CHAPTER X

OLIVER SURRENDERS

When Cyrus's knock came at his door, Oliver crossed the room to let in

his visitor, and then fell back, startled, at the sight of his uncle. "I

wonder what has brought him here?" he thought inhospitably. But even if

he had put the question, it is doubtful if Cyrus could have enlightened

him--for the great man was so seldom visited by an impulse that when, as

now, one actually took possession of him, he obeyed the pressure almost

unconsciously. Like most men who pride themselves upon acting solely

from reason, he was the abject slave of the few instincts which had

managed to take root and thrive in the stony ground of his nature. The

feeling for family, which was so closely entwined with his supreme

feeling for property that the two had become inseparable, moved him

to-day as it had done on the historic occasion when he had redeemed the

mortgaged roof over the heads of his spinster relations. Perhaps, too,

some of the vague softness of June had risen in him and made him gentler

in his judgments of youth.

"I didn't expect you or I'd have straightened up a bit," said Oliver,

not overgraciously, while he hastily pushed his supper of bread and tea

to one end of the table. He resented what he called in his mind "the

intrusion," and he had no particular objection to his uncle's observing

his resentment. His temper, never of the most perfect equilibrium, had

been entirely upset by the effects of a June Sunday in Dinwiddie, and

the affront of Cyrus's visit had become an indignity because of his

unfortunate selection of the supper hour. Some hidden obliquity in the

Treadwell soul, which kept it always at cross-purposes with life,

prevented any lessening of the deep antagonism between the old and the

young of the race. And so incurable was this obliquity in the soul of

Cyrus, that it forced him now to take a tone which he had resolutely set

his mind against from the moment of Mrs. Peachey's visit. He wanted to

be pleasant, but something deep down within him--some inherited tendency

to bully--was stronger than his will.

"I looked in to see if you hadn't about come to your senses," he began.

"If you mean come to your way of looking at things--then I haven't,"

replied Oliver, and added in a more courteous tone, "Won't you sit

down?"

"No, sir, I can stand long enough to say what I came to say," retorted

the other, and it seemed to him that the pleasanter he tried to make his

voice, the harsher grew the sound of it in his ears. What was it about

the rascal that rubbed him the wrong way only to look at him?

"As you please," replied Oliver quietly. "What in thunder has he got to

say to me?" he thought. "And why can't he say it and have it over?"

While Cyrus merely despised him, he detested Cyrus with all the fiery

intolerance of his age. "Standing there like an old turkey gobbler,

ugh!" he said contemptuously to himself.

"So you ain't hungry yet?" asked the old man, and felt that the words

were forced out of him by that obstinate cross-grain in his nature over

which he had no control.

"I've just had tea."

"You haven't changed your mind since you last spoke to me, eh?"

"No, I haven't changed my mind. Why should I?"

"Getting along pretty well, then?"

"As well as I expected to."

"That's good," said Cyrus mildly. "That's good. I just dropped in to

make sure that you were getting along, that's all."

"Thank you," responded Oliver, and tried from the bottom of his soul to

make the words sincere.

"If the time ever comes when you feel that you have changed your mind,

I'll find a place out at Matoaca City for you. I just wanted you to

understand that I'd do as much for Henry's son then as now. If you

weren't Henry's son, I shouldn't think twice about you."

"You mean that you'll still give me the job if I stop writing plays?"

"Oh, I won't make a point of that as long as it doesn't interfere with

your work. You may write in off hours as much as you want to. I won't

make a point of that."

"You mean to be generous, I can see--but I don't think it likely that I

shall ever make up my mind to take a regular job. I'm not built for it."

"You're not thinking about getting married, then, I reckon?"

A dark flush rose to Oliver's forehead, and turning away, he stared with

unseeing eyes out of the window.

"No. I haven't any intention of that," he responded.

A certain craftiness appeared in Cyrus's face.

"Well, well, you're young yet, and you may be in want of a wife before

you're many years older."

"I'm not the kind to marry. I'm too fond of my freedom."

"Most of us have felt like that at one time or another, but when the

thought of a woman takes you by the throat, you'll begin to see things

differently. And if you ever do, a good steady job at twelve hundred a

year will be what you'll look out for."

"I suppose a man could marry on that down here," said Oliver, half

unconscious that he was speaking aloud.

"I married on less, and I've known plenty of others that have done so. A

good saving wife puts more into a man's pocket than she takes out of

it."

As he paused, Oliver's attention, which had wandered off into a vague

mist of feeling, became suddenly riveted to the appalling spectacle of

his uncle's marriage. He saw the house in Bolingbroke Street, with the

worn drab oilcoth in the hall, and he smelt the smell of stale cooking

which floated through the green lattice door at the back. All the

sweetness of life, all the beauty, all the decency even, seemed

strangled in that smell as if in some malarial air. And in the midst of

it, the unkempt, slack figure of Belinda, with her bitter eyes and her

sagging skirt, passed perpetually under the flickering gas-jet up and

down the dimly lighted staircase. This was how one marriage had

ended--one marriage among many which had started out with passion and

courage and the belief in happiness. Knowing but little of the April

brevity of his uncle's mating impulse, he had mentally embroidered the

bare instinct with some of the idealism in which his own emotion was

clothed. His imagination pictured Cyrus and Belinda starting as

light-hearted adventurers to sail the chartless seas of romance. What

remained of their gallant ship to-day except a stark and battered hulk

wrecked on the pitiless rocks of the actuality? A month ago that

marriage had seemed merely ridiculous to him. Standing now beside the

little window, where the wan face of evening, languid and fainting

sweet, looked in from the purple twilight, he was visited by one of

those rare flashes of insight which come to men of artistic sensibility

after long periods of spiritual warfare. Pity stabbed him as sharply as

ridicule had done a moment before, and with the first sense of human

kinship he had ever felt to Cyrus, he understood suddenly the tragedy

that underlies all comic things. Could there be a deeper pathos, after

all, than simply being funny? This absurd old man, with his lean,

crooked figure, his mottled skin, and his piercing bloodshot eyes, like

the eyes of an overgorged bird of prey, appeared now as an object that

moved one to tears, not to laughter. And yet because of this very

quality which made him pitiable--this vulture-like instinct to seize and

devour the smaller--he stood to-day the most conspicuously envied figure

in Dinwiddie.

"I'm not the kind of man to marry," he repeated, but his tone had

changed.

"Well, perhaps you're wise," said Cyrus, "but if you should ever want

to----" The confidence which had gone out of Oliver had passed into him.

With his strange power of reading human nature--masculine human nature,

for the silliest woman could fool him hopelessly--he saw that his nephew

was already beginning to struggle against the temptation to yield. And

he was wise enough to know that this temptation would become stronger as

soon as Oliver felt that the outside pressure was removed. The young

man's passion was putting forward a subtler argument than Cyrus could

offer.

When his visitor had gone, Oliver turned back to the window, and resting

his arms on the sill, leaned out into the velvet softness of the

twilight. His wide vision had deserted him. It was as if his gaze had

narrowed down to a few roofs and the single street without a

turning--but beyond them the thought of Virginia lay always like an

enclosed garden of sweetness and bloom. To think of her was to pass from

the scorching heat of the day to the freshness of dew-washed flowers

under the starlight.

"It is impossible," he said aloud, and immediately, as if in answer to a

challenge, a thousand proofs came to him that other men were doing the

impossible every day. How many writers--great writers, too--would have

jumped at a job on a railroad to insure them against starvation? How

many had married young and faced the future on less than twelve hundred

dollars a year? How many had let love lead them where it would without

butting their brains forever against the damned wall of expediency?

"It's impossible," he said again, and turning from the window, made

himself ready to go out. While he brushed his hair and pulled the end of

his necktie through the loop, his gaze wandered back over the roofs to

where a solitary mimosa tree drooped against the lemon-coloured

afterglow. The dust lay like gauze over the distance. Not a breath

stirred. Not a leaf fell. Not a figure moved in the town--except the

crouching figure of a stray cat that crawled, in search of food, along

the brick wall under the dead tree.

"God! What a life!" he cried suddenly. And beyond this parching desert

of the present he saw again that enclosed garden of sweetness and bloom,

which was Virginia. His resolution, weakened by the long hot afternoon,

seemed to faint under the pressure of his longing. All the burden of the

day--the heat, the languor, the scorching thirst of the fields, the

brazen blue of the sky, the stillness as of a suspended breath which

wrapt the town--all these things had passed into the intolerableness of

his desire. He felt it like a hot wind blowing over him, and it seemed

to him that he was as helpless as a leaf in the current of this wind

which was sweeping him onward. Something older than his will was driving

him; and this something had come to him from out the twilight, where the

mimosa trees drooped like a veil against the afterglow.

Taking up his hat, he left the room and descended the stairs to the wide

hall where Tom Peachey sat, gasping for breath, midway of two open

doors.

"I'll be darned if I can make a draught," muttered the old soldier

irascibly, while he picked up his alpaca coat from the balustrade, and

slipped into it before going out upon the front porch into the possible

presence of ladies. His usually cheerful face was clouded, for his

habitual apathy had deserted him, and he had reached the painful

decision that when you looked things squarely in the face there was

precious little that was worth living for--a conclusion to which he had

been brought by the simple accident of an overdose of Kentucky rye in

his mint julep after church. The overdose had sent him to sleep too soon

after his Sunday dinner, and when he had awakened from his heavy and by

no means quiet slumber, he had found himself confronting a world of

gloom.

"I'm damned tired making the best of things, if you want to know what is

the matter with me," he had remarked crossly to his wife.

"The idea, Mr. Peachey! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" that

sprightly lady had responded while she prepared herself for her victory

over Cyrus.

"Well, I ain't," honest Tom had retorted. "I've gone on pretending for

fifty years and I'm going to stop it. What good has it done, anyway? It

hasn't put a roof on, has it?"

"I told you you oughtn't to go to sleep right on top of your dinner,"

she had replied soothingly. "I declare you're perfectly purple. I never

saw you so upset. Here, take this palm-leaf fan and go and see if you

can't find a draught. You know it's downright sinful to talk that way

after the Lord has been so good to you."

But Philosophy, though she is unassailable when she clings to her

safeguard of the universal, meets her match whenever she descends to an

open engagement with the particular.

"W-what's He done for me?" demanded not Tom, but the whiskey inside of

him.

Driven against that bleak rock of fact upon which so many shining

generalizations have come to wreck, Mrs. Peachey had cast about

helplessly for some floating spar of logic which might bear her to the

firm ground of established optimism. "I declare, Tom, I believe you are

out of your head!" she exclaimed, adding immediately, "You ought to be

ashamed of yourself to be so ungrateful when the good Lord has kept you

out of the poorhouse. If you weren't tipsy, I'd give you a hard shaking.

Now, you take that palm-leaf fan and go right straight downstairs."

So Tom had gone, for his wife, who lacked the gift of argument,

possessed the energy of character which renders such minor attributes

unnecessary; and Oliver, passing through the hall a couple of hours

later, found him still helplessly seeking the draught towards which she

had directed him.

"Any chance of a breeze springing up?" inquired the young man as they

moved together to the porch.

The force which was driving him out of the house into the suffocating

streets was in his voice when he spoke, but honest Tom did not hear it.

After the four war years in which he had been almost sublime, the old

soldier had gradually ceased even to be human, and that vegetable calm

which envelops persons who have fallen into the habit of sitting still,

had endowed him at last with the perfect serenity of a cabbage. The only

active principle which ever moved in him was the borrowed principle of

alcohol--for when that artificial energy subsided, he sank back, as he

was beginning to do now, into the spiritual inertia which sustains those

who have outlived their capacity for the heroic.

"I ain't felt a breath," he replied, peering southward where the stars

were coming out in a cloudless sky. "I don't reckon we'll get it till on

about eleven."

"Looks as if we were in for a scorching summer, doesn't it?"

"You never can tell. There's always a spell in June." And he who had

been a hero, sat down in his cane-bottomed chair and waved the palm-leaf

fan feebly in front of him. He had had his day; he had fought his fight;

he had helped to make the history of battles--and now what remained to

him? The stainless memory of the four years when he was a hero; a

smoldering ember still left from that flaming glory which was his soul!

In the street the dust lay thick and still, and the wilted foliage of

the mulberry trees hung motionless from the great arching boughs. Only

an aspen at the corner seemed alive and tremulous, while sensitive

little shivers ran through the silvery leaves, which looked as if they

were cut out of velvet. As Oliver left the house, the town awoke slowly

from its lethargy, and the sound of laughter floated to him from the

porches behind their screens of honeysuckle or roses. But even this

laughter seemed to him to contain the burden of weariness which

oppressed and disenchanted his spirit. The pall of melancholy spread

from the winding yellow river at the foot of the hill to the procession

of cedars which stood pitch-black against the few dim stars on the

eastern horizon.

"What is the use?" he asked himself suddenly, uttering aloud that grim

question which lies always beneath the vivid, richly clustering

impressions in the imaginative mind. Of his struggle, his sacrifice--of

his art even--what was the use? A bitter despondency--the crushing

despondency of youth which age does not feel and has forgotten--weighed

upon him like a physical burden. And because he was young and not

without a certain pride in the intensity of his suffering, he increased

his misery by doggedly refusing to trace it back to its natural origin

in an empty stomach.

But the laws that govern the variable mind of man are as inscrutable as

the secret of light. Turning into a cross street, he came upon the tower

of Saint James' Church, and he grew suddenly cheerful. The quickening of

his pulses changed the aspect of the town as completely as if an

invigorating shower had fallen upon it. The supreme, haunting interest

of life revived.

He had meant merely to pass the rectory without stopping; but as he

turned into the slanting street at the foot of the twelve stone steps,

he saw a glimmer of white on the terrace, and the face of Virginia

looked down at him over the palings of the gate. Immediately it seemed

to him that he had known from the beginning that he should meet her. A

sense of recognition so piercingly sweet that it stirred his pulses like

wine was in his heart as he moved towards her. The whole universe

appeared to him to have been planned and perfected for this instant. The

languorous June evening, the fainting sweetness of flowers, the strange

lemon-coloured afterglow, and her face, shining there like a star in the

twilight--these had waited for him, he felt, since the beginning of

earth. That fatalistic reliance upon an outside Power, which assumed for

him the radiant guise of first love, and for Susan the stark certainties

of Presbyterianism, dominated him as completely as if he were the

predestined vehicle of its expression. Ardent, yet passive, Virginia

leaned above him on the dim terrace. So still she seemed that her breath

left her parted lips as softly as the perfume detached itself from the

opening rose-leaves. She made no gesture, she said no word--but suddenly

he became aware that her stillness was stronger to draw him than any

speech. All her woman's mystery was brooding there about her in the June

twilight; and in this strange strength of quietness Nature had placed,

for once, an invincible weapon in the weaker hands. Her appeal had

become a part of the terrible and beneficent powers of Life.

Crossing the street, he went up the steps to where she leaned on the

gate.

"It has been so long," he said, and the words seemed to him hideously

empty. "I have not seen you but three times since the party."

She did not answer, and as he looked at her closer, he saw that her eyes

were full of tears.

"Virginia!" he cried out sharply, and the next instant, at her first

movement away from him, his arms were around her and his lips seeking

hers.

The world stopped suddenly while a starry eternity enveloped them. All

youth was packed into that minute, all the troubled sweetness of desire,

all the fugitive ecstasy of fulfilment.

"I--I thought you did not care," she murmured beneath his kisses.

He could not speak--for it was a part of his ironic destiny that he, who

was prodigal of light words, should find himself stricken dumb in any

crucial instant.

"You know--you know----" he stammered, holding her closer.

"Then it--it is not all a dream?" she asked.

"I adored you from the first minute--you saw that--you knew it. I've

wanted you day and night since I first looked at you."

"But you kept away. You avoided me. I couldn't understand."

"It was because I knew I couldn't be with you five minutes without

kissing you. And I oughtn't to--it's madness in me--for I'm desperately

poor, darling; I've no right to marry you."

A little smile shone on her lips. "As if I cared about that, Oliver."

"Then you'll marry me? You'll marry me, my beautiful?"

She lifted her face from his breast, and her look was like the enkindled

glory of the sunrise. "Don't you see? Haven't you seen from the

beginning?" she asked.

"I was afraid to see, darling--but, Virginia--oh, Virginia, let it be

soon!"

When he went from her a little later, it seemed to him that all of life

had been pressed down into the minute when he had held her against his

breast; and as he walked through the dimly lighted streets, among the

shadows of men who, like himself, were pursuing some shadowy joy, he

carried with him that strange vision of a heaven on earth which has

haunted mortal eyes since the beginning of love. Happiness appeared to

him as a condition which he had achieved by a few words, by a kiss, in a

minute of time, but which belonged to him so entirely now that he could

never be defrauded of it again in the future. Whatever happened to him,

he could never be separated from the bliss of that instant when he had

held her.

He was going to Cyrus while his ecstasy ennobled even the prosaic fact

of the railroad. And just as on that other evening, when he had rushed

in anger away from the house of his uncle, so now he was exalted by the

consciousness that he was following the lead of the more spiritual part

of his nature--for the line of least resistance was so overgrown with

exquisite impressions that he no longer recognized it. The sacrifice of

art for love appeared to him to-day as splendidly romantic as the

sacrifice of comfort for art had seemed to him a few months ago. His

desire controlled him so absolutely that he obeyed its different

promptings under the belief that he was obeying the principles whose

names he borrowed. The thing he wanted was transmuted by the fire of his

temperament into some artificial likeness to the thing that was good for

him.

On the front steps, between the two pink oleanders, Cyrus was standing

with his gaze fixed on a small grocery store across the street, and at

the sight of his nephew a look of curiosity, which was as personal an

emotion as he was in the habit of feeling, appeared on his lean yellow

face. Behind him, the door into the hall stood open, and his stooping

figure was outlined against the light of the gas-jet by the staircase.

"You see I've come," said Oliver; for Cyrus, who never spoke first

unless he was sure of dominating the situation, had waited for him to

begin.

"Yes, I see," replied the old man, not unkindly. "I expected you, but

hardly so soon--hardly so soon."

"It's about the place on the railroad. If you are still of the same

mind, I'd like you to give me a trial."

"When would you want to start?"

"The sooner the better. I'd rather get settled there before the autumn.

I'm going to be married sometime in the autumn--October, perhaps."

"Ah!" said Cyrus softly, and Oliver was grateful to him because he

didn't attempt to crow.

"We haven't told any one yet--but I wanted to make sure of the job. It's

all right, then, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, it's all right, if you do your part. She's Gabriel Pendleton's

girl, isn't she?"

"She's Virginia Pendleton. You know her, of course." He tried honestly

to be natural, but in spite of himself he could not keep a note of

constraint out of his voice. Merely to discuss Virginia with Cyrus

seemed, in some subtle way, an affront to her. Yet he knew that the old

man wanted to be kind, and the knowledge touched him.

"Oh, yes, I know her. She's a good girl, and there doesn't live a better

man than Gabriel."

"I don't deserve her, of course. But, then, there never lived a man who

deserved an angel."

"Ain't you coming in?" asked Cyrus.

"Not this evening. I only wanted to speak to you. I suppose I'd better

go down to the office to-morrow and talk to Mr. Burden, hadn't I?"

"Come about noon, and I'll tell him to expect you. Well, if you ain't

coming in, I reckon I'll close this door."

Looking up a minute later from the pavement Oliver saw his aunt rocking

slowly back and forth at the window of her room, and the remembrance of

her fell like a blight over his happiness.

By the time he reached High Street a wind had risen beyond the hill near

the river, and the scattered papers on the pavement fled like grey wings

before him into the darkness. As the air freshened, faces appeared in

the doors along the way, and the whole town seemed drinking in the

cooling breeze as if it were water. On the wind sped, blowing over the

slack figure of Mrs. Treadwell; blowing over the conquering smile of

Susan, who was unbinding her long hair; blowing over the joy-brightened

eyes of Virginia, who dreamed in the starlight of the life that would

come to her; blowing over the ghost-haunted face of her mother, who

dreamed of the life that had gone by her; blowing at last, beyond the

river, over the tired hands of the little seamstress, who dreamed of

nothing except of how she might keep her living body out of the

poorhouse and her dead body out of the potter's field. And over the

town, with its twenty-one thousand souls, each of whom contained within

itself a separate universe of tragedy and of joy, of hope and of

disappointment, the wind passed as lightly it passed over the unquiet

dust in the streets below.

BOOK II

THE REALITY

CHAPTER I

VIRGINIA PREPARES FOR THE FUTURE

"Mother, I'm so happy! Oh! was there ever a girl so happy as I am?"

"I was, dear, once."

"When you married father? Yes, I know," said Virginia, but she said it

without conviction. In her heart she did not believe that marrying her

father--perfect old darling that he was!--could ever have caused any

girl just the particular kind of ecstasy that she was feeling. She even

doubted whether such stainless happiness had ever before visited a

mortal upon this planet. It was not only wonderful, it was not only

perfect, but it felt so absolutely new that she secretly cherished the

belief that it had been invented by the universe especially for Oliver

and herself. It was ridiculous to imagine that the many million pairs of

lovers that were marrying every instant had each experienced a miracle

like this, and yet left the earth pretty much as they had found it

before they fell in love.

It was a week before her wedding, and she stood in the centre of the

spare room in the west wing, which had been turned over to Miss Willy

Whitlow. The little seamstress knelt now at her feet, pinning up the hem

of a black silk polonaise, and turning her head from time to time to ask

Mrs. Pendleton if she was "getting the proper length." For a quarter of

a century, no girl of Virginia's class had married in Dinwiddie without

the crowning benediction of a black silk gown, and ever since the

announcement of Virginia's betrothal her mother had cramped her small

economies in order that she might buy "grosgrain" of the best quality.

"Is that right, mother? Do you think I might curve it a little more in

front?" asked the girl, holding her feet still with difficulty because

she felt that she wanted to dance.

"No, dear, I think it will stay in fashion longer if you don't shorten

it. Then it will be easier to make over the more goods you leave in it."

"It looks nice on me, doesn't it?" Standing there, with the stiff silk

slipping away from her thin shoulders, and the dappled sunlight falling

over her neck and arms through the tawny leaves of the paulownia tree in

the garden, she was like a slim white lily unfolding softly out of its

sheath.

"Lovely, darling, and it will be so useful. I got the very best quality,

and it ought to wear forever."

"I made Mrs. William Goode one ten years ago, and she's still wearing

it," remarked Miss Willy, speaking with an effort through a mouthful of

pins.

A machine, which had been whirring briskly by the side window, stopped

suddenly, and the girl who sewed there--a sickly, sallow-faced creature

of Virginia's age, who was hired by Mrs. Pendleton, partly out of

charity because she supported an invalid father who had been crippled in

the war, and partly because, having little strength and being an

unskilled worker, her price was cheap--turned for an instant and stared

wistfully at the black silk polonaise over the strip of organdie which

she was hemming. All her life she had wanted a black silk dress, and

though she knew that she should probably never have one, and should not

have time to wear it if she ever had, she liked to linger over the

thought of it, very much as Virginia lingered over the thought of her

lover, or as little Miss Willy lingered over the thought of having a

tombstone over her after she was dead. In the girl's face, where at

first there had been only admiration, a change came gradually. A quiver,

so faint that it was hardly more than a shadow, passed over her drawn

features, and her gaze left the trailing yards of silk and wandered to

the blue October sky over the swinging leaves of the paulownia. But

instead of the radiant autumn weather at which she was looking, she

still saw that black silk polonaise which she wanted as she wanted youth

and pleasure, and which she knew that she should never have.

"Everything is finished but this, isn't it, Miss Willy?" asked Virginia,

and at the sound of her happy voice, that strange quiver passed again

through the other girl's face.

"Everything except that organdie and a couple of nightgowns." There was

no quiver in Miss Willy's face, for from constant consideration of the

poorhouse and the cemetery, she had come to regard the other problems of

life, if not with indifference, at least with something approaching a

mild contempt. Even love, when measured by poverty or by death, seemed

to lose the impressiveness of its proportions.

"And I'll have enough clothes to last me for years, shan't I, mother?"

"I hope so, darling. Your father and I have done the best that we could

for you."

"You've been angels. Oh, how I shall hate to leave you!"

"If only you weren't going away, Jinny!" Then she broke down, and

dropping the tomato-shaped pin-cushion she had been holding, she slipped

from the room, while Virginia thrust the polonaise into Miss Willy's

hands and fled breathlessly after her.

In the girl's room, with her head bowed on the top of the little

bookcase, above those thin rows of fiction, Mrs. Pendleton was weeping

almost wildly over the coming separation. She, who had not thought of

herself for thirty years, had suddenly broken the constraint of the long

habit. Yet it was characteristic of her, that even now her first

feeling, when Virginia found her, should be one of shame that she had

clouded for an instant the girl's happiness.

"It is nothing, darling. I have a little headache, and--oh, Jinny!

Jinny!----"

"Mother, it won't be long. We are coming back to live just as soon as

Oliver can get work. It isn't as if I were going for good, is it? And

I'll write you every day--every single day. Mother, dearest, darling

mother, I can't stay away from you----"

Then Virginia wept, too, and Mrs. Pendleton, forgetting her own sorrow

at sight of the girl's tears, began to comfort her.

"Of course, you'll write and tell me everything. It will be almost as if

I were with you."

"And you love Oliver, don't you, mother?"

"How could I help it, dear--only I can't quite get used to your calling

your husband by his name, Jinny. It would have horrified your

grandmother, and somehow it does seem lacking in respect. However, I

suppose I'm old-fashioned."

"But, mother, he laughs if I call him 'Mr. Treadwell.' He says it

reminds him of his Aunt Belinda."

"Perhaps he's right, darling. Anyway, he prefers it, and I fancy your

grandfather wouldn't have liked to hear his wife address him so

familiarly. Times have changed since my girlhood."

"And Oliver has lived out in the world so much, mother."

"Yes," said Mrs. Pendleton, but her voice was without enthusiasm. The

"world" to her was a vague and sinister shape, which looked like a

bubble, and exerted a malignant influence over those persons who lived

beyond the borders of Virginia. Her imagination, which seldom wandered

farther afield than the possibility of the rector or of Virginia falling

ill, or the dreaded likelihood that her market bills would overrun her

weekly allowance, was incapable of grasping a set of standards other

than the one which was accepted in Dinwiddie.

"Wherever you are, Jinny, I hope that you will never forget the ideas

your father and I have tried to implant in you," she said.

"I'll always try to be worthy of you, mother."

"Your first duty now, of course, is to your husband. Remember, we have

always taught you that a woman's strength lies in her gentleness. His

will must be yours now, and wherever your ideas cross, it is your duty

to give up, darling. It is the woman's part to sacrifice herself."

"I know, mother, I know."

"I have never forgotten this, dear, and my marriage has been very happy.

Of course," she added, while her forehead wrinkled nervously, "there are

not many men like your father."

"Of course not, mother, but Oliver----"

In Mrs. Pendleton's soft, anxious eyes the shadow darkened, as if for

the first time she had grown suspicious of the traditional wisdom which

she was imparting. But this suspicion was so new and young that it could

not struggle for existence against the archaic roots of her inherited

belief in the Pauline measure of her sex. It was characteristic of

her--and indeed of most women of her generation--that she would have

endured martyrdom in support of the consecrated doctrine of her

inferiority to man.

"Even in the matter of religion you ought to yield to him, darling," she

said after a moment in which she had appealed to that orthodox arbiter,

her conscience. "Your father and I were talking about what church you

should go to, and I said that I supposed Oliver was a Presbyterian, like

all of the Treadwells."

"Oh, mother, I didn't tell you before because I hoped I could change

him--but he doesn't go to any church--he says they all bore him equally.

He has broken away from all the old ideas, you know. He is

dreadfully--unsettled."

The anxiety, which had been until then merely a shadow in Mrs.

Pendleton's eyes, deepened into a positive pain.

"Your father must have known, for he talked to him--but he wouldn't tell

me," she said.

"I made father promise not to. I hoped so I could change Oliver, and

maybe I can after we're married, mother."

"If he has given up the old spiritual standards, what has he in place of

them?" asked Mrs. Pendleton, and she had suddenly a queer feeling as if

little fine needles were pricking her skin.

"I don't know, but he seems to have a great deal, more than any of us,"

answered Virginia, and she added passionately, "He is good, mother."

"I never doubted it, darling, but he is young, and his character cannot

be entirely formed at his age. A man must be very strong in order to be

good without faith."

"But he has faith, mother--of some kind."

"I am not judging him, my child, and neither your father nor I would

ever criticise your husband to you. Your happiness was set on him, and

we can only pray from our hearts that he will prove worthy of your love.

He is very lovable, and I am sure that he has fine, generous traits.

Your father has been completely won over by him."

"He likes me to be religious, mother. He says the church has cultivated

the loveliest type of woman the world has ever seen."

"Then by fulfilling that ideal you will please him best."

"I shall try to be just what you have been to father--just as unselfish,

just as devoted."

"I have made many mistakes, Jinny, but I don't think I have ever failed

in love--not in love, at least."

Then the pain passed out of her eyes, and because it was impossible for

her to look on any fact in life except through the transfiguring

idealism with which the ages had endowed her, she became immediately

convinced that everything, even the unsettling of Oliver's opinions, had

been arranged for the best. This assurance was the more solacing because

it was the result, not of external evidence, but of that instinctive

decision of temperament which breeds the deepest conviction of all.

"Love is the only thing that really matters, isn't it, mother?"

"A pure and noble love, darling. It is a woman's life. God meant it so."

"You are so good! If I can only be half as good as you are."

"No, Jinny, I'm not really good. I have had many temptations--for I was

born with a high temper, and it has taken me a lifetime to learn really

to subdue it. I had--I have still an unfortunate pride. But for your

father's daily example of humility and patience, I don't know how I

could have supported the trials and afflictions we have known. Pray to

be better than your mother, my child, if you want to become a perfect

wife. What I am that seems good to you, your father has made me----"

"And father says that he would have been a savage but for you."

A tremor passed through Mrs. Pendleton's thin bosom, and bending over,

she smoothed a fine darn in the skirt of her alpaca dress.

"We have loved each other," she answered. "If you and Oliver love as

much, you will be happy whatever comes to you." Then choking down the

hard lump in her throat, she took up her leather key basket from the

little table beside the bed, and moved slowly towards the door. "I must

see about supper now, dear," she said in her usual voice of quiet

cheerfulness.

Left to herself, Virginia opened the worn copy of the prayer-book, which

she kept at her bedside, and read the marriage service from beginning to

end, as she had done every day since her engagement to Oliver. The words

seemed to her, as they seemed to her mother, to be almost divine in

their nobility and beauty. She was troubled by no doubt as to the

inspired propriety of the canonical vision of woman. What could be more

beautiful or more sacred than to be "given" to Oliver--to belong to him

as utterly as she had belonged to her father? What could make her

happier than the knowledge that she must surrender her will to his from

the day of her wedding until the day of her death? She embraced her

circumscribed lot with a passion which glorified its limitations. The

single gift which the ages permitted her was the only one she desired.

Her soul craved no adventure beyond the permissible adventure of being

sought in marriage. Love was all that she asked of a universe that was

overflowing with manifold aspects of life.

Beyond the window the tawny leaves of the paulownia were swinging in the

October sunshine, and so gay they seemed that it was impossible to

imagine them insensible to the splendour of the Indian Summer. Under the

half bared boughs, on the green grass in the yard, those that had

already fallen sped on, like a flock of frightened brown birds, towards

the white paling fence of the churchyard.

While she sat there, with her prayer-book in her hand, and her eyes on

the purple veil of the distance, it seemed to her that her joy was so

complete that there was nothing left even to hope for. All her life she

had looked forward to the coming of what she thought of vaguely as

"happiness," and now that it was here, she felt that it put an end to

the tremulous expectancy which had filled her girlhood with such wistful

dreams. Marriage appeared to her (and indeed to Oliver, also) as a

miraculous event, which would make not only herself, but every side of

life, different for the future. After that there would be no vain

longings, no spring restlessness, no hours of drab weariness, when the

interests of living seemed to crumble from mere despondency. After that

they would be always happy, always eager, always buoyantly alive.

Leaving the marriage service, her thoughts brooded in a radiant

stillness on the life of love which would begin for her on the day of

her wedding. A strange light--the light that quivered like a golden wing

over the autumn fields--shone, also, into the secret chambers of her

soul, and illumined the things which had appeared merely dull and

commonplace until to-day. Those innumerable little cares which fill the

lives of most women were steeped in the magic glow of this miraculous

charm. She thought of the daily excitement of marketing, of the

perpetual romance of mending his clothes, of the glorified monotony of

pouring his coffee, as an adventurer on sunrise seas might dream of the

rosy islands of hidden treasure. And then, so perfectly did she conform

in spirit to the classic ideal of her sex, her imagination ecstatically

pictured her in the immemorial attitude of woman. She saw herself

waiting--waiting happily--but always waiting. She imagined the thrilling

expectancy of the morning waiting for him to come home to his dinner;

the hushed expectancy of the evening waiting for him to come home to his

supper; the blissful expectancy of hoping that he might be early; the

painful expectancy of fearing that he might be late. And it seemed to

her divinely right and beautiful that, while he should have a hundred

other absorbing interests in his life, her whole existence should

perpetually circle around this single centre of thought. One by one, she

lived in anticipation all the exquisite details of their life together,

and in imagining them, she overlooked all possible changes that the

years might bring, as entirely as she ignored the subtle variations of

temperament which produce in each individual that fluid quantity we call

character. She thought of Oliver, as she thought of herself, as though

the fact of marriage would crystallize him into a shape from which he

would never alter or dissolve in the future. And with a reticence

peculiar to her type, she never once permitted her mind to stray to her

crowning beatitude--the hope of a child; for, with that sacred

inconsistency possible only to fixed beliefs, though motherhood was

supposed to comprise every desire, adventure, and activity in the life

of woman, it was considered indelicate for her to dwell upon the thought

of it until the condition had become too obvious for refinement to deny.

The shadow of the church tower lengthened on the grass, and at the end

of the cross street she saw Susan appear and stop for a minute to speak

to Miss Priscilla, who was driving by in a small wagonette. Then the

girl and the teacher parted, and ten minutes later there came Susan's

imperative knock at Virginia's door.

"Miss Willy told mother that your wedding dress was finished, Jinny, and

I am dying to see it!"

Going to the closet, which was built into one corner of the wall,

Virginia unpinned a long white sheet scented with rose-leaves, and

brought out a filmy mass of satin and lace. Her face as she looked down

upon it was the face of girlhood incarnate. All her virginal dreams

clustered there like doves quivering for flight. Its beauty was the

beauty of fleeting things--of the wind in the apple blossoms at dawn, of

the music of bees on an August afternoon.

"Mother wouldn't let me be married in anything but satin," she said,

with a catch in her voice. "I believe it is the first time in her life

she was ever extravagant, but she felt so strongly about it that I had

to give in and not have white muslin as I wanted to do."

"And it's so lovely," said Susan. "I had no idea Miss Willy could do it.

She's as proud, too, as if it were her own."

"She took a pleasure in every stitch, she told me. Oh, Susan, I

sometimes feel that I haven't any right to be so happy. I seem to have

everything and other women to have nothing."

For the first time Susan smiled, but it was a smile of understanding.

"Perhaps they have more than you think, darling."

"But there's Miss Willy--what has she ever got out of life?"

"Well, I really believe she gets a kind of happiness out of saving up

the money to pay for her tombstone. It's a funny thing, but the people

who ought to be unhappy, somehow never are. It doesn't seem to be a

matter of what you have, but of the way you are born. Now, according to

us, Miss Willy ought to be miserable, but the truth is that she isn't a

bit so. Mother saw her once skipping for pure joy in the spring."

"But people who haven't things can't be as grateful to God as those who

have. I feel that I'd like to spend every minute of my life on my knees

thanking Him. I don't see how I can ever have a disappointed or a

selfish thought again. I wonder if you can understand, you precious

Susan, but I want to open my arms and take the whole world into them."

"Jinny," said Susan suddenly, "don't spoil Oliver."

"I couldn't--not if I tried every minute."

"I don't know, dear. He is very lovable, he has fine generous traits, he

has the making of a big man in him--but his character isn't formed yet,

you must remember. So much of him is imagination that he will take

longer than most men to grow up to his stature."

"Oh, Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, and turned away.

"Perhaps I oughtn't to have said it, Jinny--but, no, I ought to tell you

just what I think, and I don't regret it."

"Mother said the same thing to me," responded Virginia, looking as if

she were on the point of tears; "but that is just because neither of you

know him as I do."

"He is a Treadwell and so am I, and the chief characteristic of every

Treadwell is that he is going to get the thing he wants most. It doesn't

make any difference whether it is money or love or fame, the thing he

wants most he will get sooner or later. So all I mean is that you

needn't spoil Oliver by giving him the universe before he wants it."

"I can't give him the universe. I can only give him myself."

Stooping over, Susan kissed her.

"Happy, happy little Jinny!"

"There are only two things that trouble me, dear--one is going away from

mother and father, and the other is that you are not so happy as I am."

"Some day I may get the thing I want like every other Treadwell."

"Do you mean going to college?"

"No," said Susan, "I don't mean that," and into her calm grey eyes a new

light shone for an instant.

A clairvoyance, deeper than knowledge, came to Virginia while she looked

at her.

"You darling!" she exclaimed. "I never suspected!"

"There's nothing to suspect, Jinny. I was only joking."

"Why, it never crossed my mind that you would think of him for a

minute."

"He hasn't thought of me for a minute yet."

"The idea! He'd be wild about you in ten seconds if he ever thought----"

"He was wild about you ten seconds ago, dear."

"He never was. It was just his fancy. Why, you are made for each other."

A laugh broke from Susan, but with that large and quiet candour which

was characteristic of her, she did not seek to evade or deny Virginia's

suspicion. That her friend should discover her feeling for John Henry

seemed to her as natural as that she should be conscious of it

herself--for they were intimate with that full and perfect intimacy

which exists only between two women who trust each other.

"There goes Miss Willy," said Susan, looking through the window to where

the little dressmaker tripped down the stone steps to the street.

"Mother wants to have early supper, so I must be running away."

"Good-bye, darling. Oh, Susan, I never loved you as I do now. It will be

all right--I trust and pray that it will! And, just think, you will walk

out of church together at my wedding!"

For a minute, standing on the threshold, Susan looked back at her with

an expression of tender amusement in her eyes. "Don't imagine that I'm

unhappy, dear," she said, "because I'm not--it isn't that kind--and,

after all, even an unrequited affection may be simply an added interest

in life, if we choose to take it that way."

When she had gone, Virginia lingered over her wedding dress, while she

wondered what the wise Susan could see in the simple John Henry? Was it

possible that John Henry was not so simple, after all? Or did Susan,

forsaking the ancient tradition of love, care about him merely because

he was good?

For a week the hours flew by with golden wings, and at last the most

sacred day of her life dawned softly in a sunrise of rose and flame.

When she looked back on it afterwards, there were three things which

stood out unforgettably in her memory--the kiss that her mother gave her

when she turned to leave her girlhood's room for the last time; the

sound of her father's voice as he spoke her name at the altar; and the

look in Oliver's eyes when she put her hand into his. All the rest was

enveloped in a shining mist which floated, like her wedding veil,

between the old life and the new.

"It has been so perfect--so perfect--if I can only be worthy of this day

and of you, Oliver," she said as the carriage started from the rectory

gate to the station.

"You angel!" he murmured ecstatically.

Her eyes hung blissfully on his face for an instant, and then, moved by

a sudden stab of reproach, she leaned from the window and looked back at

her mother and father, who stood, with clasped hands, gazing after her

over the white palings of the gate.

CHAPTER II

VIRGINIA'S LETTERS

MATOACA CITY, West Virginia, October 16, 1884.

DEAREST, DEAREST MOTHER:

We got here this morning after a dreadful trip--nine or ten hours

late--and this is the first minute I've had when I could sit down and

write to you. All the way on the train I was thinking of you and dear

father, and longing for you so that I could hardly keep back the tears.

I don't see how I can possibly stay away from you for a whole year.

Oliver says he wants to take me home for Christmas if everything goes

all right with us here and his work proves satisfactory to the manager.

Oh, mother, he is the loveliest thing to me! I don't believe he has

thought of himself a single minute since I married him. He says the only

wish he has on earth is to make me happy--and he is so careful about me

that I'm afraid I'll be spoiled to death before you see me again. He

says he loves the little grey dress of shot silk, with the bonnet that

makes me look like a Quaker. I wish now I'd got my other hat the bonnet

shape as you wanted me to do--but perhaps, after all, it will be more

useful and keep in fashion longer as it is. When I took out my clothes

this morning, while Oliver was downstairs, and remembered how you had

folded and packed everything, I just sat down on the floor in the midst

of them and had a good cry. I never realized how much I loved you until

I got into the carriage to come away. Then I wanted to jump out and put

my arms around you and tell you that you are the best and dearest mother

a girl ever had. My things were so beautifully packed that there wasn't

a single crease anywhere--not even in the black silk polonaise that we

were so afraid would get rumpled. I don't see how on earth you folded

them so smoothly. By the way, I hardly think I shall have any need of my

wedding dress while I am here, so you may as well put it away at home

until I come back. This place seems to be just a mining town, with very

few people of our class, and those all connected with the railroad. Of

course, I may be mistaken, but from my first impressions I doubt if I'll

ever want to have much to do with anybody that I've seen. It doesn't

make a bit of difference, of course, because I shan't be lonesome a

minute with the house to look after and Oliver's clothes to attend to;

and, besides, I don't think a married woman ought to make many new

friends. Her husband ought to be enough for her. Mrs. Payson, the

manager's wife, was here to welcome me, but I hope I shan't see very

much of her, because she isn't just exactly what I should call ladylike.

Of course I wouldn't breathe this to any other living soul, but I

thought her entirely too free and easy in her manner, and she dresses in

such very bright colours. Why, she had a red feather in her hat, and she

must have been married at least fifteen years. Oliver says he doesn't

believe she's a day under forty-five. He says he likes her well enough

and thinks she's a good sort, but he is awfully glad that I'm not that

kind of woman. I feel sorry for her husband, for I'm sure no man wants

his wife to make herself conspicuous, and they say she even makes

speeches when she is in the North. Maybe she isn't to blame, because she

was brought up that way, but I am going to see just as little of her as

I can.

And now I must tell you about our house, for I know you are dying to

hear how we are fixed. It's the tiniest one you ever imagined, with a

front yard the size of a pocket handkerchief, and it is painted the most

perfectly hideous shade of yellow--the shade father always calls

bilious. I can't understand why they made it so ugly, but, then, the

whole town is just as ugly as our house is. The people here don't seem

to have the least bit of taste. All the porches have dreadful brown

ornaments along the top of them, and they look exactly as if they were

made out of gingerbread. There are very few gardens, and nobody takes

any care of these. I suppose one reason is that it is almost impossible

to get servants for love or money. There are hardly any darkies here,

they say, and the few they have are perfectly worthless. Mrs.

Midden--the woman who opened my house for me--hasn't been able to get me

a cook, and we'll either have to take our meals at a boarding-house

across the street, or I shall have to put to practise the lessons you

gave me. I am so glad you made me learn how to housekeep and to cook,

because I am certain that I shall have greater need of both of these

accomplishments than of either drawing or music. Oliver was simply

horrified when I told him so. He said he'd rather starve than see me in

the kitchen, and he urged me to get you to send us a servant from

Dinwiddie--but things are so terribly costly here--you never dreamed of

such prices--that I really don't believe we can afford to have one come.

Then, Mrs. Midden says that they get ruined just as soon as they are

brought here. Everybody tries it at first, she told me, and it has

always proved a disappointment in the end. I am perfectly sure that I

shan't mind cooking at all--and as for cleaning up this little

house--why, it won't take me an hour--but Oliver almost weeps every time

I mention it. He is afraid every instant he is away from me that I am

lonesome or something has happened to me, and whenever he has ten

minutes free he runs up here to see what I am doing. Do you know he has

made me promise not to go out by myself until I am used to the place.

Isn't that too absurd?

Dearest mother, I must stop now, and write some notes of thanks for my

presents. The barrels of china haven't come yet, but the silver box got

here almost as soon as we did. Freight takes a long time, Oliver says.

It will be such fun unpacking all my presents and putting them away on

the shelves. I was so excited those last few days that I hardly paid any

attention to the things that came. Now I shall have time really to enjoy

them, and to realize how sweet and lovely everybody has been to me.

Wasn't it too dear of Miss Priscilla to give me that beautiful tea-set?

And I was so touched by poor little Miss Willy spending her hard-earned

money on that vase. I wish she hadn't. It makes me feel badly to think

of it--but I don't see what I could do about it, do you? I think I'll

try to send her a cloak or something at Christmas.

I haven't said half that I want to--but I shall keep the rest for

to-morrow.

With a dozen kisses and my dearest love to father,

Your ever, ever loving and grateful daughter,

VIRGINIA

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY. December 25, 1884.

DEAREST MOTHER:

It almost broke my heart not to be able to go home for Christmas. It

doesn't seem like Christmas at all away from you--though, of course, I

try not to let Oliver see how I mind it. He has so much to bother him,

poor dear, that I keep all of my worries, big and little, in the

background. When anything goes wrong in the house I never tell him,

because he has so many important things on his mind that I don't think I

ought to trouble him about small ones. We have given up going to the

boarding-house for our meals, because neither of us could eat a morsel

of the food they had there--did you ever hear of such a thing as having

pie and preserves for breakfast?--and Oliver says it used to make him

sick to see me in the midst of all of those people. They came from all

over the country, and hardly anybody could speak a grammatical sentence.

The man who sat next to me always said "he don't" and "I ain't feeling

good to-day" and once even "I done it"--can you imagine such a thing?

Every other word was "guess," and yet they had the impertinence to laugh

at me when I said "reckon," which, I am sure father told me was

Shakespearian English. Well, we stood it as long as we could, and then

we started having our meals here, and it is so much nicer. Oliver says

the change from the boarding-house has given him a splendid appetite,

and he enjoys everything that I make so much--particularly the waffles

by Aunt Ailsey's recipe. Be sure to tell her. At first I had a servant,

but she was so dreadful that I let her go at the end of the month, and I

really get on ever so much better without her. She hadn't the faintest

idea how to cook, and had never made a piece of light bread in her life.

Besides, she was too untidy for anything, and actually swept the trash

under the bed except once a week when she pretended to give a thorough

cleaning. The first time she changed the sheets, I found that she had

simply put on one fresh one, and was going to use the bottom one on top.

She said she'd never heard of doing it any other way, and I had to laugh

when I thought of how your face would have looked if you could have

heard her. It really is the greatest relief to get rid of her, and I'd a

hundred times rather do the work myself than have another of that kind.

At first Oliver hated dreadfully to have me do everything about the

house, but he is beginning to get used to it now, because, of course, I

never let him see if anything happens to worry me or if I am tired when

he comes home. It takes every minute of my time, but, then, there is

nothing else here that I care to do, and I never leave the house except

to take a little walk with Oliver on Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Midden says

that I make a mistake to give a spring cleaning every day, but I love to

keep the house looking perfectly spick and span, and I make hot bread

twice a day, because Oliver is so fond of it. He is just as sweet and

dear as he can be and wants to help about everything, but I hate to see

him doing housework. Somehow it doesn't seem to me to look manly. We

have had our first quarrel about who is to get up and make the fires in

the morning. Oliver insisted that he was to do it, but I wake so much

earlier than he does, because I've got the bread on my mind, that I

almost always have the wood burning before he gets up. The first few

times he was really angry about it, and he didn't seem to understand why

I hated so to wake him. He says he hates still worse to see my hands get

rough--but I am so thankful that I am not one of those girls (like Abby

Goode) who are forever thinking of how they look. But Oliver made such a

fuss about the fires that I didn't tell him that I went down to the

cellar one morning and brought up a basket of coal. The boy didn't come

the day before, so there wasn't any to start the kitchen fire with, and

I knew that by the time Oliver got up and dressed it would be too late

to have hot rolls for breakfast. By the way, could you have a bushel of

cornmeal sent to me from Dinwiddie? The kind they have here isn't the

least bit like the water-ground sort we have at home, and most of it is

yellow. Nobody ever has batterbread here. All the food is different from

ours. I suppose that is because most of the people are from the North

and West.

I have the table all set for our Christmas dinner, and in a few minutes

I must put the turkey into the oven. I was so glad to get the plum

pudding in the Christmas box, because I could never have made one half

so good as yours, and the fruit cake will last me forever--it is so big.

I wrote you about the box yesterday just as soon as it came, but after I

had sent my letter, I went back to it and found that rose point scarf of

grandmother's wrapped in tissue paper in the bottom. Darling mother, it

made me cry. You oughtn't to have given it to me. It always looked so

lovely on your black silk, and it was almost the last thing you had

left. I don't believe I shall ever make up my mind to wear it. I have on

my little grey silk to-day, and it looks so nice. You must tell Miss

Willy that it has been very much admired. Mrs. Payson asked me if it was

made in Dinwiddie, and, you know, she gets all of her clothes from New

York. That must have been why I thought her over-dressed when I first

saw her. By the way, I've almost changed my mind about her since I wrote

you what I thought of her. I believe now that the whole trouble with her

is simply that she isn't a Southern lady. She means well, I am sure, but

she isn't what I should call exactly refined. There's something "horsey"

about her--I can't think of any other way to express it--something that

reminds me just a little bit of Abby--and, you remember, we always said

Abby got that from being educated in the North. Tell dearest Susan I

really think it is fortunate that she did not go to one of their

colleges. Mrs. Payson is a college woman and it seems to me that she is

always trying to appear as clever as a man. She talks in a way sometimes

that sounds as if she believed in woman's rights and all that sort of

thing. I told Oliver about it, and he laughed and said that men hated

talk like that. He says all a man admires in a woman is her power of

loving, and that when she begins to ape a man she loses her charm for

him. I can't understand why Mr. Payson married his wife. He said such

nice things to me the other day about my being so domestic and such a

home lover, that I really felt sorry for him. When I told him that I

was so fond of staying indoors that I would never cross my threshold if

Oliver didn't make me, he laughed and said that he wished I'd convert

his wife to my way of thinking. Yet he seems to have the greatest

admiration for her, and, do you know, I believe he even admires that red

feather, though he doesn't approve of it. He never turns his eyes away

from her when they are together, which isn't very much, as she goes

about just as she pleases without him. Can you understand how a person

can both admire and disapprove of a thing? Oliver says he knows how it

is, but I must say that I don't. I hope and pray that our marriage will

always be different from theirs. Oliver and I are never apart for a

single minute except when he is at work in the office. He hasn't written

a line since we came here, but he is going to begin as soon as we get

settled, and then he says that I may sit in the room and sew if I want

to. I can't believe that people really love each other unless they want

to be together every instant, no matter what they are doing. Why, if

Oliver went out to men's dinners without me as Mr. Payson does (though

she doesn't seem to mind it) I should just sit at home by myself and cry

my eyes out. I think love, if it is love, ought to be all in all. I am

perfectly sure that if I live to be a hundred I shall never want any

society but Oliver's. He is the whole world to me, and when he is not

here I spend my time, unless I am at work, just sitting and thinking

about him. My one idea is to make him as happy as I can, and when a

woman does this for a man I don't think she has time to run around by

herself as Mrs. Payson does. Tell dearest father that I so often think

of his sermons and the beautiful things he said about women. The rector

here doesn't compare with him as a preacher.

This is such a long letter it will take two stamps. I've just let myself

run on without thinking what I was writing, so if I have made any

mistakes in grammar or in spelling, please don't let father see them but

read my letter aloud to him. I can shut my eyes and see you sitting at

dinner, with Docia bringing in the plum pudding, and I know you will

talk of me while you help to it. Write me who comes to dinner with you.

I wonder if Miss Priscilla and John Henry are there as usual. Do you

know whether John Henry ever goes to the Treadwell's or not? I wish you

would ask him to take Susan to see his old mammy in Pink Alley. Now that

I am not there to go to see her occasionally, I am afraid she will get

lonesome.

Good-bye, dearest mother. I will write to you before New Year. I am so

busy that I don't have time to write every day, but you will understand

and so will father.

With my heart's fondest love to you both,

Your

VIRGINIA.

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY. June 6, 1885.

DARLING MOTHER:

The little patterns were exactly what I wanted--thank you a thousand

times. I knew you would be overjoyed at the news, and you are the only

person I've breathed it to--except, of course, dear Oliver, who is

frightened to death already. He has made me stop everything at once, and

whenever he sees me lift my hand, he begins to get nervous and begs me

not to do it. Oh, mother, he loves me so that it is really pathetic to

see his anxiety. And--can you believe it--he doesn't appear to be the

least bit glad about it. When I told him, he looked amazed--as if he had

never thought of its happening--and said, "Oh, Virginia, not so soon!"

He told me afterwards that, of course, he'd always thought we'd have

children after a while, before we were middle-aged, but that he had

wanted to stay like this for at least five or ten years. When the baby

comes, he says he supposes he'll like it, but that he can't honestly say

he is glad. It's funny how frightened he is, because I am not the least

bit so. All women must expect to have children when they marry, and if

God makes them suffer for it, it must be because it is best that they

should. Perhaps they wouldn't love their babies so much if they got them

easily. I never think of the pain a minute. It all seems so beautiful

and sacred to me that I can't understand why Oliver isn't enraptured

just as I am. To think of a new life starting into the world from me--a

life that is half mine and half Oliver's, and one that would never be at

all except for our love. The baby will seem from the very first minute

to be our love made into flesh. I don't see how a woman who feels this

could waste a thought on what she has to suffer.

I am so glad you are going to send me a nurse from Dinwiddie, because

I'm afraid I could never get one here that I could trust. The servant

Oliver got me is no earthly account, and I still do as much of the

cooking as I can. The house doesn't look nearly so nice as it used to,

but the doctor tells me that I mustn't sweep, so I only do the light

dusting. I sew almost all the time, and I've already finished the little

slips. To-day I'm going to cut out the petticoats. I couldn't tell from

the pattern you sent whether they fasten in front or in the back. There

are no places for buttonholes. Do you use safety pins to fasten them

with? The embroidery is perfectly lovely, and will make the sweetest

trimming. I am using pink for the basket because Oliver and I both hope

the baby will be a girl. If it is, I shall name her after you, of

course, and I want her to be just exactly like you. Oliver says he can't

understand why anybody ever wants a boy--girls are so much nicer. But

then he insists that if she isn't born with blue eyes, he will send her

to the orphanage.

I am trying to do just as you tell me to, and to be as careful as I

possibly can. The doctor thinks I've stayed indoors too much since I

came here, so I go out for a little walk with Oliver every night. I am

so afraid that somebody will see me that I really hate to go out at all,

and always choose the darkest streets I can find. Last night I had a bad

stumble, and Oliver says he doesn't care if the whole town discovers us,

he's not going to take me down any more unlighted alleys.

It has been terribly hot all day--not a breath of air stirring--and I

never felt the heat so much in my life. The doctor says it's because of

my condition--and last night, after Oliver went to sleep, I got up and

sat by the window until daybreak. At first I was dreadfully frightened,

and thought I was going to stifle--but poor Oliver had come home so

tired that I made up my mind I wasn't going to wake him if I could

possibly help it. This morning I didn't tell him a word about it, and he

hasn't the least idea that I didn't sleep soundly all night. I suppose

that's why I feel so dragged and worn out to-day, just as if somebody

had given me a good beating. I was obliged to lie down most of the

afternoon, but I am going to take a bath in a few minutes and try to

make myself look nice and fresh before Oliver comes home. I have let out

that flowered organdie--the one you liked so much--and I wear it almost

every evening. I know I look dreadfully, but Oliver says I am more

beautiful than ever. It seems to me sometimes that men are born blind

where women are concerned, but perhaps God made it that way on purpose.

Do you know Oliver really admires Mrs. Payson, and he thinks that red

feather very becoming to her. He says she's much too good for her

husband, but I have been obliged to disagree with him about that. Even

if Mr. Payson does drink a little, I am sure it is only because he gets

lonesome when he is left by himself, and that she could prevent it if

she tried. Oliver and I never talk about these things because he sees

that I feel so strongly about them.

Oh, darling mother, I shall be so glad to see you! I hope and pray that

father will be well enough for you to come a whole month ahead. In that

case you will be here in less than two months, won't you? If the baby

comes on the twelfth of August, she (I am perfectly sure it will be a

girl) and father will have the same birthday. I am so anxious that she

shall be born on that day.

Well, I must stop now, though I could run on forever. I never see a

living soul from one day to another--Mrs. Payson is out of town--so when

Oliver stays late at the office, and I am too tired to work, I get a

little--just a little bit lonesome. Mr. Payson sent me a pile of novels

by Oliver the other night--but I haven't looked into them. I always feel

that it is a waste of time to read when there are things about the house

that ought to be done. I wish everything didn't cost so much here. Money

doesn't go half as far as it does in Dinwiddie. The price of meat is

almost three times as much as it is at home, and chickens are so

expensive that we have them only twice a week. It is hard to housekeep

on a small allowance, and now that we have to save for the baby's

coming, I have to count every penny. I have bought a little book like

yours, and I put down all that I spend during the day, and then add it

up at night before going to bed. Oliver says I'm dreadfully frugal, but

I am always so terribly afraid of running over my allowance (which is

every cent that we can afford) and not having the money to pay the

doctor's bills when they are due. Nobody could be more generous with

money than Oliver is--I couldn't endure being married to a stingy man

like Mr. Treadwell--and the other day when one of the men in the office

died, he sent the most beautiful wreath that cost ten dollars. I am

trying to save enough out of the housekeeping balance to pay for it, for

Oliver always runs out of his pocket money before the middle of the

month. I haven't bought anything for the baby because you sent me all

the materials I needed, and I have been sewing on those ever since they

came. Of course my own clothes are still as good as new, so the only

expense will be the doctor and the nurse and the extra things I shall be

obliged to have to eat when I am sick.

Give dear father a dozen kisses from me, and tell him to hurry and get

well so he can christen his granddaughter.

Your devoted and ever grateful

VIRGINIA.

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY. August 11, 1885.

DARLING MOTHER:

Just a line to say that I am so, so sorry you can't come, but that you

mustn't worry a minute, because everything is going beautifully, and I

am not the least bit afraid. The doctor says he never saw any one in a

better frame of mind or so little nervous. Give my dear love to father.

I am so distressed that he should suffer as he does. Rheumatism must be

such terrible pain, and I don't wonder that you are frightened lest it

should go to his heart. I shall send you a telegram as soon as the baby

comes.

Your devoted daughter,

VIRGINIA.

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY. August 29, 1885.

MY PRECIOUS MOTHER:

This is the first time I have sat up in bed, and I am trying to write a

little note to you on a pillow instead of a desk. My hand shakes so that

I'm afraid you won't be able to read it, but I felt that I wanted to

send you a few words of my very own, not dictated to the nurse or to

Mrs. Payson. I can't tell you how perfectly lovely Mrs. Payson has been

to me. She was here all that dreadful night, and I believe I should have

died without her. The doctor said I had such a hard time because I'd let

myself get run down and stayed indoors too much. But I'm getting all

right now--and the rest is over and doesn't matter. As soon as I am

strong again I shall be perfectly happy.

Oh, mother, aren't you delighted that the baby is a girl, after all? It

was the first question I asked when I came back to consciousness the

next morning, and when they told me it was, I said, "Her name is Lucy

Pendleton," and that was all. I was so weak they wouldn't let me open my

lips again, and Oliver was kept out of the room for almost ten days

because I would talk to him. Poor fellow, it almost killed him. He is as

white as a sheet still, and looks as if he had been through tortures. It

must have been terrible for him, because I was really very, very ill at

one time.

But it is all over now, and the baby is the sweetest thing you ever

imagined. I believe she knows me already, and Mrs. Payson says she is

exactly like me, though I can see the strongest resemblance to Oliver,

even if she has blue eyes and he hasn't. Wasn't it lovely how everything

came just as we wanted it to--a girl, born on father's birthday, with

blue eyes, and named Lucy? But, mother, darling, the most wonderful

thing of all was that you seemed to be with me all through it. The whole

time I was unconscious I thought you were here, and the nurse tells me

that I was calling "Mother! Mother!" all that night. Nothing ever made

me feel as close to you as having a baby of my own. I never knew before

what you were to me, and how dearly, dearly I love you.

The nurse is taking the pencil away from me.

Your loving

VIRGINIA.

Isn't it funny that Oliver won't take any interest in the baby at all?

He says she caused more trouble than she is worth. Was father like that?

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY. April 3, 1886.

DEAREST MOTHER:

My last letter was written an age ago, but I have been so busy since

Marthy left that I've hardly had a moment in which to draw breath. It

was a blow to me that she wouldn't stay for she was really an excellent

nurse and the baby got on so well with her, but there aren't any

coloured people of her kind here, and she got so homesick for Dinwiddie

that I thought she would lose her mind if she stayed. You know how

dependent they are upon company, and going out on Sunday afternoon and

all that kind of thing, and there really wasn't any amusement for her

except taking the baby out in the morning. She got so low spirited that

it was almost a relief when she went, but of course I feel her loss

dreadfully. I haven't let the baby out of my sight because I wouldn't

trust Daisy with her for anything in the world. She is so terribly

flighty. I have the crib brought into my room (though Oliver hates it)

and I take entire charge of her night and day. I should love to do it if

only Oliver didn't mind it so much. He says I think more of the baby now

than I do of him. Isn't that absurd? But of course she does take every

single minute of my time, and I can't dress myself for him every evening

as carefully as I used to do and look after all the housekeeping

arrangements. Daisy is a very poor cook and she simply throws the things

on the table, but it seems to me that my first duty is to the baby, so I

try to put up with the discomforts as well as I can. It is hard to eat

what she cooks since everything tastes exactly alike, but I try to

swallow as much as I can because the doctor says that if I don't keep up

my strength I shall have to stop nursing the baby. Wouldn't that be

dreadful? It almost breaks my heart to think of it, and I am sure we'd

never get any artificial food to agree with her. She is perfectly well

now, the sweetest, fattest thing you ever saw, and a real beauty, and

she is so devoted to me that she cries whenever I go out of her sight. I

am never tired of watching her, and even when she is asleep I sit

sometimes for an hour by her crib just thinking how pretty she looks

with her eyes closed and wishing you could see her. Oliver says I spoil

her to death, but how can a baby of seven months be spoiled. He doesn't

enjoy her half as much as I do, and sometimes I almost think that he

gets impatient of seeing her always in my arms. At first he absolutely

refused to have her crib brought into our room, but when I cried, he

gave in and was very sweet about it. I feel so ashamed sometimes of the

way the house looks, but there doesn't seem to be any help for it

because the doctor says if I let myself get tired it will be bad for the

baby. Of course I wouldn't put my own health before his comfort, but I

am obliged to think first of the baby, am I not? Last night, for

instance, the poor little thing was ill with colic and I was up and down

with her until daybreak. Then this morning she woke early and I had to

nurse her and give her her bath, and, added to everything else, Daisy's

cousin died and she sent word she couldn't come. I slipped on a wrapper

before taking a bath or fixing my hair and ran down to try and get

Oliver's breakfast, but the baby began to cry and he came after me and

said he wanted to make the coffee himself. Then he brought a cup

upstairs to me, but I was so tired and nervous that I couldn't drink it.

He didn't seem to understand why, feeling as badly as I did, I wouldn't

just put the baby back into her crib and make her stay there until I got

some rest, but the little thing was so wide awake that I hadn't the

heart to do it. Besides, it is so important to keep regular hours with

her, isn't it? I don't suppose a man ever realizes how a woman looks at

these things, but you will understand, won't you, mother?

I am all alone in the house to-night because a play is in town that

Oliver wanted to see and I made him go to it. He wanted to ask Mrs.

Midden to sit downstairs (she has offered over and over again to do it)

so that I might go too, but of course I wouldn't let him. I really

couldn't have enjoyed it a minute for thinking of the baby, and besides

I never cared for the theatre. Then, too, he doesn't know (for I never

tell him) how very tired I am by the time night comes. Sometimes when

Oliver comes home and we sit in the dining-room (we never use the

drawing-room, because it is across the hall and I'm afraid I shouldn't

hear the baby cry) it is as much as I can do to keep my eyes open. I try

not to let him notice it, but one night when he read me the first act of

a play he is writing, I went to sleep, and though he didn't say

anything, I could see that he was very much hurt. He worries a good deal

about my health, too, and he even went out one day and engaged a nurse

without saying anything to me about it. After I had talked to her

though, I saw that she would never do, so I sent her away before he came

home. I wish I could get really strong and feel well again, but the

doctor insists I never will until I get out of doors and use my

muscles. But you stay in the house all the time and so did grandmother,

so I don't believe there's a word of truth in what he says. Anyway, I go

out every day now with the baby.

Thank you so much for the little bands. They are just what I wanted.

With dearest love,

Your devoted

VIRGINIA.

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY. June 10, 1886.

DEAREST MOTHER:

Daisy left a week ago and we couldn't find another servant until to-day.

I must say that I prefer coloured servants. They are so much more

dependable. I didn't know until the evening before Daisy left that she

was going, and I had to send Oliver straight out to see if he could find

somebody to come in and help me. There wasn't a soul to be had until

to-day, however, so for a week I was obliged to make Oliver get his

dinner at the boarding-house. It doesn't make any difference what I have

because I haven't a particle of appetite, and I'd just as soon eat tea

and toast as anything else. Of course, but for the baby I could have

managed perfectly well--but she has been so fretful of late that she

doesn't let me put her down a minute. The doctor says her teeth are

beginning to hurt her, and that I must expect to have trouble the first

summer. She has been so well until now that he thinks it has been really

remarkable. He tells me he never knew a healthier baby, but of course I

am terribly anxious about her teething in the hot weather. If she grows

much more fretful I'm afraid I shall have to take her to the country

for July and August. It seems dreadful to leave Oliver all alone, but I

don't see how I can help it if the doctor advises me to go. Oliver has

gone to some musical comedy at the Academy to-night, and I am so tired

that I am going to bed just as soon as I finish this letter. I hope and

pray that the baby will have a quiet night. Don't you think that Daisy

treated me very badly considering how kind I had been to her? Only a

week ago when she was taken with pain in the night, I got up and made

her a mustard plaster and sat by her bed until she felt easier. The next

day I did all of her work, and yet she has so little gratitude that she

could leave me this way when she knows perfectly well that I am worried

to death about the baby's first summer. I'd give anything if I could go

home in July as you suggest, but it is such a long trip, and the heat

will probably be quite as bad in Dinwiddie as here. Of course, it would

make all the difference in the world to me to be where I could have you

to advise me about the baby, and I'd go to-morrow if it only wasn't so

far. Mrs. Midden has told me of a boarding-house in the country not more

than twenty miles from here where Oliver could come down every evening,

and we may decide to go there for a month or two. I can't help feeling

very anxious, especially as Mrs. Scott's little boy--he is just the age

of baby--was taken ill the other night, and they thought he would die

before they could get a doctor.

This letter is full of my worries, but in spite of them I am the

happiest woman that ever lived. Oliver is the best thing to me you can

imagine, and the baby is so fascinating that I enjoy every minute I am

with her. It is the greatest fun to watch her in her bath. I know you

would simply go into raptures over her--and she is so bright that she

already understands every word that I say. She grows more like Oliver

all the time, and the other day while I was watching her playing with

her rubber doll, she looked so beautiful that it almost frightened me.

I am so glad dear father is well, and what you wrote me about John

Henry's admiration for Susan interested me so much that I sat straight

down and wrote to him. Why do you think that it is only friendship and

that he isn't in love with her? If he really thinks her the "finest girl

in the world," I should imagine he was beginning to be pretty serious. I

am delighted to hear that he is going to take her to the festival. Tell

Susan from me that I shall never be satisfied until she is as happy as I

am. Mr. Treadwell was right, I believe, not to let her go to college,

though of course I want dear Susan to have whatever she sets her heart

on. But, when all is said, you were wise in teaching me that nothing

matters to a woman except love. More and more I am learning that if we

only love unselfishly enough, everything else will work out for good to

us. My little worries can't keep me from being so blissfully happy that

I want to sing all the time. Work is a joy to me because I feel that I

am doing it for Oliver and the baby. And with two such treasures to live

for I should be the most ungrateful creature alive if I ever complained.

Your ever loving daughter,

VIRGINIA.

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY, July 1, 1886.

DEAREST MOTHER:

We are leaving suddenly for the country, and I'll send our address just

as soon as we get there. The doctor thinks I ought to take the baby

away from town, so I am going to the boarding-house I wrote you about.

Oliver will come down every evening--it's only an hour's trip.

I am so tired from packing that I can't write any more.

Lovingly,

VIRGINIA.

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY. September 15, 1886.

DEAREST MOTHER:

Here we are back again in our home, and I was never so thankful in my

life to get away from any place. I wrote you how dreadfully inconvenient

it was, but it would take pages to tell you all of my experiences in the

last few days. Such people you never saw in your life! And the food got

so uneatable that I lived on crackers for the last fortnight.

Fortunately, I was still nursing the baby, but the doctor has just told

me that I must stop. I am so distressed about it. Do you think it will

go hard with her after the first year? She is as fat and well as she can

be now, but I live in hourly terror of her getting sick. If anything

should happen to her, I believe it would kill me.

Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he

hates it.

Your loving

VIRGINIA.

I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant.

She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and

says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I

feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me.

* * * * *

MATOACA CITY. October 12, 1886.

MY DARLING MOTHER:

I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from

breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems

dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it

is between my letters.

We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of

course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful

and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage

in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I

can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at

once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me

to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or

two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we

have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford

to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we

were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect

anything else.

And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one

knows--not even Oliver--except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going

to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought

to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business

worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have

entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I

do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the

bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly

not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be

born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled

with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child--that she hoped

she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls

He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly

delighted--it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother

or sister to play with when she gets bigger--but I can't help worrying

about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't

have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it

comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the

Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of

my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to

think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband

that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know,

things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks

ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit

practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to

cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I

count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through

the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though

Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to

do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage,

besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand

from this how grateful I am for the check you sent--but, dearest mother,

I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your

own comfort and father's to give it to me.

I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be

happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home--in a little

house near the rectory.

Your loving child,

VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER III

THE RETURN

On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was

returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the

corner of Old Street.

"You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The

train gets in at four o'clock."

"Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been

seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity."

"She hasn't changed much--at least she hadn't six months ago when I was

out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two

hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her."

"It was a great blow--but she has been fortunate never to have had a

day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them--especially

the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but

she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the

prettiest baby she ever saw."

"Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty."

"That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I

was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them.

Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't

believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having

them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born

mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family."

"I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after

his father, too."

"Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No,

Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course,

that he isn't nice and kind to them--but he isn't wrapped up in them

heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in

this play he has written than he is in the children."

"I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged.

That's splendid, isn't it?"

"He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of

recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor

fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say

he was very faithful and persevering about it."

"You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old

Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you

hadn't quite decided about it."

"I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory.

Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute."

"Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she

carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see

them this evening--I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?"

"Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the

first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook

supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I

could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be

so fond of sweetbreads."

"Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't

been well for the last few days."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down

just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the

house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks."

"When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning

back after they had parted.

"In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish

Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night

away from the children for anything on earth."

"Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?"

"Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must

say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he

would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of

course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children

are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing

I'm certain of--he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched

the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how

fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now,

she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest

thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare

and Milton rolled into one."

"Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy

surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very

attractive--everybody does--but he seemed to me to be selfish and

undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman

to bring out the best in him."

"You'll think so when you see them together."

Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little

house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home.

She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women

of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she

was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown

more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation

which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still

appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton

would probably have said that she had "settled."

At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and

turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a

moment discussing Virginia's return.

"I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm

out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice."

"Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?"

"If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three

children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again."

"You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not."

"Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss

Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle."

"Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did."

Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it

is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that

had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was

certainly not handsome--though he was less stout and much better looking

than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was

successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion

concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she

knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused

in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently

seven years for him to discover that he cared for her--a fact which had

been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived

it.

"Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked.

"I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the

children before they are put to bed."

"Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything

for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers

me."

She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her

confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket.

An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was

a smile on her face which made it almost pretty.

The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came

groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall.

"I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling."

"What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are

some beautiful grapes I've brought you."

"I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone."

"Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay

shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and

sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia."

"Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything."

"But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You

must have forgotten."

"I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it

if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like

your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice

had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually

passive features.

"Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by

her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well.

You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice

little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap."

Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to

her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began

immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window.

"I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she

said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with

the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my

family."

"I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while

she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up

and eat these oysters."

"I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while

she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea

from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into

my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered

out until they were as common as dirt."

"Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to

make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and

her mother received and ate it obediently.

"If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest

easier, Susan."

"Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing."

"Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found

somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the

same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and

fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish.

At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince

Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping

out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a

collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs.

Pendleton, who stood on the pavement.

"Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as

if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement

of homecoming.

"Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head

of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny--poor little thing, she

hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the

living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?"

"She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want

to see if you've changed."

"Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four

babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and

there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes,

but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it

seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The

loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and

goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt,

and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with

the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a

characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and

by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider

whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of

calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were

transfigured as by a flood of light.

"This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never

seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the

little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is

Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is

nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?"

"He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy.

"As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin

building."

"Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy

about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become

of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?"

No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came

eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer

than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked

herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in

Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of

youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a

curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her

narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There

was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed

and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's

clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla

Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a

pang, that would break early.

"Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager

pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well,

it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind

me?"

"The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver,

so perfectly delighted."

"By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody

else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in

sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her,

Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father."

"But they are such nice babies, Oliver."

"Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already

if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like

everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about

something else!" he added in mock despair.

Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her,

they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the

sleeping Jenny up to the nursery.

"Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know

the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs."

"But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic

sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor

little thing has had such a trying day."

"Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times,"

retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you

try it."

"Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned

Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by

sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own.

"Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry

since we got here."

"I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she

toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly

following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to

keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement."

"Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs.

Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be

too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can

hear him talking."

"You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped

over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it

had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of

the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow

with these caps and shawls."