A CHRISTMAS ACCIDEH 
 
 =.= A N D O T H E R STO R I E S * 
 
 
 BY 
 ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL
 
 
 4*60.81" JVVAY, L08 AW<t(J
 
 A Christmas Accident
 
 STORIES BY 
 
 ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL 
 
 * 
 
 A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT AND OTHER 
 STORIES. i6mo. Cloth .... $1.00 
 
 ROD'S SALVATION AND OTHER STO- 
 RIES. i6mo. Cloth i.oo 
 
 A CAPE COD WEEK. i6mo. Cloth i.oo 
 
 MISTRESS CONTENT CRADOCK. 
 Cloth. 161110 i.oo 
 
 9 
 
 A. S. BARNES & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 New York.
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 And Other Stories 
 
 By 
 Annie Eliot Trumbull 
 
 Author of " White Birches," " A Masque 
 of Culture," etc. 
 
 New York 
 
 A. S. Barnes and Company 
 1900
 
 Copyright, 1897, 
 BY A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY. 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
 
 OF the stories included in this volume, the 
 first originally appeared in the Hartford Cour- 
 ant ; "After the Deluge," in the Atlantic 
 Monthly ; "Mary A. Twining," in the Home 
 Maker ; "A Postlude " and " Her Neighbor's 
 Landmark," in the Outlook; "The 'Daily 
 Morning Chronicle,' " in The New England 
 Magazine; and "Hearts Unfortified," in 
 McClure* s Magazine. To the courtesy of the 
 editors of these periodicals I am indebted for 
 
 permission to reprint them. 
 
 A. E. T.
 
 Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT i 
 
 AFTER THE DELUGE 3 2 
 
 MEMOIR OF MARY TWINING .... 67 
 
 A POSTLUDE 99 
 
 THE "DAILY MORNING CHRONICLE" . 139 
 
 HEARTS UNFORTIFIED 17? 
 
 HER NEIGHBOR'S LANDMARK .... 210
 
 A 
 
 Christmas Accident 
 
 AT first the two yards were as much 
 alike as the two houses, each house 
 being the exact copy of the other. They 
 were just two of those little red brick 
 dwellings that one is always seeing side 
 by side in the outskirts of a city, and 
 looking as if the occupants must be alike 
 too. But these two families were quite 
 different. Mr. Gilton, who lived in one, 
 was a pretty cross sort of man, and was 
 quite well-to-do, as cross people some- 
 times are. He and his wife lived alone, 
 and they did not have much going out 
 and coming in, either. Mrs. Gilton 
 would have liked more of it, but she had 
 given up thinking about it, for her hus- 
 band had said so many times that it was 
 i
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 women's tomfoolery to want to have 
 people, whom you weren't anything to 
 and who were n't anything to you, ringing 
 your doorbell all the time and bother- 
 ing around in your dining-room, which 
 of course it was; and she would have 
 believed it if a woman ever did believe 
 anything a man says a great many times. 
 
 In the other house there were five chil- 
 dren, and, as Mr. Gilton said, they made 
 too large a family, and they ought to have 
 gone somewhere else. Possibly they 
 would have gone had it not been for 
 the fence; but when Mr. Gilton put it up 
 and Mr. Bilton told him it was three 
 inches too far on his land, and Mr. Gilton 
 said he could go to law about it, express- 
 ing the idea forcibly, Mr. Bilton was 
 foolish enough to take his advice. The 
 decision went against him, and a good deal 
 of his money went with it, for it was a 
 long, teasing lawsuit, and instead of being 
 three inches of made ground it might have 
 been three degrees of the Arctic Circle for
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 the trouble there was in getting at it. So 
 Mr. Bilton had to stay where he was. 
 
 It was then that the yards began to take 
 on those little differences that soon grew 
 to be very marked. Neither family would 
 plant any vines because they would have 
 been certain to heedlessly beautify the 
 other side, and consequently the fence, in 
 all its primitive boldness, stood out un- 
 compromisingly, and the one or two little 
 bits of trees grew carefully on the farther 
 side of the enclosure so as not to be mixed 
 up in the trouble at all. But Mr. Gilton's 
 grass was cut smoothly by the man who 
 made the fires, while Mr. Bilton only 
 found a chance to cut his himself once in 
 two weeks. Then, by and by, Mr. Gil- 
 ton bought a red garden bench and put it 
 under the tree that was nearest to the 
 fence. No one ever went out and sat on 
 it, to be sure, but to the Bilton children it 
 represented the visible flush of prosperity. 
 Particularly was Cora Cordelia wont to 
 peer through the fence and gaze upon that 
 3
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 red bench, thinking it a charming place in 
 which to play house, ignorant of the fact 
 that much of the red paint would have 
 come off on her back. Cora Cordelia was 
 the youngest of the five. All the rest had 
 very simple names, John, Walter, Fanny, 
 and Susan, but when it came to Cora 
 Cordelia, luxuries were beginning to get 
 very scarce in the Bilton family, and Mrs. 
 Bilton felt that she must make up for it 
 by being lavish, in one direction or an- 
 other. She had wished to name Fanny, 
 Cora, and Susan, Cordelia, but she had 
 yielded to her husband, and called one 
 after his mother and one after herself, and 
 then gave both her favorite names to the 
 youngest of all. Cora Cordelia was a 
 pretty little girl, prettier even than both 
 her names put together. 
 
 After the red bench came a quicksilver 
 ball, that was put in the middle of the 
 yard and reflected all the glory of its 
 owner, albeit in a somewhat distorted 
 form. This effort of human ingenuity 
 4
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 filled the Bilton children with admiration 
 bordering on awe ; Cora Cordelia spent 
 hours gazing at it, until called in and 
 reproved by her mother for admiring so 
 much things she could not afford to have. 
 After this, she only admired it covertly. 
 
 Small distinctions like these barbed the 
 arrows of contrast and comparison and 
 kept the disadvantages of neighborhood 
 ever present. 
 
 Then, it was a constant annoyance to 
 have their surnames so much alike. Mat- 
 ters were made more unpleasant by mis- 
 takes of the butcher, the grocer, and so 
 on, Gilton, 79 Holmes Avenue, was so 
 much like Bilton, 77 Holmes Avenue. 
 Gilton changed his butcher every time 
 he sent his dinner to Bilton ; and though 
 the mistakes were generally rectified, neither 
 of the two families ever forgot the time 
 the Biltons ate, positively ate, the Gilton 
 dinner, under a misapprehension. Mrs. 
 Bilton apologized, and Mrs. Gilton boldly 
 told her husband that she was glad they 'd 
 5
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 had it, and she hoped they 'd enjoyed it, 
 which only made matters worse ; and alto- 
 gether it was a dark day, the only joy of 
 it being that fearful one snatched by John, 
 Walter, Susan, Fanny, and Cora Cordelia 
 from the undoubted excellence of the roast. 
 Of course there was an assortment of 
 minor difficulties. The smoke from the 
 B ikons' kitchen blew in through the win- 
 dows of the Giltons' sitting-room when the 
 wind was in one direction, and, when it was 
 in the other, many of the clothes from the 
 Giltons' clothesline were blown into the 
 Biltons' yard, and Fanny, Susan, or Cora 
 Cordelia had to be sent out to pick them 
 up and drop them over the fence again, 
 which Mrs. Bilton said was very wearing, 
 as of course it must have been. Things 
 like this were always happening, but 
 matters reached a climax when it came 
 to the dog. It was n't a large dog, but 
 it was a tiresome one. It got up early 
 in the morning and barked. Now we all 
 know that early rising is a .good thing and 
 6
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 honorable among all men, but it is some- 
 thing that ought to be done quietly, out of 
 regard to the weaker vessels ; and a dog 
 that barks between five and seven in the 
 morning, continuously, certainly ought to 
 be suppressed, even if it be necessary to 
 use force. Everybody agreed with the 
 Biltons about that, everybody except 
 the Giltons themselves, who, by some one 
 of nature's freaks, did n't mind it. Mrs. 
 Bilton often said she wished Mrs. Gilton 
 could be a light sleeper for a week and 
 see what it was like. So, too, everybody 
 thought that Mr. Bilton had right on his 
 side when he complained that this same 
 dog came into his yard, being apparently 
 indifferent to any coolness between the 
 estate owners, and ran over a bed of 
 geraniums and one thing and another, that 
 was the small Bilton offset to the Gilton 
 bench and ball. But when one morning, 
 for the first time, that dog remained quiet 
 and restful, and was found cold and poi- 
 soned, and Mr. Gilton was loud in his 
 7
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 accusations of the Bilton boys and their 
 father, public opinion wavered for a* 
 moment. After that accident, no mem- 
 ber of either family spoke to any member 
 of the other. That was the way matters 
 stood the day before Christmas. 
 
 It was snowing hard, and the afternoon 
 grew dark rapidly, and the whirling flakes 
 pursued a blinding career. In spite of 
 that, everybody was out doing the last 
 thing. Mrs. Gilton was not, to be sure. 
 Of course they would have a big dinner, 
 but even that was all arranged for, al- 
 though the turkey had n't come and her 
 husband was going to stop and see about 
 it on his way home. She shuddered as 
 the possibility of its having gone to the 
 Biltons occurred to her. But she did n't 
 believe it had, they had n't the same 
 butcher any longer. Meanwhile there 
 was so little to do. It was too dark to 
 read or sew, and she sat idly at the win- 
 dow looking out at the passers and the 
 8
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 driving snow. Everybody else was in a 
 hurry. She wished she, too, had occasion 
 to hasten down for a last purchase, or to 
 light the lamp in order to finish a last bit 
 of dainty sewing, as she used to do when 
 she was a girl. She seemed to have so 
 few friends now with whom she exchanged 
 Christmas greetings. Was it then only 
 for children and youth, this Christmas 
 cheer ? And must she necessarily have 
 left it behind her with her girlhood ? No, 
 she knew better than that. She felt that 
 there was a deeper significance in the 
 Christmas-tide than can come home to 
 the hearts of children and unthoughtful- 
 ness, and yet it had grown to be so painfully 
 like other days, an occasion for a little 
 bigger dinner, that was about all. With 
 an unconscious sigh she looked across to 
 the Bilton house. Plenty of people over 
 there to make merry. Five stockings to 
 hang up. She wished she might have sent 
 something in. To be sure, there was the 
 dog, but that was some time ago. Very 
 9
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 likely the dog would have been dead now, 
 anyhow. She felt, herself, that this logic 
 was not irrefutable, but she wished she 
 could have sent some paper parcels just 
 the same. So strong had this imp'ulse 
 been that she had said to her husband 
 somewhat timidly that morning, 
 
 " There are a good many of those 
 Bilton children to get presents for." 
 
 " More fools they that get 'em pres- 
 ents, then," he had pleasantly replied. 
 
 " I don't suppose he has much to buy 
 them with," she continued. 
 
 " He had enough to buy poison for my 
 dog," exclaimed her husband, giving his 
 newspaper an angry shake. 
 
 " I 'd almost like to send them in some 
 cheap little toys." 
 
 " Well, as long as you don't quite like 
 to, it won't do any harm," he said with 
 some violence, laying down his newspaper, 
 and looking at her in a manner not to be 
 misunderstood. u But you see that the 
 liking does n't get any farther." 
 10
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 " It 's Christmas, you know," said his 
 plucky wife. 
 
 " Oh, no, I don't know it ! " he replied 
 gruffly. " I have n't fallen over forty 
 children a minute in the street with their 
 ridiculous parcels, and I have n't had 
 women drop brown-paper bundles that 
 come undone all over me when they 
 crowd into the horse car, and I have n't 
 found it impossible to get to the shirt- 
 collar counter on account of Christmas 
 novelties ! Oh, no, I did n't know it 
 was Christmas ! " 
 
 After that there was really not much to 
 be said, for we all know Christmas is 
 dreadfully annoying, and the last thing a 
 man in this sort of temper wants to hear 
 about is peace and good will. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that Mrs. 
 Gilton looked over to her neighbors' with 
 an envious feeling this dark afternoon, 
 their Christmas cheer was not so abound- 
 ing as it had been in more prosperous 
 times. There was not very much money 
 ii
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 to be spent this year, and they were 
 obliged to give up something. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Bilton had decided that it should 
 be the Christmas dinner ; they would 
 have a simple luncheon, and let all the 
 money that could be spared go for the 
 stockings. Each child had its own sum 
 to invest for others, and there was still 
 a small amount for the older members 
 of the family. That it was a small 
 amount Mrs. Bilton felt strongly, as 
 she went from shop to shop. But when 
 she reached home again she was some- 
 what encouraged ; there was such an air 
 of joyous expectation in the house, and 
 her purchases looked larger now that 
 they were away from the glittering coun- 
 ters. Then each of the five children 
 came to her separately and confided to her 
 the nothing less than wonderful results of 
 judicious bargaining which had enabled 
 them to buy useful and beautiful presents 
 for each of the others out of the sums 
 intrusted to their care, ranging in amount 
 
 12
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 from the two dollars of John to the fifty 
 cents of Cora Cordelia. She felt sure 
 that there were further secrets yet ; se- 
 crets attended by brown paper and string, 
 which she had taken the greatest care for 
 the last two weeks not heedlessly to ex- 
 pose, riddles of which the solution lay 
 perilously near her eyes, which would be 
 revealed to her astonished gaze the next 
 morning. 
 
 She had reason to believe that even 
 Cora Cordelia was making something for 
 her, and though it was difficult for her to 
 ignore the fact that it was a knit wash- 
 cloth, she had hitherto avoided absolute 
 certainty on the subject. So that alto- 
 gether it was a pretty cheerful afternoon 
 at the Biltons'. 
 
 Meanwhile, down in the main street 
 of the city it was a confusing scene. It 
 was darker there than where the streets 
 were more open ; and although there were 
 several daring spirits of that adventurous 
 turn of mind which leads people into 
 13
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 byways of discovery, who asserted that 
 the street lamps were lighted, it was 
 not generally believed. The snow was 
 blowing down and up and across, and 
 getting more and more unmanageable 
 under the feet of foot passengers every 
 moment. It was cold and windy and 
 blinding and crowded, and a good many 
 other disconcerting things, all of which 
 Mr. Gilton felt the full force of as he 
 stood on the corner where he had just 
 bought his turkey. It was a fine turkey, 
 and had been a good bargain, and though 
 he had to carry it home himself, there was 
 nothing derogatory in that. If it had been 
 anybody else he would have been thrilled 
 with a glow of satisfaction, but Mr. Gilton 
 was long past glows of satisfaction it 
 was years since he had permitted himself 
 to have such things. 
 
 " Jour our nal ! fi-i i-ve cents ! " 
 screamed an intermittent newsboy in his 
 ear. 
 
 " Get out ! " replied Mr. Gilton, the 
 14
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 uncompromising nature of his language 
 being intensified by the fact that he 
 jumped nearly two feet from the sudden- 
 ness of the newsboy's attack. Even the 
 newsboy, inured to the short words of an 
 unfriendly world, and usually quite indiffer- 
 ent thereto, was impressed by the asperity 
 of the suggestion and moved somewhat 
 hastily on. Possibly his cold, wet little 
 existence had been rendered morbidly sus- 
 ceptible by the general good feeling of the 
 hour, one lady having even spontaneously 
 given him five cents. 
 
 After this exchange of amenities Mr. 
 Gilton stepped into his horse car. It 
 was crowded, of course, as horse cars 
 that are small and run once in half an 
 hour are apt to be, and he had to stand 
 up, and the turkey legs stuck out of 
 the brown paper in a very conspicuous 
 way. If Mr. Gilton had been anybody 
 else he would have been chaffed about his 
 turkey, because to make up for the con- 
 veniences that the horse car line did not 
 15
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 furnish the public, the large-hearted public 
 furnished the horse car line with an un- 
 usual amount of friendliness. There was 
 almost always something going on in these 
 horse cars. Their social privileges were 
 quite a feature. To-night they were in 
 unusual force on account of the season. 
 But nobody said anything to Mr. Gilton. 
 Only when he jerked the bell and stepped 
 off, one stout man with his overcoat collar 
 turned up to his ears said, without turning 
 his head : 
 
 "I supposed of course he was going to 
 give the turkey to the conductor." 
 
 Everybody laughed in that end of the 
 car except one small old lady in the corner, 
 who was a stranger and visiting, and who 
 was left with the impression that the gen- 
 tleman who got off must be a very kind 
 man. It was darker and blowier and 
 snowier than when he had left the corner, 
 and Mr. Gilton floundered through the 
 unbroken drifts up the little path to the 
 door with increasing grudges in his heart 
 16
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 against the difficulties of Christmas. The 
 lock was off, and he went in slamming 
 the door after him. There was no light 
 in the hall, and he murmured loudly 
 against the inconvenience. 
 
 " Confound it ! " he said, " why did n't 
 they light the gas ? I 'm not one of those 
 confounded Biltons ; I can afford to pay 
 for what I don't get ; " and, without paus- 
 ing to take off his hat and coat, he strode 
 to the sitting-room door and flung it open. 
 That was an awful moment. The sudden 
 change from the cold and darkness almost 
 blinded him, and confirmed the impression 
 that he was the victim of an illusion. The 
 sound of many voices, and then the hush 
 of sudden consternation, was in his ears. 
 There was a lamp and there was a fire, 
 and there between them sat Mr. Bilton on 
 one side and Mrs. Bilton on the other, 
 and round about, in various unconventional 
 attitudes, sat four Bilton children. And 
 there in the very midst of them, in his 
 heavy overcoat, with snow melting on his 
 2 17
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 hat, his beard, and his shoulders, stood 
 Mr. Gilton. The unexpected scene, the 
 amazed faces gazing into his, rendered 
 him speechless ; he wondered vaguely if 
 he were losing his reason. Then, in a 
 flush of enlightenment, he realized what 
 had happened ; thanks to the storm outside, 
 he had come into the wrong house. Natur- 
 ally his first impulse was towards flight, 
 but as his bewildered gaze slipped about 
 the room it fell upon five stockings hung 
 against the mantelpiece, and stayed there 
 fascinated. Five foolish, limp, expression- 
 less stockings, it was long since he had 
 seen such an unreasonable spectacle. Then 
 he recollected himself and looked around 
 him. Perhaps even then, if he had made 
 a dash for the door, he might have es- 
 caped and matters have been none the 
 worse. But in that instant of hesitation 
 caused by the sudden sight of those five 
 stockings something dreadful occurred. It 
 must be premised that Cora Cordelia did 
 not know Mr. Gilton very well by sight, 
 18
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 being in the first place small and not no- 
 ticing, and in the second, filled with an 
 unreasoning fear that caused her to flee 
 whenever she had seen him approach. This 
 is the only excuse for what she did ; for 
 while her mother was feebly murmuring, 
 as if in extenuation, " We thought it was 
 John coming in," Cora Cordelia clasped 
 her hands in delirious delight, and cried 
 aloud, " It 's Santa Claus ! Oh, it 's Santa 
 Claus ! " Could anything more awful 
 happen to a cross man, a very cross man, 
 than to be taken for Santa Claus ! 
 
 Mr. Gilton looked at Cora Cordelia, 
 and wondered why she had not been 
 slaughtered in her cradle. 
 
 "And," exclaimed Susan Bilton, with 
 sudden communicative fervor, ." he has 
 come and brought us a turkey for to- 
 morrow's dinner ! " 
 
 The truth was that Susan had been 
 coming to the age that is sceptical about 
 Santa Claus, but she could not resist this 
 sudden appearance. 
 
 19
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 No one could appreciate the nonsense 
 of the whole situation better than Mr. 
 Gilton ; and yet, strangely enough, together 
 with his annoyance was mingled a touch 
 of the strange feeling that had dawned 
 upon him first when he saw the stockings. 
 To be sure, it only added to his annoy- 
 ance, but it was there. By this time it 
 was really a very short time Mrs. Bil- 
 ton had recovered herself and risen, and 
 Mr. Bilton had risen too. 
 
 " Hush, children ; it is not Santa Claus," 
 she said, " it is Mr. Gilton. We are glad 
 to see you, Mr. Gilton ; " and she held 
 out her hand to him. " Won't you sit 
 down ? " She felt that he had come in 
 the Christmas spirit, and she was anxious 
 to meet him half-way. 
 
 "Yes," said her husband, coming for- 
 ward, and instantly taking his cue from his 
 wife, for he was really a very nice man, 
 " we are very glad." To be sure, in 
 his manner there was a certain stiffness, 
 for a man cannot always change com- 
 20
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 pletely in a moment, as a woman can ; 
 but Mr. Gilton was too perplexed to no- 
 tice this. In the incomprehensible way 
 that one 's mind has of clinging to unim- 
 portant things at great crises, while he was 
 fuming with rage and bothered with this 
 strange feeling which was not precisely 
 rage, he was wondering how in the world 
 he was going to sit down with that ridicu- 
 lous turkey, with its ridiculous legs, in his 
 arms, and not look more absurd than he 
 did now. In this moment of absent- 
 mindedness he had mechanically taken 
 Mrs. Bilton's hand and shaken it, and 
 after that of course there was nothing to 
 do except to shake Mr. Bilton's. Then 
 he began to know it was all up. He had 
 not spoken yet, but now he made a frantic 
 effort to save what might be left besides 
 honor. " I came " he began, " I came 
 came to your house " There he 
 paused a moment, and that unlucky child 
 with that tendency to be possessed by one 
 idea, which is characteristic of small and 
 
 21
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 trivial minds, and for which she should 
 have been shaken, burst in with, " And 
 did the reindeer bring you, and are they 
 outside ? " 
 
 He almost groaned, so overwhelmed 
 was he by this new idiocy. Reindeer ! 
 If those overworked, struggling car-horses 
 could have heard that ! Then Mrs. 
 Bilton, pitying his evident confusion, 
 came to his assistance. 
 
 " Don't mind the children, Mr. Gilton," 
 she said, her cheeks flushing, and looking 
 very pretty with the excitement of the 
 unusual circumstances, " we are glad you 
 came, however you made your way here. 
 I think we may thank Christmas Eve for 
 it. Now do take off your overcoat and sit 
 down." 
 
 Oh, mispraised woman's tact ! What 
 complications you may produce ! That 
 finished it, of course. He sat down. In 
 those few moments that strange feeling 
 had grown marvellously stronger. It 
 seemed to be made up of the most diverse
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 elements, a mixture of green wreaths and 
 his own childhood, and his mother, and a 
 top he had not thought of for years, and 
 the wide fireplace at home, and a stable 
 with a child in it, and a picture, in a book 
 he used to read, of a lot of angels in the 
 sky, one particular one in the middle, and 
 underneath it some words what were 
 the words ? He 'd forgotten they had any- 
 thing to do with Christmas, anyway. 
 
 " But you did bring us the turkey, did n't 
 you ? " said Cora Cordelia, helping her 
 mother on. 
 
 To do the child justice, for even Cora 
 Cordelia has a right to demand justice, 
 her manners were corrupted by Christmas 
 expectancy. 
 
 " Cora Cordelia, I 'm ashamed of you," 
 said Mrs. Bilton. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Gilton, the words 
 wrung from his lips, while beads stood on 
 his forehead, " yes, I brought you the 
 turkey." 
 
 " Did you really ? " exclaimed Mrs. 
 23
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 Bilton, who thought he had all the time. 
 " That was very kind of you." 
 
 " Will you please take it take it 
 away ? " he said, with that wish to have 
 something over which we associate with 
 the dentist. So Mrs. Bilton took the tur- 
 key and thanked him, and gave it to Fanny, 
 who carried it out to the kitchen, and Mr. 
 Gilton gave one last look at its legs as it 
 went through the door, feeling that now 
 he must wake up from this nightmare. 
 But things only went farther and became 
 more incredible and upsetting, only that, 
 strangely enough, that feeling of horror 
 began to wear off, and that singular strain 
 of association with all sorts of Christmas 
 things to grow stronger. He himself could 
 hardly believe that it was no worse, when 
 he found himself seated by the littered 
 table, with Mrs. Bilton near and Mr. 
 Bilton over by the fire again, listening to 
 first one and then the other, and occasion- 
 ally letting fall a word himself, his conver- 
 sational powers seeming to thaw out along 
 24
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 with the snow on his greatcoat. These 
 words themselves were a surprise to him. 
 He was quite sure that he started them 
 with a creditable gruffness, but the Christ- 
 mas air mellowed them in a highly unsatis- 
 factory fashion, so that they fell on his 
 own ears quite otherwise than as he had 
 meant they should sound. Moreover the 
 general tenor of the conversation was ex- 
 ceedingly perplexing. It was all about 
 how fine it was of him to come this 
 evening, and how they had often regretted 
 the hard feeling, and how things always 
 did get exaggerated. Of course he would 
 not have believed a word of it, if he had 
 been able to get any grip on the situation, 
 but he was n't, and he just went on as- 
 senting to it all as if it were true. There 
 came a time when Mr. Bilton cleared his 
 throat, hesitated a moment, and then said 
 boldly, 
 
 " I think I ought to tell you, Mr. Gilton, 
 that I had nothing whatever to do with the 
 death of your dog." Mr. Gilton felt the 
 2 5
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 ground slipping away from under his very 
 feet. That dog had been his piece of 
 resistance, as it were. " I would n't have 
 poisoned him," went on Mr. Bilton, " for 
 a hundred dollars. But," he added, with 
 a queer little smile, " I was n't going to 
 tell you so, you know." 
 
 " Of course you was n't," exclaimed 
 Mr. Gilton, hurriedly, with a touch of that 
 unholy excitement that a lapse from gram- 
 mar imparts. 
 
 " We would n't any of us," asserted 
 Walter. 
 
 " No," said Susan, Fanny, and Cora 
 Cordelia. 
 
 Then it came out that the whole family 
 had rather admired the dog than otherwise. 
 It was here that John did really come in, 
 his entrance sounding very much as had 
 Mr. Gilton's. He nearly fell over when 
 he saw the visitor, but he had time to pull 
 himself together, for Cora Cordelia had 
 snatched that moment for showing Mr. 
 Gilton her gifts for the family, and he 
 26
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 was bound hand and foot with helpless- 
 ness. Then they all came and showed 
 him their gifts. While he examined them 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bilton carefully averted 
 their eyes and gazed hard at the opposite 
 wall, while Cora Cordelia urged him, in 
 stage whispers, not to let them suspect. 
 It was pitiable the state to which he was 
 reduced. Of course resisting this Christ- 
 mas enthusiasm was out of the question. 
 To be sure it came over him once with 
 startling force, as she showed him a toy 
 water-wheel, that went by sand, which 
 she had purchased for her father at a 
 phenomenally low rate because the wheel 
 could not be made to go, that Cora Cor- 
 delia was the very child that he had fallen 
 over as she came hastening out of a toy- 
 shop with a queerly shaped bundle, the day 
 before, and so been further imbittered 
 towards Christmas. Susan had purchased 
 a cup and ball for her mother, and as she 
 went out of the room for a moment, in- 
 sisted upon Mr. Gilton's trying to do it 
 27
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 and see what fun it was. If Mr. Gilton 
 lives to be a hundred he will never for- 
 get the mingled feelings with which he 
 awkwardly tried to get that senseless ball 
 into that idiotic cup. At last he stood 
 up to go it was after six o'clock 
 and they went with him to the door, 
 and wished him Merry Christmas, and 
 sent Merry Christmas to Mrs. Gilton, 
 and said good-night several times, and he 
 stumbled on through the snow, this time 
 towards his own door. It had stopped 
 snowing as suddenly and quietly as it had 
 begun, and the stars had come out. He 
 gazed up at them, something he very 
 rarely did. They seemed a part of Christ- 
 mas. Just before he turned in at his own 
 gate, he looked back at the Bilton house 
 and shook his fist at it, but the expression 
 on his face was such that the very same 
 newsboy who had accosted him earlier 
 failed utterly to recognize him and was 
 emboldened to offer him a paper. He 
 too was pushing his way home with 
 28
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 two papers left, in a somewhat dispirited 
 way. 
 
 " I '11 take 'em both," said this singular 
 customer. "Here's a quarter never 
 mind the change. It 's Christmas Eve, I 
 believe " and this when he knew per- 
 fectly well that a copy of that very same, 
 journal was waiting for him on his 
 table. The boy looked at his quarter 
 and looked again at his customer, and 
 recognized him, and made up his mind 
 to buy a couple of hot sausages on the 
 corner, and went on his way feeling that 
 there was a new heaven and a new earth. 
 Mrs. Gilton was standing at the parlor 
 window, peering out anxiously as he 
 came up the path. She was in the hall 
 as he entered. 
 
 "Why, Reuben," she said, " I was afraid 
 something had happened." . 
 
 Goodness gracious ! As if something 
 had n't happened ! He turned away to 
 hang up his overcoat and tried to speak 
 crossly. 
 
 29
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 " Well," he said, " I 've lost my turkey. 
 That 's happened." 
 
 " Never mind," said Mrs. Gilton, 
 quickly ; u the other one came later, the 
 first one, you know so so the Bil- 
 tons did n't get it this time." 
 
 " They got the second one, though," 
 said Reuben, hanging up his hat. 
 
 " Oh, dear, did they ! " said Mrs. Gilton. 
 Then she went on, "Well, I don't care 
 if they did, so there ! I guess they need 
 it for their Christmas dinner." 
 
 " No, they don 't," said Reuben, turn- 
 ing around and facing her, " because they 
 are going to eat part of ours. They are 
 coming in to-morrow to have dinner with 
 us, every one of them ! " he asserted 
 more loudly, on account of the expression 
 on his wife's face. " Bilton, and his wife, 
 and all the five children, down to Cora 
 Cordelia ! So we '11 have to have some- 
 thing for them to eat." 
 
 If Mr. Gilton will never forget the cup 
 and ball, Mrs. Gilton will never forget 
 30
 
 A Christmas Accident 
 
 that moment. She went all over it in her 
 mind whether she could manage him her- 
 self to-night, or whether to send Bridget 
 right away then for the doctor, and if she 
 hadn't better say a policeman too, and 
 whether he could be kept for the future in 
 a private house, or would have to be con- 
 fined in an asylum. She was inclining 
 towards the asylum when he, who was 
 going into the sitting-room before her, 
 turned round and laughed an odd little 
 laugh. She began to think then that a 
 private house would do. 
 
 The next day they all dined together, 
 which proved that it was not all a Christ- 
 mas Eve illusion. There is a report in 
 the neighborhood that the fence between 
 the houses is to be taken down to make 
 room for a tennis court for the Bilton 
 children, but of course this may not be true. 
 It would have to be done in the summer, 
 and if th.e effect of Christmas could be 
 depended upon to last into the summer this 
 would be a very different sort of world.
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 HTHE sombre tints of Grayhead were 
 slightly suffused by a pink light 
 sifting from the west through the clear air. 
 The yachts in the harbor lay idly beneath 
 the mellow influences of the passing of 
 the summer day, idly as only sailboats 
 can lie, a bit of loose sail or cordage now 
 and then flapping inconsistently in a breath 
 of wind, which seemed to come out of 
 the west for no other purpose, and to re- 
 tire into the east afterward, its whole duty 
 done. On board, men were moving 
 about, hanging lanterns, making taut here, 
 setting free there, all with an air of utter 
 peace and repose such as is found only on 
 placid waterways beneath a setting sun. 
 Occasionally an oar dipped in the still 
 water, a hint of action, modified, softened 
 32
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 into repose. Along one of the quaint 
 streets of the irregular town, winding 
 where it would, climbing where it climbed, 
 hurried an angular figure, that of a 
 woman of about fifty years, whose tense 
 expression suggested an unrest at va- 
 riance with the keen calmness of that 
 of the other faces about the streets and 
 doorways. Not that it was feverish in 
 its intensity ; rather, it was an expression 
 of resolution, undeviating and persistent, 
 but not sure of sympathy or support. 
 
 " They 've gone down yonder, t 'other 
 side of the wharf, Mis' Pember," said a 
 middle-aged sea captain, whose interest in 
 his kind had not been obliterated by the 
 forced loneliness of northern voyages. 
 
 The woman paused and glanced doubt- 
 fully down one of the byways that led 
 between small, weather-beaten houses and 
 around disconcerting abutments to the 
 water, and then forward, straight along 
 the way she had been travelling, which led 
 out of the town. 
 
 3 33
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 " I 'd rather fixed on their going down 
 Point-ways this evening," she said. 
 
 "Well, they ain't," rejoined Captain 
 Phippeny, with that absence of mere rhet- 
 oric characteristic of people whose solid 
 work is done otherwise than by speech. 
 
 Mrs. Pember nodded, at once in ac- 
 knowledgment and farewell, and, turning 
 about, followed the path he had indicated, 
 her gait acquiring a certain precipitancy 
 as she went down the rough, stony slope. 
 At the foot of the descent she paused 
 again, and looked to the right and left. 
 Captain Phippeny was watching her from 
 his vantage ground above. His figure 
 was one unmistakably of the seaboard. 
 His trousers were of a singular cut, prob- 
 ably after a pattern evolved in all its 
 originality by Mrs. Phippeny, her active 
 imagination working towards practical ef- 
 fect. In addition, he wore a yellow flan- 
 nel shirt ribbed with purple, which would 
 hopelessly have jaundiced a rose-leaf com- 
 plexion, but which, having exhausted its 
 34
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 malignancy without producing any partic- 
 ular effect, ended by gently harmonizing 
 with the captain's sandy hair, reddish 
 beard, and tanned skin. His mouth was 
 like a badly made buttonhole, which gaped 
 a little when he smiled. He had a nose 
 like a parrot's beak, and his eyes were 
 blue, kindly, and wise in their straightfor- 
 wardness. When he would render his 
 costume absolutely de rigueur, he wore a 
 leathern jacket with manifold pockets, 
 from one to another of which trailed a 
 gold watch-chain with a dangling horse- 
 shoe charm. 
 
 "I wonder the old woman don't take a 
 dog with her and trace 'em out, she spends 
 so much time on the hunt," he said to him- 
 self. " I declare for't, it 's a sing'lar thing 
 the way she everlastin' does get onto them 
 'prentices j ain't old enough to talk about 
 settin' sail by themselves." 
 
 His quid of tobacco again resumed its 
 claim to his undivided attention, and he 
 leaned back against the fence and waited 
 35
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 as idly as the drooping sails for a breath of 
 something stirring. By and by it appeared 
 in the shape of another old sailor, between 
 whom and himself there was the likeness 
 of two peas, save for a slight discrepancy 
 of feature useful for purposes of identifi- 
 cation. 
 
 " You told her where they 'd gone, 
 I reckon," he remarked, with a slight 
 chuckle, as he too leaned up against the 
 fence and looked out over the harbor. 
 
 "Yes, I did," replied Captain Phippeny. 
 " I did n't have no call to tell her a lie." 
 
 " Kinder hard on the young uns," ob- 
 served the new-comer. 
 
 " They ain't ever anythin' as hard on 
 the young uns as on the old uns," asserted 
 Captain Phippeny, " because well, be- 
 cause they 're young, I guess. That 's 
 Chivy's yacht that came in just at sun- 
 down, ain't it ? " 
 
 " Yare. They say she 's seen dirty 
 weather since she was here last." 
 
 " Has ? Well, you can't stay in harbor 
 36
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 allers, and git your livin' at the same time. 
 She 's got toler'ble good men to handle 
 her." 
 
 There was a pause. The soft twilight 
 was battening down the hatches of the 
 day, to drop into the parlance of the 
 locality. 
 
 " Well, I do suppose old Pember war n't 
 an easy shipmate, blow or no blow," ob- 
 served Captain Smart. He was a small, 
 keen-eyed, quickly moving old man, sea- 
 soned with salt. 
 
 " I reckon he war n't. And she thinks 
 she can keep that girl of hers out of the 
 same kind of discipline that she had to 
 take, that 's the truth of it." 
 
 " Cur'ous, ain't it ? " ruminated Captain 
 Smart. " A woman 's bound to take it one 
 way or 'nother ; there seems to be more 
 sorts of belayin' pins to knock 'em over 
 with than they, any on 'em, kinder cal'late 
 on at first." 
 
 " So there be," assented Captain Phip- 
 peny. 
 
 37
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 Near the water, with its fading, rose- 
 colored reflections, not so far from the 
 anchored vessels but they might, had they 
 chosen, have spoken across to those on 
 board, the monotonous, austere, and yet 
 vaguely soft gray of the old town rising 
 behind them against the melting sky, sat 
 Mellony Pember and Ira Baldwin. 
 
 " If you 'd only make up your mind, 
 Mellony," urged the young man. 
 
 " I can't, Ira ; don't ask me." The 
 young girl's face, which was delicate in 
 outline, was troubled, and the sensitive 
 curves of her lips trembled. The faded 
 blue of her dress harmonized with the 
 soft tones of the scene ; her hat lay beside 
 her, an uncurled, articulated ostrich feather 
 standing up in it like an exclamation point 
 of brilliant red. 
 
 The young man pulled his hat over his 
 eyes and looked over to the nearest boat. 
 Mellony glanced at him timidly. 
 
 " You see, I 'm all she 's got," she 
 said. 
 
 38
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 " I ain't goin* to take you away from 
 her, unless you want to go," he replied, 
 without looking at her. 
 
 " She thinks I '11 be happier if I don't 
 if I don't marry." 
 
 " Happier ! " he paused in scorn 
 " and she badgerin' you all the time if you 
 take a walk with me, and watchin' us as 
 if we were thieves! You ain't happy 
 now, are you ? " 
 
 "No." Mellony's eyes filled, and a 
 sigh caught and became almost a sob. 
 
 " Well, I wish she 'd give me a try at 
 makin' you happy, that 's all." His 
 would-be sulkiness softened into a tender 
 sense of injury. Mellony twisted hef 
 hands together, and looked over beyond 
 the vessels to the long, narrow neck of 
 land with its clustering houses, beyond 
 which again, unseen, were booming the 
 waves of the Atlantic. 
 
 " Oh, if I only knew what to do ! " 
 she exclaimed, "if I only knew what 
 to do ! " 
 
 39
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 I '11 tell you what to do, Mellony," 
 he began. 
 
 " There 's ma, now," she interrupted. 
 
 Ira turned quickly and looked over his 
 shoulder. Across the uneven ground, 
 straight towards them, came the figure 
 of Mrs. Pember. The tenseness of her 
 expression had further yielded to resolu- 
 tion, which had in turn taken on a sto- 
 lidity which declared itself unassailable. 
 No one of the three spoke as she seated 
 herself on a bit of timber near them, 
 and, folding her hands, waited with the 
 immobility and the apparent impartiality 
 of Fate itself. At last Mellony spoke, 
 for of the three she was the most 
 acutely sensitive to the situation, and the 
 least capable of enduring it silently. 
 
 " Which way did you come, ma ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I come down Rosaly's Lane," Mrs. 
 Pember answered. " I met Cap'n Phip- 
 peny, and he told me you was down 
 here." 
 
 40
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 " I 'm obligated to Cap'n Phippeny," 
 observed Ira, bitterly. 
 
 " I dono as he 's partickler to have 
 you," remarked Mrs. Pember, imperturb- 
 ably. 
 
 There was another silence. Mrs. 
 Pember' s voice had a marked sweetness 
 when she spoke to her daughter, which 
 it lost entirely when she addressed her 
 daughter's companion, but always it was 
 penetrated by the timbre of a certain 
 inflexibility. 
 
 The shadows grew deeper on the water, 
 the glow-worms of lanterns glimmered 
 more sharply, and the softness of the 
 night grew more palpable. 
 
 " I guess I may as well go back, ma," 
 said Mellony, rising. 
 
 " I was wonderin' when you cal'lated 
 on going," remarked her mother, as 
 she rose too, more slowly and stiffly, 
 and straightened her decent black 
 bonnet. 
 
 " I suppose you was afraid Mellony
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 would n't get back safe without you came 
 after her," broke out Ira. 
 
 " I guess I can look after Mellony 
 better than anybody else can, and I count 
 on doing it, and doing it right along," she 
 replied. 
 
 " Come, ma," said Mellony, impa- 
 tiently; but she waited a moment and 
 let her mother pass her, while she looked 
 back at Ira, who stood, angry and help- 
 less, kicking at the rusted timbers. 
 
 " Are you coming, too, Ira ? " she 
 asked in a low voice. 
 
 " No," he exclaimed, " I ain't coming ! 
 I don't want to go along back with your 
 mother and you, as if we were n't old 
 enough to be out by ourselves. I might 
 as well be handcuffed, and so might you ! 
 If you '11 come round with me the way we 
 came, and let her go the way she came, 
 I '11 go with you fast enough." 
 
 Mellony's eyes grew wet again, as 
 she looked from him to her mother, and 
 again at him. Mrs. Pember had paused, 
 42
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 also, and stood a little in advance of them. 
 Her stolidity showed no anxiety ; she was 
 too sure of the result. 
 
 " No," Mellony's lips framed the 
 words with an accustomed but grievous 
 patience, " I can't to-night, Ira ; I 
 must go with ma." 
 
 " It 's to-night that '11 be the last chance 
 there '11 be, maybe," he muttered, as he 
 flung himself off in the other direction. 
 
 The two women walked together up 
 the rough ascent, and turned into Rosaly's 
 Lane. Mellony walked wearily, her eyes 
 down, the red feather, in its uncurled, un- 
 lovely assertiveness, looking more like the 
 oriflamme of a forlorn hope than ever. 
 But Mrs. Pember held herself erect, and 
 as if she were obliged carefully to repress 
 what might have been the signs of an ill- 
 judged triumph. 
 
 Ira prolonged his walk beyond the limits 
 of the little gray town, goaded by the irri- 
 tating pricks of resentment. He would 
 bear it no longer, so he told himself. 
 43
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 Mellony could take him or leave him. 
 He would be a laughing-stock not another 
 week, not another day. If Mellony 
 would not assert herself against her tyran- 
 nical old mother, he would go away and 
 leave her ! And then he paused, as he had 
 paused so often in the flood of his anger, 
 faced by the realization that this was just 
 what Mrs. Pember wanted, just what 
 would satisfy her, what she had been 
 waiting for, that he should go away 
 and leave Mellony alone. It was an ex- 
 asperating dilemma, his abdication and her 
 triumph, or his uncertainty and her anxiety. 
 
 Mellony and her mother passed Captain 
 Phippeny and Captain Smart, who still 
 stood talking in the summer evening, the 
 fence continuing to supply all the support 
 their stalwart frames needed in this their 
 hour of ease. Captain Smart nudged 
 Captain Phippeny as the two figures 
 turned the corner of Rosaly's Lane. 
 
 " So you found 'em, Mis' Pember," 
 remarked Captain Phippeny. He spoke 
 44
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 to the mother, but he looked, not without 
 sympathy, at the daughter. 
 
 " Yes, I found 'em." 
 
 " You reckoned on fetchin' only one of 
 'em home, I take it," said Captain Smart. 
 
 " I ain't responsible but for one of 
 'em," replied Mrs. Pember with some 
 grimness, but with her eyes averted from 
 Mellony's crimsoning face. 
 
 " Come, ma," said Mellony again, and 
 they passed on. 
 
 " Mis' Pember is a likely enough lookin' 
 woman herself," observed Captain Smart ; 
 " it 's kind of cur'ous she should be so set 
 agen marryin,' just as marryin'." 
 
 " 'T is so," assented Captain Phippeny, 
 thoughtfully, looking after the two women. 
 
 Without speaking, Mellony and her 
 mother entered the little house where they 
 lived, and the young girl sank down in the 
 stiff, high-backed rocker, with its thin 
 calico-covered cushion tied with red braid, 
 that stood by the window. Outside, the 
 summer night buzzed and hummed, and 
 45
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 breathed sweet odors. Mrs. Pember moved 
 about the room, slightly altering its arrange- 
 ments, now and then looking at her daugh- 
 ter half furtively, as if waiting for her to 
 speak ; but Mellony's head was not turned 
 from the open window, and she was utterly 
 silent. At last this immobility had a sym- 
 pathetic effect upon the mother, and she 
 seated herself not far from the girl, her 
 hands, with their prominent knuckles and 
 shrunken flesh, folded in unaccustomed 
 idleness, and waited, while in the room dusk 
 grew to dark. To Mellony the hour was 
 filled with suggestions that emphasized 
 and defined her misery. In her not tur- 
 bulent or passionate nature, the acme of 
 its capacity for emotional suffering had been 
 reached. Hitherto this suffering had been 
 of the perplexed, patient, submissive kind ; 
 to-night, the beauty of the softly descend- 
 ing gloom, the gentle freedom of the placid 
 harbor, the revolt of her usually yielding 
 lover, deepened it into something more 
 acute. 
 
 46
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 " Mellony," said her mother, with a 
 touch of that timidity which appeared only 
 in her speech with her daughter, " did you 
 count on going over to the Neck to- 
 morrow, as you promised ? " 
 
 " I '11 never count on doing anything 
 again," said Mellony, in a voice she tried 
 to make cold and even, but which vibrated 
 notwithstanding, " never, so long as I 
 live. I '11 never think, or plan, or or 
 speak, if I can help it of what I mean 
 to do. I '11 never do anything but just 
 work and shut my eyes and and live, if 
 I 've got to ! " Her voice broke, and she 
 turned her head away from the open win- 
 dow and looked straight before her into the 
 shadowed room. Her mother moved un- 
 easily, and her knotted hands grasped the 
 arms of the stiff" chair in which she sat. 
 
 " Mellony," she said again, " you 've no 
 call to talk so." 
 
 " I 've no call to talk at all. I 've no 
 place anywhere. I 'm not anybody. I 
 have n't any life of my own." The keen 
 47
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 brutality of the thoughtlessness of youth, 
 and its ignoring of all claims but those of 
 its own happiness, came oddly from the 
 lips of submissive Mellony. Mrs. Pember 
 quivered under it. 
 
 " You know you 're my girl, Mellony," 
 she answered gently. " You 're all I 've 
 got." 
 
 " Yes," the other answered indiffer- 
 ently, " that 's all I am, Mellony Pem- 
 ber, Mrs. Pember's girl, just that." 
 
 " Ain't that enough ? Ain't that some- 
 thing to be, all I plan for and work 
 for ? Ain't that enough for a girl to be ? " 
 
 Mellony turned her eyes from empti- 
 ness, and fixed them upon her mother's 
 face, dimly outlined in the vagueness. 
 
 " Is that all you 've been," she asked, 
 "just somebody's daughter ? " 
 
 It was as if a heavy weight fell from 
 her lips and settled upon her mother's 
 heart. There was a silence. Mellony's 
 eyes, though she could not see them, 
 seemed to Mrs. Pember to demand an 
 48
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 answer in an imperative fashion unlike 
 their usual mildness. 
 
 " It 's because I 've been, it 's because 
 I 'd save you from what I have been that 
 I do as I do. You know that," she 
 said. 
 
 " I don't want to be saved," returned 
 the other, quickly and sharply. 
 
 The older woman was faced by a situ- 
 ation she had never dreamed of, a 
 demand to be allowed to suffer ! The 
 guardian had not expected this from her 
 carefully shielded charge. 
 
 " I want you to have a happy life," she 
 added. 
 
 " A happy life ! " flashed the girl. "And 
 you 're keeping me from any life at all ! 
 That's what I want, life, my own life, 
 not what anybody else gives me of theirs. 
 Why should n't I have what they have, 
 even if it 's bad now and then ? Don't 
 save me in spite of myself! Nobody likes 
 to be saved in spite of themselves." 
 
 It was a long speech for Mellony. A 
 4 49
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 large moon had risen, and from the low 
 horizon sent golden shafts of light almost 
 into the room ; it was as if the placidity 
 of the night were suddenly penetrated by 
 something more glowing. Mellony stood 
 looking down at her mother, like a judge. 
 Mrs. Pember gazed at her steadily. 
 
 " I 'm going to save you, Mellony," 
 she said, her indomitable will making her 
 voice harsher than it had been, " whether 
 you want to be saved or not. I 'm not 
 going to have you marry, and be sworn at 
 and cuffed." Mellony moved to protest, 
 but her strength was futility beside her 
 mother's at a time like this. " I 'm not 
 going to have you slave and grub, and get 
 blows for your pains. I 'm going to fol- 
 low you about and set wherever you be, 
 whenever you go off with Ira Baldwin, if 
 that '11 stop it ; and if that won't, I '11 try 
 some other way, I know other ways. 
 I 'm not going to have you marry ! I 'm 
 going to have you stay along with me ! " 
 
 With a slight gesture of despair, Mel- 
 50
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 lony turned away. The flash had burned 
 itself out. The stronger nature had reas- 
 serted itself. Silently, feeling her help- 
 lessness, frightened at her own rebellion 
 now that it was over, she went out of the 
 room to her own smaller one, and closed 
 the door. 
 
 Mrs. Pember sat silent in her turn, re- 
 viewing her daughter's resentment, but 
 the matter admitted no modifications in 
 her mind ; her duty was clear, and her 
 determination had been taken long ago. 
 Neither did she fear anything like persist- 
 ent opposition ; she knew her daughter's 
 submissive nature well. 
 
 Brought up in a country village, an ear- 
 nest and somewhat apprehensive member 
 of the church, Mrs. Pember had married 
 the captain early in life, under what she 
 had since grown to consider a systematic 
 illusion conceived and maintained by the 
 Evil One, but which was, perhaps, more 
 logically due to the disconcerting good 
 looks and decorously restrained impetuosity
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 of Captain Pember himself. Possibly he 
 had been the victim of an illusion too, not 
 believing that austerity of principle could 
 exist with such bright eyes and red cheeks 
 as charmed him in the country girl. At 
 least, he never hesitated subsequently, not 
 only to imply, but to state baldly, a sense 
 of the existence of injury. Captain Phip- 
 peny was one of those sailors whom the 
 change of scene, the wide knowledge of 
 men and of things, the hardships and dan- 
 gers of a sea life, broaden and render tol- 
 erant and somewhat wise. Pember had 
 been brutalized by these same things. 
 
 The inhabitants of Grayhead were dis- 
 tinguished by the breadth and suggestive- 
 ness of their profanity, and Captain Pember 
 had been a past master of the accomplish- 
 ment. Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley 
 could have been no more discriminating 
 than the local acknowledgment of his 
 proficiency in this line. No wonder Mrs. 
 Pember looked back at the ten years of 
 her married life with a shudder. With 
 
 5 2
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 the rigid training of her somewhat dog- 
 matic communion still potent, she listened 
 in a horrified expectancy, rather actual 
 than figurative, for the heavens to strike 
 or the earth to swallow up her nonchalant 
 husband. Nor was this all. The weak- 
 ness for grog, unfortunately supposed to 
 be inherent in a nautical existence, was 
 carried by Captain Pember to an extent 
 inconsiderate even in the eyes of a sea- 
 faring public ; and when, under its genial 
 influence, he knocked his wife down and 
 tormented Mellony, the opinion of this 
 same public declared itself on the side of 
 the victims with a unanimity which is not 
 always to be counted upon in such cases. 
 In fact, her married life had, as it were, 
 formalized many hitherto somewhat vague 
 details of Mrs. Pember's conception of the 
 place of future punishment; and when 
 her husband died in an appropriate and in- 
 decorous fashion as the result of a brawl, 
 he continued to mitigate the relief of the 
 event by leaving in his wife's heart a 
 53
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 haunting fear, begotten of New England 
 conscientiousness, that perhaps she ought 
 not to be so unmistakably glad of it. It 
 was thus that, with Mellony's growth 
 from childhood to womanhood, the burn- 
 ing regret for her former unmarried state, 
 whose difficulties had been mainly theolog- 
 ical, had become a no less burning resolve 
 that her child should never suffer as she 
 had suffered, but should be guarded from 
 matrimony as from death. That she 
 failed to distinguish between individuals, 
 that she failed to see that young Baldwin 
 was destitute of those traits which her 
 sharpened vision would now have detected 
 in -Pember's youth, was both the fault of 
 her perceptive qualities and the fruit of 
 her impregnable resolve. She had been 
 hurt by Mellony's rebellion, but not influ- 
 enced by so much as a hair's-breadth. 
 
 Early one morning, two or three days 
 
 later, Mrs. Pember, lying awake waiting 
 
 for the light to grow brighter that she 
 
 might begin her day, heard a slight sound 
 
 54
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 outside, of a certain incisiveness out of 
 proportion to its volume. With an idle- 
 ness that visited her only at early day- 
 break, she wondered what it was. It was 
 repeated, and this time, moved by an in- 
 sistent curiosity blended with the recogni- 
 tion of its probable cause, she rose and 
 looked out of the window which was close 
 to the head of her bed. A little pier was 
 a stone's throw from the house on that 
 side, at which were moored several boats 
 belonging to the fishermen about. It was 
 as she thought ; a stooping figure, dim and 
 hazy in the morning fog, which blurred 
 the nearest outlines and veiled the more 
 distant, was untying one of the boats, and 
 had slipped the oars into the rowlocks. 
 
 " Going fishing early," she said to her- 
 self. " I wonder which of 'em it is. 
 They are all alike in this light." 
 
 Then she stood and looked out upon 
 
 the morning world. It would soon be 
 
 sunrise. Meanwhile, the earth was silent, 
 
 save for the soft rippling of the untired 
 
 55
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 waves that scarcely rose and fell in this 
 sheltered harbor; the land had been at 
 rest through the short night, but they had 
 climbed and lapsed again steadily through 
 its hours; the paling stars would soon 
 have faded into the haze. The expec- 
 tation of the creature waited for the 
 manifestation. 
 
 Softly the boat floated away from its 
 moorings. It seemed propelled without 
 effort, so quietly it slipped through the 
 water. In the bottom lay the sail and the 
 nets, a shadowy mass ; the boat itself was 
 little more than a shadow, as it glided on 
 into the thicker fog which received and 
 enveloped it, as into an unknown vague 
 future which concealed and yet held 
 promise and welcome. 
 
 Mrs. Pember glanced at the clock. It 
 was very early, but to go back to bed 
 was hardly worth while. The sun was 
 already beginning to glint through the 
 fog. She dressed, and, passing softly the 
 door of the room where Mellony slept, 
 56
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 rather fitfully of late, began to make 
 the fire. 
 
 The morning broadened and blazed 
 into the day, and the whole town was 
 making ready for its breakfast. Mellony 
 was later than usual, her mother did not 
 hear her moving about, even ; but she 
 was unwilling to disturb her; she would 
 wait a while longer before calling her. 
 At last, however, the conviction of the 
 immorality of late rising could no longer 
 be ignored, and she turned the knob of 
 Mellony's door and stepped into the 
 room. 
 
 She had been mistaken in supposing 
 that Mellony was asleep ; the girl must 
 have risen early and slipped out, for the 
 room was empty, and Mrs. Pember 
 paused, surprised that she had not heard 
 her go. It must have been while she was 
 getting kindling-wood in the yard that 
 Mellony had left by the street door. And 
 what could she have wanted so early in 
 the village ? for to the village she must 
 57.
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 have gone ; she was nowhere about the 
 little place, whose flatness dropped, tree- 
 less, to the shore. Her mother went 
 again to the kitchen, and glanced up and 
 down the waterside. There was no one 
 on the little wooden pier, and the boats 
 swung gently by its side, their own among 
 them, so Mellony had not gone out in 
 that. Yes, she must have gone to the 
 village, and Mrs. Pember opened the front 
 door and scanned the wandering little 
 street. It was almost empty ; the early 
 morning activity of the place was in other 
 directions. 
 
 With the vague uneasiness that unac- 
 customed and unexplained absence always 
 produces, but with no actual apprehension, 
 Mrs. Pember went back to her work. 
 Mellony had certain mild whims of her 
 own, but it was surprising that she should 
 have left her room in disorder, the bed 
 unmade ; that was not like her studious 
 neatness. With a certain grimness Mrs. 
 Pember ate her breakfast alone. Of 
 58
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 course no harm had come to Mellony, but 
 where was she ? Unacknowledged, the 
 shadow of Ira Baldwin fell across her 
 wonder. Had Mellony cared so much for 
 him that her disappointment had driven 
 her to something wild and fatal ? She did 
 not ask the question, but her lips grew 
 white and stiff at the faintest suggestion 
 of it. Several times she went to the door, 
 meaning to go out, and up the street to 
 look for her daughter, but each time some- 
 thing withheld her. Instead, with that 
 determination that distinguished her, she 
 busied herself with trifling duties. It was 
 quite nine o'clock when she saw Captain 
 Phippeny coming up the street. She 
 stood still and watched him approach. 
 His gait was more rolling than ever, as he 
 came slowly towards her, and he glanced 
 furtively ahead at her house, and then 
 dropped his eyes and pretended not to 
 have seen her. She grew impatient to 
 have him reach her, but she only pressed 
 her lips together and stood the more rig- 
 59
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 idly still. At last he stood in front of 
 her doorstone, his hat in his hand. The 
 yellow shirt and the leathern jacket were 
 more succinctly audacious than ever, but 
 doubt and irresolution in every turn of 
 his blue eyes and line of his weather- 
 beaten face had taken the place of the 
 tolerant kindliness. 
 
 11 It's a warm mornin', Mis' Pember," 
 he observed, more disconcerted than ever 
 by her unsmiling alertness. 
 
 "You came a good ways to tell me 
 that, Captain Phippeny." 
 
 "Yes, I did. Leastways I didn't," he 
 responded. " I come to tell you about 
 about Mellony." 
 
 " What about Mellony, Captain Phip- 
 peny ? " she demanded, pale, but uncom- 
 promising. " What have you got to tell 
 me about Mellony Pember ? " she reiter- 
 ated as he paused. 
 
 "Not Mellony Pember," gasped the 
 captain, a three-cornered smile trying to 
 make headway against his embarrassment 
 60 v
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 as he recalled the ancient tale of breaking 
 the news to the Widow Smith; " Mellony 
 Baldwin." 
 
 " Mellony Baldwin ! " repeated Mrs. 
 Pember, stonily, not yet fully compre- 
 hending. 
 
 The captain grew more and more 
 nervous. 
 
 " Yes," he proceeded, with the haste of 
 despair, " yes, Mis' Pember, you see Mel- 
 lony Mellony's married." 
 
 " Mellony married ! " Strangely enough 
 she had not thought of that. She grasped 
 the doorpost for support. 
 
 " Yes, she up and married him," went 
 on the captain more blithely. " I hardly 
 thought it of Mellony," he added in not 
 unpleasurable reflection, " nor yet of Ira." 
 
 "Nor I either." Mrs. Pember's lips 
 moved with difficulty. Mellony married ! 
 The structure reared with tears and 
 prayers, the structure of Mellony's happi- 
 ness, seemed to crumble before her eyes. 
 
 u And I was to give you this ; " and 
 61
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 from the lining of his hat the captain drew 
 forth a folded paper. 
 
 " Then you knew about it ? " said Mrs. 
 Pember, in a flash of cold wrath. 
 
 u No, no, I did n't. My daughter's 
 boy brought this to me, and I was to tell 
 you they was married. And why they 
 set the job onto me the Lord he only 
 knows ! " and Captain Phippeny wiped his 
 heated forehead with feeling ; " but that 's 
 all / know." 
 
 Slowly, her fingers trembling, she un- 
 folded the note. 
 
 " I have married Ira, mother," she read. 
 "He took me away in a boat early this 
 morning. It was the only way. I will 
 come back when you want me. If I am 
 to be unhappy, I 'd rather be unhappy this 
 way. I can't be unhappy your way any 
 longer. I 'm sorry to go against you, 
 mother ; but it 's my life, after all, not 
 yours, MELLONY." 
 
 As Mrs. Pember's hands fell to her side 
 and the note slipped from her fingers, the 
 62
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 daily tragedy of her married life seemed to 
 pass before her eyes. She saw Captain 
 Pember reel into the house, she shuddered 
 at his blasphemy, she felt the sting of the 
 first blow he had given her, she cowered 
 as he roughly shook Mellony's little frame 
 by her childish arm. 
 
 " She 'd better be dead ! " she murmured. 
 " I wish she was dead." 
 
 Captain Phippeny pulled himself to- 
 gether. " No, she had n't, no, you 
 don't, Mis' Pember," he declared stoutly. 
 " You 're making a mistake. You don't 
 want to see Mellony dead any more 'n I 
 do. She 's only got married, when all 's 
 said and done, and there 's a sight of folks 
 gets married and none the worse for it. 
 Ira Baldwin ain't any great shakes, I 
 dono as he is ; he 's kinder light com- 
 plected and soft spoken, but he ain't a 
 born fool, and that 's a good deal, Mis' 
 Pember." He paused impressively, but 
 she did not speak. " And he ain't goin' 
 to beat Mellony, either ; he ain't that 
 63
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 sort. I guess Mellony could tackle him, 
 if it came to that, anyhow. I tell you, 
 Mis' Pember, there 's one thing you don't 
 take no reckonin' on, there 's a differ- 
 ence in husbands, there 's a ter'ble differ- 
 ence in 'em ! " Mrs. Pember looked at 
 him vaguely. Why did he go on talking ? 
 Mellony was married. " Mellony 's got 
 one kind, and you well," he went on, 
 with cautious delicacy, " somehow you got 
 another. I tell you it 's husbands as 
 makes the difference to a woman when it 
 comes to marryin'." 
 
 Mrs. Pember stooped, picked up the 
 note, turned and walked into the living- 
 room and sat down. She looked about 
 her with that sense of unreality that visits 
 us at times. There was the chair in which 
 Mellony sat the night of her rebellious 
 outbreak, Mellony, her daughter, her 
 married daughter. Other women talked 
 about their " married daughters " easily 
 enough, and she had pitied them; now she 
 would have to talk so, too. She felt un- 
 64
 
 After the Deluge 
 o 
 
 utterably lonely. Her household, like her 
 hope, was shattered. She looked up and 
 saw that Captain Phippeny had followed 
 her in and was standing before her, turn- 
 ing his hat in his brown, tattooed hands. 
 
 " Mis' Pember," he said, " I thought, 
 mebbe, now Mellony was married, you 'd 
 be thinkin' of matrimony yourself agen." 
 As Mrs. Pember gazed at him dumbly it 
 seemed as if she must all at once have 
 become another person. Matrimony had 
 suddenly become domesticated, as it were. 
 Her eyes travelled over the horseshoe 
 charm and the long gold chain, as she lis- 
 tened, and from pocket to pocket. " And 
 so I wanted to say that I 'd like to have 
 you think of me, if you was making out 
 the papers for another v'yage. The first 
 mate I sailed with, she says to me when 
 she died, c You 've been a good husband, 
 Phippeny,' says she. I would n't say 
 anythin' to you, I would n't take the resk, 
 if she had n't said that to me, Mis' 
 Pember, and I 'm tellin' it to you now 
 5 65
 
 After the Deluge 
 
 because there 's such a difference ; and I 
 feel kinder encouraged by it to ask you 
 to try me. I 'd like to have you marry 
 me, Mis' Pember." 
 
 It was a long speech, and the captain 
 was near to suffocation when it was fin- 
 ished, but he watched her with anxious 
 keenness as he waited for her to reply. 
 The stern lines of her mouth relaxed 
 slowly. A brilliant red geranium in the 
 .vindow glowed in the sunlight which had 
 just reached it. The world was not all 
 dark. The room seemed less lonely with 
 the captain in it, as she glanced around it 
 a second time. She scanned his face : the 
 buttonhole of a mouth had a kindly twist ; 
 he did not look in the least like handsome 
 Dick Pember. Mellony had married, and 
 her world was in fragments, and some- 
 thing must come after. 
 
 " I never heard as you were n't a good 
 
 husband to Mis' Phippeny," she said 
 
 calmly, "and I dono as anybody '11 make any 
 
 objection if I marry you, Captain Phippeny." 
 
 66
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 PHE other day I spent several hours 
 in looking over a lot of dusty vol- 
 umes which had fallen to me in the way 
 of inheritance. In the somewhat hetero- 
 geneous collection I came upon a brief 
 memoir which, after a glance within, I 
 laid aside as worthy, at least, of perusal. 
 The other books were of little value of 
 any sort an orthodox commentary, an 
 odd volume of a county history, one or 
 two cook-books, a worn and broken set 
 of certain standard British authors, the 
 usual assortment to be found in a country 
 farmhouse, whose occupants soon ceased 
 to keep up with the times. But this 
 little book seemed to me unusual, an 
 opinion subsequently confirmed by exami- 
 nation. I had long ago discovered the 
 67
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 fallacy of that tradition of early youth 
 that a memoir is, of necessity, dull, and I 
 was in nowise unfavorably affected by 
 the title, " Memoir of Mary Twining." 
 There proved to be something to me sin- 
 gularly quaint and charming in this little 
 sketch, something fresh and new in this 
 voice from bygone years. The subject 
 of the memoir attracted me powerfully, 
 both from the simplicity and natural- 
 ness of her own words, and the freedom 
 and occasional depth of both thought and 
 expression, in a day when freedom and 
 thinking for one's self were less the fashion 
 of New England maidens than they have 
 since become. Or, it may be that the 
 Editor, notwithstanding an occasional stiff- 
 ness and apparent want of sympathy, 
 has so well done his work, has under- 
 stood so well what to give us and what 
 to keep from us, that the reader's interest 
 is skilfully fostered from the start. Be 
 this as it may, I have not been able to 
 resist the temptation to write, myself, a 
 68
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 little of this memoir and its subject, to 
 make a little wider, if I may, the public who 
 have been told the story of this life. Not 
 that it was an exciting or an eventful one, 
 though lived in stirring times, but as I have 
 already said, it seems to have a certain 
 charm which should not be left forgotten 
 in country garrets or unnoticed in second- 
 hand bookstores. With no further apology 
 for this review of it, I shall let the book, 
 as far as possible, speak for itself. 
 
 Mary Twining was born in Middle- 
 port, Massachusetts, June 27, 1757. 
 Her father fought with Colonel Washing- 
 ton in the French and Indian War, and 
 subsequently under General Washington 
 in a later disturbance. Her mother was a 
 granddaughter of one of the early colonial 
 governors. Mary seems to have come 
 naturally enough by fine impulses and 
 good breeding. 
 
 "It is not," says the conscientious 
 biographer, " from any vain Partiality for 
 high-sounding names, or any poor Pretense 
 69
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 of good blood, which were most out of 
 place in this our Republic, made so by the 
 Genius and enduring Fortitude of all 
 classes of Men, that I claim for Mary 
 Twining stately Lineage, but that when 
 such Accidents fall in the lives of Human 
 Beings, it is not a thing to make light of, 
 but worthy of study in its Results. Be- 
 sides which is General Washington none 
 the less a Good Soldier in that he is a 
 Gentleman." 
 
 I suspect the traditions of a loyal Eng- 
 lishman had not been wholly eradicated 
 from the mind of this biographer by a few 
 years of plebeian institutions. With equal 
 truth he goes on, however, to say that 
 what was " of an Importance swallowing 
 up the Lesser Matter of Lineage and Sta- 
 tion, Richard Twining was an upright and 
 a God-fearing man, and Mary, his wife, 
 patterned in all things after the Behaviour 
 of her godly Ancestor." Either Richard 
 or Mary, his wife, must have something 
 u patterned " after a liberal and occasion- 
 70
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 ally self-willed model, else whence came 
 the spice of independence in the little 
 Mary's character ? She was an only child, 
 and only children were probably in the 
 middle of the eighteenth very much what 
 they are in the close of the nineteenth 
 century, little beings allowed greater lib- 
 erties, and burdened with heavier accounta- 
 bilities, than where there are more to divide 
 both. There are several incidents told of 
 her childhood, not particularly remarkable, 
 perhaps, but showing that her mind and 
 her imagination were alive. She was not 
 by any means a precocious child ; her 
 mind was but little, if at all, in advance of 
 her years. If one may judge from de- 
 tached anecdotes and descriptions, she 
 showed no more than the receptivity and 
 quickness natural to a bright and some- 
 what unusually clear intellect. Through 
 all these anecdotes there runs a vein de- 
 noting what is less common in childhood 
 than a certain precocity, a keen sense of 
 justice. " She appears to have reasoned of
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 many things, usually taken by childhood 
 for granted, and assented to their results 
 only if they seemed to her childishness just. 
 If after life showed her that the affairs of 
 this life can be but seldom regulated accord- 
 ing to the ideas of finite justice, she never 
 seems to have lost a certain fairness of 
 judgment and opinion, which is rare in one 
 of her sex and circumstances. When five 
 years old, her mother, wishing her to give 
 up a pet doll to a little crippled friend, 
 told her that sympathy should suggest her 
 doing it; that it was a privilege to make 
 another happy; that it was selfishness to 
 prefer her own pleasure of possession to 
 that of another. But Mary listened un- 
 moved to these arguments. Nevertheless 
 the struggle was not a long one. With a 
 good grace, after a few moments of Silence, 
 she carried the doll to her unfortunate 
 friend. " Mamma," she said soberly, 
 " she shall have it, for it is right that she 
 should. I feel it. I shall have many 
 things that she can never have." 
 72
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 For the logic of five years it was no 
 small thing to have settled this question in 
 this way. It would take too much time 
 and too much space to dwell on the an- 
 ecdotes of her childhood. Indeed, the 
 biographer does not linger on them long 
 himself. 
 
 " It is meet," he says, " to speak of 
 these early Years, not from a desire to 
 show that there was aught in the Child- 
 hood of Mary Twining remarkable or 
 unnatural, that should be the Cause of 
 Wonder or Admiration. But the rather 
 that there may be evinced the Presence, 
 even in the Germ, of certain Qualities of 
 Soundness of Judgment and of Thought- 
 fulness unusual in a Female, which grew 
 with her Growth, and which were in later 
 Years, developed into stronger Traits by 
 no unnatural means." 
 
 In 1773 she was sent away to a school 
 
 in which she remained three years, varied 
 
 by occasional visits at home. She made 
 
 several friends here, and here, for the first 
 
 73
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 time, kept a methodical and somewhat 
 extended diary. From this diary her biog- 
 rapher makes copious extracts. In fact, 
 from this period the memoir is chiefly made 
 up from her several journals, in whose con- 
 tinuity there are now and then large gaps, 
 with occasional notes. I shall make less 
 copious extracts, principally those bearing 
 upon that matter of which we always, 
 more or less consciously, seek traces in 
 the lives of individuals, distinguished or 
 obscure, the love story. But first for her 
 school life, into which few whispers of 
 sentiment penetrated. It was no fashion- 
 able boarding-school to which she was sent, 
 attended by young ladies whose dreams of 
 what they will soon be doing in society 
 monopolize the hours nominally devoted 
 to literature and the sciences. An old 
 friend of her mother opened her house to 
 a few representatives of those families with 
 whom she was acquainted, where, under 
 the best teachers the country afforded, they 
 were trained in such acquirements as were 
 74
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 prescribed by the canons of the day. On 
 the fifteenth of September she says : 
 
 " I have been something more than a 
 week at the good School which my kind 
 Parents have chosen for me. There seems, 
 after all, to be little doing here. The few 
 exercises in Mathematics, and the selec- 
 tions from the works of the most Highly 
 Endowed of the Authors of England ap- 
 pear to me to be the most Profitable. As 
 for the matter of Embroidery, I worked 
 with Patience, ten years ago, a Sampler 
 which was not considered discreditable, and 
 it seems to me that of the multiplying of 
 Stitches there is no end, and it were, per- 
 haps, as well to go no farther. My daily 
 Practice on the Spinet, may, perhaps, be 
 the means of giving Pleasure at some 
 Future Time, but it is the Occasion of but 
 little Benefit in the Present, and of the 
 Future can we be never certain." 
 
 The question of profitableness of a good 
 many of her employments was often in her 
 mind during these three years. She can- 
 75
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 not help feeling that there are times when 
 it is hard to contentedly fold the hands 
 over even the worsted marvels of a " not 
 discreditable " sampler. A year later, she 
 says again : 
 
 " More Practice and more Embroidery 
 this afternoon. There are those of my 
 Companions who ask nothing better than 
 such unvarying Exercises. In them they 
 find room for the employing of their Imag- 
 ination and their Spirit. I wonder if it be 
 so great a Fault in me, that I find them 
 wearying. It is not that they are in them- 
 selves so distasteful, as it is that there 
 seemeth much work waiting to be done, 
 which a woman's Hands might well do, 
 were it not reckoned somewhat unseemly." 
 
 " Her 's was a somewhat restless Soul," 
 says her biographer, " perplexing itself with 
 Questions which it was not for her to 
 answer." 
 
 Yes, with questions with which many a 
 restless woman's soul has since perplexed 
 itself, and which are now only beginning 
 76
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 to attain solution. It is pleasant to find, 
 in these early times, when we fancy New 
 England maidens well content with their 
 spinning and bread-making, hints that there 
 were enterprising spirits who thought the 
 prescribed round a too narrow one. 
 
 She finds some fault with one of her 
 teachers for being too lenient with her. 
 
 " I received no Reproof," she says, 
 " to-day when I most Richly deserved 
 it. A Disturbance in the Hour for Study 
 was entirely of my own making, but the 
 Person who is Master at that Hour re- 
 fused, with Persistence, to see it. I made 
 it most evident, but he remarked, with a 
 frown for a less Offender, that he should 
 hold Mistress Twining excused. I shall 
 find Occasion to address him on this Sub- 
 ject, for if I receive due Credit for that 
 which I do that is Well Done, I shall show 
 no unwillingness to bear the Brunt of my 
 Superior's Displeasure for what is 111 Done. 
 Moreover, I will not have it otherwise." 
 
 " It were better," is the brief comment, 
 77
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 " it were better had Mary Twining shown 
 more Regret for what she herself confesses 
 was ill done, rather than that she should 
 take upon herself to correct the Faults of 
 those towards whom she was somewhat 
 lacking in Reverence." But it is droll 
 enough to fancy the scene the pretty 
 schoolgirl gravely rebuking her delinquent 
 master for the too great partiality her own 
 bright eyes had won for her. Poor man ! 
 His was no sinecure. To hold rule over 
 a parcel of unruly girls, with the graces 
 of one so tugging at his heartstrings ! His 
 path might at least have been spared the 
 thorn of having his fault denounced by the 
 very voice that had done the mischief. 
 
 During the last year of her stay she 
 writes less. Did the objectlessness of this 
 education of hers pall upon the energy of 
 her nature more and more ? Or was her 
 woman's heart preparing the way for the 
 answer to this restless questioning ? It is 
 only now and then that we catch a glimpse 
 of this development, which was singularly 
 78
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 mature and singularly free from restric- 
 tion. 
 
 " I have read many Tales," she says, 
 " how true, in my small Experience, I 
 know not, of the aptitude of Women, par- 
 ticularly those young women whose char- 
 acters are in a state of most Imperfect 
 Development, to yield in matters essential 
 to their best Happiness to the Opposing 
 Wishes of Parents and Guardians. I speak 
 of those Matters, perhaps not the most 
 fitting for the Speculations of a but Par- 
 tially-schooled Maiden Love, and the 
 Choosing of a Husband. While in these 
 matters, as in all others, the Wishes of 
 Wise and Fond Parents and Guardians 
 are the only safe Guides for a young and 
 Untrained Spirit, there are other Cases 
 where Injustice and a Desire to Rule are 
 but slender Grounds for the exercise of 
 Authority. I know that my Boldness in 
 this Opinion cannot pass even my own 
 mind unchallenged, but when I read of 
 Unwilling Maids forced to the very Church 
 79
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 Door or Languishing under unmerited 
 sternness, and Yielding up their own Hap- 
 piness, and that of another (though he be 
 a Man) into the Hands of an unwise 
 Judge through inability to resist such un- 
 loving Pressure, my Nature rebels against 
 it. It would seem to me cause for a 
 Glad and an Unfaltering Resistance. For 
 a Husband is, after all, a Matter for a 
 Maid's own choosing." 
 
 u The beaten path," says the biographer, 
 " had ever but little attraction for Mary 
 Twining. It had been well had she been 
 less fain to seek Opportunity for a Law- 
 ful Resistance to Bonds. It seemeth ever 
 to the Young that such opportunities are 
 not long in coming." 
 
 It was not only from the consciences 
 of the colonial fathers that the stirrings 
 of independence went forth. Apparently 
 there was a spirit abroad that breathed 
 now and then from the lips of but par- 
 tially-schooled maidens. Still, it is not 
 unruliness, this protest of a young and 
 80
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 independent spirit against the slavishness 
 now and then upheld in certain forms of 
 literature. There is little revolutionary, 
 after all, in Mary's sentiment that " a 
 Husband is a matter for a Maid's own 
 choosing." 
 
 But we must pass over the last few 
 notes of her school life. At nineteen she 
 left school forever. 
 
 u I am about to leave this little Life of 
 School," she writes, " for a larger Life of 
 Home, and mayhap a Taste of that Life 
 which is called of the World. And if I 
 be not now, at the age of Nineteen years, 
 equipped for the change and able to com- 
 port myself with a becoming Discretion 
 and Dignity, then such equipment is not 
 to be found within these Four Walls or in 
 daily Practice of Music and Mathematics. 
 Which, though I be filled with no over- 
 weening Distrust of my own Capabilities, 
 seemeth to my eyes of some Doubt and 
 Difference of Opinion." 
 
 " On a certain day of June," her biog- 
 6 81
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 rapher goes on to state, " Mistress Mary 
 Twining was placed in the Coach which 
 should take her a Two Days' Journey to 
 her Father's House. She was in Company 
 with an old and Reverend Gentleman of 
 friendly Disposition, who was well known 
 to her Father and held in excellent esteem 
 of him. The Fairness of a Maid is but a 
 vain Toy, but," declares this most staid 
 biographer, with a refreshing candor, "as 
 it is a matter which is not without its 
 effect on the Fortunes of many, it is not 
 always to be passed over in the Silence 
 which would befit a Sober Pen. Mary 
 Twining's Hair was of a golden Colour and 
 wound itself in small, and not always tidy, 
 Rings about her Neck and Forehead. Her 
 eyes were of a darker appearance than is 
 common, and her Mouth, though not with- 
 out a certain Winsomeness, gave Promise 
 of a Firmness of Opinion and an Indepen- 
 dence which was perhaps but a Sign of the 
 Times, which her small and shrewdly-set 
 Nose did not deny." 
 82
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 I more than suspect that, disclaim it as 
 he may, our discreet biographer was in 
 nowise loath to dwell a little on this vain 
 toy of Mary's personal appearance. I even 
 fancy that he was tempted to employ 
 greater latitude of expression, which only 
 his stern sense of his responsibilities led 
 him to reject, in the description of that 
 uncompromising mouth, not to mention 
 the spice of naughtiness involved in that 
 nose so " shrewdly set." 
 
 Not an unattractive picture in the coach 
 window, this June day, is this of Mary 
 Twining, in her big poke bonnet, white 
 kerchief and short-waisted gown. And 
 who is this, who, coming at the last 
 moment, springs into a vacant place at her 
 side, under the very eyes of the reverend 
 old gentleman, her father's friend ? The 
 three-cornered hat which he doffs with 
 ceremonious courtesy to the fair vision 
 before him, the powdered queue, the high 
 boots with jingling spurs, the sword at 
 his side, are not unpicturesque items in 
 83
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 our nineteenth-century eyes. Were they 
 likely to be so in the eyes of this nineteen- 
 year-old maiden just out of boarding- 
 school ? 
 
 u As it happened," says the biographer, 
 " there went down the same day, and by 
 the same Coach, one of the young Aids of 
 our General. He was a personable Youth, 
 and the Arrangement of the many Frip- 
 peries of the Costume of a young Gallant 
 did naught to take away from the Face and 
 Figure which Providence had accorded him. 
 It were better had he or Mary Twining 
 chosen another Time for the Journey." 
 
 Neither, probably, did a natural timidity 
 of disposition do aught to lessen the im- 
 pression which a personable young man 
 has it in his power in any century to make 
 upon a fair and observing girl. - Mary 
 herself says : 
 
 "There rode down with us a young 
 
 gallant of most holiday Appearance, but 
 
 not ignorant withal of the working days 
 
 of a Soldier. It was not long before he 
 
 84
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 had entered into Conversation with Mr. 
 Edwards, who had knowledge of the 
 young Man's Parents, from which Con- 
 versation I learned something of himself, 
 though most modestly told. He would 
 fain have opened the Way for me to join 
 in my Guardian's Questioning, but I bore in 
 Mind the Unseemliness of an unwarranted 
 Acquaintanceship, and sought rather to 
 avoid than to court the Glances which he 
 was not over cautious in sending in my 
 Direction." 
 
 "A Maid's avoidance," observes the 
 biographer, " of a Youth's Glances, is not 
 of that Nature that is the Cutting off of all 
 Hope." 
 
 And Fortune, too, was not of so per- 
 verse a disposition in fflis June weather as 
 she is sometimes. For, on the second 
 day, when probably glances, so conscien- 
 tiously evaded, had become but the accom- 
 paniment of spoken words, there was an 
 accident. The coach, as coaches are apt 
 to do, was upset, and its occupants " made 
 85
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 haste rather as they could than as they 
 would," to leave it. In the confusion and 
 tumbling about of heavy boxes Mary might 
 have been badly hurt, had not the young 
 gallant, quickly springing to his feet, caught 
 her as she was thrown forward by a second 
 lurch of the unwieldy thing, and, lifting her 
 up, carried her out of the way of falling 
 luggage and struggling horses to a place of 
 safety. 
 
 " He lifted me as though I had been 
 but a Feather's weight, showing a Strength 
 which is indeed Goodly in the Sons of 
 Men," says Mary demurely, " and which 
 was most grateful in the Stress and Confu- 
 sion, and in its display most Timely, though 
 perhaps," she adds, with delicious frank- 
 ness, " he was not over ready to put me 
 down that he might hasten back to be of 
 further help." 
 
 " My Bonnet was awry," she continues, 
 
 " my Hair in sad confusion, and my Face a 
 
 Milkmaid Red, so that I said with but little 
 
 Grace, c Sir, I fear you have found me a 
 
 86
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 grievous Weight.' Whereupon he an- 
 swered me that so light was my weight, 
 that his Heart was the Heavier for the 
 Putting of me down, which was a Conceit 
 not reasonable but most kindly intended. 
 Whereon I thanked him, and he vowed 
 such a Burden would he gladly carry to 
 the World's End had he but Leave 
 given." 
 
 Another picture not unpleasant to the 
 mind's eye, the overturned coach, the 
 esteemed guardian of the youthful beauty 
 delaying a little in its immediate neigh- 
 borhood, perhaps to secure the safety of 
 some precious package, the farm laborers 
 in the green adjacent fields dropping their 
 tools and running forward to help, the 
 outcry and confusion, and apart, in the 
 summer sunshine, the handsome fellow 
 with the flashing sword by his side, listen- 
 ing with bent head and admiring eyes to 
 the thanks which Mistress Mary, with 
 her untidy hair and lifted eyes, was ten- 
 dering with "but little Grace." 
 87
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 " Such chance meeting of the Sexes," 
 says our astute commentator, " where ap- 
 pear what is most commanding in the One 
 and most dependent in the Other, are but 
 ill advised. The Uttering of such vain 
 proffers as the carrying the Burden of 
 Mary Twining to the World's End, and 
 other Foolishness, hath then a Savour of 
 Reality which concealeth the vain Delu- 
 sion." 
 
 We have delayed too long over these 
 extracts, and though I am tempted to de- 
 lay yet longer, so quaint is the contrast 
 between Mary Twining's youthful and 
 feminine pen and that of her critical 
 biographer, I pass on to a time some 
 months after her arrival home. Indeed, 
 she writes little in the interval. The 
 coming into a new and wider circle, the 
 adapting herself to new conditions, leave 
 her scant time for writing. There is a 
 rapid noting of events, for it was an 
 eventful time, the mention of a few dis- 
 tinguished names, and that is all. But in 
 88
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 order to follow the thread of Mary Twin- 
 ing's romance, we must pause at the ac- 
 count of a ball given to one of General 
 Washington's regiments at a time before 
 the rigor of war had quenched all thoughts 
 of merry-making. It was not her first 
 ball. She had mixed freely in society, 
 and had measured herself with the men 
 and women about her, always an inter- 
 esting experience to the free, unprejudiced 
 and thoughtful girl. 
 
 " It was a joyous Scene enough," she 
 writes, " but I myself not quite in the 
 Humour for such Junketing. I had a 
 gloomy Fancy that Reason would not dis- 
 miss, that in these Troublous Times there 
 were Things outside of the Ball room 
 Door, striving to enter, which having 
 done, they would have proved of singular 
 Inappositeness. None the less I danced 
 with those who solicited me in due Form, 
 and gave Heed to little else than the man- 
 ner of the Solicitation. Not that there 
 was Lack of Goodly Partners, but I was 
 89
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 mindful of nothing beyond the Observ- 
 ance of the Courtesies of the Occasion. 
 The only Annoyance of which I was 
 sensible was the marked Attention of my 
 Cousin Eustace Fleming, who is but re- 
 cently come into this our Part of the 
 Country, and claimeth Relationship. He 
 is a most excellent Young Gentleman, but 
 one who is likely to weary me with his 
 over Appreciation of my own Qualities. 
 It is but a Sign of my Stubbornness and 
 Unregeneracy of Heart that, in that he is 
 most approved and commended of my 
 Parents, he wearieth me the more. I was 
 fain to tell him, when he asked me a third 
 Time to join the Dance, that there were 
 fairer Maidens in the Hall who would be 
 less loth to accord him the Favour, but as 
 this would but have drawn from him a 
 laboured compliment to my own Person, I 
 prudently refrained." 
 
 It was in the weariness of this very 
 encounter that, looking up, she saw ap- 
 proaching her the hero of her adventure 
 90
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 in the coach, the impulsive youth whose 
 former foolishness had won for him the 
 semi-disapproval of our commentator. It 
 seems possible that the gloomy fancies of 
 shadowy things outside lightened a little, 
 and the war ceased to be a background 
 only for shapes of evil. 
 
 " It required not the space of a moment 
 for me to recognize him, though his Attire 
 had changed with the Circumstance, but 
 as my Father's Friend, Mr. Edwards, had 
 not deemed it of sufficient Importance to 
 mention our former Rencontre, it now 
 seemed to me useless to publicly recall 
 that Incident. Particularly as being now 
 duly presented to me in the Presence of 
 my Parents, and with due Vouchers of 
 his Credit, our Acquaintance could make 
 such Progress as we should mutually con- 
 sider profitable." 
 
 Prudent Mistress Mary and delinquent 
 Mr. Edwards ! 
 
 " After the Cotillion for which he had 
 asked the Honour of my Hand, he led me
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 to my Seat, but by a somewhat indirect 
 Route. Upon my remarking upon which, 
 he found Occasion to say that all Ways 
 were short to him now after traversing 
 the long and difficult one which he had 
 followed that he might gain Admission to 
 my Presence. I, laughing, said that my 
 Presence were hardly worth such effort in 
 Gaining, and that it was generally attained 
 with more Ease, and he, replying with a 
 Grace of Manner it were impossible not 
 to remark, said hastily that he was well 
 aware that he had found it easier to enter 
 than he should to again forsake it." 
 
 " And so on with such Vanities," says 
 the biographer, " as pass Current with 
 young Men and Maidens in their short- 
 sighted Enjoyment of the moment, and 
 with which Mary Twining was but too 
 fain to dally." 
 
 Yes, and so on, the old story. For 
 
 there follow the frequent meetings, known 
 
 and not unapproved of by the watchful 
 
 parents, the half confessions, the vague 
 
 92
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 wonderment, and at last the pledge given 
 and received, and Mary Twining became 
 the affianced wife of the handsome young 
 officer. All this we trace in her journal, 
 with satiric comments, now and then, of 
 the Editor ; but it is all so familiar that we 
 will not dwell on it, pretty as it is. Only 
 one shadow seems to have fallen on the lov- 
 ers, that of Mr. Eustace Fleming, the 
 worthy cousin, whose importunities in the 
 ball-room so tired the patience of Mistress 
 Mary. The parentally favored candidate 
 for Mary's hand, he finds it, evidently, 
 too hard to give it up without a struggle. 
 With a lack of that wisdom unfortunate 
 lovers find it so hard to supply, he dis- 
 turbed their interviews, forced himself on 
 Mary's society, yet with no insolence and 
 no self-betrayal that could lead to an out- 
 break. He is apparently a self-contained, 
 and not a bad man, who finds it impossible 
 to see that he is beaten. Of this period 
 I make one or two extracts from Mary's 
 journal, and then go on to the end. 
 93
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 " If I once marvelled at the yielding of 
 those weak Women who find it easier to 
 relinquish the Happiness that they find in 
 the Love of Those bound to them by 
 mutual attraction, than to contest the 
 matter with all Dignity, Forbearance, 
 Firmness and Patience, how much the 
 more do I marvel now at their Short- 
 sightedness ! Were he, whom I gladly 
 call my Betrothed, to be the Victim of 
 Oppression or of Malice, it would seem 
 to me but the throwing down of the 
 Glove a challenge to Battle, rather 
 than a demand for Submission. Methinks 
 it were not as a Suppliant that I should 
 stoop to pick it up. But why talk of 
 fighting, who am a peaceful Maid, who 
 would labour, were it but Honourable 
 towards her dear Country, to remove the 
 Sound of Battle far from her Lover. For 
 indeed he is more ready to fight than am I 
 to have him. He would see an Oppor- 
 tunity to strike a Blow in my Cause 
 where is none, so anxious is he to draw 
 94
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 his Sword in my Behalf. Indeed so ex- 
 cellent an Opinion doth he entertain of 
 my Person and my Mind and my Con- 
 ditions, that he would not be long in find- 
 ing one who should most justly contest 
 the same. Heaven send that he may hold 
 to the Opinion and forget the Wish to 
 make Proselytes ! 
 
 " It would seem that some men were 
 created but as a sort of Makeweight, who, 
 without active Hindrance, make it more 
 difficult to row one's Boat up the Stream 
 of Life. Of such kind is my Cousin 
 Eustace Fleming. His most mistaken 
 Admiration of me (for that in him is a 
 Mistake which in Another is but a most 
 fitting and a most reverenced Creed) serves 
 but to make a Let and Hindrance where 
 my satisfaction is concerned. I would 
 that he could more easily learn the Lesson 
 I have been at such Pains to mark out for 
 him." 
 
 " It were vain," is the comment on the 
 last passage, " to expect a Recognition of 
 95
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 sober worth in the Day of Love and Am- 
 bition. And Mistress Twining, after the 
 manner of her kind, pays but little Heed 
 to lasting Affection before the Time comes 
 when it shall be of Use to Her." 
 
 The wedding day approaches. Mary 
 Twining does not lose her independence, 
 though, woman like, she seems to enjoy 
 losing herself in the love lavished upon 
 her. Here and there are passages which 
 show that in the warmth of her romance 
 she thinks and judges and acts for herself, 
 as she did in her school days. Mary 
 Twining will never merge her individuality 
 in that of another, however dear to her. 
 
 The entries grow briefer and more in- 
 frequent, as the month fixed upon for the 
 marriage draws near. It is to be in June, 
 two years from that June when she rode 
 down by coach, in the care of hen father's 
 friend. 
 
 " The day is fixed for the twenty- 
 seventh of June," is the last entry but 
 two in her journal. "Two years ago, 
 96
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 Fate gave my Life into his Hands. At 
 least, in giving it to him a second Time, 
 Fate and I are at one." 
 
 The next entry is a month later. It is 
 simply the statement, 
 
 " May 24th. I have done my Cousin 
 Eustace wrong." Then on 
 
 "July 2yth. And I am but twenty- 
 one ! " 
 
 And June comes and goes, and there is 
 no word on her bridal day, no breathings 
 of her new happiness from her ready pen. 
 Is the book closed ? Yes, but her biog- 
 rapher has a word to say. 
 
 " On the twenty-seventh of June, Mary 
 A. Twining became the wife of her Cousin 
 Eustace Fleming. Their Betrothal was 
 but a short one, but in the eyes of her 
 judicious Parents, there was no unseemly 
 Haste. , It had long been a cherished wish 
 of their Hearts, and Eustace Fleming was 
 a young man of Promise and of rare Dis- 
 cretion." 
 
 There it ends. The record of Mary 
 7 97
 
 Memoir of Mary Twining 
 
 Twining is finished. With Mary Fleming 
 he has nothing to do. But where is the 
 girl of ripened understanding, of freedom 
 of thought, of directness of purpose ? 
 We do not know, for our biographer does 
 not tell us. Was there a tragedy, and 
 were the details too heart-breaking for 
 even the stoical Editor to maintain his 
 critical attitude ? 
 
 Where is the gallant cavalier with his 
 picturesque devotion, and his vain toys of 
 pretty speech and gesture and his fiery 
 and over-weening love and admiration for 
 Mistress Mary Twining ? He seemed to 
 me a brave and loyal sort of young fellow 
 enough. I cannot tell. Put the quaint 
 old book back on the shelf, and let her 
 romance rest again. But notwithstanding 
 her husband of such promise and rare 
 discretion, I cannot help sighing, " Poor 
 Mary Twining ! " 
 
 Fate and she had a difference, after all. 
 And she was but twenty-one ! 
 
 98
 
 A Postlude 
 
 IT was almost time for the train to leave 
 the station, and the seats were filling 
 rapidly. The Irishwoman, with four chil- 
 dren so near of a size that they seemed to 
 be distinguished only by the variety of eat- 
 able each one was consuming, had entered 
 the car and deposited her large newspaper 
 bundle just inside the door, and driven her 
 flock all into the little end seat, where they 
 were stowed uncomfortably, one on top 
 of another, gazing stolidly about the car. 
 The young girl from the country who had 
 been spending Sunday in town, and who 
 was, consequently, somewhat overdressed 
 for Monday morning, was wandering ele- 
 gantly up and down the aisle, losing each 
 possible place for a prospective better one, 
 which became impossible before she reached 
 99
 
 A Postlude 
 
 it. The woman with a bag too large for 
 her to carry, rested it on the arm of an oc- 
 cupied seat while she gazed vaguely about, 
 indifferent to the fact that a crowd of 
 impatient travellers of more concrete in- 
 tentions were being delayed by her indeci- 
 sion. Meanwhile, among these disturbers 
 of travel the man with a large bag passed 
 rapidly along, found a place, put the bag in 
 the rack, seated himself, and took out his 
 newspaper. There is something in a man's 
 management of a large travelling-bag in a 
 railway train that leads the most unwilling 
 to grudgingly yield him a certain superi- 
 ority of sex. 
 
 An exchange of good-bys, low-voiced 
 but with a decided note of hilarity, took 
 place at the door, and two women entered 
 the car, one looking back and nodding a 
 final smiling farewell before she gave her 
 mind to the matter in hand. They were 
 attractive women, of late middle age, per- 
 haps, not yet to be called old. One was 
 large, with fine curves, gray bands of hair 
 100
 
 A Postlude 
 
 under her autumnal bonnet, and a dignity 
 of bearing which suited her ample figure 
 and melodious, rather deep voice ; the other 
 was paler, more fragile, her light hair only 
 streaked with gray, and her blue eyes still 
 shaded with a half-wistful uncertainty of 
 what might be before her, which the years 
 had not been able to turn altogether into 
 self-confidence. 
 
 " You go on, Lucy," said the former, in 
 her full, decided tones, pausing at the first 
 vacant seat, " and see if there 's a place for 
 us to sit together farther down. I '11 hold 
 this for one of us. You take up less room 
 than I do, you know, and it 's easier for 
 you to slip about ; " and she laughed a little. 
 There was a suggestion of laughter in the 
 eyes and around the mouth of each of them. 
 It indicated a subdued exhilaration unusual 
 in the setting forth of women of their years 
 and dignity. Lucy hesitated a moment, 
 and then moved on somewhat timidly; but 
 she had taken only a step when the man 
 near whom they stood rose, and, lifting his 
 101
 
 A Postlude 
 
 hat, said : " Allow me, madam, to give 
 you this seat for yourself and your friend. 
 I can easily find another." 
 
 "Thank you; you are very good," 
 replied the larger of the two women, her 
 kindly gray eyes meeting his with an ex- 
 pression that led him to pause and put their 
 umbrellas in the rack and depart, wonder- 
 ing what it was about some women that 
 made a man always glad to do anything 
 for them, and it did n't make any dif- 
 ference how old they were, either. 
 
 " How nice people are ! " said the one 
 who had already spoken as they settled 
 themselves. " That man, now there 
 Was n't any need of his doing that." 
 
 " He seemed to really want to," rejoined 
 Lucy. " People always like to do things 
 for you, Mary Leonard, I believe," she 
 added, looking at her companion with 
 affectionate admiration. 
 
 " I like to hear you talk," returned 
 Mary Leonard, laughing. " If there ever 
 was anybody that just went through the 
 
 IO2
 
 A Postlude 
 
 world having people do things for 'em, 
 it 's you, Lucy Eastman, and you know 
 it." 
 
 " Oh, but I know so few people," said 
 the other, hastily. " I 'm not ungrateful 
 I 'm sure I 've no call to be ; but I know 
 so few people, and they 've known me all 
 my life ; it 's not like strangers." 
 
 *' That has n't anything to do with it," 
 affirmed Mary Leonard, stoutly ; " if there 
 were more, it would be the same way. 
 But I will say," she went on, " that I never 
 could see why a woman travelling alone 
 should ever have any trouble officials 
 and everybody are so polite about telling 
 you the same thing over. I don't know 
 why it is, but I always seem to expect the 
 next one I ask to tell me something differ- 
 ent about a train ; and then everybody you 
 meet seems just as pleasant as can be." 
 
 "Yes," assented Lucy Eastman, "like 
 that baggageman. Did you notice how 
 polite the baggageman was ? " 
 
 " Notice it ! Why, of course I did. 
 103
 
 A Postlude 
 
 And our trunks were late, and it was my 
 fault, and so I told him, and he just hur- 
 ried to pull them around and check them, 
 and I was so confused, you know, that I 
 made him check the wrong ones twice." 
 
 "Well, they were just like ours," said 
 Lucy Eastman, sympathetically. 
 
 " Well, they were, were n't they? But 
 of course I ought to have known. And 
 he never swore at all. I was dreadfully 
 afraid he 'd swear, Lucy." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " exclaimed Lucy Eastman, 
 distressed, " what would you have done if 
 he 'd sworn ? " 
 
 " I 'm sure I don't know," asserted 
 Mary Leonard, with conviction, " but 
 fortunately he did n't." 
 
 " He got very warm," said Lucy, remi- 
 niscently. " I saw him wiping his brow 
 as we came away." 
 
 " I don't blame him the least in the 
 
 world. I think he was a wonderfully 
 
 nice baggageman, for men of that class 
 
 are so apt to swear when they get very 
 
 104
 
 A Postlude 
 
 warm, at least, so I 've heard. And did 
 you hear " 
 
 "Tickets, ma'am," observed the con- 
 ductor. 
 
 " There, I did n't mean to keep you 
 waiting a minute ; " and Mary Leonard 
 opened her pocketbook, " but I forgot 
 all about the tickets. Oh, Lucy, I gave 
 you the tickets, and I took the checks." 
 
 " Yes, to be sure," said Lucy, opening 
 her pocketbook. 
 
 " I '11 put them in the seat for you, 
 ladies, like this," said the conductor, smil- 
 ing, " and then you won't have any more 
 trouble." 
 
 "Oh, yes, thank you," said Lucy 
 Eastman. 
 
 " What a nice conductor ! " observed 
 Mary Leonard. 
 
 "Did I hear what, Mary ? you were 
 telling me something." 
 
 " Oh, about the baggageman. I heard 
 him say to his assistant, ' Don't you ever 
 git mad with women, Bobby. It ain't no 
 105
 
 A Postlude 
 
 use. If it was always the same woman 
 and the same trunk, perhaps you could 
 learn her sometime; but it ain't, and 
 you 've got to take 'em just as they come, 
 and get rid of 'em the best way you can 
 they don't bear instruction.' " 
 
 Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman threw 
 back their heads and laughed ; it was 
 genuine, low, fresh laughter, and a good 
 thing to hear. After that there was silence 
 for a few moments as the train sped on its 
 way. 
 
 " I declare," said Mary Leonard, at 
 last, " I don't know when I 've been in 
 the cars before." 
 
 " I was just thinking I have n't been in 
 the cars since Sister Eliza died, and we all 
 went to the funeral," said Lucy Eastman. 
 
 "Why, that's let me see eight 
 years ago, is n't it ? " 
 
 " Eight and a half." 
 
 "Well, I'm glad you'll have a pleas- 
 anter trip to look back on after this." 
 
 " So am I ; and I am enjoying this 
 106
 
 A Postlude 
 
 every minute of it. Only there 's so 
 much to see. Just look at the people 
 looking out of the windows of that manu- 
 factory ! Should n't you think they 'd 
 roast ? " 
 
 " Yes, they must be hotter than a 
 fritter such a day as this." 
 
 " How long is it since you J ve been to 
 Englefield, Mary ? " asked Lucy Eastman, 
 after another pause. 
 
 " Why, that 's what I meant to tell 
 you. Do you know, after I saw you, and 
 we decided to go there for our holiday, I 
 began to think it over, and I have n't been 
 there since we went together the last 
 time." 
 
 " Why, Mary Leonard ! I had an idea 
 you 'd been there time and again, though 
 you said you had n't seen the old place for 
 a long time." 
 
 " Well, I was surprised myself when I 
 
 realized it. But the next year my cousins 
 
 all moved away, and I 've thought of it 
 
 over and over, but I have n't been. I dare 
 
 107
 
 A Postlude 
 
 say if we 'd lived in the same town we 'd 
 have gone together before this, but we 
 have n't, and there it is." 
 
 " That 's thirty-five years ago, Mary," 
 said Lucy Eastman, thoughtfully. 
 
 41 Thirty-five years ! I declare, it still 
 makes me jump to hear about thirty-five 
 years just as if I hadn't known all 
 about 'em ! " and Mary Leonard laughed 
 her comfortable laugh again. " You don't 
 say it 's thirty-five years, Lucy ! I guess 
 you 're right, though." 
 
 There was a moment's pause, and the 
 laugh died away into a little sigh. 
 
 " We did 'nt think then we did n't 
 really think we 'd ever be talking about 
 what appened thirty-five years ago, did 
 we, Lucy ? We did n't think we 'd 
 have interest enough to care." 
 
 " No," said Lucy, soberly, " we did n't." 
 
 " And I care just as much as I ever did 
 about things," went on the other, thought- 
 fully, " only there seem more doors for 
 satisfaction to come in at nowadays. It 
 1 08
 
 A Postlude 
 
 is n't quite the same sort of satisfaction, 
 perhaps, that it used to be, not so pressed 
 down and running over, but there's more 
 of it, after all, and it does n't slip out so 
 easily." 
 
 " No, the bottom of things does n't fall 
 out at once, as it used to, and leave nothing 
 in our empty hands." 
 
 " That sounds almost sad. Don't you 
 be melancholy, Lucy Eastman." 
 
 " I 'm not, Mary I 'm not a bit. I 'm 
 only remembering that I used to be." 
 
 " We used to go to the well with a sieve 
 instead of a pitcher ; that 's really the dif- 
 ference," said Mary Leonard. " We 've 
 learned not to be wasteful, that 's all." 
 
 " What fun we used to have," said 
 Lucy, her eyes shining, " visiting your 
 cousins ! " 
 
 " It was fun ! " said the other. " Do 
 you remember the husking party at the 
 Kendals' barn?" 
 
 "Of course I do, and the red ears that 
 that Chickering girl was always finding ! 
 109
 
 A Postlude 
 
 I think she picked them out on purpose, so 
 that Tom Endover would kiss her. It was 
 just like those Chickerings ! " There was 
 a gentle venom in Lucy Eastman's tones 
 that made Mary Leonard laugh till the 
 tears came into her eyes. 
 
 " Minnie Chickering was n't the only 
 girl that Tom Endover kissed, if I remem- 
 ber right," she said, with covert intention. 
 
 " Well, he put the red ear into my 
 hands himself, and I just husked it without 
 thinking anything about it," retorted Lucy 
 Eastman, with spirit. 
 
 " Of course you did, of course you did," 
 asseverated Mary Leonard, whereupon the 
 other laughed too, but with reservation. 
 
 " And do you remember old Miss 
 Pinsett's, where we used to go to act 
 charades ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed, in the old white house at 
 the foot of the hill, with a cupola. She 
 seemed so old; I wonder how old she 
 was ? " 
 
 41 Perhaps we should n't think her so old 
 110
 
 A Postlude 
 
 to-day. People used to wear caps earlier 
 then than they do now. I think when they 
 were disappointed in love they put on 
 caps ! Miss Pinsett had been disappointed 
 in love, so they said." 
 
 " They will have old maids disappointed 
 in love," said Lucy, with some asperity. 
 " They will have me some people 
 and I never was." 
 
 " I know you were n't. But I don't 
 think it 's as usual as it was to say that 
 about old maids. It 's more the fashion 
 now to be disappointed in marriage." 
 
 There had been several stops at the 
 stations along the road. The day was 
 wearing on. Suddenly Lucy Eastman 
 turned to her companion. 
 
 11 Mary," she said, " let 's play we were 
 girls again, and going to Englefield just as 
 we used to go thirty-five years ago. 
 Let 's pretend that we 're going to do the 
 same things and see the same people and 
 have the same fun. We 're off by our- 
 selves, just you and I, and why should n't 
 in
 
 A Postlude 
 
 we ? We 're the same girls, after all," 
 and she smiled apologetically. 
 
 " Of course we are. We '11 do it," 
 said Mary Leonard, decidedly ; " let 's 
 pretend." 
 
 But, having made the agreement, it was 
 not so easy to begin. The stream of 
 reminiscence had been checked, and a 
 chasm of thirty-five years is not instantly 
 bridged, even in thought. 
 
 " I hope they won't meet us at the sta- 
 tion," said Mary Leonard, after a while, 
 in a matter-of-fact voice. " We know 
 the way so well there is no need of it." 
 
 " I hope not. I feel just like walking 
 up myself," answered Lucy. " We can 
 send our trunks by the man that comes 
 from the hotel, just as usual, and it '11 be 
 cool walking toward evening." 
 
 " I 'm glad we put off coming till the 
 fall. The country 's beautiful, and there 
 is n't so much dust in case we " she 
 hesitated a moment " in case we go on 
 a picnic." 
 
 112
 
 A Postlude 
 
 " Yes," replied Lucy, readily j " to the 
 old fort. I hope we '11 have a picnic to 
 the old fort. I guess all the girls will 
 like to go. It 's just the time to take that 
 drive over the hill." 
 
 " If we go," said Mary Leonard, slowly 
 and impressively, " you '11 have to drive 
 with Samuel Hatt." 
 
 " Oh, I went with him last time," 
 broke in Lucy, apprehensively. " It 's 
 your turn." 
 
 " But you know I just won't," said 
 Mary Leonard, her eyes sparkling, and the 
 dimples that, like Miss Jessie Brown, she 
 had not left off, appearing and disappear- 
 ing. " And somebody has to go with him." 
 
 " Perhaps they won't ask him." 
 
 " Oh, but they will. They always do, 
 on account of his horses. It would n't be 
 a picnic without Samuel Hatt." 
 
 Just then the train drew up at a small 
 station. Lucy Eastman started as she 
 read the name of the place as it passed 
 before her eyes. 
 
 8 113
 
 A Postlude 
 
 " Mary," said she, " this is where Mr. 
 Hatt always used to get on the train. 
 There are the Hatt Mills, and he goes up 
 and down every day, don't you remem- 
 ber ? And how we were we are 
 always afraid we '11 meet him on the 
 train." 
 
 " Of course," said Mary Leonard, lean- 
 ing forward and scanning the platform 
 with its row of idlers and its few travel- 
 'ers. " Well, he is n't here now. We 
 are going to escape him this time. But 
 my heart was in my mouth ! I don't 
 want Samuel Hatt to be the first Engle- 
 field person we meet." 
 
 They looked up with careless curiosity 
 at the people who entered the train. 
 There was a little girl with a bunch of 
 common garden flowers following close 
 behind a tired-looking woman, who had 
 been, obviously, " spending the day ; " a 
 florid old gentleman with gold spectacles, 
 who revealed a bald head as he removed 
 his hat and used it for a fan, they had 
 114
 
 A Postlude 
 
 seen him hurrying to the platform just 
 before the train moved out ; a commer- 
 cial traveller, and a schoolboy. 
 
 " No," said Mary Leonard, " he isn't 
 here this time." 
 
 The florid old gentleman took a seat in 
 front of them and continued to fan himself. 
 The conductor came through the car. 
 
 " Warm spell we 're having for Octo- 
 ber, Mr. Hatt," he said, as he punched 
 the commutation-ticket that was offered 
 him. 
 
 Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman gazed 
 spellbound at the back of Mr. Hatt's bald 
 head. They were too amazed to look 
 away from it at each other. 
 
 " It it must be his father," gasped 
 Lucy Eastman. "He looks a little 
 like him." 
 
 " Then it 's his father come back ! " 
 returned Mary in an impatient whisper. 
 " His father died before we ever went to 
 Englefield ; and, don't you remember, he 
 was always fanning himself?" 
 "5
 
 A Postlude 
 
 Their fascinated gaze left the shiny 
 pink surface of Samuel Hatt's head, and 
 their eyes met. 
 
 " I hope he won't see us," giggled 
 Lucy. 
 
 " I hope not. Let 's look the other 
 way." 
 
 In a few minutes Mr. Hatt rose slowly 
 and portentously, and, turning, made a 
 solemn but wavering way down the car to 
 greet a man who sat just across the aisle 
 from Mary Leonard. Both the women 
 avoided his eyes, blushing a little and with 
 the fear of untimely mirth about their lips. 
 
 As he talked with their neighbor, how- 
 ever, they ventured to look at him, and as 
 he turned to go back his slow, deliberate 
 glance fell upon them, rested a moment, 
 and, without a flicker of recognition, 
 passed on, and he resumed his place. 
 
 There was almost a shadow in the 
 eyes that met again, as the women turned 
 towards one another. 
 
 "I I know it 's funny," said Lucy, a 
 116
 
 A Postlude 
 
 little tremulously, " but I don 't quite like 
 it that we look to him just as he does to us." 
 
 " We have hair on our heads," said 
 Mary Leonard. " But," she added, less 
 aggressively, " we need n't have worried 
 about his speaking to us." 
 
 u Englefield," shouted the brakeman, 
 and the train rumbled into a covered station. 
 Mary Leonard started to her feet, and then 
 paused and looked down at her companion. 
 This Engkfield ! This the quiet little place 
 where the man from the hotel consented to 
 look after their trunks while their cousins 
 drove them up in the wagon this noisy 
 station with two or three hotel stages and 
 shouting drivers of public carriages ! 
 
 "Lucy," said she, sitting down again 
 in momentary despair, " we 've gone back 
 thirty-five years, but we forgot to take 
 Englefield with us ! " 
 
 It did not take long, however, to adapt 
 themselves to the new conditions. They 
 arranged to stay at the inn that was far- 
 thest from the centre of things, and the 
 117
 
 A Postlude 
 
 drive out restored some of the former look 
 of the place. It was near sunset ; the 
 road looked pink before them as they left 
 the city. The boys had set fire to little 
 piles of early fallen leaves along the sides 
 of the streets, and a faint, pungent smoke 
 hung about and melted into the twilight, 
 and the flame leaped forth vividly now 
 and then from the dusky heaps. As they 
 left the paved city for the old inn which 
 modern travel and enterprise had left on 
 the outskirts, the sky showed lavender 
 through a mistiness that was hardly palpa- 
 ble enough for haze. The browns and 
 reds of the patches of woods in the near 
 distance seemed the paler, steadier repro- 
 duction of the flames behind them. Low on 
 the horizon the clouds lay in purple waves, 
 deepening and darkening into brown. 
 
 " Mary," said Lucy Eastman, in a low 
 tone, laying her hand on her companion's 
 arm, " it 's just the way it looked when 
 we came the first time of all; do you 
 remember ? " 
 
 118
 
 A Postlude 
 
 " Remember ? It 's as if it were yes- 
 terday ! Oh, Lucy, I don't know about 
 a new heaven, but I 'm glad, I 'm glad it 
 is n't a ' new earth ' quite yet ! " There 
 was a mistiness in the eyes of the women 
 that none of the changes they had marked 
 had brought there. They were moved by 
 the sudden sweet recognition that seemed 
 sadder than any change. 
 
 The next morning they left the house 
 early, that they might have long hours in 
 which to hunt up old haunts and renew 
 former associations. Again the familiar 
 look of things departed as they wandered 
 about the wider, gayer streets. The house 
 in which Mary Leonard's cousins had 
 lived had been long in other hands, and 
 the occupants had cut down the finest of 
 the old trees to make room for an addi- 
 tion, and a woman whose face seemed 
 provokingly foreign to the scene came out 
 with the air of a proprietor and entered 
 her carriage as they passed. 
 
 At another place which they used to 
 119
 
 A Postlude 
 
 visit on summer afternoons, and which had 
 been approached by a little lane, making 
 it seem isolated and distant, the beautiful 
 turf had been removed to prepare a bald 
 and barren tennis court, and they reached 
 it by an electric car. Even the little 
 candy-shop had become a hardware store. 
 
 " Of course, when one thinks of the 
 Gibraltars and Jackson balls, it does not 
 seem such a revolution," said Mary 
 Leonard ; but she spoke forlornly, and 
 did not care much for her own joke. It 
 looked almost as if their holiday was to be 
 turned into a day of mourning ; there was 
 depression in the air of the busy, bustling 
 active streets, through which the gray- 
 haired women wandered, handsome, alert, 
 attentive, but haunted by the sense of 
 familiarity that made things unfamiliar 
 and the knowledge of every turn and 
 direction that yet was not knowledge, but 
 ignorance. 
 
 " Look here, Lucy Eastman," said 
 Mary Leonard at last, stopping decisively 
 
 I2O
 
 A Postlude 
 
 in front of what used to be the Baptist 
 Church, but which was now a business 
 block and a drug-store where you could 
 get peach phosphate, u we can't stand this 
 any longer. Let 's get into a carriage 
 right away and go to the old fort; that 
 can't have changed much ; it used to be 
 dismantled, and I don't believe they 've 
 had time, with all they 've done here, to 
 to mantle it again." 
 
 They moved towards a cab-stand of 
 course it was an added grievance that 
 there was a cab-stand but the wisdom 
 of the prudent is to understand his way. , 
 
 " Mary," said Lucy Eastman, detaining 
 her, "wait a minute. Do you think we 
 might it 's a lovely day and there 's 
 a grocer right there and dinner is late 
 at the hotel " She checked her in- 
 coherence and looked wistfully at Mary 
 Leonard. 
 
 " Lucy, I think we might do anything, 
 if you don't lose your mind first. What 
 is it, for pity's sake, that you want to do ? " 
 121
 
 A Postlude 
 
 " Take our luncheon ; we always used 
 to, you know. And we can have a hot 
 dinner at the hotel when we come back." 
 
 Without replying, Mary Leonard led 
 the way to the grocer's, and they bought 
 lavish supplies there and at the bakery 
 opposite. Then they called the cab. 
 
 " Do you remember, Lucy, we used to 
 have to think twice about calling a cab, 
 when we used to travel together, on ac- 
 count of the expense," said Mary Leonard, 
 as they waited for it to draw up at the 
 curbstone. 
 
 " Yes," answered Lucy ; " we don't 
 have to now." And then they both 
 sighed a little. 
 
 But their smiles returned as they drove 
 into the enclosure of the old fort. There 
 they lay in the peaceful sun - the gray 
 stones, the few cannon-balls, sunk in the 
 caressing grass, with here and there a rusty 
 gun, like a once grim, sharp-tongued, 
 cruel man who has fallen somehow into 
 an amiable senility. 
 
 122
 
 A Postlude 
 
 " I read an article in one of the maga- 
 zines about our coast defences," said Lucy 
 Eastman, breathlessly ; " how they ought 
 to be strengthened and repaired and all, 
 and I was quite excited about it and 
 wanted to give a little money towards it, 
 but I would n't for anything now, enemy 
 or no enemy." 
 
 "Nor I, either," said Mary Leonard, 
 after she had dismissed the driver with 
 orders to call for them later in the day. 
 They walked on over the crisp dry grass, 
 and seated themselves on a bit of the 
 fallen masonry. The reaches of the 
 placid river lay before them, and the hum 
 of the alert cricket was in their ears. 
 Now and then a bird flew surreptitiously 
 from one bush to another, with the stealthy, 
 swift motion of flight in autumn, so differ- 
 ent from the heedless, fluttering, hither- 
 and-yon vagaries of the spring and early 
 summer. The time for frivolity is over ; 
 the flashes of wings have a purpose nowj 
 the possibility of cold is in the air, 
 123
 
 A Postlude 
 
 and what is to be done must be done 
 quickly. 
 
 11 We almost always used to come in 
 summer," said Lucy Eastman, "but I 
 think it 's every bit as pretty in the fall." 
 
 " So do I," assented Mary Leonard, as 
 she looked down into a hollow where the 
 purple asters grew so thick that in the 
 half-dusk of the shadow they looked like 
 magnified snowflakes powdered thickly on 
 the sward. " And it has n't changed an 
 atom," she went on, as her eyes roamed 
 over the unevenness of this combination 
 of man's and nature's handiwork. " It 's 
 just as quiet and disorderly and upset and 
 peaceful as it was then." 
 
 " Yes, look up there ; " and Lucy East- 
 man pointed to the higher ramparts, on 
 the edge of which the long grass wavered 
 in the wind with the glancing uncertainty 
 of a conflagration. " The last time I was 
 here I remember saying that that looked 
 like a fire." 
 
 After they had eaten their luncheon, 
 124
 
 A Postlude 
 
 which brought with it echoes of the 
 laughter which had accompanied the pic- 
 nic supper eaten in that very corner years 
 ago, they seated themselves in a sheltered 
 spot to wait. It really seemed as if the 
 old gray walls retained some of the spirit 
 of those earlier days, so gentle, so mirth- 
 inspiring was the sunshine that warmed 
 them. 
 
 " I 'm so glad we came," said Mary, 
 they had both said it before, as the sunny 
 peace penetrated their very souls. 
 
 Four o'clock brought the cab, and they 
 drove down the long hills, looking back 
 often for a final glimpse of the waving 
 grass and the gray stones. As they turned 
 a sharp corner and lost sight of the old 
 fort, Mary Leonard glanced furtively at 
 her companion. Her own eyes for the 
 second time that day were not quite clear, 
 and she was not sorry to detect an added 
 wistfulness in Lucy Eastman's gaze. 
 
 " Lucy," said she, and her voice shook 
 a little, " I 'm tired." 
 125
 
 A Postlude 
 
 " So am I," murmured Lucy. 
 
 "And I don't ever remember to have 
 been tired after a picnic at the old fort 
 before." 
 
 " No more do I," said Lucy ; and it 
 was a moment before their sadness, as 
 usual, trembled into laughter. 
 
 " Lucy Eastman," said Mary Leonard, 
 suddenly, " this is the street that old Miss 
 Pinsett used to live on lives on, I mean. 
 What do you say ? Shall we stop and see 
 Miss Pinsett ? " The dimples had come 
 back again, and her eyes danced. 
 
 Lucy caught her breath. 
 
 " Oh, Mary, if only she " her sen- 
 tence was left unfinished. 
 
 " I '11 find out," said Mary Leonard, and 
 put her head out of the window. " Driver," 
 she called out, " stop at Miss Pinsett's." 
 
 The driver nodded and drove on, and 
 she sank back pleased with her own 
 temerity. 
 
 The cab stopped in front of the same 
 square white house, with the cupola, and 
 126
 
 A Postlude 
 
 the same great trees in the front yard. 
 Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman clasped 
 each other's hands in silent delight as they 
 walked up the box-bordered path. 
 
 " Tell Miss Pinsett that Lucy Eastman 
 and and Mary Greenleaf have come to 
 see her," they said to the elderly respect- 
 able maid. Then they went into the dim 
 shaded parlor and waited. There were 
 the old piano and the Japanese vases, and 
 the picture of Washington which they had 
 always laughed at because he looked as if 
 he were on stilts and could step right 
 across the Delaware, and they could hear 
 their hearts beat, for there was a rustle 
 outside the door old Miss Pinsett's 
 gowns always rustled and it opened. 
 
 " Why, girls ! " exclaimed old Miss 
 Pinsett as she glided into the room. 
 
 Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman de- 
 clared, then and afterward, that she was n't 
 a day older than when they said good-by 
 to her thirty-five years ago. She wore 
 the same gray curls and the same kind 
 127
 
 A Postlude 
 
 of cap. Also, they both declared that this 
 was the climax, and that they should have 
 wept aloud if it had not been so evident that 
 to Miss Pinsett there was nothing in the 
 meeting but happiness and good fortune, 
 so they did not. 
 
 "Why, girls," said old Miss Pinsett 
 again, clasping both their hands, " how 
 glad I am to see you, and how well you 
 are both looking ! " 
 
 Then she insisted on their laying off 
 their things, and they laid them off because 
 they always had when she asked them. 
 
 " You 've grown stout, Mary Green- 
 leaf," said old Miss Pinsett. 
 
 "I know I have," she answered, "and 
 I 'm not Mary Greenleaf, though I sent 
 that name up to you I 'm Mary Leon- 
 ard." 
 
 " I wondered if neither of you were 
 married." 
 
 " I 'm a widow, Miss Pinsett," said 
 Mary Leonard, soberly. My husband 
 only lived three years." 
 128
 
 A Postlude 
 
 " Poor girl, poor girl ! " said Miss Pin- 
 sett, patting her hand, and then she looked 
 at the other. 
 
 " I 'm Lucy Eastman still," she said ; 
 "just the same Lucy Eastman." 
 
 " And a very good thing to be, too," 
 said Miss Pinsett, nodding her delicate old 
 head kindly. " But," and she scanned 
 her face, " but, now that I look at you, 
 not quite the same Lucy Eastman not 
 quite the same." 
 
 " Older and plainer," she sighed. 
 
 "Of all the nonsense ! " exclaimed 
 old Miss Pinsett. " You 're not quite so 
 shy, that 's all, my dear." 
 
 " I 'm shy now," asserted Lucy. 
 
 "Very likely, but not quite so shy as 
 you were, for all that. Don't tell me! 
 1 Ve a quick eye for changes, and so I 
 can see changes in you two when it may 
 be another would n't." 
 
 Before the excitement of her welcome 
 had been subdued into mere gladness, 
 there was a discreet tap at the door, and 
 9 129
 
 A Postlude 
 
 the respectable maid came in with a tray 
 of sherry-glasses and cake. Mary Leon- 
 ard and Lucy Eastman looked at each 
 other brimming over with smiles. It was 
 the same kind of cake, and might have 
 been cut off the same loaf. 
 
 "Never any cake like yours," said 
 Mary Leonard. 
 
 "I remember you like my cake," said 
 old Miss Pinsett, smiling; "take a bigger 
 piece, child." 
 
 They wanted to know many things 
 about the people and the town, all of 
 which Miss Pinsett could tell them. 
 
 The shadows grew longer, the room 
 dimmer, and Miss Pinsett had the maid 
 throw open the blinds to let in the west- 
 ern sunlight. A shaft of illumination fell 
 across one of the Japanese vases, and a 
 dragon blinked, and the smooth round 
 head of a mandarin gleamed. There was 
 an old-fashioned trumpet-creeper outside 
 the window. 
 
 " But we must go," exclaimed Mary 
 130
 
 A Postlude 
 
 Leonard at last, rising and taking up her 
 bonnet. " Oh, no, thank you, we must 
 not stay, Miss Pinsett ; we are going to- 
 morrow, and we are tired with all the 
 pleasure of to-day, and we have so much 
 so much to talk over. We shall 
 talk all night, as we used to, I am 
 afraid." 
 
 " But before you go, girls," said Miss 
 Pinsett, laying a fragile, white slender 
 hand on each, "you must sing for me 
 some of the songs you used to sing 
 you know some very pretty duets." 
 
 Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman 
 paused, amazed, and looked into each 
 other's faces in dismay. Sing ? had 
 they ever sung duets ? They had not 
 sung a note for years, except in church. 
 
 " But I don't know any songs, Miss 
 Pinsett," stammered Mary Leonard. 
 
 " I have forgotten all I ever knew," 
 echoed Lucy Eastman. 
 
 " No excuses, now no excuses ! 
 You were always great for excuses, but
 
 A Postlude 
 
 you would always sing for me. I want 
 1 County Guy/ to begin with." 
 
 By a common impulse the visitors 
 moved slowly towards the piano ; they 
 would try, at least, since Miss Pinsett 
 wanted them to. Lucy seated herself 
 and struck a few uncertain chords. Pos- 
 sibly the once familiar room, Mary Leon- 
 ard at her side, Miss Pinsett listening in 
 her own high-backed chair, the scent of 
 the mignonette in the blue bowl possi- 
 bly one or all of these things brought back 
 the old tune. 
 
 " Ah, County Guy, 
 The hour is nigh, 
 The sun has left the lea." 
 
 The sweet, slender voice floated through 
 the room, and Mary Leonard's deeper 
 contralto joined and strengthened it. 
 
 " Now, I will have ' Flow Gently, 
 
 Sweet Afton,' " said Miss Pinsett, quite as 
 
 if it were a matter of course. And they 
 
 sang " Flow Gently, Sweet Afton." It 
 
 132
 
 A Postlude 
 
 was during the last verse that the parlor 
 door opened softly, and a tall, fine-looking 
 man, erect, with beautiful silver curling 
 hair, and firm lines about the handsome, 
 clean-shaven mouth, appeared on the thresh- 
 old and stood waiting. As the singing 
 finished, Miss Pinsett shook her head at 
 him. 
 
 " You were always coming in and 
 breaking up the singing, Tom Endover," 
 she said. 
 
 The two women left the piano and 
 came forward. 
 
 " You used to know Mary Greenleaf, 
 she's Mrs. Leonard now, and Lucy 
 Eastman, Tom," she went on. 
 
 Apparently Mr. Endover was not heed- 
 ing the introduction, but was coming 
 towards them with instant recognition and 
 outstretched hand. They often discussed 
 afterward if he would have known them 
 without Miss Pinsett. Mary Leonard 
 thought he would, but Lucy Eastman did 
 not always agree with her. 
 133
 
 A Postlude 
 
 " You don't have to tell me who they 
 are," he said, grasping their hands cor- 
 dially. " Telling Tom Endover who 
 Mary Greenleaf and Lucy Eastman are, 
 indeed ! " There was a mingling of cour- 
 teous deference and frank, not to be re- 
 pressed, good comradeship in his manner 
 which was delightful. Mary Leonard's 
 dimples came and went, and delicate waves 
 of color flowed and ebbed in Lucy East- 
 man's soft cheeks. 
 
 " I 'm too old always to remember that 
 there 's no telling a United States senator 
 anything," retorted Miss Pinsett, with a 
 keen glance from her dimmed but pene- 
 trating eyes. 
 
 " As to that, I don't believe I 'd ever 
 have been a United States senator if it 
 was n't for what you've told me, Miss Pin- 
 sett," laughed Endover. " I 'm always 
 coming here to be taken down, Mary," he 
 went on ; " she does it just as she used 
 to." 
 
 Mary Leonard caught her breath a little 
 134
 
 A Postlude 
 
 at the sound of her Christian name, but 
 " I did n't know there was any taking you 
 down, Tom Endover," she retorted before 
 she thought ; and they all laughed. 
 
 They found many things to say in the 
 few minutes longer that hey stayed, before 
 Mr. Endover took them out and put them 
 in their cab. He insisted upon coming the 
 next morning to take them to the station 
 in his own carriage, and regretted very 
 much that his wife was out of town, so 
 that she could not have the pleasure of 
 meeting his old friends. 
 
 "He's just the same, isn't he?" ex- 
 claimed Mary Leonard, delightedly, as 
 they drove away. 
 
 " Yes," assented Lucy Eastman, slowly ; 
 u I think he is ; and yet he 's different." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he 's different," replied Mary 
 Leonard, readily. Both were quite uncon- 
 scious of any discrepancy in their state- 
 ments as they silently thought over the 
 impression he had made. He was the 
 same handsome, confident Tom Endover, 
 135
 
 A Postlude 
 
 but there was something gone, and was 
 there not something in its place? Had 
 that gay courtesy, that debonair good fel- 
 lowship, changed into something more 
 finished, but harder and more conscious ? 
 Was there a suggestion that his old care- 
 less charm had become a calculated and a 
 clearly appreciated facility ? Lucy East- 
 man did not formulate the question, and 
 it did not even vaguely present itself to 
 Mary Leonard, so it troubled the pleasure 
 of neither. 
 
 " What a day we have had ! " they 
 sighed in concert as they drove up again to 
 the entrance of the inn. 
 
 " Lucy," called Mary Leonard, a little 
 later, from one of their connecting rooms 
 to the other, " I 'm going to put on my 
 best black net, because Tom Endover 
 may call to-night." Then she paused to 
 catch Lucy Eastman's prompt reply. 
 
 " And I shall put on my lavender 
 lawn, but it'll be just our luck to have 
 it Samuel Hatt." 
 
 136
 
 A Postlude 
 
 The next morning Mr. Endover called 
 for them, and they were driven to the sta- 
 tion in his brougham. 
 
 He put them on the train, and bought 
 the magazines for them, and waved his 
 hand to the car window. 
 
 "You know, Lucy," said Mary Leon- 
 ard, as the train pulled out, " Tom End- 
 over always used to come to see us off." 
 
 " Of course he did," said Lucy. 
 
 " Do you know, I 'm rather glad his 
 wife was out of town," went on Mary 
 Leonard, after a pause. " I should like 
 to have seen her well enough, but you 
 know she was n't an Englefield girl." 
 
 " What can she know about old Engle- 
 field ! " said Lucy, with mild contempt. 
 " I 'm very glad she was out of town." 
 
 As they left the city behind them, the 
 early morning sun shone forth with vivid 
 brilliancy. Against the western sky the 
 buildings stood out with a peculiar dis- 
 tinctness, as if the yellow light shining 
 upon them was an illumination inherent 
 137
 
 A Postlude 
 
 in themselves, singling them out of the 
 landscape, and leaving untouched the cold 
 gray behind them. The lines of brick 
 and stone had the clearness and precision 
 of a photograph, and yet were idealized, 
 so that in the yellow, mellow, transparent 
 light a tall, smoke-begrimed chimney of a 
 distant furnace looked airy and delicate as 
 an Italian tower. 
 
 138
 
 The "Daily Morning 
 Chronicle " 
 
 THE village lay still and silent under 
 the observant sun. The village 
 street stretched in one direction down the 
 hill to the two-mile s-off railway station, 
 and in the other to the large white house 
 with pillared portico, from which there was 
 a fine view of the sunset, and beyond which 
 it still continued, purposeful but lonely, 
 until it came suddenly upon half a dozen 
 houses which turned out to be another 
 village. 
 
 Not a man, woman, or child crossed 
 from one house to another ; not a dog or 
 a cat wandered about in the sunshine. 
 The white houses looked as if no one 
 lived in them ; the white church, with its 
 sloping approach, looked as if no one ever 
 139
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 preached in it and no one ever came to 
 it to listen. It seemed to Lucyet Stevens, 
 as she sat at the little window of the post- 
 office, behind which her official face 
 looked so much more important than it 
 ever did anywhere else, as if the village 
 street itself were listening for the arrival of 
 the noon mail. For it was nearly time for 
 the daily period of almost feverish activity. 
 By and by from the station would come 
 Truman Hanks with the leather bag which, 
 in village and city alike, is the outward and 
 visible sign of the fidelity of the govern- 
 ment. It is probable that he will bring it 
 up in a single carriage, for though some- 
 times he takes the two-seated one, in 
 case there should be a human arrival who 
 would like to be driven up, this possibility 
 was so slight a one at this time o year 
 that it was hardly worth considering. 
 Then the village will awake ; the two 
 little girls who live down below the saw- 
 mill will come up together, confiding 
 on the way a secret or two, for which the 
 140
 
 The "Daily Morning Chronicle" 
 
 past twenty-four hours would seem to have 
 afforded slender material. Then old John 
 Thomas will come limping across from his 
 small house back of the church, to see if 
 there is a letter for " her," she being 
 his wife, and in occasional communication 
 with their daughter in the city. Then 
 the good-looking, roughly clad young 
 farmer who takes care of the fine place 
 with the pillared portico on the hill will 
 saunter down to see if " the folks have 
 sent any word about coming up for the 
 summer." Then Miss Granger, who 
 lives almost next door, will throw a shawl 
 over her head and run in to see who has 
 letters and, incidentally, if she has any 
 herself; and then one or two wagons will 
 draw up in front of the little store, and 
 the men will come in for their daily 
 papers. 
 
 As Lucyet came around to the daily 
 
 papers she flushed and looked impatiently 
 
 out of the door down the street. Not 
 
 that the thought of the daily paper had not 
 
 141
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 been all the time in the background of her 
 mind, but having allowed her fancy to 
 wander towards the attitude of the village 
 and its prospective disturbance, she re- 
 turned to the imminence of the daily paper 
 again with a thrill of emotion. It was 
 not one of the metropolitan journals which, 
 as a body, the village subscribed for, nor 
 was it one of the more widely known of 
 those issued in smaller cities; it was an 
 unpretentious sheet, neither very ably 
 edited nor extensively circulated, the 
 chief spokesman of the nearest county 
 town. But with all its limitations, its 
 readers represented to Lucyet the great 
 harsh, unknowing, and yet irresistibly 
 attractive public. 
 
 It was not the first time that she had 
 thus watched for it with mute excitement. 
 Such episodes, though infrequent, had 
 marked her otherwise uneventful existence 
 at irregular intervals for more than a year. 
 It would be more correct to say that they 
 had altered its entire course ; that such 
 142
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 episodes had given to her life a double 
 character, one side of calmness, secrecy, 
 indifference, and the other of delight, 
 absorption, thrilled with a breathless excite- 
 ment and uncertainty. But this time there 
 was a greater than ordinary interest. The 
 verses that she had sent last were more 
 ambitious in conception ; they had descrip- 
 tion in them, and mental analysis, and 
 several other things which very likely she 
 would not have called by their right names, 
 though she felt their presence: her other 
 contributions had belonged rather to the 
 poetry of comment. She was sure, almost 
 sure, that they had accepted these. 
 
 Unsophisticated Lucyet never dreamed 
 of enclosing postage for return, so she 
 could only breathlessly search the printed 
 page to discover whether her lines were 
 there or in the waste-basket. Friday's 
 edition of the " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 was more or less given over to the feeble 
 claims of general literature. To-day was 
 Friday. Lucyet glanced through her little 
 143
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle '' 
 
 window the tastefully disposed corner 
 of which was dedicated to the postal ser- 
 vice at the tin of animal crackers, the 
 jar of prunes, the suspended bacon, and 
 the box of Spanish licorice, and pondered, 
 half contemptuously, half pitifully, on what 
 had been her life before she had written 
 poems and sent them to the " Daily Morn- 
 ing Chronicle." Then her outlook had 
 seemed scarcely wider than that of the 
 animal crackers with their counterfeit vi- 
 tality ; now it seemed extended to the 
 horizon of all humanity. 
 
 There was the sound of horses' feet 
 coming over the hill. Was it the mail 
 wagon ? No, it was a heavier vehicle ; 
 and the voice of the farmer, slow and 
 lumbering as the animals it encouraged, 
 sounded down the village street. Over 
 the crest of the hill appeared the summit 
 of a load of hay going to the scales in 
 front of the tavern to be weighed. So 
 silent were the place and the hour, that 
 it was like a commotion when the cart 
 144
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 drew up, and the horses were unhitched 
 and weighed, and then the load driven 
 on, and the owner and the hotel-keeper 
 exchanged observations of a genial na- 
 ture. Finally the horses and the wagon 
 creaked along the hot street down the road 
 which led by the pillared white house, and 
 again the village was at peace. Lucyet 
 glanced at the clock. Was the mail going 
 to be late this morning ? No. The creak- 
 ing of the hay wagon had but just lost 
 itself in the silence, when her quick ear 
 caught the rattle of the lighter carriage. 
 Her first impulse was to step to the door 
 and wait for it there, but she did not yield 
 to it ; she would do just as usual, neither 
 more nor less. She would not for worlds 
 have Truman Hanks suspect any special 
 interest on her part. He might try to 
 find out its cause ; and a hot blush en- 
 veloped Lucyet as she contemplated the 
 possibility of his assigning it to the true 
 one. Only one person in all the village 
 knew that Lucyet Stevens wrote poetry. 
 10 I45
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 " Most time for the mail to be gittin' 
 heavy," said Truman, as he handed over 
 the limp receptacle ; " the summer board- 
 ers '11 be along now, before long." 
 
 "Yes, I s'pose they will," answered 
 Lucyet, her fingers trembling as they un- 
 locked the bag. 
 
 " It 's a backward season, though," he 
 went on, watching her. 
 
 " Yes, it is uncommon backward ; the 
 apple blossoms are n't but just beginning 
 to come out." 
 
 It seemed to her that there was sus- 
 picion in his observation. He leaned 
 lazily over the counter, while she took out 
 the mail within the little office with its 
 front of letter-boxes. 
 
 " This hot spell '11 bring 'em out. It 's 
 the first hot spell we 've had." 
 
 "Yes," she assented, blushing again, 
 "it will." 
 
 She had spoken of the tardy apple 
 blossoms in her poem, it was entitled 
 " Spring." Two or three people, having 
 146
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 seen the mail go by, dropped in and dis- 
 posed themselves in various attitudes to 
 wait for it to be distributed. She hurried 
 through the work, her fingers tingling to 
 open each copy of the newspaper as she 
 laid it in its place. At last it was done; 
 the little window which had been shut to 
 produce official seclusion was reopened ; 
 and the people came up, one by one, with- 
 out much haste, and received the papers 
 and now and then a letter. It did not 
 take long; and afterward they stood about 
 and talked and traded a little, their papers 
 unopened in their hands. It was not 
 likely that the news from outside was 
 going to affect any one of them very 
 much ; they could wait for it ; and reading 
 matter was for careful attention at home, 
 not for skimming over in public places. 
 
 Lucyet found their indifference pheno- 
 menal ; they did not know what might be 
 waiting for them in the first column of 
 the third page. Was it waiting for them ? 
 The suspense was almost overwhelming ; 
 M7
 
 The "Daily Morning Chronicle" 
 
 and yet she did not like to open the copy 
 which lay at her disposal until the store 
 was empty ; she had a nervous feeling that 
 they would all know what she was looking 
 for. Slowly the group melted away, till 
 there was no one left except the proprietor, 
 who had gone into the back room to look 
 after some seed corn, and Silas, the young 
 farmer, who had thrown himself down into 
 a chair to read his paper at his leisure, and 
 was not noticing Lucyet. Eagerly she 
 opened the printed sheet. She caught her 
 breath in the joy of assurance. There it 
 was " Spring." It stood out as if it 
 were printed all in capitals. After a fur- 
 tive look out at the quiet street, where, in 
 a rusty wagon, an old man was just pick- 
 ing up his reins and preparing to jog away 
 from the post-office door, and a side glance 
 at Silas's broad back over by the farther 
 window, Lucyet read over her own lines. 
 How different they looked from the copy 
 in her own distinct, formal little hand- 
 writing ! They had gained something, 
 148
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 but they had lost something too. They 
 seemed unabashed, almost declamatory, in 
 their sentiment. They had aquired a new 
 and positive importance; it was as if the 
 assertions they made had all at once be- 
 come truths, had ceased to be tentative. 
 She read them over again. No, they did 
 not tell it all, all that she meant to say ; 
 but they brought back the day, and she was 
 glad she had written them, glad with an 
 agitated, inexpressible gladness. She would 
 like to know what people said of them; for 
 a moment it seemed to her that she would 
 not mind if they knew that she wrote them. 
 
 " Well," said Silas, laying down his 
 paper and standing up, " there is n't a 
 blamed thing in that paper! " 
 
 Lucyet looked up at him startled. Had 
 she heard aright ? Then the color slowly 
 receded from her face and left it pale. 
 Silas was quite unconscious of having 
 made an unusual statement. 
 
 " Well, Lucyet," he went on, " going 
 to the Christian Endeavor to-night ? " 
 149
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 u I don't know," she stammered. 
 " No," she added suddenly, " I am not." 
 All endeavor was a mockery to her stunned 
 soul. 
 
 " I dunno as I will either," he observed 
 carelessly as he lounged out. 
 
 It was nothing to her whether he went 
 or not, though once it might have been. 
 She sat still for some minutes after he had 
 gone, looking blankly at the paper. The 
 page which a few minutes ago had seemed 
 fairly to glow with interest had become 
 mere columns of print concerning trivial 
 things; for an instant she saw it with 
 Silas's eyes. John Thomas came limping 
 for his mail. He had been detained on 
 the way, he explained, and was late. She 
 handed him his paper through the window, 
 dully, indifferently. She was suffering a 
 measure of that disappointment which 
 comes with what we have grown to be- 
 lieve attainment, and is so much more bitter 
 than that of failure. But the revolt against 
 this unnatural state of mind came before 
 150
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 long. The elasticity of her own enthu- 
 siasm reasserted itself. It could not be 
 that there was nothing in her poem. She 
 read the lines over again. Two or three 
 were not quite what they ought to be, 
 somehow ; but the rest of them the world 
 would lay hold of, that big sympathetic 
 world which knew so much more than 
 Silas Stevens. 
 
 When the hour came to close the office 
 at noon, she locked the drawer and passed 
 out of the door to the footpath with a 
 sense of triumph under the habitual shy- 
 ness of her manner. She still shrank from 
 the publicity she had achieved, but she 
 was conscious of an undercurrent of desire 
 that her achievement, since it was real, 
 should be recognized. 
 
 When the old postmaster died, leaving 
 Lucyet, his only child, alone in the world, 
 and interest in official quarters had pro- 
 cured for her the appointment in her 
 father's place, a home had also been offered 
 her at Miss Flood's ; and it was thither
 
 The "Daily Morning Chronicle" 
 
 that Lucyet now went for her noonday 
 meal. Miss Delia Flood was of most 
 kindly disposition and literary tastes. 
 That these tastes were somewhat pre- 
 scribed in their manifestation was no 
 witness against their genuineness. It 
 must be confessed that Miss Delia's 
 preference was for the sentimental, 
 though she would have modestly shrunk 
 from hearing it thus baldly stated, and, 
 naturally, for poetry above prose. The 
 modern respect for " strength " in litera- 
 ture would have impressed her most pain- 
 fully had she known of it. The mind turns 
 aside from the contemplation of the effect 
 that a story or two of Kipling's would 
 have produced upon her could she have 
 grasped their vocabulary ; she would 
 probably have taken to her bed in sheer 
 fright, as she did in a thunderstorm. 
 Poetry of the heart and emotions, which 
 never verged, even most distantly, upon 
 what her traditions and her susceptibilities 
 told her was the indecorous, satisfied her 
 152
 
 The "Daily Morning Chronicle" 
 
 highest demands, and the less said about 
 nature, except by way of an occasional 
 willow, or the sad, sweet scent of a 
 jasmine flower, the better. Miss Delia 
 had fostered Lucyet's love for literature; 
 and it was to Miss Delia that Lucyet 
 hastened with the great news of the publi- 
 cation of her poem. It was for this acute 
 pleasure that she had hitherto kept the 
 knowledge of her attempt from her, and, 
 too, that her joy might be full, and that 
 she would not have to suffer the alternat- 
 ing phases of hope and fear through which 
 Lucyet herself had passed. 
 
 As she entered the room where dinner 
 stood on the table and Miss Delia waited 
 to eat it with her, she suppressed the 
 trembling excitement which threatened to 
 make itself visible in her manner now 
 that the words were upon her very lips. 
 They seated themselves at the 'table. 
 Miss Delia was small and wiry and grave, 
 and never spilled anything on the table- 
 cloth when helping. 
 
 153
 
 The "Daily Morning Chronicle" 
 
 "Miss Delia," said Lucyet, "I've 
 written a poem." 
 
 Her companion looked at her and 
 smiled a shrewd little smile. " I 've 
 guessed as much before now," she said. 
 
 " But," said Lucyet, laying down her 
 knife and fork, " it has been printed." 
 
 " Printed, child ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Delia, almost dropping hers. At last 
 the cup of satisfaction was at Lucyet's 
 lips ; at least she had not overestimated 
 the purport of the event to one human 
 being. 
 
 " Printed," repeated Lucyet, smiling 
 softly. " Here it is in the paper." 
 
 Miss Delia pushed aside her plate, 
 seized the paper, and, opening it, searched 
 its columns. She had not to look long ; 
 there was but one poem. Lucyet watched 
 with shining eyes. This is what it meant ; 
 this was the realization of her dreams 
 to see the reader pass over the rest of the 
 page as trivial, to be arrested with spell- 
 bound interest at the word " Spring," to 
 154
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 know that the words that held that ab- 
 sorbed attention were her words her own. 
 
 As Miss Delia read, gradually her ex- 
 pression changed ; from eagerness it faded 
 into perplexity. Lucyet watched her 
 breathlessly, her hands clasped, her thin 
 arms and somewhat angular elbows rest- 
 ing on the coarse tablecloth. From per- 
 plexity Miss Delia's look was chilled into 
 what the observant girl recognized, with 
 a dull pain at her heart, as disappoint- 
 ment. Lucyet averted her gaze to a dish 
 of ill-shaped boiled potatoes ; there was no 
 need of watching longer the face opposite. 
 Miss Delia read it all through again, 
 dwelling on certain lines, which she indi- 
 cated by her forefinger, with special at- 
 tention ; then she looked up timidly. 
 She met Lucyet's unsmiling eyes for a 
 moment ; then she, too, looked away, 
 hurriedly, helplessly, to the dish of boiled 
 potatoes. 
 
 "I'm sure it is very nice very nice 
 indeed, Lucyet," she said. 
 155
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 "But you don't like it," said Lucyet. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I do," poor Miss Delia has- 
 tened to say. " I do like it ; the rhymes 
 are in the right places, and all, and it looks 
 so nice in the colyum." Mechanically 
 she pulled her plate back again, and Lucyet 
 did the same. " I 'm proud of you, 
 Lucyet," she went on with a forced little 
 smile, " that you can write real poetry like 
 that." 
 
 " But what if it is n't real poetry ? " 
 said Lucyet. 
 
 The doubt was wrung from her by the 
 overwhelming bitterness of her disappoint- 
 ment. A rush of tears was smarting be- 
 hind her rather inexpressive eyes ; but she 
 held them back. Miss Delia was thor- 
 oughly distressed. She put aside her own 
 serious misgivings. 
 
 41 But it must be," she argued eagerly, 
 w or they would n't have printed it." 
 
 Lucyet shook her head as she forced 
 herself to eat a morsel of bread. How 
 unconvincing sounded the argument from 
 I5 6
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 another's lips ! and yet she knew now that 
 secretly it had carried with it more weight 
 than she had realized. Miss Delia glanced 
 apprehensively at the folded paper as it lay 
 on the table. She herself was disap- 
 pointed, deeply disappointed; she had ex- 
 pected much, and this, why, this was, 
 most of it, just what any one could find 
 out for herself. But she must say some- 
 thing more. Lucyet's patient silence as 
 she went on with her dinner, never raising 
 the eyes which had so shone when she first 
 spoke, demanded speech from her more 
 urgently than louder claims. 
 
 " I suppose I thought perhaps there 
 would be more about about misfortune, 
 and scattered leaves, and dells," poor 
 Miss Delia smiled deprecatingly, while she 
 felt wildly about for more tangible remi- 
 niscences of her favorite poets, that she 
 might respond to the unuttered questioning 
 of Lucyet, " and " she dropped her 
 eyes " lovers." 
 
 " I don't know anything about dells 
 157
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 and lovers," said Lucyet, simply; "how 
 should I ? " 
 
 Miss Delia started a little. It had never 
 occurred to her that one must know about 
 things personally in order to write poetry 
 about them. If it had, she would never 
 have dreamed of mentioning lovers. 
 
 " No, of course not," she said hastily ; 
 " but writing about a thing is n't like 
 knowing about it." 
 
 Lucyet was not experienced enough to 
 detect any fallacy in this, and she dumbly 
 acquiesced. 
 
 "You have in all the grass and trees 
 and and such things as you have in 
 very nicely, I 'm sure," went on Miss 
 Delia ; " only next time " and she 
 smiled brightly " next time you must 
 put in what we don't see every day like 
 islands and reefs and such things. I know 
 you could write a beautiful poem about a 
 reef a coral reef." 
 
 Lucyet tried to smile hopefully in re- 
 turn, but the attempt was a failure. She 
 158
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 had finished her dinner, and she longed to 
 get away ; she was so hurt that she must 
 be alone to see how it was to be borne. 
 She helped Miss Delia clear the table and 
 wash the dishes, almost in silence. Two 
 or three times they exchanged words on 
 indifferent subjects ; Miss Delia asked who 
 had had letters, and Lucyet told her, but 
 it was hard work for both. When it was 
 over, Lucyet paused in the doorway, put- 
 ting on her .straw hat to go back to the 
 post-office. 
 
 Miss Delia stood a moment irresolute, 
 and then stepped to her side. " Lucyet," 
 she said, her voice trembling, " I don't 
 understand it exactly. It is n't like the 
 poetry I 've been used to. There are 
 things in it that I don't know what they 
 mean. To be sure, that 's so with all 
 poetry that we do like," the tears were 
 in her eyes ; it is not an easy thing to dis- 
 appoint one 's best friend and to be con- 
 scious of it, " but it is n't like what I 
 thought it was going to be, just about 
 159
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 what we see out of the window. But it 's 
 my fault, just as likely as not," she laid 
 her hand on Lucyet's arm, "that 's what 
 I want to say ; you must n't take it to heart 
 just 's likely 's not, it 's my fault." 
 
 Miss Delia did not believe a word of 
 what she was saying, which made it diffi- 
 cult for her to articulate ; but she was mak- 
 ing a brave effort in her sensitive loyalty. 
 
 " I know," said Lucyet, gently ; " but I 
 guess it is n't your fault ; " and she slipped 
 out to the road on her way to the post- 
 office. Miss Delia went back, picked up 
 the paper, and, seating herself at the win- 
 dow, she read "Spring" all through again, 
 word by word ; then she laid it aside again, 
 shaking her head sadly. 
 
 Lucyet went quietly behind her little 
 window. Her disappointment amounted 
 to actual physical pain. She found no 
 comfort, as a wiser person might have 
 done, in certain of Miss Delia's expres- 
 sions ; she only realized that her best 
 friend and her most generous critic could 
 1 60
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 find nothing good in what she had done. 
 Her duty this afternoon was only to make 
 up the mail for the down train ; then her 
 time was her own till the next mail train 
 came up at half-past five. At two o'clock 
 she closed the office again and started on a 
 long walk. She longed for the comfort of 
 the solitary hillsides, where warm patches 
 of sunlight lay at the foot of ragged stone 
 walls, and there were long stretches of 
 plain and meadow to be looked over, and 
 rolling hills to comfort the soul. As she 
 climbed a hill just before the place where 
 a weedy untravelled road turned off from 
 the highway leading between closely 
 growing underbrush and stone walls, 
 where now and then a shy bird rustled 
 suddenly and invisibly among last year's 
 dried leaves, she saw three countrymen 
 standing by the wayside and talking 
 with as near an approach to earnest- 
 ness as ever visits the colloquies of 
 the ordinary unemotional New Englander. 
 One of them held a copy of the " Daily 
 ii 161
 
 The "Daily Morning Chronicle" 
 
 Chronicle," gesturing with it somewhat 
 jerkily as he spoke. 
 
 For a moment the hope that it is hard 
 to make away with revived in Lucyet's 
 breast. Were they talking of the poem, 
 she wondered, with a certain weary inter- 
 est. She dreaded a fresh disappointment 
 so keenly that it pained her to speculate 
 much on the chance of it. It was not 
 impossible that they were saying such 
 meaningless stuff ought never to have 
 
 O c- 
 
 been printed. As the pale girl drew near 
 with the plodding, patient step which so 
 often proclaims that walking is not a 
 pleasure, but a necessity, of country life, 
 the men did not lower their voices, which 
 she heard distinctly as she passed. 
 
 " Wai, I tell you, 't was that," said one 
 of them. " He did n't live more 'n a little 
 time after he took it." 
 
 " Mebbe he would n't have lived any- 
 how." 
 
 "Wai, mebbe he wouldn't. 'T ain't 
 for me to say," responded the first speaker, 
 162
 
 The "Dally Morning Chronicle" 
 
 evincing a certain piety, which, however, 
 was not to be construed as at variance with 
 his first statement. 
 
 " Wai, 't vva'n't this he took, was it ? " 
 demanded the man with the " Chronicle," 
 waving it wildly. 
 
 " Wai, no, 't wa'n't," responded the 
 other, reasonably. The third member of 
 the party maintained an air of not being in 
 a position to judge, and regarded Lucyet 
 stolidly as she approached. 
 
 u Do, Lucyet ? " he observed, unnoticed 
 of the other two. 
 
 " I tell you this '11 cure him. It '11 cure 
 anybody. Just read them testimonies," 
 and he pressed the paper into the other's 
 meagre hand. " Read that one, c Rheu- 
 matiz of thirty years' standin', it '11 
 interest ye." 
 
 Lucyet went on up the hill, and turned 
 into the weedy road. She had not a keen 
 sense of the ridiculous. It did not strike 
 her as funny that they should have been 
 discussing a patent medicine instead of the 
 163
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 verses on " Spring ; " but her shrinking 
 sense of defeat was deepened, and she 
 felt, with an unconscious resentment, that 
 most people cared very little about poetry. 
 She wondered, without bitterness, and with 
 a saddened distrust of her own power, if 
 she could write an advertisement. Once 
 within the precincts of the tangled road, 
 her disquieted soul rejoiced in the freedom 
 from observation. She felt as bruised and 
 sore from the unsympathetic contact of her 
 world as if it had been a larger one ; and 
 with the depression had come a startled 
 sense of the irrevocableness of what she 
 had done. Those printed words seemed 
 so swift, so tangible. They would go so 
 far, and afford such opportunity for the 
 grasp of indifference, of ridicule ! If she 
 could only have them again, spoken, per- 
 haps, but unheard ! 
 
 Yet here, at least, where the enterpris- 
 ing grass grew in the rugged cart track, 
 and the branches drooped impertinently 
 before the face of the wayfarer, no one but 
 164
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 herself need know that she was very near to 
 tears. And as she came out of the shut-in 
 portion of the road to a stretch of open 
 country, where the warm light lay on the 
 hillsides, and the air was sweetened by the 
 breath of pines, her depression gave way to 
 a keen sense of elation. She turned aside 
 and, crossing a bit of elastic, dry grass, 
 climbed to the top of the stone wall and 
 looked about her. Her heart throbbed 
 with confidence, doubly grateful for the 
 previous distrust. Her own lines came 
 back to her; it was this that somehow, 
 imperfectly, but somehow, she had put into 
 words. It was still spring, a late New 
 England spring, though the unseasonable 
 warmth of the day made it seem summer. 
 The landscape bore the coloring of autumn 
 rather than that of the earlier year. The 
 trees were red and brown and yellow in 
 their incipient leafage. Now and then, 
 among the sere fields, there was a streak 
 of vivid green, or a mound of rich brown, 
 freshly turned earth ; but for the most part 
 165
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 they were bare. Here and there was the 
 crimson of a new maple ; in the distance 
 were the reds and brown of new, not old, 
 life. Only the birds sang as they never 
 sing in autumn, a burst of clear, joyous 
 anticipation the trill of the meadow- 
 lark, the " sweet, sweet, piercing sweet " 
 of the flashing oriole, the call of the cat- 
 bird, and the melody of the white-bosomed 
 thrush. And here and there a fountain of 
 white bloom showed itself amid the som- 
 breness of the fields, a pear or cherry tree 
 decked from head to foot in bridal white, 
 like a bit of fleecy cloud dropped from the 
 floating masses above to the discouraged 
 earth ; along the wayside the white stars 
 of the anemone, the wasteful profusion of 
 the eyebright, and the sweet blue of the 
 violet ; and in solemn little clusters, the 
 curled up fronds of the ferns, uttering a 
 protest against longer imprisonment let 
 wind and sun look out ! they would un- 
 curl to-morrow ! All these things set 
 the barely blossomed branches, the barely 
 166
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 clothed hillsides, at defiance. It was the 
 beginning, not the end, the promise, not 
 the regret it was life, not death. Sum- 
 mer was afoot, not winter. 
 
 It was worth a longer walk, that half 
 hour on the hillside ; for it restored, in a 
 measure, her sense of enjoyment, and sub- 
 stituted for the burden of defeat the exul- 
 tation of expression, however faulty and 
 however limited. But like other moods, 
 this one was temporary ; and as she re- 
 traced her steps and turned into the village 
 street, she felt again the lassitude which 
 follows the extinction of hope and the 
 inexorable narrowing of the horizon which 
 she had fancied extended. 
 
 It was usual for her at this hour to stop 
 at the tavern for the mail which might be 
 ready there, and herself take it to the post- 
 office. In midsummer this mail was quite 
 an important item, but at this time of year 
 it amounted to little ; nevertheless, she 
 followed what had become the custom. 
 She found one of the daughters of 
 167
 
 The "Daily Morning Chronicle" 
 
 the house in the throes of composi- 
 tion. 
 
 " Oh, Lucyet," she exclaimed, " you 
 don't say that 's you ! I want this to go 
 to-night the worst way. Ain't you early ? " 
 
 " Yes, I guess I am," said Lucyet, rather 
 wearily. 
 
 " If you '11 set on the piazzer and wait, 
 I '11 finish up in just a minute. You see 
 we had to get dinner for two gentlemen as 
 came down to go fishin' to-morrer, and it 
 sorter put me back. I wish you 'd wait." 
 
 " Well, I guess I can wait a few min- 
 utes," said Lucyet, the line between her 
 personal and her official capacity being 
 sometimes a difficult one to maintain 
 rigidly. She seated herself on the piazza, 
 not observing that she was just outside of 
 the window of the room within which the 
 two fishermen were smoking and talking 
 in a desultory fashion. Later their voices 
 fell idly on her ear, speaking a language 
 she only half understood, blending with 
 the few lazy sounds of the afternoon. 
 168
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 The conversation was really extremely 
 desultory, being chiefly maintained by the 
 younger man of the two, who lounged on 
 the sofa of unoriental luxury with a thor- 
 ough-going perversion of the maker's plan, 
 his head being where his feet ought to 
 have been and his feet hanging over the 
 portion originally intended for the back of 
 his head. The other man wore the frown 
 of absorption as, a pencil in his hand, he 
 worried through some pages of manuscript. 
 
 " Oh, I say," observed the idler, " ain't 
 you 'most through slaughtering the inno- 
 cents ? I want to take that walk." 
 
 " I told you half an hour ago that if I 
 could have a few uninterrupted minutes 
 I 'd be with you," answered the other 
 man, without looking up. " They have n't 
 fallen in my way yet." 
 
 " It 's pity that moves me to speech," 
 rejoined the first speaker, rising and saun- 
 tering to the window, not that one out- 
 side of which Lucyet was sitting, " pity 
 for those young souls throbbing with the 
 169
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 consciousness of power who may have 
 forgotten to enclose a stamp for return. I 
 feel when I interrupt you as if I were 
 holding back the remorseless wheel of 
 fate." 
 
 His companion allowed this speculative 
 remark to pass without reply. The idler 
 sauntered back to the table. 
 
 " What '11 you bet, now, before you go 
 any further, that it '11 go into the waste- 
 basket ? " 
 
 " Stamped and addressed envelope en- 
 closed," observed the patient editor, ab- 
 sently. 
 
 " Well, what odds will you give me of 
 its being not necessarily devoid of literary 
 merit, but unfitted for the special uses of 
 your magazine ? " 
 
 The other was still silent as he laid 
 aside another page. 
 
 " Half the time," continued the idler, 
 
 " to look at you, you would n't believe 
 
 that you speak the truth when you express 
 
 your thanks for the pleasure of reading 
 
 170
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 their manuscripts. It would seem that 
 that, too, was simulated." 
 
 The older man picked up a soft felt hat 
 and threw it across the room at his com- 
 panion, without taking his eyes from the 
 page. 
 
 " Oh, well," went on the other, " I 
 can read the newspaper. I can read what 
 is printed, while you 're reading what ought 
 to be. Of course you and I know the 
 things are never the same." 
 
 Picking up the paper, he resumed, ap- 
 proximately, his former attitude, and applied 
 himself to its columns for a few moments 
 of silence. Outside Lucyet sat quietly, 
 her head resting against the white wooden 
 wall of the house ; and the editor made a 
 mark or two. 
 
 " Now this is what the public want to 
 know," resumed the idler, with a gratui- 
 tous air of having been pressed for his 
 opinion. "You editors have a ridiculous 
 way of talking about the public " 
 
 " It strikes me that it is not I who have 
 171
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 been making myself ridiculous talking 
 about anything." 
 
 41 The public ! You just tell the great 
 innocent public that you are giving them 
 the sort of thing they like, and half the 
 time they believe you, and half the time 
 they don't. Now this man " and he 
 tapped the " Chronicle " " knows an 
 editor's business." 
 
 " Which is more than you do," inter- 
 polated the goaded man. 
 
 " 4 The frame for William Brown's 
 new house is up. William may be trusted 
 to finish as well as he has begun,' " read 
 the idler, imperturbably. " l Miss Sophie 
 Brown is visiting friends in Albany. The 
 boys will be glad to see her back.' c Fruit 
 of all kinds will be scarce, though berries 
 will be abundant.' ''' 
 
 The older man stood up, his pencil in 
 his mouth. " Confound you, Richards ! 
 Either you keep still or I go to my room 
 and lock the door." 
 
 " Oh, I '11 keep still," said Richards, as 
 172
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 if it was the first time it had been sug- 
 gested. Again there was a silence. 
 
 The letter must be to Ada's young 
 man, who was doing a good business in 
 cash registers, it took so long to write it. 
 It was within five minutes of the time 
 Lucyet should be at the office. She 
 moved to leave the piazza, when a not 
 loud exclamation from Richards fell on 
 her ear with unusual distinctness. 
 
 " By Jove ! I say, just listen to this." 
 
 The editor looked up threateningly, and 
 went back to his work again without a 
 word. 
 
 " No, but really it 's quite in your 
 line. Listen." 
 
 Lucyet had moved forward a step or 
 two, when she stood motionless. The 
 words that floated through the window 
 were her own. Richards had an unusu- 
 ally sweet voice, and he was reading in a 
 way entirely different from that in which 
 he had rattled off the " personals." 
 There seemed a new sweetness in every 
 173
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 syllable; the warmth of the hillside, 
 the perfume of opening apple blossoms, 
 breathed between the lines. He read 
 slowly, and the words fell on the still air 
 that seemed waiting breathless to hear 
 them. When he finished, Lucyet was 
 leaning against the side of the house, her 
 hand on her heart, her eyes shining, 
 and the editor was looking at the 
 reader. 
 
 " There," he concluded, " ain't there 
 something of the l blackbird's tune and 
 the bean flower's boon ' in that ? " 
 
 " Copied, of course ? " inquired the 
 editor, briefly. 
 
 " No. ' Written for the Daily Chron- 
 icle,' and signed l L.' Not bad, are they ? 
 Of course I don't know," Richards 
 scoffed, " and the public would n't know 
 if it read them, but you know " 
 
 " Read 'em again." 
 
 A second time, with increased expres- 
 sion, half mischievous now in its fervor, 
 the lines on Spring fell in musical tones 
 174
 
 The " Daily Morning Chronicle " 
 
 from Richards's lips. Still Lucyet stood 
 breathless, her whole being thrilled with 
 an impulse of exultant, inexpressible de- 
 light, listening as she had never listened 
 before. It was as if she stood in the 
 midst of a shining mist. 
 
 " She 's got it in her, has n't she ? " 
 Richards added, after a pause. 
 
 "Yes," said his companion, slowly. 
 " She 's got it in her fast enough ; " and 
 he returned to his page of manuscript. 
 " Much good may it do her ! " he added, 
 with weary cynicism. 
 
 Richards laughed, and pulled a pack of 
 cards out of his pocket. " I '11 play soli- 
 taire," he said. 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " murmured the 
 other, devoutly. 
 
 Ada arrived breathless. " Here 't is," 
 said she. "Did you think I was never 
 comin' ? You 've got time enough ; they 
 ain't very prompt. There ain't anythin' 
 the matter, is there ? " she asked. 
 
 Lucyet took the letter mechanically. 
 175
 
 The "Daily Morning Chronicle" 
 
 " No," she said, " there is n't anything 
 the matter." 
 
 As she went swiftly toward the little 
 post-office the rhythm of those lines was 
 in her ears ; the assured, incisive tones of 
 that man's voice pulsed through her very 
 soul. She was conscious of no hope for 
 the future ; she had no regret for the past ; 
 the present was a glory. In that moment 
 Lucyet had taken a long, dizzying draught 
 from the cup of success. 
 
 176
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 THE observation train wound its way 
 in clumsy writhings along the bank 
 of the river, upon which the afternoon light 
 fell in modified brilliancy as the west 
 kindled towards the sunset. But if the 
 sheen and sparkle of the earlier day had 
 passed into something more subdued and 
 less exhilarating, the difference was made 
 up in the shifting action and color that 
 moved and glowed and flashed on, above 
 and beside the soft clearness of the stream. 
 The sunlight caught the turn of the wet 
 oars and outlined the brown muscular 
 backs of the young athletes who were 
 pulling the narrow shells. The Yale blue 
 spread itself in blocks and patches along 
 the train, and the Harvard crimson burned 
 in vivid stretches by its side, and all the blue 
 12 177
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 and crimson seemed instinct with animation 
 as they floated, quivered, and waved in the 
 thrilled interest of hundreds of men and 
 women who followed with eager eyes the 
 knife-blades of boats cleaving the water in 
 a quick, silent ripple of foam. The crowd 
 of launches, tugs, yachts, and steamers 
 pushed up the river, keeping their distance 
 with difficulty, and from them as well as 
 from the banks sounded the fluctuating- 
 yet unbroken cheers of encouragement 
 and exhortation, rising and falling in 
 rhythmic measure, guided by public-spirited 
 enthusiasts, or breaking out in purely in- 
 dividual tribute to the grand chorus of par- 
 tisanship. It had been a close start, and 
 the furor of excitement had spent itself, 
 somewhat, during the first seconds, and 
 now made itself felt more like the quick 
 heart-beats of restrained emotion as the 
 issue seemed to grow less doubtful, though 
 reaching now and then climaxes of renewed 
 expression. 
 
 " Alas for advancing age ! " sighed a 
 178 .
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 woman into the ear of her neighbor, as 
 their eyes followed the crews, but without 
 that fevered intensity which marked some 
 other glances. 
 
 " By all means," he answered. " But 
 why, particularly, just now ? I was begin- 
 ning to fancy myself young under the 
 stress of present circumstances." 
 
 " Because even if one continues to keep 
 one's emotions creditably effervescent 
 one loses early the single-minded glow of 
 contest." 
 
 " A single-minded glow is a thing that 
 should be retained, even at considerable 
 cost." 
 
 " And what is worse yet, one grows 
 critical about language," she continued 
 calmly, " and gives free rein to a naturally 
 unpleasant disposition under cover of a 
 refined and sensitive taste." 
 
 Ellis Arnold smiled tolerantly. 
 
 " They are pretty sure to keep their lead 
 now," he said. "The other boat is more 
 than a length behind, and losing. They 
 179
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 are not pulling badly, either," he added. 
 41 You were saying ? " and he turned 
 towards her for the first time since the 
 start. 
 
 She was a handsome blonde-haired 
 woman, perfectly dressed, with the seal of 
 distinction set upon features, figure, and 
 expression. 
 
 " That was what I was saying," she 
 replied, " that the ones that are behind are 
 not pulling badly." 
 
 " More sphinx-like than ever," he mur- 
 mured. " I perceive that you speak in 
 parables." 
 
 Miss Normaine laughed a little. The 
 conversation was decidedly intermittent. 
 They dropped it entirely at times, and then 
 took it up as if there had been no pause. 
 It was after a brief silence that she went 
 
 
 
 on : " But you and I can see both boats 
 the success, and the disappointment too. 
 And we can't, for the life of us, help feel- 
 ing that it 's hard on those who have put 
 forth all their strength for defeat." 
 180
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 " But it is n't so bad as if it were our 
 boat that was behind," he said sensibly. 
 
 " Oh, no ; of course not. But I main- 
 tain that it injures the fine fleur of enjoy- 
 ment to remember that there are two 
 participants in a contest." 
 
 " I suppose it is useless to expect you to 
 be logical " 
 
 " Quite. I know enough to be en- 
 tirely sure I 'd rather be picturesque." 
 
 " But let me assure you, that in desir- 
 ing that there should be but one partici- 
 pant in a contest, you are striking at the 
 very root of all successful athletic exhi- 
 bitions." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders a little. 
 
 " Oh, well, if you like to air your pow- 
 ers of irony at the expense of such pain- 
 ful literalness ! " 
 
 "The exuberance of my style has been 
 pruned down to literalness by the relent- 
 less shears of a cold world. With you, 
 of course," but he was interrupted by 
 the shouts of the crowd, as the win- 
 181
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 ning boat neared the goal. The former 
 enthusiasm had been the soft breathings 
 of approval compared to this outbreak of 
 the victorious. Flags, hats, handkerchiefs 
 rose in the air, and the university cheer 
 echoed, re-echoed, and began again. 
 
 Arnold cheered also, with an energy 
 not to be deduced from his hitherto calm 
 exterior, standing up on the seat and 
 shouting with undivided attention; and 
 Miss Normaine waved her silk handker- 
 chief and laughed in response to the 
 bursts of youthful joy from the seat in 
 front of her. 
 
 " Oh, well," said Arnold, sitting down 
 again, " sport is sport for both sides, 
 whoever wins or else it is n't sport at 
 all." 
 
 " Ah, how many crimes have been com- 
 mitted in thy name ! " murmured Miss 
 Normaine. 
 
 " Katharine, I think you have turned 
 sentimentalist." 
 
 " No, it 's age, I tell you. I 'm think- 
 182
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 ing more now of the accessories than I 
 am of the race. That 's a sure sign of 
 age, to have time to notice the acces- 
 sories." 
 
 Arnold nodded. 
 
 " There 's compensation in it, though. 
 If we lose a little of the drama of con- 
 flict on these occasions, we gain something 
 in recognizing the style of presentation." 
 
 "Yes," and she glanced down at her 
 niece, whose pretty eyes were making 
 short work of the sunburned, broad- 
 shouldered, smooth-faced, handsome boy, 
 who was entirely willing to close the fes- 
 tivities of Commencement week subjected 
 to the ravages of a grand, even if a hope- 
 less, passion. 
 
 From her she looked out upon the now 
 darkening river. There had been some 
 delay before the train could begin to move 
 back, and the summer twilight had fallen^ 
 for the race had been at the last available 
 moment. Though it was far from quiet, 
 the relief from the tension of the previ- 
 183
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 ous moments added to the placidity of the 
 scene. The opposite banks were dim and 
 shadowy, and the water was growing 
 vague; there were lights on some of the 
 craft ; a star came out, and then another ; 
 there were no hard suggestions, no sordid 
 reminders. It was a beautiful world, filled 
 with happy people, united in a common 
 healthy interest ; the outlines of separation 
 were softened into ambiguity and the dif- 
 ferences veiled by good breeding. 
 
 " It is only a mimic struggle, after air," 
 she said at last. " The stage is well set, 
 and now that the curtain is down, there is 
 no special bitterness at the way the play 
 ended." 
 
 " There you exaggerate, as usual," he 
 replied, " and of course in another direc- 
 tion from that in which you exaggerated 
 last time." 
 
 "The pursuit of literature has made 
 you not only precise but didactic," she 
 observed. 
 
 "There is a good deal, if not of bit- 
 184
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 terness, of very real disappointment, and 
 some depression." 
 
 " Which will be all gone long before 
 the curtain goes up for the next perform- 
 ance." 
 
 " Ah, yes, to be sure ; but nevertheless 
 you underrate the disappointments of 
 youth, because they are not tragic you 
 think they are not bitter, you have 
 always underrated them." 
 
 She met his eyes calmly, though he had 
 spoken with a certain emphasis. 
 
 " We are talking in a circle," she re- 
 plied. " That was what I said in the first 
 place that as we grow older we have 
 more sympathy with defeat." 
 
 " You are incorrigible," he said, smil- 
 ing ; " you will accept neither consolation 
 nor reproof." 
 
 " Life brings enough of both," she an- 
 swered ; " it does not need to be supple- 
 mented by one's friends." 
 
 The train was moving very slowly ; 
 people were laughing and talking gayly all 
 185
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 about them ; more lights had come out on 
 the water, and a gentle breeze had sud- 
 denly sprung up. 
 
 "Just what do you mean by that, I 
 wonder ? " he said slowly. 
 
 "Not much," she answered lightly. 
 " But I do mean," she added, as he looked 
 away from her, " that, whether it be the 
 consequence of the altruism of the day, 
 or of advancing age, as I said at first, it 
 has grown to be provokingly difficult to 
 ignore those who lose more serious things 
 than a college championship. Verest- 
 chagin and such people have spoiled his- 
 tory for us. Who cares who won a great 
 battle now ? it is such a small thing to 
 our consciousness compared to the number 
 of people who were killed and on one 
 side as well as the other." 
 
 " Except, of course, where there is a 
 great principle, not great possessions, at 
 stake ? " 
 
 "Yes," she assented, but somewhat 
 doubtfully, " yes, of course." 
 1 86
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 u But it shows a terrible dearth of in- 
 terest when we get down to principles." 
 
 " Yes," she said again, laughing. 
 Meanwhile Miss Normaine's niece was 
 pursuing her own ends with that direct- 
 ness which, though lacking the evasive 
 subtlety of maturer years, is at once ef- 
 fective and commendable. 
 
 " It was nothing but a box of choco- 
 late peppermints," she insisted. " I 'd 
 never be so reckless as to wager anything 
 more without thinking it over. I have an 
 allowance, and I 'm obliged to be careful 
 what I spend." 
 
 He looked her over with approval. 
 
 " You spend it well," he asserted. 
 
 " I have to," she returned, " or else 
 boys like you would never look at me 
 twice." 
 
 " I don't know about that." He spoke 
 as one who, though convinced, is not a 
 bigot. 
 
 " It 's fortunate that I do," she replied 
 decidedly. " I 'm mortifyingly dependent 
 187
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 on my clothes. There 's my Aunt Kath- 
 arine now, she has an air in any- 
 thing." 
 
 " I like you better than your aunt," he 
 confessed. 
 
 "Of course you do. I 've taken pains 
 to have you. But it was just as much as 
 ever that you looked at me twice last 
 night." 
 
 " I was afraid of making you too con- 
 spicuous." 
 
 " A lot you were ! " she retorted rudely. 
 " Who was that girl you danced with ? " 
 
 He smiled wearily. 
 
 44 Tommy Renwick's cousin from the 
 West." 
 
 " She is pretty." 
 
 "Very good goods." 
 
 " Is she as nice as Tommy ? " 
 
 "No. There are not many girls as 
 nearly right as Tommy." 
 
 "Except me." 
 
 " Well, perhaps, except you." 
 
 " But then, I 'm not many." 
 188
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 " No, separate wrapper, only one in a 
 box," he admitted handsomely. 
 
 Miss Normaine's niece had dark eyes, 
 brown hair that curled in small inadvertent 
 rings, and a rich warm complexion through 
 which the crimson glowed in her round 
 cheeks. She was so pretty that she ought 
 to have been suppressed, and had a way 
 of speaking that made her charming all 
 over again. 
 
 " It was not chocolate peppermints, and 
 you know quite well it was n't," he said, 
 with the finished boldness compatible with 
 hair parted exactly in the middle and a 
 wide experience. Miss Normaine's niece 
 opened her eyes wide. 
 
 " What was it ? " 
 
 " Nothing but your heart." 
 
 She considered the matter seriously. 
 
 " Was it really ? " 
 
 " It was really." 
 
 " And I 've lost," she pondered aloud. 
 
 " And you 've lost." 
 
 She raised her eyes with a glance in 
 189
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 which he could read perfect faith, glad 
 acknowledgment, and entire surrender. 
 
 11 Do you want me to keep telling 
 you ? " she demanded with adorable petu- 
 lance. 
 
 " There is Henry Donald ! " exclaimed 
 Miss Normaine. " I did n't see him be- 
 fore. He has grown stout, has n't he ? " 
 
 " Yes, and bald." 
 
 " Is n't he young to be bald and stout 
 too ? Do tell me that he is," urged Miss 
 Normaine with pathos. " He seems just 
 out of college to me, and I don't like to 
 think that I 've lost all sense of propor- 
 tion." 
 
 " Oh, no, you have n't," said Arnold, 
 consolingly. " It 's only he that has lost 
 his. He doesn't take exercise enough. 
 He 's coming this way to speak to you. 
 You had better think of something more 
 flattering to say." 
 
 " I never thought Harry Donald would 
 get stout and bald," went on Miss Nor- 
 maine, to herself. " There was a period 
 190
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 when I let my fancy play about him, most 
 of the time too, but I never thought of 
 that." 
 
 " Who 's that man squeezing through 
 the crowd to speak to Aunt Katharine ? " 
 asked Alice. 
 
 " That ? Oh, that 's one of the old 
 boys." 
 
 " I can see that for myself." 
 
 " He 's a Judge Donald of Wisconsin. 
 He 's pretty well on, but he 's a Jim-dandy 
 after-dinner speaker. Made a smooth 
 speech at his class reunion." 
 
 "They still like to come to the race 
 and things, don't they ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, and they 're right into it all 
 while they 're here too." 
 
 Unhappily unconscious of the kindly 
 feeling being extended to him from the 
 bench in front, Judge Donald seated him- 
 self by Katharine, just as they drew slowly 
 into the station. 
 
 " You have n't been on for some years, 
 have you ? " she asked him. 
 191
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 " No," he answered, " I 've been busy." 
 
 u Oh, we know you 've been busy," 
 she interpolated, smiling. 
 
 "You're the same Katharine Nor- 
 maine," he rejoined. " I thought you 
 were, by the looks, and now I 'm sure. 
 You don't really know that I 've ever had 
 a case, but you make me feel that my 
 name echoes through two worlds at the 
 very least." 
 
 "And you are still Harry Donald, sus- 
 picious of the gifts that are tossed into 
 your lap," and they both laughed. 
 
 "This is the man of the class," went 
 on Judge Donald, turning to Ellis, who 
 had taken a seat above them. " Your 
 books have gotten out to Wisconsin, and 
 that 's fame enough for any man." 
 
 u Have they really ? " said Arnold. " I 
 supposed they only wrote notices of them 
 in the papers." 
 
 " Oh, yes," murmured Miss Normaine. 
 " Ellis has turned out clever, one never 
 knows." 
 
 192
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 " I guess they 're good, too," went on 
 Donald ; " I tell 'em I used to think you 
 wrote well in college." 
 
 "I thought I did, too," answered Ar- 
 nold. " I don't believe we 're either of 
 us quite so sure I write well now." 
 
 They had delayed their steps to keep 
 out of the crowd, for the people were 
 leaving the train, some hurrying to catch 
 other trains, some stopping to greet friends 
 and acquaintances ; there was a general 
 rushing to and fro, the clamor of well- 
 bred voices, the calling out of names in 
 surprised accost, the frou-frou of gowns 
 and the fragrance of flowers, in the bare 
 and untidy station. 
 
 At last the party of which Miss Nor- 
 maine was one left the car, and with the 
 two men she made her way down the plat- 
 form, through the midst of the hubbub, 
 which waxed more insistent every moment. 
 
 " It is with a somewhat fevered anxiety 
 that I am keeping my eye on Alice," she 
 said. 
 
 13 193
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 " She is with a young man," said Judge 
 Donald. 
 
 " That statement has not the merit of 
 affording information. She has been with 
 a young man ever since we left home." 
 
 " It is n't the same one, either," supple- 
 mented Arnold. 
 
 u It never is the same one," said Miss 
 Normaine, somewhat impatiently. " I 
 am under no obligation to look after or 
 even differentiate the young men. I sim- 
 ply have to see that the child does n't get 
 lost with any one of them." 
 
 " She won't get lost with one," said 
 Arnold, reassuringly, as they were separ- 
 ated by a cross-current of determined hu- 
 manity. "She has three now, and they 
 are all shaking hands at a terrible 
 rate." 
 
 Judge Donald departed on a tour of 
 investigation, and returned to say that 
 there was no chance just at present of 
 their getting away. It was a scene of 
 confusion which only patience and time 
 194
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 could elucidate. The omniscience of offi- 
 cials had given place to a less satisfactory 
 if more human ignorance ; last come was 
 first served, and a seat in a train seemed 
 by no means to insure transportation. It 
 was as well to wait for a while outside as 
 in; so with many others they strolled up 
 and down, until their car should be more 
 easily accessible. 
 
 "Alice is an example of the profound 
 truths we have been enunciating, Ellis," 
 said Miss Normaine. " She has an ardent 
 admirer on the defeated crew. At one 
 time I did not know but his devotion 
 might shake her lifelong allegiance to the 
 other university ; but now that victory has 
 fairly perched, you observe she has small 
 thought for the bearers of captured ban- 
 ners. We were saying, Mr. Arnold and 
 I," she explained to Donald, " that it is 
 at our time of life that people begin to 
 remember that when somebody beats, 
 there is somebody else beaten." 
 
 Donald grew grave, as grave as a 
 195
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 man can be with the feathers of an un- 
 conscious girl tickling one ear and a 
 fleeting chorus of the latest " catchy " 
 song penetrating the other. 
 
 "Arnold and I can appreciate it better 
 than you, I guess," he said, " because 
 there have been times when we thought 
 it highly probable we might get beaten 
 ourselves." 
 
 " Highly," assented Arnold. 
 
 "But you, Miss Normaine, you've 
 never had any difficulty in getting in on 
 the first floor," went on the other. 
 " You 've quaffed the foam of the beaker 
 and eaten the peach from the sunniest side 
 of the wall right along I 'm quite sure 
 of it just to look at you." 
 
 "The Scripture moveth us in sundry 
 places," said Katharine, with a lightness 
 that did not entirely veil something seri- 
 ous, " not to put too much faith in appear- 
 ances. Even I am not above learning a 
 lesson now and then." 
 
 He looked at her curiously. 
 196
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 " I 'd like to know by what right you 
 have n't changed more," he said. 
 
 " Did you expect to find me in ruins, 
 after let me see, how many years?" 
 she laughed. "The hand of Time is 
 heavy, but not necessarily obliterating. 
 What has become of Alice ? " 
 
 " She can't have gone far," said Arnold. 
 " She was with us a moment ago." 
 
 u There she is with some of the rest of 
 your party I caught a glimpse of her 
 just now," added Donald. " She 's quite 
 safe." 
 
 Alice stood talking with a girl of her 
 own age and two or three undergraduates, 
 on the outskirts of the crowd. One of 
 the youths wore in his buttonhole the los- 
 ing color, but he bore himself with a 
 proud dignity that forbade casual condo- 
 lences. Alice's eyes were bright, and her 
 pretty laugh rippled forth with readily 
 communicated mirth, while the very roses 
 of her hat nodded with the spirit of un- 
 thinking gayety. 
 
 197
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 "There's the car that belongs to our 
 fellows," said, half to himself, the person 
 of sympathies alien to those of his present 
 companions. "They must be about 
 yes, they 're getting on," he added, as a 
 car which had been propelled from a 
 neighboring switch stopped at the farther 
 end of the station. Alice's head turned 
 with a swiftness of motion that set the 
 roses vibrating as if a sudden breeze had 
 ruffled their petals. 
 
 " The crew ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," assented the young man. 
 
 She turned more definitely towards him, 
 away from the rest of the group, whose 
 attention was called in another direction. 
 
 " Will you do something for me, Mr. 
 Francis ? " 
 
 " Why, of course." 
 
 Alice had not anticipated refusal, and 
 her directions were prompt and lucid. 
 
 " Please go into that car and ask Mr. 
 Herbert to come out to the platform, at 
 the other end, to speak to me. There 
 198
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 isn't much time to lose, so please be 
 quick." 
 
 As he lifted his hat and moved away, 
 she joined in the conversation of the 
 others, which seemed to be largely meta- 
 phorical. 
 
 "So he got it that time," one of the 
 young men was explaining, " where Katy 
 wore the beads." 
 
 " Well, it served him quite right," said 
 Alice, with the generosity of ignorance. 
 Her whole attention was apparently given 
 to the matter in hand, but she was stand- 
 ing so that she could see the somewhat 
 vague vestibule of the brilliant but cur- 
 tained car. 
 
 " Oh, yes, but it was n't on the tintype 
 that the other fellow should have been 
 there at all." 
 
 41 No, to be sure, but that made it all 
 the better," said Alice's friend, with sym- 
 pathetic vision. 
 
 " Why, there 's Eugene Herbert ! " ex- 
 claimed Alice. " I really must go and 
 199
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 tell him that he pulled beautifully, if he 
 did n't win, and comforting things like 
 that ! Don't go off without me." 
 
 Before comment could be framed upon 
 their lips, she had left her companions and 
 was slipping quickly down the platform. 
 
 " She knows him very well," said the 
 other girl ; " she '11 be back in a minute." 
 
 "She must have sharp eyes," said an- 
 other of the group, as he looked after her. 
 But too many people were about for fixed 
 attention to be bestowed upon a single 
 figure. There was but one light under 
 the roof of that part of the station where 
 a young man was standing, looking rather 
 sulkily up and down. Alice was a little 
 breathless with her rapid walk when she 
 reached him. 
 
 " I thought Francis was giving me a 
 song and dance," he said, as he grasped 
 the hand she held out. 
 
 "No, I sent him," she explained hur- 
 riedly. "And I wanted to say " She 
 paused an instant as she looked up at him. 
 200
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 He was serious, and wore a look of 
 fatigue, in spite of the superb physical 
 health of his whole appearance. The 
 light fell across her face under the dark 
 brim of her hat, and touched its beauty 
 into something vividly apart from the 
 shadows and sordidness of the place, yet 
 paler than its sunlit brilliancy. 
 
 " I wanted to say," she went on bravely, 
 " that I 've changed my mind. At least, 
 I did n't really have any mind at all. And 
 if you still want me to " she paused 
 again, but something in his eyes reassured 
 her " I will I 'd really like to, you 
 know, and please be quiet, there is n't but 
 a minute to say it in and I 'd never 
 have told you at least not for years and 
 years if you had won the race. Now 
 let go of my hand there are hundreds of 
 people all about and you can come and 
 see me to-morrow." 
 
 It was all over in a moment. She had 
 snatched her hand away, and was speeding 
 back with a clear-eyed look of conscious 
 201
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 rectitude, and he had responded to the 
 exhortations of divers occupants of the 
 car, backed by a disinterested brakeman, 
 and stepped aboard. 
 
 " Oh, well, there 's another race next 
 year," he said to somebody who spoke to 
 him as he sat down in the end seat. It 
 was early for such optimism, and they 
 thought Herbert had a disgustingly cheer- 
 ful temperament. 
 
 Alice returned just as Miss Normaine 
 and Arnold came up, and they all went 
 back together, collecting the rest of the 
 party as they went to their train. It was 
 a vivacious progress along the homeward 
 route. Paeans of victory and the flash of 
 Roman candles filled the air. At one 
 time, when some particular demonstration 
 was absorbing the attention of the men, 
 Miss Normaine found her niece at her side. 
 
 " Aunt Katharine, you know I 've 
 always adored you," she said, with a re- 
 pose of manner that disguised a trifle of 
 apprehension. 
 
 202
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 11 Yes, I know, Alice, but I really can't 
 promise to take you anywhere to-morrow. 
 I" 
 
 " I don't want you to I only want to 
 confide in you." 
 
 "Oh, dear, what have you been doing 
 now ? " 
 
 " I think," replied Alice, while the cho- 
 rus of sound about them swelled almost 
 to sublimity, " that I 've been getting en- 
 gaged to Eugene Herbert, you know." 
 
 " Only to Eugene Herbert," breathed 
 Miss Normaine. " I 'm glad it occurred 
 to you to mention it. But why did n't 
 you say so before ? " 
 
 " It did n't it was n't before," said 
 Alice, faltering an instant under the calmly 
 judicial eye of her aunt. " You see," she 
 went on quickly, " it was because they 
 lost the race. It would n't have been at 
 all not anyway for a long time," and 
 again her mental glance swept the vista of 
 the years she had mentioned to Herbert 
 himself, " if it had n't been for that ; 
 203
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 but I could n't let him go back without 
 either the race or or me," she con- 
 cluded ingenuously. 
 
 Arnold had been talking with a man of 
 his own age, and hearing things that were 
 very pleasant to hear about his latest work, 
 and yet, as he leaned back in his chair 
 and looked across at Katharine Normaine, 
 whose own expression was a little pensive, 
 he sighed. It was a great deal he told 
 himself it was nearly everything to 
 have what he had now in the line of ef- 
 fort which he loved and had chosen. It 
 was not so good as the work itself, of 
 course, but the recognition was grateful. 
 And as his eyes dwelt again upon the dis- 
 tinction of Miss Normaine's profile, with 
 the knot of blonde hair at the back of her 
 well-held head, he sighed again, as he rose 
 and went over to her. She looked up at 
 him, and her eyes were not quite so calm 
 as usual. 
 
 " I am sitting," she said, " among the 
 ruins." 
 
 204
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 " Indeed ? " he said. " Is there room 
 upon a fallen column or a broken plinth 
 for me ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," she answered, " but it is 
 not for a successful man like you, whose 
 name is upon the public lips, to gaze with 
 me upon demolished theories." 
 
 " I have taken my time in gazing upon 
 them before now," he observed. 
 
 u Everybody is talking about your 
 book," she said. 
 
 " Oh, no, only a very few people. But 
 about your theories which of them has 
 proved itself unable to bear the weight of 
 experience ? " 
 
 "You may remember I dwelt some- 
 what at length upon the indifference of 
 happy youth to the stings of outrageous 
 fortune when supported by some one 
 else ? " 
 
 41 1 remember. I regard it as the lesson 
 for the day." 
 
 " It 's early to mention it, but I am 
 obliged to give you the evidence of my 
 205
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 error honor demands it and Alice will 
 not mind, even if she sees fit to contradict 
 it to-morrow ; " and she told him what 
 had just been told her. 
 
 He smiled as she concluded her state- 
 ment, and she, meeting his glance in all 
 seriousness, broke down into a moment's 
 laughter. 
 
 " c She does not know anything but that 
 her side is beating,' " he quoted medita- 
 tively. 
 
 " I thought my generosity in confession 
 might at least forestall sarcasm," she said 
 severely. 
 
 "It ought to do so," he admitted. 
 
 There was a moment's pause. 
 
 " Has youth itself changed with the 
 times, I wonder ? " he speculated. " Cer- 
 tainly you did not sympathize overmuch 
 with defeat at Alice's age." 
 
 She did not answer, and she was look- 
 ing away from him through the glass, 
 beyond which the darkness was pierced 
 now and then by a shaft of illumination. 
 206
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 The pensiveness that had rested on her 
 face, when he had looked across the 
 car at her, had deepened almost into 
 sadness. 
 
 "And now," he went on, "you have 
 called me successful which shuts me 
 out from your more mature sympathy." 
 
 Still she did not answer. He bent a 
 little nearer to her. 
 
 " Believe me, Katharine," he said, 
 u my success is not so very intoxicating 
 after all. I need sympathy of a certain 
 kind as much as I did twenty years 
 ago." 
 
 She glanced at him. 
 
 " Is that all you want ? " she asked 
 with a swift smile. 
 
 " No," he returned boldly ; and she 
 looked away again, out into the darkness 
 through which they were rushing. 
 
 " I had hoped," he went on, " that my 
 
 so-called success might be something to 
 
 offer you after all this time something 
 
 you would care for and now I find that 
 
 207
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 your ideals are all reversed. I have not 
 won much, but I have won a little, and 
 you tell me to-day that it is only extreme 
 youth that cares for the winners." 
 
 " And that I have found out that I was 
 mistaken." Her voice was low, but quite 
 clear. " Have I not told you that, too ? " 
 
 " And about experience of life making 
 us care the more for those who fail in 
 everything ? " he waited a moment. 
 " You have not mentioned that that was a 
 mistake also. I wish you 'd stop looking 
 out of that confounded window," he added 
 irritably, " and look at me. Heaven 
 knows I 've failed in some things ! " 
 
 She laughed a little at his tone, but she 
 did not follow his suggestion. 
 
 " Oh, no," she said, " you have suc- 
 ceeded." 
 
 " And that means what ? " 
 
 " I told you I was sitting among the 
 ruins of my theories," she said, while a 
 faint color, which he saw with sudden 
 pleasure, rose in her cheek. 
 208
 
 Hearts Unfortified 
 
 " That adverse theory has that gone 
 too ? " 
 
 " I have had enough of theories," she 
 declared softly. " What I really care for 
 is success." 
 
 14 209
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 ""THE sun had not quite disappeared be- 
 hind the horizon, though the days 
 no longer extended themselves into the 
 long, murmurous twilight of summer; in- 
 stead, the evening fell with a certain defi- 
 niteness, precursor of the still later year. 
 
 On the step of the door that led di- 
 rectly into the living-room of his rambling 
 house sat Reuben Granger, an old man, 
 bent with laborious seasons, and not un- 
 touched by rheumatism. The wrinkles 
 on his face were many and curiously in- 
 tertwined ; his weather-beaten straw hat 
 seemed to supply any festal deficiency in- 
 dicated by the shirt-sleeves ; and his dim 
 eyes blinked with shrewdness upon the 
 dusty road, along which, at intervals, a 
 belated wagon passed, clattering. His 
 days of usefulness were not over, but he 
 210
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 had reached the age when one is willing 
 to spend more time looking on. He had 
 always been tired at this hour of the day, 
 but it was only of late that fatigue had 
 had a certain numbing effect, which dis- 
 inclined him to think of the tasks of 
 tomorrow. He came to this period of 
 repose rather earlier nowadays, and after 
 less sturdy labor somehow, a great deal 
 of the sturdy labor got itself done without 
 him ; and there was an acquiescence in 
 even this dispensation perceptible in the 
 fall of his knotted hands and the tranquil 
 gaze of his faded eyes. 
 
 About a dozen yards beyond him, on 
 the doorstep leading directly into the liv- 
 ing-room of a house which joined the 
 other, midway between two windows (the 
 union marked by a third doorway unused 
 and boarded up, around whose stone was 
 the growth of decades), sat Stephen Gran- 
 ger. His weather-beaten straw hat shaded 
 eyes dim also, but still keen ; and a net- 
 work of curious wrinkles wandered over
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 his tanned and sun-dried skin. Upon his 
 features, too, dwelt that look of patient 
 tolerance that is not indifference, that 
 only the "wise years" can bring j and 
 on his face as well as his brother's certain 
 lines about the puckered mouth went far 
 to contradict it. If one saw only one of 
 the old men, there was nothing grim in 
 the spectacle that of a weary farmer 
 looking out upon the highroad from the 
 shelter of his own doorway; but the sight 
 of them both together took on suddenly a 
 forbidding air, a suggestion of sullenness, 
 of dogged resolution ; they were so pre- 
 cisely alike, and they sat so near one an- 
 other on thresholds of the same long, low 
 building, and they seemed so unconscious 
 the one of the other. It was impossible 
 not to believe the unconsciousness wilful 
 and deliberate. A heavily freighted and 
 loose-jointed wagon rattled noisily but 
 slowly along the road. 
 
 " Howaryer ? " called out one of its 
 occupants. 
 
 212
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 " 'Are yer ? " returned Stephen Granger. 
 
 Reuben had opened his mouth to speak, 
 
 but closed it in silence, while he gazed 
 
 o 
 
 straight before him, unseeing, apparently, 
 and unheeding. The leisurely driver 
 checked his horse, which responded in- 
 stantly to the welcome indication. Be- 
 hind him in the wagon two calves looked 
 somewhat perplexedly forth, their mild 
 eyes, with but slightly accentuated curi- 
 osity, surveying the Grangers and the 
 landscape from the durance of the cart. 
 
 " Been tradin' ? " asked Stephen. 
 
 "Wai, yes, I have," answered the 
 other, with that lingering intonation that 
 seems to modify even the most uncondi- 
 tional assent. 
 
 " Got a good bargain ? " 
 
 " Wai, so-so." 
 
 "Many folks down to the store this 
 evenin' ? " 
 
 " Wai, considerable." 
 
 " Ain't any news ? " 
 
 u Not any as I know on." 
 213
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 Stephen nodded his acceptance of this 
 state of things. The other nodded, too. 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " G'long," said the trader, as if he 
 would have said it before if he had thought 
 of it. But the horse had taken but a few 
 steps when another voice greeted him. 
 
 " Howaryer, Monroe ? " said Reuben 
 Granger. 
 
 " Whoa," said Monroe. " Howaryer ? " 
 
 " Been down to the Centre ? " asked 
 Reuben. 
 
 " Yare." 
 
 " Got some calves in there, I see." 
 
 " Wai, yes ; been doin' some tradin'. " 
 
 Reuben nodded. " Ain't any news, I 
 take it ? " 
 
 " None in partickler." Another ex- 
 change of nods followed. 
 
 " G'long," said Monroe, after a short 
 silence, during which the calves looked 
 more bored than usual. But the shaky 
 wheels had made but a few revolutions be- 
 fore the owner of the wagon reined in again. 
 214
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 " Say," ha called back, twisting himself 
 around and resting his hand on the bar 
 that confined the calves. " They 've took 
 down the shed back of the meetin'-house. 
 Said 'twas fallin' to pieces. Might 'a' 
 come down on the heads of the hosses. 
 Goin' to put up a new one." Then, as 
 his steed recommenced its modest substi- 
 tute for a trot, unseen of the Grangers he 
 permitted himself an undemonstrative 
 chuckle. " They can sorter divide that 
 piece of news between 'em," he said to 
 his companion, who had been the silent 
 auditor of the conversation. A moment 
 of indecision on the part of the Grangers 
 had given him time to make this obser- 
 vation, but it was not concluded when 
 Reuben's cracked voice sang out cheer- 
 fully, " Ye don't say ! " A slight con- 
 traction passed over Stephen's face. 
 Much as he would have liked to mark the 
 bit of information for his own, now that 
 it had been appropriated by another, he 
 gave no further sign. The noise of the 
 215
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 wagon died along the road, and still Reu- 
 ben and Stephen Granger sat gazing 
 straight before them at the hill which 
 faced them from the other side of the 
 way, at the foot of which the darkness 
 was falling fast. By and by a lamp was 
 lighted in one half of the house, and a 
 moment later there was a flash through 
 the window of the other, and slowly and 
 stiffly the two old men rose and went 
 inside, each closing his door behind 
 him. 
 
 " Them 's the Granger twins," had said 
 the owner of the calves in answer to his 
 companion's question as soon as they were 
 out of hearing. " Yes, they be sort of 
 odd. Don't have nothin' to say to one 
 another, and they 've lived next door to 
 each other ever since they have n't lived 
 with each other. It 's goin' on thirty 
 years since they 've spoke. Yes, they do 
 look alike I don't see no partickler dif- 
 ference myself, and it would make it 
 kinder awk'ard if they expected folks to 
 216
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 know which one he 's talkin' to. But 
 they don't. They 're kinder sensible about 
 that. They 're real sensible 'bout some 
 things," he added tolerantly. " Oh, they 
 was powerful fond of each other at first 
 
 twins, y' know. They was always 
 together, and when each of 'em set up 
 housekeeping nothin' would do for it but 
 they should jine their houses and live side 
 by side they knew enough not to live 
 together, seein' as how, though they was 
 twins, their wives wasn't. So they took 
 and added on to the old homestead, and 
 each of 'em took an end. Wai, I dunno 
 how it began no, it wasn't their wives 
 
 it don't seem hardly human natur', but 
 it was n't their wives." The speaker 
 sighed a little. He was commonly sup- 
 posed to have gained more experience than 
 felicity through matrimony. " I 've heard 
 it said that it was hoss-reddish that begun 
 it. You see, they used to eat together, 
 and Stephen he used to like a little hoss- 
 reddish along with his victuals in the 
 
 217
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 spring, and Reuben, he said 't was a pizen 
 weed. But there ! you can never tell ; 
 they 're both of 'em just as sot as as 
 erysipelas ; and when that 's so, somethin' 
 or other is sure to come. I know for a 
 fact that Reuben always wanted a taste 
 of molasses in his beans, and Stephen 
 could n't abide anythin' but vinegar. So, 
 bymeby, they took to havin' their meals 
 separate. You know it ain't in human 
 natur ' to see other folks puttin' things 
 in their mouths that don't taste good to 
 yours, and keep still about it." 
 
 His companion admitted the truth of 
 this statement. 
 
 " Sometimes I think," went on Monroe, 
 musingly, " that if they 'd begun by eatin' 
 separate they might have got along, 'cause 
 it 's only His saints that the Lord has 
 made pleasant-tempered enough to stand 
 bein' pestered with three meals a day, 
 unless they 're busy enough not to have 
 time to think about anythin' but swallerin'. 
 Hayin'-time most men is kinder pleasant 
 218
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 'bout their food so long's it's ready. 
 Wai, however it was, after they eat sep- 
 arate there was other things. There was 
 the weather. They always read the 
 weather signs different. And each of 'em 
 had that way of speakin' 'bout the weather 
 as if it was a little contrivance of his 
 own, and he was the only person who 
 could give a hint how 't was run, or had 
 any natural means of findin' out if 't was 
 hot, or cold, or middlin', 'less he took hold 
 and told 'em. It 's a powerful tryin' sort 
 of way, and finally it come so that, if 
 Reuben said we was in for a wet spell, 
 Stephen 'd start right off and begin to 
 mow his medder grass, and if Stephen 
 'lowed there was a sharp thunder-shower 
 comin' up, inside of ten minutes, Reuben 'd 
 go and git his waterin'-pot and water 
 every blamed thing he had in his garden. 
 I dunno when it was they stopped speak- 
 in', but that was about all there was to it 
 little things like that. They did n't 
 either of 'em have any children ; some- 
 219
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 times I Ve thought if they had, the kids 
 might sort of brought 'em together they 
 could n't have kep' 'em apart without they 
 moved away, and of course they would n't 
 either of 'em give in to the other enough 
 to move away from the old farm. Then 
 their wives died 'bout a year from each 
 other. They kep' kind o' friendly to the 
 last, but they could n't stir their husbands 
 no more 'n if they was safes it seems, 
 sometimes, as if husbands and wives was 
 sort o' too near one another, when it 
 comes to movin', to git any kind of a 
 purchase. When Reuben's wife died, 
 folks said they 'd have to git reconciled 
 now ; and when Stephen's died, there 
 didn't seem anythin' else for 'em to do; 
 but folks did n't know 'em. Stephen went 
 up country where his wife come from and 
 brought home a little gal, that was her 
 niece, to keep house for him; and then 
 what did Reuben do but go down to Zoar, 
 where his wife come from, and git her 
 half-sister both of 'em young, scart 
 220
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 little things, and no kin to one another 
 and they can't do nothin' even if they 
 wanted to. Bad-tempered ? Wai, no. 
 I would n't say the Granger twins was 
 bad-tempered ; " and the biographer dexter- 
 ously removed a fly from his horse's pa- 
 tient back. " They 're sot, of course, but 
 they ain't what they used to be I guess 
 it 's been a sort of discipline to 'em 
 livin' next door and never takin' no kind 
 of notice. They 're pleasant folks to 
 have dealin's with, and I 've had both of 
 'em ask me if I cal'lated it was goin' to 
 rain, when I 've been goin' by different 
 times, o' course but it 'most knocked 
 the wind out of me when they done it, 
 'stead of givin' me p'inters. Yes, you 
 never can speak to 'em both at once, 
 'cause the other one never hears if ye do ; 
 but there ! it ain't much trouble to say a 
 thing over twice most of us say it 
 more 'n that 'fore we can git it 'tended to ; 
 and," he added, as he leaned forward and 
 dropped the whip into its socket prepara- 
 221
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 tory to turning into his own yard, " most 
 of us hears it more 'n once." 
 
 " Monroe," called a voice from the 
 porch, " did you bring them calves ? " 
 
 "Yare," said Monroe. 
 
 " I told you if you stopped to bring 
 'em, you would n't be home till after 
 dark." 
 
 " Wai ? " 
 
 " I told you 't would be dark and you 'd 
 be late to supper." 
 
 " Wai ? " and Monroe took down the 
 end of the wagon, and persuaded out the 
 calves. 
 
 The person who was Monroe's com- 
 panion and the recipient of his confidences 
 was a young woman who was an in- 
 mate of his house for the present month 
 of September. 
 
 Confident and somewhat audacious in 
 her conduct of life, Cynthia Gardner had 
 felt that this September existence lacked a 
 motive for energy before it brought her 
 into contact with the Granger twins. 
 
 222
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 " They are so interesting," she said to 
 Monroe, a day or two later. 
 
 "Wai, I guess they be," answered 
 Monroe, amiably. The quality of being 
 interesting did not assume to his vision 
 the proportions it presented to Cynthia 
 Gardner's, but he saw no reason to deny 
 its existence. Cynthia cast a backward 
 glance from the wagon as she spoke, and 
 saw Reuben slowly and stiffly gathering 
 up dry stalks in his garden, while Stephen 
 propped up the declining side of a water- 
 butt in his adjoining domain, one man's 
 back carefully turned to the other. 
 
 She walked back from the Centre, and 
 stopped to talk with the twins in a casual 
 manner. But no careful inadvertence 
 drew them, at this or any later time when 
 their social relations had become firmly 
 established, into a triangular conversation. 
 They greeted her with cordiality, responded 
 to her advances, talked to her with the 
 tolerant and humorous shrewdness that 
 lurked in their dim eyes, but it was always 
 223
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 one at a time. If, with disarming naivete, 
 she appealed to Stephen, Reuben turned 
 into a graven image; and if she chaffed 
 with Reuben, Stephen became as one who 
 having eyes seeth not, and having ears 
 heareth not. But she persisted with a 
 zeal which, if not according to knowl- 
 edge, was the result of a firm belief in 
 the possibility of a final adjustment of 
 differences. She did not know, herself, 
 what led her into such earnestness, a 
 caprice, or the lingering pathos of two 
 lonely, barren lives. 
 
 Monroe watched her proceedings with 
 tolerant kindliness. It was not his busi- 
 ness to discourage her. He knew what 
 it was to be discouraged, and he felt that 
 there was quite enough discouragement 
 going about in life without his adding 
 to it. 
 
 " I tell you they would like to be rec- 
 onciled, Mr. Monroe," said Cynthia. 
 " They don't know they would like it, 
 but they would." 
 
 224
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 "Wai, mebbe they would. They're 
 gittin' to be old men. And when you 
 git along as far as that, you don't, per- 
 haps, worry so much about bein' recon- 
 ciled, but neither does it seem as worth 
 while not to. There 's a good deal that 's 
 sort of instructive about gittin' old," he 
 ruminated. 
 
 " It 's very lonely for them both, I 
 think ; " and Cynthia's voice fell into the 
 ready accents of youthful pity. 
 
 " Their quarrel 's been kinder comp'ny 
 for 'em," suggested Monroe. 
 
 " It 's overstayed its time," asserted 
 Cynthia. 
 
 " Mebbe," answered Monroe. 
 
 The crisis for Cynthia had been look- 
 ing for a crisis came, after all, unex- 
 pectedly. She had been for the mail, and 
 as she drove the amenable horse over the 
 homeward road she strained her eyes to 
 read the last page of an unusually absorb- 
 ing letter, for it was again sundown, and 
 the Granger twins again sat in their door- 
 15 225
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 ways. There was a decided chill in the 
 air, this late afternoon. The old men, 
 though they were sturdy still, had put on 
 their coats, and from behind them the 
 comfortable glow of two stove doors 
 promised a later hour of warmth and com- 
 fort. Their aspect was more melancholy 
 than usual, whether it were that the bleak- 
 ness of winter seemed pressing close upon 
 the bleakness of lonely age, or that there 
 was an added weariness in the droop of 
 the thin shoulders and the fixed eyes it 
 was certain that the picture had gained a 
 shadow of depression. 
 
 For once, Cynthia was not thinking of 
 them as she drew near. The reins were 
 loose in her hand, and as she bent to catch 
 the waning light, an open newspaper, 
 which she had laid carelessly on the seat 
 beside her, was lifted by a transient gust 
 of wind and tossed almost over her horse's 
 head. No horse, of whatever serenity, 
 can be thus treated without resentment. 
 He jerked the reins from her heedless 
 226
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 hands, made a sharp turn to avoid the 
 white, wavering, inconsequent thing at his 
 feet, a wheel caught in a neighboring 
 boulder, and Cynthia was spilled out just 
 in front of the Granger house and midway 
 between the twins. In a common im- 
 pulse of fright the two old men started to 
 their feet. For an instant they paused to 
 judge of the situation, but it was no time 
 for fine distinctions. The accident had, 
 to all appearances, happened as near one 
 as the other, and meanwhile a young and 
 pretty woman lay unsuccored upon the 
 ground. It became a point of honor to 
 yield nothing to an ignored companion. 
 As speedily as their years allowed, Stephen 
 and Reuben marched to the rescue. The 
 horse, meanwhile, had dragged the over- 
 turned wagon but a few yards, and had 
 stopped of his own reasonable accord. 
 As Cynthia raised herself rather confus- 
 edly and quite convinced that she was 
 killed, her first impression was that the 
 angels were older than she had fancied, 
 227
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 and looked very much like the Granger 
 twins. But in a few seconds her balance 
 of mind was restored, she realized that 
 while there was life there was hope, and 
 that for the first time in her experience 
 the eyes of Reuben and Stephen were 
 fixed solicitously upon a common object, 
 that each of them had stretched out to 
 her a helping hand, and that two voices 
 with precisely the same anxious intonation 
 were saying, 
 
 " Be ye hurt ? " 
 
 It was a solemn moment, but Cynthia 
 Gardner was of the stuff that recognizes 
 opportunity. She laid a hand upon each 
 rugged arm, and steadied herself between 
 them ; she perceived that they trembled 
 under her touch, and she felt that the in- 
 stant in which they stood side by side was 
 dramatic. 
 
 u I declare, 't was too bad," said Reuben. 
 
 " 'T was too bad," said Stephen. 
 
 " Is the horse all right ? " asked Cynthia, 
 feebly. 
 
 228
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 "Yes, Johnny Allen got him," said 
 Stephen. 
 
 " Johnny Allen came along," said Reu- 
 ben, as if Stephen had not spoken, " and 
 he 's got him." 
 
 " I can walk," she said, with not un- 
 conscious pathos, " if you will walk with 
 me, but I must go in and rest a moment ; " 
 and the three moved slowly straight forward. 
 
 A few steps brought them to the point 
 at which they must turn aside to reach 
 either entrance. Before them rose the 
 old boarded-up, dismal doorway, weather- 
 beaten, stained, repellent as bitterness. 
 There was another fateful pause. Cyn- 
 thia felt the quiver that ran through the 
 frames of the old men as for the first time 
 in long years they stood side by side be- 
 fore the doorway about which as children 
 they had played, and through which as 
 boys they had rushed together. In Cyn- 
 thia's drooping head plans were rapidly 
 forming themselves, but she had time to 
 be thankful that she did not know which 
 229
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 was Reuben and which was Stephen it 
 saved her the anxiety of decision ; instinc- 
 tively she turned to the right, a small 
 brown hand clutching impartially either 
 rough and shabby sleeve. 
 
 The man on her right swerved in an 
 impulse of desertion, but her grasp did 
 not relax. 
 
 " Is the judgment of Solomon to be 
 pronounced ! " she said to herself, half 
 hysterically, for her nerves were a little 
 shaken. 
 
 " Oh, I hope I sha' n't faint ! " she ex- 
 claimed aloud. 
 
 Beneath Reuben's rustic exterior beat 
 the American heart that cannot desert an 
 elegant female in distress. He followed 
 the inclination of the other two to Ste- 
 phen's door, and in another never-to-be- 
 forgotten moment he stepped inside his 
 brother's house. 
 
 Stephen's deceased wife's niece was so 
 overcome by the spectacle that she re- 
 tained barely enough presence of mind to 
 230
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 drag forward a wooden chair upon which 
 Cynthia sank in a condition evidently bor- 
 dering upon syncope. It was a critical 
 moment ; she must not give the intruder 
 an opportunity to escape. She knew the 
 intruder by that impulse of desertion, and 
 she clung the tighter to his arm when she 
 murmured pitifully, " If you could get me 
 some water, Mr. Granger." 
 
 Stephen hastened towards the kitchen 
 pump the sight of Reuben in his side 
 of the house, after thirty years, set old 
 chords vibrating with a suddenness that 
 threatened to snap some disused string, 
 and his perceptions were not as clear as 
 usual. He seized the dipper, filled it, and 
 looked about him. 
 
 " Where 's the tumbler, Jenny ? " he 
 called impatiently. 
 
 " It 's right there," answered the girl, 
 with the explicitness of agitation. 
 
 " Whar ? " he demanded with asperity. 
 
 "Settin' on the side right back of 
 the molasses jug." 
 
 231
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 " Molasses jug ! " he exclaimed. " Nice 
 place for the molasses jug ! " 
 
 " We was goin' to have baked beans 
 for supper," said the trembling Jenny, 
 feeling that it was best to be tentative 
 about even a trifling matter within the 
 area of this convulsion, " and you always 
 want it handy." 
 
 It was a simple statement, but it laid a 
 finger upon the past and upon the future. 
 Cynthia, through her half-closed eyes, saw 
 one old man with disturbed features, stand- 
 ing with his hand upon her chair, while 
 another old man shuffled toward her with 
 a glass of water, which spilled a little in 
 his shaking hand as he came across the 
 humble kitchen. Most inadequate dra- 
 matic elements, yet they held the tragedy 
 of nearly a lifetime, and the comedy, 
 though more evident, was cast by it in 
 the shade, and she neither laughed nor 
 cried. 
 
 Within a few moments more she was 
 on her homeward way, a trifling break in 
 232
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 the harness tied up with twine, and Johnny 
 Allen in the seat beside her as guard of 
 honor. 
 
 The next evening the people, driving 
 home from the Centre, were saved from 
 some active demonstration only by the 
 repression of the New England tempera- 
 ment. Some of them even, after driving 
 past, invented an errand to drive back 
 again, so as to make sure. For the 
 Granger twins sat side by side in front of 
 the disused doorway, and their straw hats 
 were turned sociably towards one another, 
 now and then, as they exchanged a sylla- 
 ble or two, and there was a mild lumin- 
 ousness of pleasure in the recesses of 
 their pale-blue eyes. The evening dark- 
 ened fast into night. The plaintive 
 half-chirp, half-whistle of a tree-toad 
 fell in monotonous repetition upon the 
 ear. 
 
 " Hear them little fellers ! " said Ste- 
 phen, ruminantly. " I reckon they think 
 it 's goin' to rain." 
 
 233
 
 Her Neighbors' Landmark 
 
 "Yare," said Reuben. "And," he 
 went on, pushing back his straw hat and 
 looking up into the sky, "I wouldn't 
 wonder if they was right." 
 
 " Mostly are," said Stephen. 
 
 234
 
 Miss Irumbuir s New Story 
 
 Mistress Content Cradock 
 
 AN HISTORICAL TALE OF NEW ENGLAND 
 
 LIFE IN THE TIME OF GOVERNOR 
 
 WINTHROP AND ROGER WILLIAMS 
 
 BY ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL 
 
 Author of" A Cafe Cod Week;" 1 " Rod's Salvation?* "A 
 Christinas Accident, 1 '' etc. 
 
 i vol. izmo., cloth. Illustrated. Price, $1.00. 
 
 A charming colonial romance. TheCongregationalist. 
 
 It is in a word a fascinating, strong, well-told story. 
 The Church T^eview. 
 
 It is a delightful way to study history one of the best 
 of ways to read a book written by one whose historical 
 information is accurate. Boston Advertiser. 
 
 The thread of romance and love is rendered most attract- 
 ive by the author's well-known bright and attractive style, 
 her delicately fashioned descriptions, and her entertaining 
 dialogue. W. Y. Times. 
 
 Winsome and captivating, Content pleases us of to-day as 
 she did the lover who patiently waited to obtain the gift of 
 her not too easily engaged heart, and *b 'uiet story of her 
 fortunes is well worth following. LtJnA,ture. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid, on 
 receipt of price, by the Publishers, 
 
 A. S. BARNES & CO/ 
 
 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 Rod's Salvation. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL. 
 
 Illustrated by Charles Copeland. 12010, cloth, 
 285 pages. $1.00. 
 
 The volume entitled " Rod's Salvation," contains four 
 short stories, some of which are long enough to be fairly 
 called novelets. ..." Rod's Salvation" is a good picture of 
 'longshore life, telling of the devotion of a sister to a 
 scapegrace brother and well worthy a reading. Spring- 
 field Republican. 
 
 Miss Trumbull is blessed by a most delightful and 
 unpretentious gift of story-telling. Her work suggests a 
 twilight musician ; she has a certain dainty humor in her 
 touch. The Citizen. 
 
 " Rod's Salvation " appears to us the most interesting 
 sketch of the four in the present volume. It proves a 
 thorough comprehension of the noblest characteristics of 
 the inhabitants of the typical New England fishing village. 
 The author shows us diamonds in the rough, and with a 
 most happy talent, suddenly reveals to us the gleaming 
 beauties beneath their rude exterior. " Rod's Salvation " is 
 an inspiring story, the pathos of which is accentuated by 
 the delicate satire, exquisite humor, and touches of kindly 
 human nature which lead one up to the unexpected climax. 
 The Church Review.
 
 Cape Cod 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL. 
 
 i2mo, cloth, 170 pages. $1.00. 
 
 The keenness, quickness, and acuteness of the New Eng- 
 land mind were, perhaps, never better illustrated than in 
 her stories. Her conversations are at times almost super, 
 naturally bright ; such talk as one hears from witty, bril- 
 liant, and cultivated American women talk notable for 
 insight, subtle discriminations, unexpected and surprised 
 terms and persuasive humor. 
 
 "A Cape Cod Week" contains an account of the ad- 
 ventures and achievements of three young women who 
 sought the seclusion, silence, and scenery of Cape Cod, 
 and who enlivened that remote and restful country by 
 flashes of talk often brilliant, almost always entertaining. 
 Miss Trumbull's work is delightful reading : the sameness 
 of the commonplace and the obvious is so entirely absent 
 from it. The Outlook. 
 
 Annie Eliot Trumbull delights in fine descriptions of 
 nature as it exists. The book is capital reading and its 
 merits can be appreciated the whole year round. New 
 York Times. 
 
 A delightful, gossipy little sketch of a week's holiday on 
 Cape Cod. It is full of bright things, imaginative to a 
 degree, and yet based on facts as we have all seen them on 
 the sands of the Cape. The book is beautifully printed and 
 bound. Boston Globe,
 
 The "Annie Eliot" Stories 
 
 FIVE NEW BOOKS 
 
 BY ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL 
 
 MISTRESS CONTENT CRADDOCK. Illustrated by 
 Chas. Copeland. I2mo, cloth, 306 pages. $1.00. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT AND OTHER STORIES. 
 I2mo, cloth, 234 pages. $1.00. 
 
 A CAPE COD WEEK, izmo, cloth, 170 pages. 
 $1.00. 
 
 ROD'S SALVATION. Illustrated by Charles Cope- 
 land. I2mo, cloth, 285 pages. $1.00. 
 
 AN HOUR'S PROMISE. New Edition. I2mo, 
 cloth. $1.00. 
 
 The reader will enjoy the wit, the delicate satire, the 
 happy bits of nature description. S. S, Times. 
 
 They are New England stories and exhibit a delicate 
 comprehension of many types of New England character. 
 They are delightfully readable, and the books ought to be 
 favorites. The Conprevationalist. 
 
 o & 
 
 Miss TrumbulFs claim to the attention of her readers is 
 undisputed. Her short stories possess a freshness, a poign- 
 ancy and underlying quick-witted penetration into human 
 feelings, motives and experiences that give them a peculiar 
 charm. Her choice of themes is such as appeals to a wide 
 circle and her handling of the persons of her imagination is 
 exquisite., Hartford Post. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid, on 
 receipt of price, by the Publishers, 
 
 A. S. BARNES & CO. 
 
 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 UC SOUTHERN REfflONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 051 475 2