II

But in spite of red hair, and what Old Chester religiously believed to

be its accompanying temper, Alice Gray was a lovable girl, and at

twenty, behold, she had a lover; indeed, she had more than one (not

counting Dr. Lavendar); but Alice never gave a thought to anybody but

Luther Metcalf. Luther was a good boy, Old Chester said; but added

that he would never set the river on fire.

Certainly he did not use his incendiary opportunity; he had a small

printing-office, and he owned and edited Old Chester's weekly

newspaper, the _Globe_; but neither the news nor the editorial page

ever startled or displeased the oldest or the youngest inhabitant. The

_Globe_ confined itself to carefully accredited cuttings from

exchanges; it had a Poet's Corner, and it gave, politely, any Old

Chester news that could be found; besides this, it devoted the inner

sheet to discreet advertisements, widely spaced to take up room. All

Old Chester subscribed for it, and spoke of it respectfully, because it

was a newspaper; and snubbed its editor, because he was one of its own

boys--and without snubbing boys are so apt to put on airs! Poor Luther

was never tempted to put on airs; he was too hard-worked and too

anxious about his prospects. He and Alice were to get married when he

and the _Globe_ were out of debt; for his father had left him a

mortgage on the office building, as well as an unpaid-for press. When

Luther was particularly low-spirited, he used to tell Alice it would

take him five years to pay his debts; and, to tell the truth, that was

an optimistic estimate, for the _Globe_ and the printing-office

together did very little more than pay the interest on the notes and

Luther's board.

So, when they became engaged, waiting was what they looked forward to,

for, of course, Robert Gray could not help them; it was all Rebecca

could do to stretch his salary to cover the expenses of their own

household. But the two young people were happy enough, except when

Luther talked about five years of waiting.

"We've been engaged two years already," he said, moodily; "I don't want

to be another case of Andrew Steele."

"I'm not afraid," Alice said. "Why, if you get the new job press, and

get that Mercer work, think how much that will help!"

"Well," Luther said, "yes; but if I get the press, there's another

debt. And if I don't get it, I can't get the work; so there it is. A

vicious circle."

This question of the purchase of a new press, before the old press had

been paid for, was a very serious and anxious one. "I wish father

could help," Alice said--they were walking home from Wednesday-evening

lecture, loitering in the moonlight, and wishing the way were twice as

long.

"Oh, I wouldn't think of such a thing," the young man declared; "we'll

pull out somehow. He's gone off to the woods, hasn't he?"

"Yes, he went this morning; he's so pleased to get away! He won't be

back till the Academy opens."

"I suppose he hates to leave you, though," Lute said.

"Yes, but I can see that the getting away is a great relief. I keep

his pictures dusted, and take the flowers up to the cemetery for him;

so he knows things are not neglected."

"But," Luther said, thoughtfully, "I think she's sorry to have him go?"

"Oh yes; sorry, I suppose," Alice admitted. "She's fond of him--in her

way."

"Then why--" Luther began.

"My dear, she's _jealous_ of my mother."

"Oh, Alice!"

"Well, you know," Alice explained, "my mother was so beautiful--and

poor Mrs. Gray! But I must say, Lute, she's the justest person I know.

She's always told me that my mother was perfect. And of course she

was; but when you're jealous, it isn't so easy to acknowledge things

like that."

"But I don't see how you can be jealous of the dead," Luther ruminated.

"Oh, _I_ do! I could be jealous of some girl who was dead, if you'd

loved her, Lute." And then the boy put his arm round her, and they

kissed each other there in the shadows of the locust-trees overhanging

a garden wall. "I'm so glad there isn't anybody, dead or alive," Alice

said, happily; "though I'd rather have her alive than dead. If she

were alive, you'd have quarrelled with her, and stopped loving her.

But if she were dead, she would keep on being perfect. Yes; I'd rather

marry a man who had been--been _divorced_," said Alice, lowering her

voice, because the word was hardly considered proper in Old Chester,

"than a man whose wife was dead, because he would always be thinking

what an angel she was and what a sinner I was."

"He would think you were an angel," the boy told her, blushing at his

own fervency.

But the fervency died on his ardent young lips when they got into the

house and sat decorously in the parlor with Mrs. Gray. Rebecca was

sewing, her hard, square face a little harder than usual. Mr. Gray had

gone away on that annual fishing-trip--gone, with a look of relief

growing in his eyes even as he stepped into the stage and pulled the

door to behind him; pulled it hurriedly, as though he feared she would

follow. Then, baring his head politely, he had looked out of the

window and said:

"Good-bye. You will send for me should you, by any chance, need me. I

trust you will be very well."

"I don't know that I have ever had to interrupt your fishing-trip with

any of my needs," Rebecca had answered, briefly. She spoke only the

truth; she never had interfered with any pleasure of his; and yet

Robert Gray had winced, as if he had not liked her words. Now, alone,

in the parlor, darning his stockings, she wondered why. She never said

anything but the simple truth; but he looked at her sometimes as a dog

looks who expects a blow. He was truthful himself, but he never seemed

to care much to hear the truth, she thought, heavily. Once he told her

that truth was something more than a statement of fact. The statement

of a fact may be a lie, he had said, smiling whimsically; and Rebecca

used to wonder how a fact could be a lie? She recalled the time when,

with brief accuracy, she had mentioned to him in what condition of

ragged neglect she had found his wardrobe after the "creature of light"

had left him; and how he had seemed to shrink not from the shiftless

dead, but from her. And she remembered painfully that one unkindness:

She had told him that, to her mind, not even the weakness of death was

quite an excuse for saying you didn't like your own baby; and he had

said, with a terrible look, "We will not discuss it, if you please,

Mrs. Gray." She had never spoken of it again; but his look had burned

into her poor, narrow, sore mind; she thought of it now, moodily, as

she sat alone, her heart following him on his journey. If his first

wife had only not been so perfect, she said to herself, she could have

borne it better; if she had had a bad temper, even, it would have been

something. But she had often heard Robert tell Alice that her mother

had an "angelic temper." Rebecca wished humbly she herself could be

pleasanter. "I don't feel unpleasant inside; but I seem to talk so,"

she thought, helplessly. She was thinking of this when the two young

people came in; and looking up over her spectacles, she said, coldly:

"Did you remember to wipe your feet, Luther? You are careless about

that. Alice, I found a flower on my daphne; you can carry the pot up

to the cemetery when you go."

"Yes, ma'am," Alice said. She took up her sewing (for Rebecca would

not have idle hands about); sometimes she glanced at Luther, sitting

primly in the corner of the sofa, and once caught his eye and smiled;

but there were no sheep's-eyes or sweet speeches. They were Old

Chester young people, and such things would have been considered

improper; just as sitting by themselves would have been thought not

only indecorous, but selfish.

"Oh, Alice," Luther said, suddenly, "I meant to ask you; wasn't your

mother's name spelled 'Alys'?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Well, it's such an unusual name that it struck my attention when I saw

it in the paper."

"What about it?" Alice asked. "Oh, dear, why didn't father spell me

'Alys' instead of 'Alice'? It's so much prettier!"

"Prettiness isn't everything; and 'Alice' is a sensible name," Rebecca

said. "Don't criticise your father."

"It was an advertisement in one of the _Globe's_ exchanges," Luther

explained. "I was scissoring things, and the name caught my eye. It

was information wanted. Of course it's just a coincidence, but it's

queer, because--here it is," said the editor of the _Globe_, fumbling

in his pocket. "I cut it out and meant to show it to you, but I

forgot." Then he read, slowly, "_Information wanted of one Alys

Winton--_"

"Why, but Winton was my mother's name!" cried Alice.

"_--one Alys Winton, who married sometime in 1845; husband thought to

be an American, name unknown. She (or a child of hers, born in 1846)

is requested to communicate with Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law,_" etc.

Alice stared, open-mouthed. "Why, Lute!" she said--"why, but that must

be my mother!"

Lute shook his head. "I don't think there's anything in it. Do you,

Mrs. Gray?"

"Might be," she said, briefly.

Alice took the crumpled cutting, and holding it under the lamp, read it

through to herself. "But, Lute, really and truly," she said, "it is

queer. Perhaps some of my mother's rich relations have left her a

fortune! Then we could pay off the mortgage. Only I'm afraid my

mother hadn't any rich relations--or poor ones, either. I never heard

of any. Did you, Mrs. Gray?"

"No," Rebecca said.

"She was a governess, you know, Lute, in some horrid English family;

the wife didn't like her, and she discharged my poor little mother;

then the family went off and left her all alone in Germany. Perfectly

abominable!"

"Don't be unjust, Alice; you don't know anything about it," Mrs. Gray

said. "She was very young. Perhaps she couldn't teach the children to

suit their parents. Though it was unkind to leave her unprovided for,"

she added, with painful fairness.

"I guess it was!" cried Alice. "Oh, how angry father gets when he

talks about it! He says she was in such terror, poor little thing,

when he met her. And yet she was very forgiving, father says. He says

she wrote and told the gentleman that she was married. _I_ wouldn't

have. I'd have let him think I'd starved, so he would have suffered

remorse--the wretch!"

"I hope you would not have been so foolish or so selfish," her

step-mother said.

"You see, she had no relations to turn to," Alice explained to Luther;

"if father hadn't come, dear knows what would have become of her."

"I suppose she could have earned an honest living, like anybody else,"

Mrs. Gray said.

"Well, anyway," Alice said, thoughtfully, "this advertisement is queer.

She had no relations that father ever heard of; but there might be some

one. What do you think, Mrs. Gray?"

"There might be," Rebecca said. She thought to herself that it was

very probable; that first wife had brought Robert Gray beauty and love;

it only needed that she should bring him money to make it all perfect.

In her bleak mind a window of imagination suddenly opened, and she had

a vision of what wealth would mean to her husband, coming as a gift

from those dead hands. She set her lips, and said: "Better find out

about it, Luther. Write to the man and say that a person of that name

before her marriage, died here in Old Chester, leaving a child--and

don't keep your hands in your pockets; it's bad manners."

"Do you really think it is worth while, ma'am?" Luther said,

incredulously.

"Of course it is," said Alice. "Suppose it should be some inheritance?

Such things do happen."

"In story-books," Lute said.

"Well, then I'd like to be in a story-book," Alice said, sighing.

"Just think, Lute, we might pay for the press and pay off the mortgage!"

"Golly!" said Lute.

Then they fell to making all sorts of plans, gayly, each tripping the

other up with the prosaic reminder of improbability.

"Or, if it _should_ be anything," Luther said, "it won't be more than

$100."

"Well, that's something; it will meet two monthly payments on the

press."

"It will pay for a diamond-ring for you," Lute said.

"Nonsense! We'll buy father a horse."

"And who will buy the oats?" Rebecca said.

"I could give you a big oleander, Mrs. Gray," Alice told her, smiling.

"You could put the money in the bank, like a sensible girl," Rebecca

said, severely. "Don't speak of this outside, either of you. Mr. Gray

wouldn't wish his wife's name talked about."

"And don't let's write anything about it to him," Alice said; "let's

have it a surprise!--if there is anything in it; only, of course, there

isn't anything," she ended, sighing. "But you might write to the man,

Lute."

"Of course there isn't anything," Lute agreed, sensibly. "I'll write

if you want me to; but I wouldn't build on it, Ally," he said, as he

got up to go. And when he paused a minute in the darkness on the

porch, he added, softly, "If you get rich, maybe you won't want a poor

printer?"