew that he had lived miser 
 ably with his first wife, that she had left him, that she 
 had refused his overtures for a reconciliation, and that 
 after some time he had quietly obtained a divorce. 
 And knowing all this, Jane Ball was privately married 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 235 
 
 to him on the morning after that stormy afternoon at 
 Mrs. Johns house. 
 
 When Drosee drove into Fairvalfey in a little 
 close carriage which was her mother s, and entered the 
 cottage by the kitchen way, she found the faithful 
 Jemima bewildered and alone, and was told by her 
 that her father was married and gone. 
 
 " He come in last night and called you all over the 
 house ; he was mad and excited-like when I told him 
 you was stayin all night with some of your friends, I 
 s posed. He swore like a parrot, and slammed the 
 door. He was up all night in the study here, and in 
 and out his room, and this morning he called me and 
 said : i Jemima, when the man comes for my trunk, let 
 him take it. Good-bye ; I am going to be married in 
 fifteen minutes, and I m going away, says he. I was 
 so took back I couldn t breathe a breath ; but soon s 
 the man took the things, I whipped on my bonnet and 
 scooted down to the depot to watch em go, and there 
 he was, with a lady on his arm, with a big brown vail 
 over her face, marching up and down the platform. 
 He caught sight n me, dodging around, and called me, 
 emilin -like, and says he : t Jemima, here s my wife ; 
 
236 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER 
 
 "Wish you luck, ma am, says I ; c any message for Miss 
 Drosee ? None, says he, very big ; and the lady 
 
 says, Tell her no! no! no! my dear, says 
 
 he ; and she pulled aside her vail and looked up, and 
 her big blue eyes as asking as a baby s ; and then he 
 smiled, and shook his head, and she smiled back at 
 him, and they went away in the train together." 
 
 Drosee stood with her face turned away from 
 Jemima as she listened, but her hand lay calmly on 
 the back of a chair near her, and Jemima, observ 
 ing her quiet, listening attitude, thought that she was 
 bearing it very well. If she had seen Drosee s face, 
 the compressed under-lip and flushed cheek and the 
 strangely lighted dark-blue eyes would have told her 
 that Drosee was more moved and excited than she had 
 ever known her. Suddenly she turned to Jemima, and 
 grasping the hard hands of the old servant, told her 
 that she had just found her mother. 
 
 Jemima afterwards related how the shock went to 
 her knees. She sat down and listened in silence, but 
 for a few eloquent exclamations, to the story Drosee 
 told. She had been the children s nurse before their 
 mother left them. In an hour s time Drosee and sho 
 
WIND AND UAIN. 237 
 
 had each made up a bundle, put out the tires, set the 
 house in order, locked it up, and gone away together. 
 
 Mrs. Windham as she had long been called bore 
 the news bravely enough, to all appearance. Drosee 
 had told her enough the night before to prepare her 
 somewhat ; it was only when locked in her room, in 
 the solitude she had lived in so long, that the poor 
 wife and mother fell into that passion of piteous weep 
 ing, and wildly appealed to God from beneath the 
 latest burden cast upon a broken heart. 
 
 For Drosee the trial was of a different nature. It 
 was difficult to subdue a passionate wrath that burned 
 within her, so that in calmness and serenity she might 
 faithfully cheer and help her mother. She felt the 
 impatience of a baffled will, the bitterness of resent 
 ment against the inevitable ; but her habits of self- 
 control and reasoning enabled her from the first to 
 deny expression to her mortification or her rage ; and 
 gradually the fierceness of the struggle was spent, and 
 the grace of serenity came back to the mind and heart 
 of our fair philosopher once more. 
 
238 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 At a street corner in New York, on a dull Novem 
 ber evening in the week of Mr. Alwyn s departure 
 from Fairvalley, a tall, dark young man, and a tall, 
 blonde young man accidentally met. 
 
 "Mr. Seaford ! I beg pardon, I have had the pleas 
 ure of meeting " 
 
 " Mr. "Wilmer ! Yes, certainly, we ve met at my 
 in Fairvalley. Glad to see you. Going my way ?" 
 
 " Thank you I believe I am, whichever way you 
 are going unless you are in a hurry." 
 
 " Just walking home. It s fine weather for a cab. 
 But I m walking for my constitutional," and Louis 
 glanced down with a droll sigh at his round, but still 
 shapely figure, and his lazy blue eyes were lifted only 
 to watch his cane as he twirled it lightly in the air. 
 The two young men turned down the avenue side by 
 side. 
 
 There was a striking contrast between them, though 
 both were well-dressed, well-born, well-looking young 
 men in good society. Wilmer was the elder, taller 
 and more extraordinary-looking of the two ; his broad, 
 soft black hat was cast carelessly upon his tumbled 
 head, and shaded his massive forehead and noticeably 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 239 
 
 large, dark eyes ; his clean-shaven face, with its finely- 
 cut features, thick, dusky locks, a trifle too long for 
 the Northern fashion, his garments, well cut and fine, 
 but loosely worn, and the deliberate, powerful, yet 
 easy stride of his long legs, made altogether an appear 
 ance at once unusual and suggestively Southern. Louis 
 Seaford s close blonde locks were cropped convict 
 fashion ; his mustache was long and of a tawny gold, 
 his brows fair to whiteness, his blue eyes at once 
 shrewd and mirth-loving, and his round and well-knit 
 figure tightly fitted by the most fashionable garments 
 a Broadway tailor could devise. He was Young New 
 York at its best, for he knew something of literature as 
 well as ledgers, and was w T ell-informed, as well as rich 
 and good-looking. Many girls thought Louis would 
 be the most charming of lovers, and his blonde beauty 
 had touched some tender hearts that knew the best of 
 him as little as they knew Greek ; but Wilmcr was 
 apter to appeal to the imagination of a woman, and 
 become an object of hero-worship quite unconsciously. 
 
 He spoke hesitatingly now to Louis. 
 
 " If I may, I should like to ask, Mr. Seaford, if 
 Miss Alwyn is with Mrs. Seaford, your mother V 
 
2io A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " Miss Alwyn ?" said Louis, instantly looking more 
 of a business man and less of an idler. " My cousin 
 Drosee ? No, she is not with my mother." 
 
 " She is not in Falrvalley," said Wilmer, with some 
 slight embarrassment and agitation. " Her friends 
 there are much concerned by her sudden disappear 
 ance. My cousin, Mrs. Fielding, desired me to 
 address myself to you for information. I intended to 
 have seen you to-day somehow." 
 
 " I can set your mind at rest," Louis said, coolly. 
 " I know where she is. She is all right." 
 
 Wilmer bowed, and stood still. Louis s manner 
 seemed to him discourteous ; but even at the cost of 
 appearing over-curious he was glad to learn that all 
 was well with Drosee. 
 
 " Mrs. Fielding, of course, will hear from her soon," 
 Louis said, immediately. " But I may as well tell you, 
 Mr. Wilmer, though at present this is only for you two 
 that Drosee is with her mother." 
 
 "Her mother!" Wilmer exclaimed, in astonish 
 ment. 
 
 " Her mother, who is one of the best women I 
 ever knew," Louis replied, rather haughtily. 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 241 
 
 " I could never have doubted that Miss Alwyn s 
 mother was so, 1 Wilmer said, quietly. 
 
 Something in his tone struck Louis s keen ear, and 
 he guessed rightly how things were with his com 
 panion. 
 
 "Walk on a bit, will you?" he said, feeling the 
 ready sympathy and respect born of a fellow-feeling. 
 You know my cousins well, and I may as well re 
 lieve my mind when I have a trustworthy listener. 
 You ve seen Mr. Alwyn s marriage in the papers ?" 
 
 " Yes ; he was married on Wednesday." 
 
 " The two of them sailed for Europe that very day. 
 You know whom he married? She had about five 
 thousand dollars, and he as many hundreds. There s 
 the end of them, as far as I ever want to know. He s 
 my mother s only brother, but even she has given him 
 up at last." 
 
 Wilmer s look expressed his attention. 
 
 " Drosee s mother has been teaching ever since her 
 separation from her husband. A relation has left her 
 a small property now, and she is living at her child 
 hood s home, a little farm between Brakesburg and 
 Fairvalley. Drosee wrote to me on Wednesday night, 
 11 
 
242 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 and I went out there Thursday. My aunt is a very 
 good woman, but saddened for life. Drosee and sle 
 are perfectly wrapped up in each other already. 
 Drosee says she has been wanting her mother all her 
 life, and seems full of delight to be with her again. 
 Perhaps it seems strange to you that it should be so ?" 
 
 " No. I have heard Miss Alwyn speak of speak 
 in a manner that would have led me to expect tin s 
 feeling for her mother," Wilmer said, with apparent 
 composure, but privately annoyed at having let sh p 
 even this small admission. 
 
 "The deuce you have !" thought Louis. "Well, 
 if Drosee chose to be as confidential as that " 
 
 " I never saw her show as much feeling in my life as 
 she does toward my aunt," he went on. " They are 
 going to be very happy together, I hope, and put aside 
 the remembrance of Mr. Alwyn for the pleasure they 
 find in each other." 
 
 " And Miss Jo ?" asked Wilmer. 
 
 " Oh," said Louis, flushing, " she is not with them. 
 She is in Philadelphia, but she is coming over to spend 
 a few days with them soon. Drosee couldn t tell me 
 when, ind I don t know. She went away long before 
 
WIND AND RAIN. 243 
 
 this excitement, and was teaching a friend s children, 
 before we even knew of it here." 
 
 " It was very hard for Miss Alwyn to be without 
 her, I should think," Wilmer said, simply. 
 
 " Ye-es," Louis answered, with a curious twinkle 
 in his eye. " I don t suppose any one would like to 
 part wit! i with one s only sister," ending the half- 
 ingenuous speech imcandidly. 
 
 Wilmer glanced at Louis, and began to have his 
 own suspicions, in his turn. 
 
 " Come in, won t you," asked Louis, pausing at his 
 own door-step. " Do come in, like a good fellow ; I 
 haven t had half a talk with you yet." 
 
 "Thank you, another time," Wilmer answered, 
 consulting his watch. I have promised my cousin to 
 bring her what news I could to-night." 
 
 " Well," said Louis, reluctantly, for a great fancy 
 for Wilmer had sprung up within him, " you must go 
 then, I suppose. And we re very quiet here just now; 
 but I should be glad if you d drop in some time." 
 
 " I thank you, Seaford ; I ll do so to-morrow, per- 
 Laps, or as that s Sunday " 
 
244 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " I ll be at home all day after twelve," Louis an 
 swered, cheerfully ; and so they parted cordially. 
 
 As Lonis fitted his latch-key in the door, he re 
 flected, however. 
 
 " But if I dared to intrude on them, I might run 
 down to Fairvalley to-morrow to see if Jo is there. It 
 won t do, though it wouldn t do." 
 
 Then he carried his handsome face into his 
 mother s richly-furnished room, and the widow put up 
 her fresh, handsome, elderly face to be kissed by him. 
 She was very proud of Louis s filial devotion to her, 
 and leaned on it greatly since his father s death ; but 
 the best-considered mother would sometimes be aston 
 ished to guess what thoughts are flitting through the 
 brain beneath the dark or light locks she fondly 
 touches ; and Louis now, at his mother s feet, looking 
 at her sparkling fire and speaking readily in reply to 
 her remarks, as she smoothed the fair hair just long 
 enough to begin its shorn curves upon his brow, was 
 thinking secretly of the face of his hard young sweet 
 heart, Jo. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 
 
 " Yet there is one who seems to be 
 Thine elder sister, in whose eyes 
 A faint, far Northern light will rise 
 
 Sometimes, and bring a dream of thee. 
 But * No, she answers, I am she 
 Whom the gods love, Tranquility. 
 Who can renounce, and yet endure, 
 To him I come, not lightly wooed, 
 But won by silent fortitude. " 
 
 * J. R. LOWELL. " Ode to Happiness." 
 
 NOVEMBER had passed, December was going. Fair- 
 valley had had little snow or ice as yet, but Christmas 
 was coming, and a new year. 
 
 And with Christmas Jo was coming to the Stone 
 Cottage ; and on the eve of the new year Trinity 
 Church was going to have a new service ; a musical, 
 midnight service, on Sunday night, which was the last 
 night of the year. Several people took the credit of 
 that influence which had moved the church to do this 
 
 thing ; but at any rate, it was to be, for the first time 
 
 [245] 
 
246 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 in an Episcopal church in Fairvalley ; and nobody but 
 the choir and the rector knew the programme exactly : 
 but it was to be a solemn service, with chanting and 
 hymns by the choir, and prayers and portions of Scrip 
 ture read by Dr. Bampfyle. Drosee s mother had a 
 piano now at the cottage, and Drosee sometimes shut 
 herself up and practiced some melancholy music or 
 other. 
 
 She had robbed Fairvalley of its hoped-for mystery 
 and budding sensation by quietly taking her place in 
 the choir on the Sunday morning after that Wednes 
 day on which the rumor of her father s private mar 
 riage and her disappearance had set the town agog ; it 
 was now understood that she was living near Fairvalley 
 with her mother, and by this time her few friends 
 had been welcomed at the cottage. Mrs. Johns had 
 come timidly, and been received kindly. She had 
 been a great admirer of Emily Windham in her 
 youth, and much more simple and uneducated than her 
 country neighbor ; but she came, and was received as 
 a friend now, and the unaffected goodness of her heart 
 re-won the regard of her old acquaintance. 
 
 Dr. Stark came, by invitation, and not seldom after 
 
CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 247 
 
 that. To Mrs. Windham he was her daughter s literary 
 sponsor, and Dr. Stark was careful never to touch on 
 any religious topics in her presence. He saw, and per 
 haps lie only, that there was a lack of a perfect under 
 standing between the mother and daughter, who had 
 lived apart so long, and he did nothing to make it ap 
 parent. 
 
 And in truth, Drosee had now lost her latest illu 
 sion. She had her mother at last, and they loved each 
 other ; but perfect joy is to be found in attaining no 
 material desire she still was forced to hold. Her 
 mother and she secretly differed in all their thoughts 
 and feelings. The mother s life had rendered her re 
 ligion into a kind of account book between herself and 
 her God ; she never suffered without torturing her con 
 science to seek out the frailty or sin she was being pun 
 ished for; rewards and punishments, strictly meted, 
 here and hereafter, was the firmest idea she had of an 
 Almighty Euler ; and Drosee learned (from a conver 
 sation they once had) that she must never dare to 
 assail her mother s convictions ; for the only effect that 
 her exposition of a belief in God as love, her quoted 
 saying that since " an inert, unintelligent or malevolent 
 
248 A FA in PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 love is simply a contradiction in terms," " love, if it 
 means anything, means good- will acting freely with a 
 wise and intelligent design," was met by the grave re 
 ply that God revealed himself not only as a father, but 
 as a judge, to whom vengeance belongeth, and a differ 
 ence in the interpretation of that text brought forth in 
 the heart-wearied and soul-sick mother, whose struggle 
 with life had left her fixed in a bitter sense of her own 
 blame-worthiness before God and man, a passion of 
 tears, every drop of which seemed to burn on Drosee s 
 heart ; and a wailing cry that " this was her punish 
 ment, her punishment ; her own child, whom she had 
 deserted, had fallen into easy and dangerous doctrines 
 of salvation, and her mother was to blame for it." 
 Our gentle young philosopher soothed her as best she 
 could ; and from that day she had lived under the 
 strain of physical nearness to one who is far away : she 
 iiad felt that her mother grieved and prayed for her in 
 secret ; and had at times felt impelled to dissemble in 
 order to please her ; and so the days went by. 
 
 The mother, on her part, was striving to do every 
 outward thing for her beloved daughter s happiness. 
 She received such company as came to them, cordially; 
 
CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 249 
 
 her gentle and gracious manners and attempts at good 
 cheer were infinitely lovely and touching ; the tender- 
 est affection was in both hearts, but there was a vail 
 between them never to be lifted. 
 
 Louis came down on a second visit to them a few 
 days before Christmas. Mrs. Windham looked more 
 pale and wan than usual that evening, but she was 
 very courteous and friendly to Louis, whom she liked ; 
 and when she rose to retire early, asking to be excused 
 because of a headache, Louis insisted on carrying her 
 lamp up-stairs for her, and having set it on a table just 
 within her door, astonished her by turning gently to 
 her, taking both of her hands, and saying : 
 
 " Aunt Emily, are you in any trouble I can help 
 you out of ? Please call on me as if I were your son," 
 he concluded hastily, blushing like a boy. The dark- 
 eyed lady looked keenly at him an instant, smiled 
 faintly, sighed, and said kindly : 
 
 " I need nothing but rest, dear boy. Good-night, 
 my son," and then Louis kissed her wan cheek with a 
 boy s impulsiveness, but a man s sincere respectfulness, 
 and went down-stairs with an unusually sober face. 
 
 Drosee was alone by the fire. He sat down by her 
 11* 
 
250 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 and quietly took her hand. This being a not unheard- 
 of, though rather unusual, familiarity between the 
 cousins, Drosee permitted it serenely, and merely 
 looked at him with gentle inquiry. She knew Louis 
 was going to be confidential when he took her hand 
 and looked serious. 
 
 "Drosee," he began abruptly, "did Jo tell you 
 about us last summer?" 
 
 " About us ?" 
 
 " About my asking her to marry me ?" 
 
 " Louis Seaf ord ! Is that true F 
 
 " Hard-hearted little soul ! So she was even 
 ashamed to tell you ?" 
 
 " Ashamed ! I don t think Jo ever did anything 
 to be ashamed of in her life," said Drosee valiantly. 
 " But this is true ; for the first time that I know of, 
 she has kept a secret from me." She stopped, bewil 
 dered. " And what did you do, Louis ?" 
 
 " Tried it twice, and then went away and tried to 
 bear my fate like a man." 
 
 " Poor boy ! Dear Louis, I am so sorry ! You 
 would be the most agreeable of brothers." 
 
 " Thank you, dear," squeezing the hand he held, 
 
CIIRLSTMAS-TIDE. 251 
 
 and frowning with the gravity of thought. "But, 
 Drosee, I can t make up my mind to be pitied ; I want 
 her yet. I was so sure she did love me. Do you 
 think she doesn t ? " 
 
 " I am afraid she doesn t, Lou," reluctantly. 
 
 " Is there any one else ? " Louis asked, sitting bolt 
 upright in dismay. 
 
 "I am not clear that I have anything to say," 
 Drosee returned, as diplomatically as possible. 
 
 " Oh, heavens ! If that s it poor Louis said, 
 dropping his face between his hands. Drosee was 
 touched. She had -a sincere affection for Louis, and 
 she had never known him so frankly distressed in her 
 life. She put her hand on his shoulder. He looked 
 up presently, with quite a haggard expression, and an 
 agitated air. 
 
 " See here, Drosee," he said, speaking rapidly. " I 
 can t think Jo is a flirt. And I tell you this, I came 
 and told her I was corning to stay in Fair valley while 
 you were away with my people that is, if you would 
 go and she as good as owned to me that she staid at 
 home because of my being here ; I had frankly told her 
 I came on her account." 
 
252 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER 
 
 Drosee looked troubled, and shook her head. 
 
 " Remember the night she went out and walked 
 with me, and we only came home when we saw the 
 light in your room you had come back from a club- 
 meeting or something? She promised me then to tell 
 you she wouldn t go away. She gave me a rose I ve 
 got it now she let me put it in her hair early in the 
 evening." 
 
 Drosee bent her looks on the fire, and bit her lip 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " She she I can t tell you, and I won t tell you," 
 said the young man, starting up, and a blush rising to 
 his fair and manly cheek at the idea of betraying Jo 
 further, even to her sister, by relating the favors that 
 had been modestly yielded as to a cousin, but which 
 had thrilled them both with a deeper meaning " but 
 she did not love any other man then, Drosee, and I ll 
 swear it by her own pure heart !" 
 
 " Louis, I have been mistaken, I have been mis 
 taken !" Drosee cried, rising, too. " I see it now : she 
 made one half-confession to me ; and I thought it was 
 some one else, not knowing that you were to be in 
 Fair valley. I know she staid for some one s sake ; I 
 
CIIPJS TMAS- TIDE. 253 
 
 bolievc now it was for yours ; and if Jo loved you 
 once, she ll love you forever !" 
 
 " God bless you ! who did you think it was ?" 
 Louis asked. 
 
 " 1 cannot tell you. It would be unjust to her to 
 do it fastening my folly on her." 
 
 " But I won t misunderstand. Only tell me, that I 
 may laugh at it. Was it was it any of the teachers 
 in that Sunday-school ?" 
 
 " No, no but " 
 
 "Was it ah! Drosee, was it" whispering 
 " Wiliner, perhaps ?" 
 
 Drosee s blush was so swift a reply to more ques 
 tions than one that Louis impetuously caught her in his 
 arms, and laughed softly and triumphantly as she ex 
 tricated herself from them, pale now as she had been 
 red. 
 
 " That is all right," he said confidently. 
 
 " Then why did she refuse you twice ?" Drosee 
 asked hastily. 
 
 Louis looked sober. 
 
 " It was my fault," he said, " at least, I think and 
 hope so. Drosee, I shall try again. May I come over 
 
254 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 at Christmas, and will you just give me a chance when 
 you can ?" 
 
 "I will promise that. But can you leave Aunt 
 Mary or w ill she come if J write and ask her ? 
 Or " 
 
 " Oh, she will spend Christmas at my grand 
 father s. I don t think I need her here, exactly," he 
 said, with a conscious blush. " That will be all right 
 afterwards. Don t tell Jo I m coming, will you ? I 
 want to surprise her." 
 
 And this he effectually did, a week later. 
 
 Jo had come, looking a little paler, and a little 
 heavier about the eyes than of old, but bright and 
 pretty Jo still. She would not hear any talk of her 
 breaking her engagement for the year s work ; she had 
 vetoed that on her first visit to her mother. She pre 
 tended not to think it honorable ; she really was 
 resolved not to be in Fairvalley, where Louis could 
 naturally see her often without any definite seeking of 
 her. She would never be in his way again, by her 
 own will. Perhaps she had longed sometimes for him 
 to come to her in those three months away from 
 homo ; certain it is that she had never ceased to think 
 
CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 255 
 
 of him in his grief over his father s death-bed, his care 
 that followed, his apparently relentless silence a 
 silence really longer in seeming to her than to him, 
 for Louis had less leisure than she, and more hope and 
 power as to the ending of their estrangement. 
 
 Jo came home, then, with a proud and stubborn, yet 
 loving heart, and talked to Drosee and her mother of 
 everything under the sun but the little ache down at 
 the root of all pleasure and action ; and they, who had 
 each other s confidence, did not say a word to her of 
 Louis coming. They sent her down to the parlor to 
 finish a wreath of evergreens for its decoration, alone, 
 while they delayed for some plausible reason lip-stairs, 
 but really looked out of the window for Louis ; and 
 the first Jo knew of him, he had silently entered the 
 fire-lit room in the gathering twilight. 
 
 " Merry Christmas !" cried Jo bravely, jumping up, 
 dropping the evergreens, and holding out her hand. 
 
 " Will you add to that a Happy New Year ?" asked 
 Louis, who had been wondering what words he should 
 find to woo Jo in, and who now found them readily 
 enough. The tone in which he spoke was sufficiently 
 significant, and Jo s up-flashing eyes saw a serious and 
 
256 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 tender look in his that she could not well meet. She 
 looked down ; and Louis added simply, " Jo, you have 
 my life in your hands. I shall be miserable if you 
 cannot pity me." 
 
 There was a long silence. Jo did not withdraw 
 her hand from his, though he held it lightly and defer 
 entially. 
 
 " Will you ask only pity ?" asked Jo at last, very 
 low. 
 
 " I beg for love," said Louis, coming closer. Jo 
 sank back into her chair, and Louis dropped on his 
 knee at her side. He took nothing, though she was 
 submissive enough now ; only he still held the little 
 hand ; and when Jo bent forward he put his cheek to 
 hers. A whisper did the rest, and Jo was won for 
 ever. 
 
 " And what have you besides love to go upon?" 
 the mother asked, holding Jo s radiant young face be 
 tween her thin, white palms that night, and looking 
 with sad and loving eyes into the lovely young life 
 sparkling there. 
 
 " Is not love enough ?" said Jo, happily. 
 
 " JSTo, my child, not enough. To make married life 
 
CHRISTMAS- TIDE. 257 
 
 happy, there must be sympathy, understanding and 
 trust ; similar aims and beliefs." 
 
 " That I call love," Jo said. " The the attraction 
 between us includes all that." 
 
 " Sure, my darling ?" 
 
 " Sure, mother ! We are made to be happy to 
 gether," Jo went on, blushing vividly. " We love the 
 same things we like to do the same things we care 
 for each other s happiness we want to be true to 
 others and to to God ; don t you believe we will be 
 happy, mother ?" 
 
 " You have a fair chance, dear," the mother said, 
 with a satisfied look replacing the anxious one an 
 instant. " And now> good-night, and sleep well ; to 
 morrow is Christmas day, you know." 
 
 " Merry Christmas, mother 3" 
 
 " The merriest for many a long year, dear child." 
 
 " Drosee, did you think I was in love with 
 Mr. Wilmer?" Jo asked, her head pillowed on 
 Drosee s arm that night. 
 
 " Forget that now," Drosee said, in a muffled voice. 
 And long after Jo was lost in happy dreams, Drosee 
 lay awake, thinking. By and by she rose, and went 
 
208 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 softly into her mothers room, to see if she slept. Yes, 
 and heavily ; but again the pillow was wet with tears. 
 
 Drosee came back to her own room, and sat alone 
 by the window. 
 
 " My life is not without its best value yet," she 
 thought. " The vanity of desire is proven ; love is no 
 more mine ; my will and my anger have been futile, 
 and all outward successes slip away from me. The 
 best of everything is yet mine ; the willingness to per 
 ceive and know my duty, and the one purpose, faith 
 fully to fulfill it to my life s last day." 
 
 That " progress in virtue is a greater good than the 
 mere attainment of happiness," who can gainsay? 
 Disappointment and loss are weak before a soul so 
 armed. And Drosee slept at last, a disciplined, tried 
 and conquering heart at the end of a long march. 
 
CHAPTER X, 
 
 NEW TEAK S EYE. 
 
 Epicurus. I would never think of death as an embarrass 
 ment, but a blessing. 
 
 Fernissa. How a blessing ? 
 
 Epicurus. What if it make our enemies cease to hate us? 
 What if it make our friends love us the more? 
 
 W. S. LANDOB. 
 
 SUNDAY night, the 31st of December, a "midnight 
 mass for the dying year" was being held in Trinity 
 Church at Fairvalley. The light streamed out from 
 the high, narrow windows of the weather-beaten old 
 edifice upon the deep, fresh-fallen snow, with the 
 whitest radiance. The church was filled and packed 
 long before half-past eleven, the time for the service 
 to begin ; everybody had been drawn forth by the 
 novelty, even the members of St. Luke s Church, 
 though their pastor was decidedly disposed to scoff at 
 this innovation, and was not present, 
 
 As Dr. Bampfyle, in black robes, entered the 
 
 chancel, the organ first sounded, and music filled the 
 
 [259] 
 
200 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 listening ears of the breathless mass of people. Now 
 collects had been read, solemn portions of the psalms 
 chanted, and a brief address made ; and through the 
 silent church came a clear, soft, warning voice, as if 
 it fell from a spirit land ; Drosee Alwyn was singing 
 all alone 
 
 u Days and moments quickly flying, 
 Blend the living with the dead ; 
 Soon must you and I be lying, 
 Each within a narrow bed." 
 
 Mrs. "Windham, Louis and Jo were in Mrs. Johns 
 pew. They moved, softly, and added their upturned 
 gaze to that from hundreds of other eyes that were 
 fastened on the pure white face of the singer standing 
 in the center of the choir. Two other gazers stood un 
 noted not far away. One was Dr. Stark, and one was 
 a tall, dark figure in the shadow of the gallery ; 
 Wilmer had come out to Fairvalley that night with his 
 friend, solely to attend this famous service. Not even 
 Louis knew of his presence ; and Drosee he never 
 meant to know of it. She sang on, hundreds of eyes 
 riveted on her, apparently without other emotion than 
 that of deep and awed feeling. 
 
NEW TEAR S EVE. 261 
 
 " Jesu, Infinite, Redeemer, 
 
 Maker of this mortal frame, 
 Teach, Oh, teach us to remember 
 "What we are, and whence we came ! 
 
 Whence we came, and whither wending ; 
 
 Soon we must through darkness go, 
 To inherit bliss unending, 
 
 Or eternity of woe." 
 
 Then the full-toned choir joined in chanting : 
 
 " As the tree falls, so must it lie: 
 As the man lives, so will he die: 
 As the man dies, such must he be 
 All through the days of eternity." 
 
 In the silent pause that followed, the clergyman 
 knelt, and the congregation bent forward almost unani 
 mously for the two or three minutes left for silent 
 prayer ; the gas dimmed down ; and then the bell 
 tolled slowly twelve slow strokes and the church 
 burst into new life ; the lights flared, the doors were 
 being opened and shut by an irreverent few, among 
 whom was Mr. Manton Estwick, who wished to a :^oid 
 the later crush in out-pouring ; there was noise, and 
 bright light, stir, and cool air rushing in ; and the choir 
 had burst forth into a jubilant singing of the " Gloria 
 in Excelsis," the last of the service. But in the midst 
 
2-y2 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 of it broke forth sounds of dismay and terror; the 
 lights had been turned up too high, or been too much 
 swayed bj the current of air ; some white paper flow- 
 era and the more inflammable portions of the Christmas 
 decorations were ablaze in several places, and the light 
 wood-work about the choir railing, the slight wooden 
 cress covered with dry grasses, just above the gas, and 
 even the curtains of the choir were on fire as if by 
 magic, 
 
 Tie horrors of the moments that ensued were those 
 of every such cruel and cowardly panic. People 
 fought madly for dear life ; some were crushed and 
 beaten under foot, some fainting, some shrieking, and 
 here and there blazing bits of wood fell. Every one 
 knew the church, to be old, and dry as tinder ; the 
 windows were high from the ground, the doors nar 
 row ; it was a terrible moment for many. 
 
 Louis SeafoixTs presence of mind did not for an 
 instant desert him. 
 
 :?:i down ! Sit down P he cried in clear and com 
 manding tones to those about him. " There is plenty 
 of time. Sit down." His own party obeyed, and a 
 few near him wavered, paused, and sat down too. They 
 
XEW TEAK S EVK. 263 
 
 were near the front. The maddened crowd surged by 
 them, and then Lonis took Jo s arm with one hand, 
 and Mrs. Windham s with the other. 
 
 " This way, %? he said, quietly, and led them straight 
 forward, through the small vestry door, and out at the 
 rear of the church, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Johns, 
 and some few others, safe and unhurt. 
 
 u Drosee! DroseeT cried Mrs. Windham, wildly, 
 turning back to the church. 
 
 " m go for her," said Louis, coolly, restraining her. 
 " Jo stay quiet, darling. I will come back." 
 
 lie re-entered the church, and smoke rolled through 
 the door just after. Mrs. Wiudham broke from Jo s 
 hold with a sudden vehemence, and crying a^ain in an 
 agony the name of her favorite child, ran toward the 
 church. Mr. Johns caught her back, and Jo clasped 
 her in her arms again; her mother tried to speak, 
 raised a wavering hand, and sunk heavily against Jo s 
 breast, with blood springing from between her pale lips. 
 
 Meanwhile there had been others to remember 
 Dros^e. Dr. Stark and his companion had both of 
 them thought of her before themselves. Leaping upon 
 a seat. Dr. Stark saw that the meml>ers of the choir 
 
2G4 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 had deserted the little gallery, flying down the narrow 
 stairs, and probably straggling now for freedom with 
 the living mass packed against the little door at the 
 foot. 
 
 He cried aloud, in his harsh, strident voice : 
 " Open the gallery door !" and pressed wildly for 
 ward, as if with his bent and puny body he could force 
 sense or obedience into that surging crowd. 
 
 But Wilmer paused, and looked about him ; then 
 leaped into the chancel, and with the raging strength 
 born of desperation, tore a stout oaken chair apart, and 
 with a mighty brand in his strong arm, leaped forward, 
 tall, athletic, and with the resistless dash of a madman, 
 broke through the crowd, through which, ere it closed 
 upon him, the doctor s feebler figure pressed. It took 
 a determined and manful fight, with that weapon in 
 hand, to reach and clear a space sufficient to open the 
 gallery door ; that done, a dozen figures broke forth ; 
 the stairs were tottering and licked by flames even 
 now, but the crowd was rapidly melting away. Wil 
 mer rushed up the gallery stair, and at its top, in the 
 smoke, stumbled on a fainting figure, and heard the 
 music of a voice he knew. 
 
NEW TEARS EVE. 265 
 
 " Oh, can you lift her ? She has fainted, and they 
 have left her," Drosee cried, not knowing to whom 
 she spoke. 
 
 "Are you safe?" cried Dr. Stark, at Wilmer s 
 
 heels. 
 
 " Quite. Save this poor woman first." Dr. Stark 
 seized Drosee s arm, but she hung back until Wilrner 
 had bent his strength to lift the fallen figure before 
 him ; and he, going down the stairs in advance of 
 them, bore into the reviving air the passive bulk of 
 Drosee s bitter enemy, Mrs. Manton Estwick. 
 
 The other two were nearly at the foot of the stairs, 
 when the steps gave way entirely, and, hurled to the 
 floor, they were suddenly overwhelmed in the collapse 
 and crush of timber. 
 
 It was not long it was doubtless not a minute- 
 before Louis, coming forth from the smoky air of the 
 church, supporting an old man he had found helpless 
 there and brought out to the free air of heaven again, 
 and Wilmcr, re-entering in dismay to search for the 
 two missing having delivered Mrs. Estwick to her 
 husband, who had been looking for her in the crowd 
 discovered what had happened. Together they 
 
 12 
 
2G6 A FAIfi PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 cleared away the debris from above these two, and lift 
 ed them out. Dr. Stark had been struck and momen 
 tarily stunned by a falling beam which had slanted 
 above him, and chiefly protected him from the rain of 
 smaller missiles ; but Drosee lay face downward under 
 a heap of loose timber, laths, and plastering, and wag 
 either suffocated, or from some other cause uncon 
 scious, and "VVilmer bore her through the yawning 
 doors, lying lifelessly upon his breast. 
 
 In the early dawn of that sad New Year s 
 day, Wilmer lifted his heavy eyes to the pale and 
 grief-marked face of Louis, who, with dishevelled hair 
 and a tear-stained cheek, had entered the parlor of 
 Mrs. Johns villa, where Wilmer sat. 
 
 " Forgive me that I have left you alone so long," 
 Louis said, in a voice he tried hard to control ; " I 
 could not " 
 
 Wilmer waved the apology aside with a gesture. 
 
 " What news ?" he asked, in the low tone of one 
 grimly resolved to know the sentence of fate. 
 
 " My aunt is sinking fast ; there is no hope." 
 
 " And Miss Alwyn ?" Wilmer asked, in the same 
 suppressed voice. 
 
NEW YEAR S EVE. 2G7 
 
 "And Drosee we fear cannot long survive her." 
 
 Wilmer s dark cheek turned pale, his lips and eye 
 lids contracted, and his hands clinched ; he uttered 
 not a syllable, but turned away to the closed window, 
 and leaned there in dumb and moveless grief. Louis 
 went to him, and putting his arm on Winner s 
 shoulder, stood beside him with an unutterable, silent 
 sympathy, the tears overflowing his eyes ; he bowed 
 his head on his arm, and gave vent for a moment to 
 unaffected grief. 
 
 " Seaford, is there no hope ?" said Wilmer, after a 
 pause, in a deep voice. " Wliy cannot she live ? What 
 is the injury ? Can no one do anything 3" 
 
 " Her arm is badly broken, and she no sooner re 
 vives than she loses consciousness, as if with pain. 
 The doctor does not think it prudent to attempt to set 
 her arm at present ; he seems to be afraid that she is 
 more injured than we can tell. I don t know anything 
 about his business, Wilmer, but he does seem to me 
 more timid and uncertain than a practical physician 
 should be ; yet they say he is the best here ; I may do 
 him injustice ignorantly." 
 
 " Seaford," said Wilmer, with a faint gleam of light 
 
268 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 in his eyes, "if there is any doubt do not think me 
 intrusive but there is a surgeon near here old Ken 
 nedy, of New York, of whom you have heard he 
 retired, and came to this neighborhood two or three 
 years ago to recruit his health ; he is living on his own 
 place near Brakesburg. Let me go for him. I know 
 him well. lie made a great cure for my grandfather 
 a few years since. I can fetch him to Miss Alwyn, if 
 you consent." 
 
 " Do you think so ?" 
 
 " 1 will. Alive or dead, he shall be brought," said 
 "Wilmer impetuously, turning to go. " Don t refuse 
 your consent he ought to come and see her, at least." 
 
 " I empower you with whatever authority I have," 
 Louis said. " How will you go ? it is beginning to 
 rain. Have you your overcoat ?" 
 
 " I will be back within two hours," said Wilmer, 
 pulling his hat about his eyes. " Good-bye, Seaford, 
 till I come and and you will not let her die ?" 
 
 And so, with a lover s haste, this eager messenger 
 departed from the door of Mrs. Johns pretty villa, 
 where the dying lay, and went on his doubtful errand. 
 
 An hour later, life in the mother s breast ebbed 
 
NEW TEAK S EVE. 269 
 
 down to the last retreating wave, and went out with 
 a whispering sigh. Her fearful, humble and penitent 
 spirit, which had so sorely suffered in this world, passed 
 away to the next with a calm and trustful confidence 
 which seemed unearthly; and the heavenly light in 
 the eyes which had wept their latest tears lingered on 
 the serene face when it was cold forever. 
 
 When Wilmer returned, in the morning light, there 
 sat beside him in the buggy a stout, elderly man with 
 a tine, resolute, and benevolent face, whose very aspect 
 inspired confidence. 
 
 " There has been a death here," said Dr. Kennedy, 
 as they drew up at the gate. 
 
 For an instant "Wilmer, about to descend, paused, 
 struck to the heart with dread ; then he leaped from 
 the buggy and hurried to the door, from which already 
 fluttered the vail of crape. It was opened ere he 
 reached it by a servant. 
 
 " Mr. Seaford ?" Wilmer asked. It was the only 
 . name he could utter. 
 
 " He is with his cousin, sir. Her mother died this 
 morning." 
 
 " Her mother ? Miss Drosee, is " > 
 
270 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 " Oh, I beg pardon, sir, you are the gentleman 
 brought her out of the fire. Please walk in, sir. Miss 
 Drosee is not much altered since daybreak. She is 
 conscious just now." 
 
 " Doctor, come in, sir," said Wilmer, turning about 
 to the rather neglected old gentleman, who had been 
 left to help himself out of the buggy, and tie his horse. 
 There was a wonderful light in his face, and a certain 
 thrill in his voice which belonged to unexpressed 
 thanksgiving. " Tell Mr. Seaford that Dr. Kennedy 
 is with me, please, and and come this way, sir." 
 
 " Is the doctor in charge still here ?" asked the old 
 gentleman, pausing, and turning to the servant. 
 " Yes ! Ah I must ask to see him at once, Mr. Wil- 
 mer, before I presume to interfere with his patient." 
 
 And then came professional courtesies and consul 
 tations, and after some delay, Wilmer s surgeon went 
 up-etairs with the doctor. 
 
 For days after Drosee s arm had been safely set, 
 she lingered so near the border-land between this and 
 the unknown world that every heart that loved her 
 was tried to the uttermost by fear and suspense. And 
 many people who had so lately been ready to deny all 
 
NEW TEAKS EVE. 271 
 
 favor, both to her mother and to her, had been moved 
 by the sudden close of Emily "Wmdharn s unhappy ca 
 reer; and her sad and pure life, her goodness and 
 beauty, were talked of with a gentle and pitiful feel 
 ing. The snow lying above her new grave hid not 
 more purely the broken earth than the love of those 
 who had known her best covered her faults and errors 
 with the close and spotless vail of charity. " What if 
 it makes our friends love us the more ?" 
 
 And Drosee, traveling in the valley of the shadow, 
 had her journey noted by those who had disliked her 
 only less anxiously than by those who had loved her 
 long. Death s lifted finger had put to silence the 
 strife and clamor of tongues. Mrs. Estwick, who 
 knew now who had saved her, had deeper cause than 
 any to repent of the evil done to a young and gentle 
 woman, whose only social sin had been that she had 
 been singular in some of her ideas, and attractive to 
 some for whom she had not cared greatly. And how 
 ever people might hereafter esteem Drosee living, sure 
 it was that dying her loveliness and wit and wisdom 
 would be remembered and praised in Fairvalley long 
 
273 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 after many esteemed more orthodox were forgotten by 
 their world. 
 
 And to Mrs. Johns, that ever-gentle servitor by 
 the sick-bed ; to Jo s faithful heart ; to Louis brother 
 ly love ; to the many who loved Drosee, scattered far 
 and near, what did death teach of her ? 
 
 To them all, much as they had loved her, came a 
 new keenness and depth of feeling, understanding, 
 memory. To Wilmer, the prospect of losing her for 
 ever betrayed how little he had resigned himself to 
 that decision she had indicated to him when he first 
 ventured to hint to her of his feeling ; he remembered 
 her in all the beauty and charm of the first days of 
 their swiftly-advancing friendship ; her bravery in 
 peril, her serenity in pain ; the old words and ways 
 came back ; the same light flame of hope sprang up 
 a<rain within him, and died down again ; the same 
 words trembled on his tongue and were unspoken ; the 
 touch of a small hand lingered so palpably upon his 
 palm that he could almost hope to close his fingers and 
 clasp it there again ; and this passion was so blended with 
 pain, this tenderness with dread, that its sweetness was 
 
NEW YEARS EVE. 273 
 
 an anguish yet an anguish he would not have yielded 
 in change for ignorance of its power. 
 
 Ah " What if it makes our enemies cease to hate 
 
 What if it makes our friends love us the 
 
 more?" 
 
 12* 
 
CHAPTER XJ. 
 
 IN THE DAWN. 
 
 Thy grandeur is the shade we seek, 
 
 To be eternal is Thy use to us ; 
 
 Ah, Blessed God ! what joy it is to me 
 
 To lose all thought of self in Thine eternity I" 
 
 F. W. FABER. 
 
 Jo!" 
 
 " Drosee, are you awake ?" 
 
 " I do not sleep much, do I ? I have been thinking 
 of so many things this evening, Jo, I want to talk. 
 Sometimes I want to speak, and cannot ; I cannot 
 open eyes or lips." 
 
 " You are very weak. It is the fever, darling ; 
 you will be stronger soon." 
 
 Jo s pitiful, loving voice had a slight tremor in it. 
 Drosee, who had dropped her eyelids again, raised 
 them, and looked earnestly at the fair young face near 
 
 her. Her eyes looked larger and more brilliant than 
 
 [274] 
 
IN THE DAWN. 275 
 
 ever, her face was so wan. She gazed at Jo in silence 
 with that long, long look which the dying sometimes 
 have, all life seeming concentrated in their eyes. Jo 
 bore the look as long as she could, and then her under- 
 lip began to tremble like a child s, in spite of herself. 
 
 " Don t cry, Jo," said Drosee, breaking silence. " I 
 want to believe that you will go with a smile through 
 life. We were so different ; my very name has a hint 
 in it of tears. Do not let it mean tears to you." 
 
 " It is not < tears, it is < dew, " said Jo, with an 
 effort to regain her composure. " You have been a 
 blessing to me, and will always be." 
 
 " Then promise me to think reasonably and calmly 
 of me by and by, darling. If I know anything if I 
 individually exist I shall care to know that you are 
 happy." 
 
 " Drosee, do not talk like that ! You will know 
 how I am, because you will see me every day ; you 
 will live with Louis and me. When you get better 
 we have so much to arrange about everything," and Jo 
 smiled cheerfully. 
 
 " I shall never live to get better, Jo ; you must not 
 talk to me as if I were a child to be deceived, or a 
 
27G A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 coward to fear change. I am not afraid to die. I 
 liave thought of it very pleasantly at times. Do you 
 not care may you not care sometimes, to know how I 
 feel now ?" 
 
 " Maybe, faltered Jo. " But I hope the time is 
 very far " 
 
 " If you cry, I cannot talk, my poor Jo." 
 
 " I will not cry." 
 
 " Jo, I have been lying here looking back on my 
 life. It looks it looks it looks most like a winding 
 river, I think ; mist rising, and the dawn above it ; 
 there is a faint light on its flow ; and one by one the 
 lamps on it go out, because it is near day." 
 
 The feverish glow on the cheek, the rare fluency 
 of speech, cause Jo s heart to quake. 
 
 " It seems to me I have been learning all my life 
 to give up. The last thing to resign is the love of 
 life. The lights go out one by one, but the mists are 
 rising. I believe that flush is dawn. I named 
 these lights, lying here : that unresting fkme 
 of desire ; that false beacon, fame ; that pale, 
 love of ease ; that windy light, of popularity ; that 
 angry glow, of will and pride ; love, with its flickering 
 
IN THE DAWN. 277 
 
 torch ; and more I think they were all blown out 
 because the dawn was near." 
 
 The low, musing, beautiful voice paused; its 
 cadences had been like those of one who softly hums a 
 song, or reads a beloved poem. Drosee had written 
 poems ; but none had ever sounded so sweetly strange 
 and pathetic to Jo as this last one, softly uttered. 
 
 u Oh, Drosee, how can you be so calm ? I cannot, 
 cannot understand ! Drosee, can you be quite willing 
 to die r 
 
 " If you were dying, should you rebel, Jo ?" 
 " If it were God s will I d try not not to rebel ; 
 but I am afraid I could not help it ; with all its pain, 
 life is too sweet to me." 
 
 " "With Louis yes ; and you are young, and strong, 
 and good ! But, Jo. I feel it slip away and cannot 
 wish it to linger. I don t know ; the last renunciation 
 is not hard ; even personal existence I can yield up 
 at last." 
 
 " Oh, Drosee, don t ! my dear, do you mean that 
 as you said you don t feel sure of life beyond?" 
 
 " Of life yes. Of personal life I know nothing. 
 
278 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 It does not matter to me ; I have never tried to be con 
 vinced of it." 
 
 " But, my dear, it is so easy to see that it is true. 
 Drosee, let me show you or let me send for Dr. 
 Bampfyle. You must let him teach you of it." 
 
 " I am willing, dear. But it does not matter. Dr. 
 Bampfyle has been to see so many sick people lately. 
 And I shall know all soon." 
 
 " Drosee, my darling, don t ! Darling, what are 
 you hoping for ? What can make you tranquil when 
 you think of entering the other life, and it is so 
 dark ?" 
 
 " It is not dark," Drosee answered, in a weary 
 voice. " God, who is Love, fills it. To be near him, 
 or absorbed in him that is heaven." 
 
 " But others, darling ? Drosee do you not want 
 to live as yourself to see and know our mother, 
 Drosee, and those dear to us ? that would be half of 
 heaven to me." 
 
 Drosee turned her large, heavy eyes toward the 
 window. 
 
 a I want to know that they are blessed, if I know 
 anything : but for her and you God will care best." 
 
/iV THE DAWN. 279 
 
 Jo was silent, touching the wan hand caressingly, 
 for a time, and Drosec too had ceased to speak, closing 
 her eyes ; at last Jo said, in an awed and gentle voice : 
 
 " It is a land of clouds to me/ How can you long 
 to enter it ?" 
 
 " Because I love the life I sprang from, Jo," said 
 Drosee, in a tender, mild, faint voice. " How can I 
 fear? Love created us and disposes of us. That is 
 all I feel. Somehow somewhere I shall find 
 God." 
 
 The voice of this fair philosopher sunk into silence, 
 and the silence was unbroken. Jo bent to her present 
 ly, with a sick, short thrill of speechless dread ; but 
 she was breathing, very faintly, but calmly and natu 
 rally ; she was in a quiet slumber. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE LIG-IIT OF DAY. 
 
 " Invisible hands may gird thy armor on, 
 And Nature put new weapons in thy hand, 
 Sending thee out to try the world again 
 Perchance to conquer, being cased in mail 
 Of double memories." E. C. STEDMAN. 
 
 " Whatever is taught or told, 
 However men moan or sigh, 
 Love never shall grow cold, 
 And Life shall never die." 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 FANNY FIELDING, sitting in her rose-shaded room, 
 with her soft-breathing baby asleep in the cradle near, 
 dropped into her lap the ribbon she had been twisting 
 into loops and bows, and looked around, hearing her 
 husband s cautious step upon the stair. This was one 
 of her first " sitting-up " days, and she awaited his 
 pleased surprise with a smile. Mr. Fielding had 
 nearly lost his wife in her recent illness, and his love 
 and care for her had been renewed wondrously. They 
 
 had begun their first truly happy year together. 
 
 [280] 
 
THE LIGHT OF DAY. 281 
 
 After the first greetings and the half shy caresses 
 the gray-haired husband bestowed on his still young 
 and very pretty wife, Fanny asked : 
 
 " Have you seen Wilmer to-day ?" 
 
 " Yes, he is coming up by and by to dinner." 
 
 " Did he say how Drosee was ?" 
 
 " He sent you word only yesterday that she was 
 better, dear." 
 
 " You are sure she is not worse again, then V 
 
 " He had not seen Seaf ord to-day, but he probably 
 will before he comes up. He said he would be here 
 by five if he didn t conclude to go down to Fairvalley 
 with Stark to-night." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! He is in a great state of anxiety, 
 
 jf 
 
 no doubt." 
 
 " You choose to think so, my little match-maker. 
 He seems much as usual to me. Are you so certain 
 that he was ever smitten there ?" 
 
 " I am perfectly certain." 
 
 " Be it so, my clear. Hark ! There s the bell now." 
 
 In a moment a servant tapped at the door, and 
 delivered to Mr. Fielding a note. He handed it to his 
 wife. 
 
282 A FAIU PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 It contained Wilmer s regrets. He was called out 
 of town. "Please say to Mrs. Fielding that her friend 
 is decidedly better." 
 
 Mrs. Fielding glanced from this demure note to 
 her husband s face, at first meditatively, then with a 
 dawning smile of triumph. He understood it, laughed 
 good-naturedly, and pinched her fair, round cheek. 
 
 Several days before this Drosee had been pro 
 nounced convalescent, and, still lying on her bed, weak 
 and wan from pain and fever, she doubtfully, slowly, 
 recognized the fact that she was very possibly to re 
 cover. 
 
 She did not talk much, but avoided speech even 
 with Jo ; she suffered little, was usually obedient in 
 trying to cat and sleep, and mended a little daily. 
 so slight was this gradual improvement that Jo was 
 disheartened. 
 
 " I can t tell what to do for her," she said to Louis. 
 "She never asks for anything; she never seems 
 to care for anything ; I think she had so made up her 
 mind to dying that she doesn t get accustomed to liv 
 ing." 
 
THE LIGHT OF DAT. 283 
 
 "It is weakness," Louis suggested, caressing Jo s 
 pretty hand. 
 
 " No, it is indifference," Jo said. " I worried her 
 to talk to-day, and she said that she was trying to 
 adapt herself to her conditions ; that she perceived 
 herself strangely weak and ignorant ; as long as our 
 mother lived, she would have felt the special duty as a 
 special reason for living; and then two great tears 
 swam into her eyes, and we did not talk any more." 
 
 Neither did Louis talk any more for a few minutes ; 
 he kissed the tears out of Jo s own brimming eyes. 
 
 "Jo," he said, after a while, "do you know, I m 
 inclined to try a remedy on Drosee I don t believe 
 any other woman but you would respond to be a little 
 selfish, apparently. Talk to her about yourself, by de 
 grees, and our plans, and how we are waiting for her 
 recovery to take her home with us and have the hap 
 piest, quietest little wedding ever was. It 11 bring her 
 round ; you ll see." 
 
 " But, Louis, what an effort for her ! I couldn t 
 expect it of her." 
 
 " It will do her good, my dearest little Jo, and I ll 
 answer for it. Drosee is true grit you know, when 
 
: .1 FA1JK PHILOSOPHER 
 
 tested. Promise me to be happy, darling, and to 
 seem so when you are with her. She ll rise to it." 
 
 The proposal did credit to the head and die heart 
 of the voung diplomat. Jo adopted his plan, and Dro- 
 see made the effort he anticipated. She put aside her 
 own thoughts and discouragement, half-marveling, but 
 wholly pleased, at Jo s radiant and eager happiness, and 
 fell in with all Jo s plans. 
 
 u I can sit up to-day, I think/- she said, one morn 
 ing ; and the next day, 
 
 "Mrs. Johns, let me leave my room and go across 
 to yours this morning. I must g - rig Jo is so 
 happy and hopeful," she added, with a tender little 
 smile, when alone with her old friend. 
 
 " I have been presumptuous," she had said to her 
 self, when thinking silently alone. " I thought I had 
 
 -A! through the worst. I find now that the hardest 
 thing of all is to face a life one does not cling to. I 
 am obliged to live with wider and more impersonal in 
 terests ; to be trained to larger charity and unselnsh 
 ee. I begin to see my ignorance, and guess my 
 lesson. I am willing TO live and learn it but I 
 I can t feel the proper enthusiasm for it * 
 
THE LIGHT OF DAY. ** > 
 
 But now, a call upon her for active unselfishness 
 coming, she had ceased thinking so much about it, and 
 found doing more natural. When she went down 
 stain? lirst, she smiled out of the depths of her easy- 
 chair at Jo, and said, cheerily : 
 
 " If there is one thing about which you are more 
 despotic than another, it is pen and ink, Jo ; but, an t 
 please you, I d like to write to Fanny Fielding to 
 day." 
 
 u You will have to use my pen if you do/ Jo said ; 
 I have instituted a secret search for yours lately, 
 but " 
 
 "It is lost T 
 
 "I should say," Jo returned, "that, as it is no 
 where, it has evidently passed in Nirvana." 
 
 N ow do something desperate and expressive, 
 Drosee." L-.uis suggested. -I know you cherished 
 that per. !" 
 
 k *Dr. Stark gave it to me," Drosee said, simplv. 
 \Vhen did you see Dr. Stark, Louis T 
 
 \\-$:erday. lie asked for you, as usual. We 
 were on the same train, and he was growling at the 
 
286 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 public generally. lie says people don t want news, 
 nowadays, they want sensations !" 
 
 Drosee laughed, and Louis eyes lit up at the 
 sound. 
 
 " He is very anxious to see you again," the young 
 man went on. " And you must let him come in soon. 
 And when will you see the man who saved your life, 
 Drosee ? Wilmer s old long face, while you were so 
 ill, used to haunt me night and day." 
 
 " Who saved me ?" Drosee asked, with a new 
 ring to her voice. 
 
 " Well, Wilmer tore things to pieces trying," Louis 
 said. " If you hadn t made him carry out that old 
 woman ahead of yon, you d have been all right now. 
 As it was, he dug you out from under the lumber that 
 was above you, and brought you to this house in his 
 own arms." 
 
 Drosee was very pale. 
 
 u Now, don t look like that," Louis said, glancing 
 about for a fan. " I ve kept them from talking about 
 this by the doctor s orders, for fear of exciting you ; 
 and now I ll say no more till the color in your face is a 
 little livelier, my dear." 
 
THE LIGHT OF DAT. 287 
 
 a ()h, I am very well," Drosee said, the color 
 flu hing her delicate cheek. " Tell me tell me 
 everything." 
 
 "Well, there s not much more to tell. He kept a 
 midnight vigil in this parlor for hours, during which 
 not a soul went near him, until I came and told him 
 you were like to die ; and then he got on a horse and 
 galloped off in the storm and sleet and "brought the 
 surgeon who set your arm, and, in my opinion, saved 
 you." 
 
 " When did you see 7ii?n, Louis ?" Drosee asked 
 gently, after a moment s hesitation. 
 
 " I see him every day. When I didn t go to the 
 city daily he used to run out here at night, to see 
 Stark, and come and ask for you. We feel free to 
 draw our own conclusions, you know." 
 
 "You may conclude that he is a loyal friend, and 
 that I am deeply grateful to him," Drosee replied, 
 quickly. 
 
 " You personified pride ! I didn t suppose you d 
 think him worthy to be anything more," Louis re 
 torted, artfully. 
 
 " I think him worthy of anything," Drosee said, 
 
288 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 quite proudly, lifting her dark blue eyes with a life in 
 them more vivid and strong than had shone there in 
 long weeks. " But admiration and gratitude are not 
 not what Jo feels for yon, dear boy !" 
 
 The words were brave enough, and Louis forbore 
 to annoy her. But a day or two later he told her 
 Wilmer had come down to Fairvalley. Should he go 
 to the hotel after tea and bring him up ? 
 
 " Yes and Dr. Stark, please," Drosee said, with a 
 firm, even voice. 
 
 It was growing dark. Jo and Louis had gone out 
 for a walk, and Mrs. Johns had not come down-stairs. 
 Drosee, alone in the warm and silent parlor, walked up 
 and down it a little restlessly, and then sat down near 
 the window. 
 
 Presently she saw a tall figure walking alone be 
 yond the low fence and the leafless trees. An impa 
 tient hand, with the old trick she knew so well, took 
 off the wide black hat for a moment, and the strong, 
 dark face was turned inquiringly toward the house. 
 She sprang up involuntarily, and in an instant saw that 
 her movement had been seen. Wilmer turned about, 
 hurriedly opened the gate, and came with rapid strides 
 
THE LIGHT OF DAT. 289 
 
 tip the path. Trembling, Drosee unfastened the long 
 window, and attempted to open it. A muscular hand 
 from the outside raised it swiftly, and with a glow on 
 Ills cheek and an eager light in his eyes, Wihner was 
 at her side. Clasping her hand in his, he turned about 
 and closed the window behind them ; then taking her 
 other hand gently, he led her nearer the dancing fire, 
 and pausing, looked down at her with delight. 
 
 She was all in white, as he had first seen her, but 
 the white was of a heavy, warm, and clinging woolen 
 stuff ; she was thin, but the rare, deep blue eyes were 
 full of kindness, and the soft brown hair waved and 
 clung in the old graceful curves about her head. 
 
 " Look at me," said Wilrner, softly, as her eyes fell 
 before his own. He stood holding her two hands 
 together between his. 
 
 She looked up, for a second s space. 
 
 " Be my friend !" she said, in a tremulous voice. 
 He saw that she was much agitated and still weak. He 
 seated her gently on a sofa wheeled near the fire, and 
 sat by her. 
 
 " I am your friend," he said, still holding one of 
 13 
 
290 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 her slender hands. " I am always your friend. You 
 are the only woman in the world to me." 
 
 There was a long silence. During it, Wihner 
 gently lifted the hand he held, kissed it, and relin 
 quished it. Then he rose, and -walked away to the 
 window, where he stood awhile in a tumult of emotion, 
 striving to reflect, to decide how best to proceed in 
 order to make Drosee perceive him to be patient, and 
 resolved to do her will. Amid his determination to be 
 to her only what it should please her to have him be, 
 mingled a wild, irresistible hope that she would and 
 did love him, and a desire at once passionate and full 
 of reverence to claim all he could, even now. Joy and 
 pain were so mixed in this suspense that he couM 
 scarcely tell which predominated ; but he meant above 
 everything that Drosee should not be pained or agitated 
 by his own feelings. 
 
 " Mr. Wilmer !" said her soft, low voice. 
 
 He returned to her side instantly. 
 
 " I have just learned that you saved my life," she 
 said. 
 
 " I wish it were so," he answered ; " I bungled hor- 
 
 
THE LIGHT OF DAY. 251 
 
 ribly in trying to do it. I cannot bear to remember 
 that night." 
 
 " I have heard what you did," she said ; " I owe 
 my life to you." 
 
 " And I owe all my happiness to your promised 
 friendship," he said. "I have never told you, Miss 
 Alwyn, with what a feeling you have inspired me. I 
 think I never can. It is confidence, such as I have 
 never before felt in any living soul. No honor any 
 human being could confer upon me could make mo so 
 proud and so happy as the name, from you, of friend." 
 
 A little pain shot through Drosee s doubting heart. 
 "Was it then friendship after all ? She looked up. The 
 soft trouble in her eyes sent a swift intoxication 
 through his veins. His heart began to throb quickly, 
 and his look grew more intense. Her eyelashes 
 trembled, but did not fall. They looked each other in 
 the eyes, silently reading each other s thoughts. Slow 
 ly Drosee s cheek flushed ; slowly a smile of the ten- 
 derest, most joyful triumph lit his dark and ardent 
 face; he bent forward, and breathed, rather than spoke 
 to her : 
 
 " Love, will you trust all to me ?" 
 
203 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 She sunk away from him a little, closing her eyes, 
 but putting out her hands to him. He took and held 
 them fast. His face, ardent, brilliant, and glorious 
 with happiness, was near her own ; but he did not offer 
 to approach nearer. She needed time, and he gave it 
 her, restraining his own impetuous delight for her 
 sweet sake. His reward came duly. She opened her 
 eyes, and glanced up with a trusting, confiding, tender 
 look. 
 
 " You are so gentle, and so true, and so wise," she 
 said, softly. " I trust you." 
 
 They were silent, then, for a moment s space ; and 
 then Louis and Jo were heard returning. 
 
 " You are all in the dark !" said Jo s fresh voice, as 
 she came in, her cheeks aglow from the crisp air. 
 
 " Good evening, Miss Jo," said Wilmer s deep 
 voice, serenely. 
 
 " Who are you ?" Jo asked, puzzled. Then, as 
 Louis struck a match and lit the gas, she extended to 
 him a cordial little hand. 
 
 " You are here, are you ? We have been to the 
 hotel to ask you to come. Dr. Stark will be here to 
 night." 
 
THE LIGHT OF DAY. 293 
 
 Louis and Wilmer shook hands. 
 
 " It is splendid out of doors, Drosee," Louis said. 
 " I met the doctor, and I told him if to-morrow was 
 fine I was going to take you out." 
 
 " With the doctor s permission," Wilmer said 
 promptly, looking at Drosee " I have Miss Alwyn s, I 
 believe ? I am going to bring a sleigh here for her to 
 morrow morning." 
 
 Louis nodded. " You have been making good use 
 of your twilight hour," he thought to himself. 
 
 Mrs. Johns came bustling in, now, welcomed Wil 
 mer, and invited the whole party in to supper. Dr. 
 Stark arrived soon after they had all returned to the 
 parlor. He noticed when he came in that Wilmer and 
 Drosee were talking a little apart, and from his friend s 
 alternate fits of abstraction and brilliancy during the 
 evening s conversation drew his own conclusions. 
 
 "I must deliver a request," he said to Drosee, bo- 
 fore going, having secured her to himself for a while. 
 " Mr. Bell walked part of the way with me this even 
 ing. He has been very assiduous in his attentions to 
 me lately, in order, I gather, to hear from you, my 
 friend. To-night, learning that I was coming here, 
 
294 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER 
 
 he asked me to request that you would receive him to 
 morrow, if convenient. Do you know what a hopeless 
 flame he cherishes for you, child ? He is like all the 
 rest of us, yours to command." 
 
 " I cannot see him to-morrow," Drosee answered. 
 "Mr. Wilmer is going to stay, and take me out, if it is 
 fine weather." 
 
 " Sits the wind so ? Nay, Penserosa, do not let me 
 make you blush! I am an old, old friend; I am 
 happy in your happiness ; the life you are suited for 
 is opening to you a fair and liberal life, full of the 
 rare strength and joy of a well-chosen companionship. 
 
 It is I say it reverently, my good child of such stuff 
 
 as you that wives and mothers are made who help the 
 world move sunward ! 
 
 Wilmer did not guess what made Drosee s fair face 
 glow with such a fine, faint flame as he came to her 
 side immediately after this, when Dr. Stark had made 
 his adieux ; but after he had followed his friend with a 
 simple hand-clasp and gone out into the night, he still 
 remembered the new-lit radiance of the gentle eyes 
 looking trustfully up to his as he bade good-night. 
 The lovers took a short, delightful drive next 
 
THE LIGHT OF DAT. 295 
 
 morning over the hard, fine snow, packed by weeks of 
 sleighing. 
 
 " Jt is late in February, and we are still buried in 
 snow," Drosee said, as they drew near home. 
 
 " Yes. we are in the snow, but spring is coming !" 
 Wilmer said, in a low, vibrating voice ; and he looked 
 at Drosee with a subdued, but penetrating, gladness in 
 his whole expression. 
 
 They had been talking to each other as no lovers, 
 unless also true friends, can talk; reflection, experience, 
 fact and fancy entered into their conversation and 
 their confidences. That happiness was so fully her 
 own at last Drosee could scarcely realize. She had 
 come back to life with experience and memory to arm 
 her for its strife ; and now love itself stood beside her 
 with its divine encouragement ! 
 
 " You are better for your drive," Wilmer said, as 
 they sat together alone before the fire. lie leaned 
 toward her, smiling. Her cheek had a faint, clear rose 
 tint on it, the harbinger of returning health. He 
 cautiously took up the little hand he scarcely, as yet, 
 felt free to touch at will. 
 
 Drosee turned her head and looked down into his 
 
296 A FAIR PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 face. The rapt, transfigured look it wore moved her 
 to her heart s depths. 
 
 u You are very happy !" she half asked, half ex 
 claimed. Her voice trembled. 
 
 He laughed low with delight, and gently clasped 
 her in one arm. Leaning closer, he lightly, luilf- 
 timidly, kissed her cheek. 
 
 "I am very happy !" he said, whispering. 
 
 At this first near caress a slow fire kindled on 
 Drosee s cheek. She quivered slightly, and he drew 
 her closer to him. 
 
 " I will make you happy, my darling," he said, 
 softly. 
 
 " You will help me to do right and to live aright," 
 she said, as softly. 
 
 Then he bowed his head reverently, his eyes look 
 ing into hers ; they kissed each other ; and life be 
 gan again with a new and sacred joy. 
 
 THE END. 
 
PUBLICATIONS OF GEO. W. HARLAN & CO. 
 
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 in. Fa/penr. 25 
 
tfi