Mrs. Thorne had no intention of abandoning buckwheat cakes as a

failure, not she; it was not her way to give up easily and yield to

discouragement; difficulties only strengthened her determination to

conquer.

"I'll see if I am to be vanquished by a buckwheat cake," she said,

studying her receipt-book that same evening. "I shouldn't wonder if

there was not yeast enough in those others," she said, as she mixed

some fresh butter and added an extra quantity of yeast. "Keep them

warm while rising," the receipt read. She placed them near the

register near the dining-room and retired with a complacent feeling

that now all the conditions had been surely met.

"The total depravity of inanimate things." Mrs. Thorne had reason to

believe in that doctrine next morning, when she entered her

dining-room and found a small sea of batter on her carpet,

surrounding the pail and widening in all directions, though this

stuff could hardly be called "inanimate;" it oozed from under the

pail cover in a most animated manner.

"It is light, at least; that is one consolation." said Mrs. Thorne,

trying to be philosophical as she ruefully surveyed her carpet, then

hastily calling Joanna to clean it up--"Philip should not see that."

When the cakes were brought in this morning, Ruey cast a little

triumphant look at Philip. By dint of a hot griddle and much grease

they had a streak of brown here and there.

"Horrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Thorne, after her first mouthful; "these

cakes are sourer than vinegar." Philip should not be the first to

speak of any lack, as if she were not supposed to know more about

such matters than he. "What does ail them? I'm sure I made them

exactly right this time. I must tell Joanna to put some sugar in

them."

"My dear wife, if you will allow me, I would suggest soda instead of

sugar."

"Really!" responded Ruey, her pride touched in an instant--there it

was, he actually thought he knew more about cooking than she

did--"and pray how do you happen to be so wise? You must have

assisted your mother in the kitchen," she said, with a slight curl of

her pretty lip. "Up there in the country, boys do those things, I

suppose."

Philip was nettled. Ruey had cast little slurs on his country home

before, when she got her spirit up. He controlled himself, however,

only saying:

"I don't profess to understand the science of cookery, but I do know

a little chemistry, and understand that an acid requires an alkali to

neutralize it."

Mrs. Thorne went straight to the kitchen--shutting the door after her

with the least perceptible bang--and sprinkled a liberal allowance of

soda into the batter, and then returned to the dining-room to await

developments. These cakes were yellow and spotted, and savoured of

hot lye. Mr. Thorne went bravely through a few mouthfuls until he

encountered a lump of soda; the wry face that followed was wholly

involuntary.

"I declare they are horrid!" exclaimed Ruey, bursting into tears. "I

knew soda would spoil them, bitter stuff!"

Mr. Thorne did not then attempt to show why soda would not spoil

them, if properly used; grieved at his wife's distress, and becoming

hygienical, he said:

"Don't have anything more to do with these wretched things. They are

unwholesome anyway, and we are better off without them. Give them

up."

"Never!" said Ruey, resolutely. When Ruey spoke in that way, Philip

knew she meant it, and he sighed at the prospect of discordant

breakfasts through a series of experiments. A text about "A dinner of

herbs" floated through his mind as he walked abstractedly toward his

store.

After Mrs. Thorne had dried her tears she walked to the kitchen, and

with her own hands scraped that acid, alkaline mess into the drain.

"Buckwheat cakes are very mysterious and trying things," she remarked

to herself, "but I shall never give up till I can make them like

Philip's mother's."

"I find," said Mr. Thorne that evening, "that I must start to-morrow

morning for New York, and will need a very early breakfast. Let

Joanna just make me a cup of coffee. No cakes, remember," he

laughingly added. "You may have a whole week to experiment upon them

in my absence."

Ruey watched him down the street in the gray dawn of the next morning

as he hurried to the depot, and a bright idea came into her head.

Why not take a little trip on her own account? She might run up to

father Thorne's; why not be visiting as well as moping here alone?

She wished she had thought of it and mentioned it to Philip, but it

was better not; he would probably have thought she could not go so

far alone, but what was a day's journey when it could all be

accomplished before dark; then it was going to be a bright day, she

could see that by the rosy flush in the east; just the day for a

journey. Besides, Philip could not go to visit them this winter, and

how delighted they would be to have her come and break up the

monotony of their lives. She glanced at the clock; only six o'clock;

she would have ample time to get ready for the eight o'clock train,

the dress she had on would do to travel in--just slip her black

cashmere into her satchel, and she was ready. Yes, she would go.

Artful Ruey! Down in her heart she had a secret reason for this

visit, that did not come up to the surface with the others. She

wanted to know exactly how Philip's mother made those cakes. She

could not be happy until she succeeded. Here appeared an old trait

of the girl Ruey--almost a fault: settled persistency in

accomplishing her ends, a determination to walk over all obstacles,

however large.

It took much lively stirring about to accomplish it, but the house

was put in order, and Mrs. Thorne reached the depot in time for the

eight o'clock train; the happy Joanna being dismissed to her home for

a week, after carrying her mistress's satchel to the depot. Mrs.

Thorne had visited the old homestead with her husband at the time of

their marriage, and looked forward with real pleasure at the prospect

before her.

"Won't they be surprised, though, to see me coming without Philip,"

and then she smiled to think how she was whizzing along in one

direction, and Philip in another, while he thought her snug at home.

There was a spice of adventure about this going off by herself that

she enjoyed exceedingly.

There is no more delightful place to step into, than the home of two

old people, who are young, and who love you; they have their "hearts

at leisure," can take time to pet you, and are interested in the

smallest details of your lives. Philip's father and mother belonged

to this type; the juices of their natures were not dried up. They

received Ruey with open arms, and followed her about with their eyes,

apparently fearing she would vanish as unexpectedly as she had

appeared--"Philip's wife" caring enough about them to come so far to

see them in the middle of winter, all alone, too--not many

daughters-in-law like that. They hung upon her words, and brought out

the choicest of everything and urged it upon her. At bed-time mother

Thorne came up to "tuck her up," "just as I did Philip twenty years

ago," she said; then the sweet old face bent over Ruey's for a moment

and left a goodnight kiss, and "The Lord bless and keep you, dear

child." Ruey's heart went out to her, and from that hour Philip's

mother was her mother.

Breakfast was all ready the next morning when she came down, and she

sat in Philip's old seat, and the sun looked in at the east window,

and a stray ray fell upon her, and burnished the gold of her hair, so

that she looked more like an angel than ever to those dear old eyes.

How happy they were--Philip's other self in that vacant chair.

Moreover, she ate those famous cakes. It was all true, they were

brown; they were thin and delicate, and light and sweet, and tender,

the most delicious morsels, with the amber maple syrup, that she had

ever tasted. She must confess it to herself, they were better than

her mother's; city people could not concoct such amazing cakes as

these; then the fragrant golden butter, how she wished poor Philip

were there to get some of all these good things.

She had not proposed that her mother-in-law should know that there

was anything in the universe that she was ignorant of in the

housekeeping line, but now she resolved to lay down all her pride and

learn whatever she could, so she followed mother Thorne as she

trotted in and out from pantry to kitchen, initiating herself into

the mysteries of this and that dish, and storing up many a lesson of

housewifely skill. It all came out after a little; the struggle she

had been through with those "horrible cakes." Father Thorne laughed

until the tears came, to hear his pretty daughter-in-law naively

narrate her many grievous failures in that line, enlarging not a

little on Philip's wry faces, when he tried to eat her cakes to save

her feelings. She had confessed it all, now she felt free to watch

the process of "setting the cakes" and to ask all the questions she

pleased.

"What made mine so horribly bitter once?" she asked.

"Why, you put too much yeast in, I suppose."

"I only put in a teacupful," said Ruey.

Then mother Thorne shook her sides with laughter, as she said:

"Why, child, that ought to make cakes enough for two dozen people;

you only need about two table-spoonfuls for the quantity you would

make."

"What made them run all over creation when I left them by the fire to

rise?"

"Why, maybe you didn't have room enough for them to rise, and they

must go somewhere, you know."

"What made them sour?"

"They stood too long after they got light, before they were baked.

Very likely they would have raised in time, if you had left them on

the table, say."

"What do you do when they are sour?" asked Ruey.

"Put in a little soda."

"I did. I put soda in, and you never saw such looking things as they

were, yellow and spotted, and ugh! how they tasted. Philip nearly

choked himself on one of the lumps of soda in his cake."

"Don't you know," said mother Thorne, indulging in another laugh,

"that you must not put in but a little, and you must dissolve that in

a spoonful of warm water and then stir it in?"

Ruey studied those cakes as thoroughly as she ever had a problem, or

a French verb. She insisted on setting them at night, and baking them

every morning during her stay, and she was finally pronounced an

adept in the work. This was not all she did. She put new life in the

silent old house, sung all her songs, read the newspapers aloud, made

a cap for mother Thorne, and a marvellous tidy for the best chair,

besides telling them all about Philip, as if she could tell them

anything new. But the pleasant visit must come to an end: it was

almost time for Philip's return.

"Daughter, I am really afraid to have you set out this morning," Mr.

Thorne said on the day that Ruey had fixed upon for her return. "It

has been snowing hard all night, and if it keeps on at this rate the

railroads will be blocked up."

"Oh, father! I must start; Philip will be home to-night, and what

will he think if he does not find me there?" Ruey said eagerly.

"Better," said the wise old father, "better stay and telegraph to

Ralph."

"Oh, no, indeed, that would spoil all the fun; you know I will get

home at four and Philip at seven. I shall have tea all ready and sit

there demurely waiting for him, and he never will imagine that I have

been off on a frolic until I tell him." And so she started, with many

misgivings, however, on the part of the old people.

"She's such a bright little thing," father Thorne said to his wife

when they were toasting their feet at the fire that night before

going to bed.

"It's like seeing the crocuses and daffodils coming up, or getting a

sniff at the hyacinth, to have her light down here like a pretty

bird, to sing and chatter to us. Philip always did know just the

right thing to do; he couldn't have found a better wife if he had

searched the whole land through."

The train that carried Ruey thundered on its way, as though it

disdained the thought that the snowflakes that filled the air could

have aught to do with its progress. When the first tiny white

feather came and softly laid itself down on the iron rails, did it

secretly exult that it was one of a myriad that should rear a

gigantic barrier before which this puffing fiery monster should stand

powerless, and acknowledge the soft bits of down master of the

situation? The storm raged through the day, increasing each hour in

strength and fury. The long train began to plod in a laboured, tired

way, after the manner of mortals, stopping often, while snow-ploughs

in advance cleared the track. Darkness came down and still the

fearful mass of whiteness piled itself in huge billows about them.

The snow-ploughs were unavailing; as fast as they cleared a space the

wind surged down and filled it up in a trice. The mighty engine

struggled in vain to press forward, but only crept at snail's pace

and finally came to a dead halt. There they were fast shut out from

the world. They could do nothing but wait for morning. Most of the

passengers might not have resigned themselves to sleep so contentedly

had they known that they were in the midst of the woods many miles

from any town of much size, not near, even, to one of the straggling

hamlets that dotted the country.

When the morning dawned they found themselves literally enclosed in

snow--snow above, beneath, to right, to left, behind, before--a

beleaguered host. Those who understood the situation looked appalled.

The world was well represented there in that restless company that

stared from their windows into snow. How strange that one particular

class did not set out on this journey, but each class had its type,

as if some one had gone about, and gathering up handfuls of people

stowed them on this train. They were all there, the woman with five

children and the one with a lap-dog, and all acted out their

individual natures more fully than they might have done under other

circumstances; many lost that reticence that is supposed to belong

to well-bred people on a journey, and told out their private affairs.

The man of business knit his brows and said that he "must reach

C---- by a certain time or the consequences would be most

disastrous." The fashionable lady wrapped herself in her furs and

bestowed withering looks on the crying baby. The grumbler grumbled,

and was sure somebody was to blame somewhere. The funny man bubbled

and sparkled as usual, and sent rays akin to sunshine over lugubrious

faces. The profane man opened his mouth and out came toads and

scorpions, and the tobacco-chewers made dark pools on the floor to

vex the souls of cleanly people. By the close of the day they were a

very forlorn, hungry people.

There was one among them, though, who seemed to rise above it all; a

plain-looking woman with an unfashionable bonnet, and a face like a

benediction. She drew a little worn Bible from her satchel, and read

it awhile by the dim light. Ruey wondered if she did not get

something from that book that made her patient when others were

not--that sent her to relieve the tired mother, by caring for the

fretful baby a long time; and when another, a sad mother, unable

longer to control her grief, moaned out, "My child will die before I

can get to her," this woman was the one who went to her with words of

comfort. Ruey's poor perturbed heart envied that calm face. She felt

well-nigh distracted, not so much at the fact that she was cold and

hungry, but what would Philip think when he returned and found her

gone? No one knew where; not even a neighbour had the least

intimation of her whereabouts. What a night of horrors he must have

had! Oh, to be obliged to sit there and wait when she felt like

flying! She heard the woman with the Bible whisper to the poor

mother, "Pray; that will surely help you." "Perhaps it would help

me," thought Ruey. She was not used to praying, but she needed help.

So she put her tired head down, and whispered a request for

deliverance.

What did Philip do? He essayed to walk into his house. The door was

locked, and there was no response to his repeated rings. He tried

other doors with no better success; then he visited his neighbours.

They could give him no clue. He came back and stood in a dazed way on

his own steps, looking up and down the street. He went down into the

town and peered into the stores, but no Ruey. He called upon her most

intimate friends--they didn't know she was absent. He racked his

brain; was she out to tea? but she expected him home that very day.

As the evening advanced he began to be thoroughly alarmed. Perhaps

she had met with some horrible fate in her own home. He forced the

door and entered. The pretty rooms were in exquisite order. He

searched wildly about for some scrap of paper that might explain the

mystery. Wherever she was, she had evidently been gone some time; the

fires were dead and cold. He rushed down into the town again and

consulted detectives, who suggested elopement as an explanation.

Whereupon his anger rose to a white heat, and he left them.

Another idea struck him. Joanna must know something of this strange

affair. She lived in the country. The polar wave had, by this time,

reached that region. In the face of a blinding storm Mr. Thorne drove

at a rapid pace to Joanna's home. The sleepy girl, when roused, could

at first give but an exasperating "Nix" to his eager questions.

Finally from her broken English he gathered that her mistress had

gone away on the cars; had directed her to come back to her duties

that very afternoon. She did so, only to find the house closed.

Here was a little light, but it did not relieve his perplexity.

Ruey's father's home was in a distant State. She certainly would not

go so far away in the dead of winter. He could recall no

acquaintances living near. Had she become insane and wandered away?

But she evidently meant to return that day. Why did she not come?

Where was she? The cold sweat stood upon his face when he remembered

stories of abductions. He went to the depot and remained the whole

night, watching the trains that came from anywhere. Morning dawned;

she had not come. As a last resort, he would telegraph to his own

home. But why would she go there, and without him? It seemed a

useless thing, but he did it. After an age of waiting he received

answer--"Ruey left here for home yesterday morning on the seven

o'clock train." He soon learned that said train was snow-bound a

hundred miles away. His anxiety now assumed a new phase. Would she

starve or freeze before he could reach her? There was no time to be

lost. Supplying himself with provisions, blankets, etc., he took the

first northerly train, travelled as far as he could by rail, then

hired conveyances to carry him to where men and snow-ploughs were

cutting a road to the imprisoned cars. Mr. Thorne joined them in

their work. His strength seemed superhuman. Muscular men were amazed

at his swift, dexterous movements. All day they toiled. The following

night was a terrible one to the heart-sick passengers. The fires were

out; not a morsel of food to eat. Ruey, chilled and weak, could not

even find relief in sleep. Her fortitude nearly deserted her. The

tears had their way. She lay curled in her seat, a wretched,

disconsolate little heap, when a brown-bearded man, muffled in furs,

entered, flashing the light of his lantern here and there, eagerly

scrutinizing the faces. He paused at Ruey's seat, an indefinable

something attracting him, though the face was covered by two hands.

Suddenly she looked up, and there were Philip's dear eyes gazing into

hers. No questions were asked or answered just then. She was gathered

in his arms for an instant; then he wrapped her in blankets, brought

food, and nursed the colour back to the white cheeks.

Then there were long stories told on both sides, and Ruey laughed and

cried by turns, and all the passengers were in lively sympathy with

the little lady who had found her husband, or rather whose husband

had found her.

When Mr. and Mrs. Thorne next sat at their breakfast table it was

graced by a plate of cakes that might have come straight from mother

Thorne's kitchen; and some of the home butter was there, sweet as

roses; some of the golden maple syrup, too, from the trees Philip

had played under; and Ruey sat triumphant, with a little air that

said--

"Didn't I tell you I'd do it?"

"Ruey," said Philip, "I do believe that 'elopement' of yours paid,

notwithstanding the outlay of doubts and fears, money and tears, to

say nothing of the muscle I put into that huge drift."

Ruey knew why it "paid," though she didn't tell her husband just

then; she should never forget that night, nor the plain woman with

the old bonnet who carried the untroubled face and the worn book.

Deep in her heart a new purpose had taken root; an ambition not only

to make cakes like Philip's mother, but to attain to that blessed

something which made this other woman so different from those about

her.

FAITH AND GASOLINE.

Mrs. Faith Vincent was crying; there was no denying it, veritable

tears were in her eyes and on her cheeks all the time she was bathing

the plump limbs of her baby and robing her in dainty garments of

flannel and embroidery. Then she struggled through the notes of a sad

lullaby, and now the long lashes lay quietly on the pretty cheek, and

the fair young mamma was free to lay her head on the side of the crib

and indulge in a good cry.

The clue to all this trouble was condensed in a sentence that the

young husband let fall just as he left for his business a few moments

before--"I see no other way, my dear: you will be obliged to take

baby and go to Uncle Joshua's for the summer. The extreme heat will

come on now very soon, and then neither you nor Daisy will be able to

endure it in this room."

Now that would not be a very appalling statement to make to most

wives, that they must pack up and get out of the hot dusty city to a

farmhouse in the country, even though they did leave their husbands

sweltering behind, but there were several points to be taken into

consideration in this case. In the first place, Mr. and Mrs. Vincent

had not yet learned how to maintain a separate existence. Life apart

from each other was a tame, spiritless thing, simply to be endured,

not enjoyed; then, too, Uncle Joshua's home was not a Paradise,

although he and Aunt Patty were kind and pleasant. Faith had vivid

memories of a few weeks spent there soon after her marriage. They

lived on their farm, two simple-minded old people, spending the

evening of their lives in quiet happiness; but the place was dreary,

remote from any town or neighbours. She had found it pleasant when

her husband was with her and the two took long rambles, or spent the

day under the trees, reading and talking, but how could she endure it

alone? rising with the birds to an early breakfast, then an

interminable day stretching before her, the long afternoon of silence

broken only by the click of Aunt Patty's knitting-needles, the

ticking of the old clock, and the hum of the bees; for these old

people had lived too long in quiet on these silent hills to make much

conversation. She could not see herself going through the same

monotonous round as each long day dragged its slow length, while

miles stretched between her and her beloved, toiling on in the

distant city. The dreary separation--that was the hard part of it,

after all.

It was just two years since Frank Vincent brought home his bride. He

had succeeded in securing rooms in a pleasant boarding-house in one

of the wide, airy streets of the city; he felt justified in going to

the utmost of his means in providing an attractive home; for his

Faith had been delicately reared by a wealthy uncle who had frowned

upon the love-making of the young bookkeeper, handsome, intelligent,

and with unblemished reputation though he was, and held a good

position in one of the largest and oldest firms in the city. The

uncle had more ambitious plans for his favourite niece. He did not

forbid the marriage, but gave Faith to understand that if she

persisted in marrying a poor man, when a good half million awaited

her acceptance, she did it at her own peril, not a penny of his

should go to eke out the scanty living of a poor clerk. The end of

it all was a quiet wedding one morning in her uncle's parlour, and a

hasty flitting away of the young couple--away from ominous looks and

cold politeness, out into their own bright world, where no dark

shadows in the shape of grim mercenary uncles should ever cross their

path.

It was not without many misgivings that the young husband conducted

his wife to her apartments, for neat and pretty though they were,

they were in marked contrast with the roomy, elegant mansion where

she had spent her life, and so was the noisy, dusty city with the

beautiful, quiet old town where trees and flowers and birds and pure

air and room to breathe in, made existence doubly delightful. The

anxiety was needless; never was child more pleased with play-house

than the young bride with her new home.

Life glided peacefully on for many months, then the clouds began to

gather in the sky of the financial world. Business men were anxious,

and retrenchment was the order of the day. Among others to draw in

sail was the well-established firm whom Mr. Vincent had served for

many years. The salaries of their employe's were cut down, in some

instances to a mere pittance. Upon none did the blow fall more

heavily than these two inexperienced ones who had made no provision

for any such change in their affairs. They were dismayed; Mr. Vincent

tried in vain to secure some more lucrative position, but he soon

began to feel that he was most fortunate in such times to have any

assured income. The outgo was greater than the income, and it was

plain that they must seek a less expensive home. They made many trips

to the suburbs in the hope of obtaining board at a price that would

be within their means, in some pleasant rural home, but no such home

opened its doors; evidently the dwellers in the suburbs, when they

did take boarders, meant to make it "pay." Then they searched the

papers and read all the advertisements under the head of "Boarding"

within the city. They climbed long flights of stairs, and interviewed

landladies, and looked at rooms with the customary faded carpets and

shabby wall-paper and musty smell, in narrow streets withal, that

seemed to Faith like prisons. In vain they tried to make their tastes

and their purse agree. They had to come to it, a third-story room,

faded carpet, shabby paper, and hard bed. It was a great change,

especially when they descended three dark stairways into a

comfortless basement dining-room, and were served with sour bread and

strong butter, muddy coffee and tough, steak. It tried their

fortitude sometimes severely, but they were young and brave; they had

each other and dear little Daisy; that was almost enough for this

world.

One can't have everything, so Faith stirred the fire and put a bright

spread on the bare table, and another bit of bright colour on the

wooden rocking-chair, so that if they had not been forced to live by

eating, things would not have been so bad after all. Spring, though,

brought troubles; the sun shining squarely upon them through the

winter had served to brighten up things and save coal; but now he

became an enemy, pouring his fierce rays nearly all the long day into

the two windows, old paper shades filled with pin holes the only

protection against him. Large companies of flies, too, arrived daily,

and evidently came to stay; the butter turned to oil; eatables grew

unpalatable; the whole house seemed stuffy and unendurable.

It was one of those warm spring mornings when vital energies flag,

that Mr. and Mrs. Vincent toiled up the third flight of stairs; the

halls filled with execrable odours of fried ham and cheap coffee;

each busy with their own thoughts, possibly of green fields,

apple-blossoms, spring violets, tables with damask and silver, cool,

inviting rooms, and other equally tantalising suggestions. Faith, at

the top, panting and pale as any lily, drew from her husband the

exclamation:

"My dear, you cannot endure it any longer; something must be done."

That something seemed all the more imperative, since Daisy was

beginning to droop and have feverish days over the advent of each

little white tooth. Many perplexed conferences followed.

"You see," said Mr. Vincent, trying to speak cheerfully, "one of us

orphans ought to have married some one who had a father and mother,

and an old homestead to go to in an emergency like this. As it is, I

do not see any other way but for you to take baby and go to my uncle

Joshua's for the summer. You will be made welcome, at least, and have

good food and good air."

"What if we go to housekeeping in a small way?" Faith suggested.

"It would have to be in a very small way indeed," laughed Frank.

"Why, the birds of the air have more to set up housekeeping with than

we; they have furnished rooms, rent free. Think of rent, furniture,

and all the pots and kettles and pans that housekeeping requires,

besides wages to a girl. Never do, wine, my salary wouldn't cover. I

have often heard people say it was much cheaper to board than to keep

house."

"But we might take a small house in the suburbs and furnish it by

degrees, and I could do my own work," persisted Faith.

"My poor little white lily," said Frank, "you know not whereof you

speak, Think of a little hot house, you broiling over a cook-stove,

and baby crying for your care; besides, my dear, you are not

accustomed to work. I shouldn't wonder, now, if I knew just about as,

much as you do about cooking. I think I can see you with blistered

fingers and aching head, studying cook-books. No, Faith, we shall be

obliged to live in two places this summer, I fear. I know it will be

lonely for you at uncle Joshua's, but for your own sake and the dear

baby's, it must be done. Let us be of good cheer, and perhaps by fall

business will revive and my salary be increased, or I can get a

better position. Now good-bye, my blossoms, I must be gone," and he

sprang away down the stairs hastily, lest Faith should see that his

courage was more than half assumed, for the prospect before him was

dismal in the extreme.

What Mrs. Vincent did when her husband left her we already know, yet

she was not one to sit down in weeping despair before a difficulty

until every energy had been put forth to remove it. She sat long and

pondered the question; no light came, although she bent her white

brows into a deep frown in perplexed thought.

"If I could only keep house," she mused. "Frank imagines I know

nothing of cooking. I'd just like to have him eat some bread and

puffy biscuits of my making. I am so glad I never told him that I

took lessons of Dinah all one winter before we were married. I'll

surprise that boy some day with my knowledge. If it were not for the

horrid heat of the cook-stove, I know I could keep house nicely, and

save money, too, I dare say; but, my head never would endure a hot

kitchen, I suppose."

Just here the clock chimed out ten, reminding Faith of an engagement

at the dressmaker's. Leaving Daisy with her young nurse, she was soon

on her way, not to "Madame Aubrey's," but to plain Mrs. Macpherson's,

who lived up two flights of stairs, and was nevertheless "a good

fitter," and kept her rooms and herself as neat as wax.

While Faith waited, and the busy shears slipped and snipped her

wrapper, she had time to look about her. The rooms wore such a

pleasant, home-like air; they were cool and comfortable-looking, and

not a fly to be seen. Faith, reared to the finest and best of

everything, now looked with almost covetous eyes on this poor, plain

home.

"What a cosy place you have here, Mrs. Macpherson," she said, and she

wearily leaned her head back in the comfortable old rocking-chair,

newly covered with chintz. "It is so nice, I would like to stay."

Mrs. Macpherson glanced up in surprise, the tones were such tired,

sad ones. She noticed for the first time the dark rings under Faith's

eyes, and the eyes themselves looked suspiciously red. Her motherly

heart went out to the "poor young thing" straightway.

"Something troubles you, child," she said, "or you don't feel well.

Can't I help you?"

The tender tones almost made the tears come anew; and Faith, contrary

to her reticent nature, found herself telling kind-hearted Mrs.

Macpherson just what did trouble her.

"Poor dear!" Mrs. Macpherson said, "that is hard; if I can't help

you, I know one who can. Why don't you go straight to the dear Lord

and tell him all about it? You see everything is at his disposal. You

know the way to him, don't you?"

Faith nodded assent, and then said despairingly, "It never seemed to

me that God would condescend to think about the small affairs of our

everyday life."

"But, Mrs. Vincent, you surely read in the Word how he numbers the

hairs of our heads, and he says himself if he gives thought to such

little things as lilies and grass, he'll surely look after us.

Doesn't the Good Shepherd care when the sheep are worried? Indeed he

does. Would you stay up-stairs when you heard your dear baby crying?

Oh! but you'd run fast to her. He says himself that he is our Father,

and we are his children, and is he going to stay away off up in

heaven and not care about our everyday troubles. No, just you tell

him, and believe that he'll help you in some way, and he surely will.

You see I can tell all about this because I've proved it. I know it

is so, and it's not every minister that knows that. We had a real

young minister to preach for us last Sunday; he preached about God's

care for his people, and I just thought to myself, 'If you had ever

been in a real tight place, my lad, and the Lord had come and helped

you out, you wouldn't be standing there reading off pretty sounding

words to us; you'd just tell it to us, hearty like, as if you meant

it.' But here I am, going on just like a clock; I beg your pardon,

Mrs. Vincent."

"Go on, Mrs. Macpherson," said Faith, "I love to hear you talk. Tell

me how you came to feel so sure about things. I need to know. I am

wrongly called 'Faith,' for I have scarcely any."

"Oh, I couldn't but feel sure. He hears and helps me so quick when I

call to him. He has been so kind to me. When I was left alone in the

world with no home and not a penny that I could call my own, I didn't

know which way to turn; I had no trade, and I was not strong enough

to do housework. I fretted and worried over it a spell, then it came

to me all of a sudden one day that the Lord could help me if he

would. I called to mind all the verses that tell how kind he is, and

I just went and told him all about it, feeling as sure that he'd help

me in some way as if I'd heard him say it. Sure enough he did! the

very next day a lady advertised for an apprentice to learn the

dressmaker's trade. I went, and she took me, and I got just in my

right place. I learned fast, and in a year from that time I could fit

as well as she could herself. She offered me good wages to stay and

sew with her, but I was tired of shop life and wanted a bit of a home

of my own, so I rented these rooms, and I have all I can do and more

too. It is a nice pleasant place, I think to myself. It's cool and

comfortable, even if it is two flights. You see I have a north and

south window, and if there isn't a good breeze from one way there is

from the other; here's my bedroom" (opening the door into a

good-sized room with a large window), "blinds too. I can make it as

dark as a pocket; and here's my dining-room, and kitchen all in one;

here the lake water comes in; oh I tell you, I lack for nothing."

"But don't your rooms get all heated up when you cook?" Faith asked.

"Not a bit of it! See here"--calling Faith's attention to what

appeared to be a small light table made of iron. "This is a gasoline

stove, and the man that invented it ought to have every woman that

owns one blessing him as long as he lives, for it's a jewel," and

Mrs. Macpherson turned a screw and the flame flickered and glowed in

one of the burners like a bright star. "Here's my fire all made,

pretty soon I shall cook my dinner; over this burner I'll put my

oven, and bake a potato or two nice and brown in twenty minutes or

so; over the other burner I'll boil my tea-kettle and make my tea,

then I'll clap on the gridiron and cook a bit of steak; nicest way in

the world to cook steak, it is so quick, you know that makes steak

juicy; the quicker you can cook it the better it is."

"Will it bake bread nicely?" Faith asked, growing deeply interested.

"To be sure," and Mrs. Macpherson produced a plump brown loaf. "You

can see it is beautifully done; the least bit over half an hour bakes

my loaves. Oh, there isn't a thing the creature won't do. I can tuck

a chicken in the oven and it comes out done to a turn, or put in a

joint of meat to boil and go on with my sewing, it cooks itself, you

know. I can roast a turkey; last Christmas I roasted one (invited in

a neighbour or two, you know), and you would have thought it came out

of my mother's old-fashioned brick oven, it was done so beautifully.

I can wash and iron on it too, heats the irons as fast as you can use

them. It's my opinion that women wouldn't get so used up at their

work if they would have these stoves; it is the heat that takes all

the life and soul out of one. It is pleasant to work if you know how,

and can keep cool; it is a real saving of tempers--this stove is--for

if you ever noticed it, folks begin to get cross just as soon as they

get well heated up over a cook-stove. No, it doesn't give out any

heat, and there are no ashes, or smoke, or soot, or dirt of any kind

about it, and it is cheaper to burn than coal."

"But have I not heard that gasoline is explosive?" Faith asked.

"It isn't. It will take fire if you bring it near a flame, just as

alcohol will, but it can't explode. There might be a little danger of

its taking fire if you filled it when burning, but nobody would be

foolish enough to do that. I meant to tell you that this little

stove is another proof to me that our Father pities us in our little

troubles, and helps us. I used to have an iron cook-stove, and even

with my little work it would heat up everything so. Just as I got all

tuckered out with it, I heard of the gasoline stove, but I couldn't

afford to get one, for work was rather scarce just then. I expected,

though, he would send me one before long, and sure enough he did. It

wasn't many days, don't you believe, till a lady came and asked me if

I wanted to sew for her, and take a gasoline stove for pay; her

husband was a dealer in them. You may be sure I said 'Yes' pretty

quick; so I got it, and a great comfort it's been to me these three

years. No, we don't plod along here with nobody to care how we get

along. He cares. I believe he thought about me and sent me the stove,

and I always shall."

"Well, good-bye, Mrs. Macpherson," said Faith. "I am truly obliged to

you. You have cheered and helped me. I think I shall have more trust

hereafter, and who knows hut I shall set up housekeeping with a

gasoline stove," she added, laughingly.

"Dear heart, I wish you might."

Mrs. Vincent walked home with an idea in her head and a light in her

eye that were not there when she started. Trust a woman for doing

what she wants to. It did not take Faith long to lay a plan, and by

the time she reached home a plan lay fair and clear before her. Once

in her room she sat down and mentally inventoried her possessions.

She went to her trunk and brought out her jewellery; they made a

goodly array, all the birthday and holiday gifts of many years,

several of them quite costly. She hesitated a little over a beautiful

watch and chain, but finally laid them with the others--a fair

offering at the shrine of love, retaining only a plain gold pin and

the rings her husband gave her. When baby took her afternoon nap,

Faith gathered up her rings, and pins, and ear-rings, and bracelets,

and chains, and all the other "tinkling ornaments," made them into a

package, and went with a resolute look in her eyes to Mr.

Seymour's--one of the largest jewellery stores in the city. Mr.

Seymour was a member of the same church, and took a fatherly interest

in the young couple. Faith, with much inward trepidation, unfolded

her plans to him. After careful examination he named a price for each

article that made her heart bound with joy.

"As a matter of course," he explained, "we never give full value for

goods bought in this way; but when a woman sacrifices her ornaments

for such an object I want to bid her God-speed, and I shall give you

what I think I can dispose of them for."

He counted out the fresh bills to Faith; she could have hugged him,

but she only said, in low excited tones:

"Mr. Seymour, I cannot tell you how much I thank you."

She almost flew home, and then dismissing the nurse, acted in a most

extraordinary manner. She danced about the room with baby, nearly

squeezing the breath out of her, and laughed and cried by turns; then

she did some tender serious thinking How had the clouds of the

morning turned into sunshine! She recognized the hand of the dear

Lord in it all; these suggestions and plans were given by him. His

loving kindness was over her; she would never doubt it more. When her

husband returned at evening she tried to banish from her tell-tale

face all traces of exultation. This was her secret; he could not know

it yet. So poorly did she succeed that he was happily surprised by

finding her cheerful, instead of sad; and yet, inconsistent mortal,

he began to feel slightly annoyed that she seemed to be taking the

prospective separation so coolly.

"How soon can you be ready to go?" he asked in the course of the

evening.

That roll of bills in Faith's pocket made her eyes dance with glee,

as she answered:

"Oh, in about a fortnight; but let us not talk about that to-night,

let me read you this exquisite little bit I found to-day."

"Women are queer," soliloquized Frank. "I don't believe Faith is

going to feel our first separation as much as I shall myself."

Faith studied the daily newspapers diligently for a few days. "To

Rent" was always the subject.

"I do believe I have found the right thing at last," she announced to

baby one day, and she read aloud: "To rent at Maplewood, a cottage of

four rooms, convenient to street and steam cars, pleasantly located,

rent low." Another hurried consultation with the paper disclosed the

fact that a train for Maplewood left in an hour. Baby was put to

sleep to a hurried tune, and Faith had just time enough to reach the

train. Maplewood proved to be a pretty little suburb four miles out;

it was rather new, so that it seemed quite like being in the country.

Green fields and hills stretched away on either side, and the one

broad, quiet avenue was shaded with maples, grand old forest trees.

It looked like Paradise to Faith. She soon found the cottage, a

lovely nest of white and green glimmering through the trees, the

smooth lawn gay with daffodils and crocuses. Vines clambered over the

porch, and the sweet breath of lilies and violets distilled subtle

perfume on the spring air. She stood on the porch almost afraid to

ring, lest she should hear that the house was rented yesterday; but

no, it was to be had, and the nice old lady who owned it wanted to

rent it, and take up her abode with her daughter, was just as much

delighted as Faith. So eager and enthusiastic a tenant was not found

every day. The four pretty rooms--parlours, bedroom, dining-room, and

kitchen--exactly suited; a bargain was soon concluded, and Faith on

a homeward train, congratulating herself on the success of a part of

her plan.

Many visits were made during the next few days to furniture, carpet,

and china stores. One would have supposed, at the least, that Mrs.

Vincent was furnishing a hotel; but it is no easy matter to take fine

tastes and a small purse, and make both ends meet.

The purchases were all made at last, first and foremost the gasoline

stove; then the pretty light carpets, the matting, the neat

furniture, some cheap white muslin curtains for the windows, and a

small store of china. The young housekeeper bought carefully; there

was nothing for mere show, but when it was all arranged in the little

house, and Faith's pictures hung on the white walls, there was

nothing to be desired in the way of beauty or comfort--that is, in

the estimation of those most nearly concerned. Meanwhile Faith had

kept her secret well, going to and fro to the cottage, busy and happy

as any other robin in spring-time preparing her nest.

The nest was all finished now, and Faith stood one afternoon in her

kitchen door, taking a critical and comprehensive view of the whole,

then turning with great satisfaction to survey the kitchen. It was a

mite of a room, but Faith was very proud of it; this was to be her

workshop; here cooking was to be carried on as a fine art. No

ruthless Biddy should soil the purity of her new pine table, or tread

out the gray matting of the floor. She took a last peep into the

china closet, looked lovingly at a row of tin dishes new and

shining, bestowed admiring glances at the gasoline stove, the

presiding genius of the whole, then she opened the outside door into

an old-fashioned garden, filled with lilacs and roses, and pinks and

southernwood, and all spicy plants and fragrant herbs. She sat down

to rest a few minutes, she had accomplished such wonders to-day.

Daisy had been left for the day in the care of a kind old lady, and

Faith, hiring a woman to help her a few hours, had been hard at work.

There was a stone jar filled with golden brown loaves of delicious

bread, another jar with cake light as down, a tempting bit of roast

lamb sat in the refrigerator; all was in readiness for tomorrow, when

the grand secret would be revealed. Faith felt so happy and

satisfied; she had tried and proved the stove, it was all that it was

represented to be; there was assuredly nothing, now, in the way of a

home together in the country.

"Will you not come home early, and let us take a little trip on the

street car out into the country?" Faith asked her husband next

morning.

"Yes, indeed!" he answered, sighing. "I must make the most of my

family now; only three days more left, I believe."

The unsuspecting man little though that all his worldly possessions

were not long after on the way to Maplewood, and that his wife waited

impatiently to take him there too.

"Now you are out on my invitation, you and baby," Faith said, as they

alighted from the car at Maplewood. "You are to ask no questions, but

do as you are told."

She led the way up the pleasant street, her husband following in

silent wonder as she passed up the walk, turned the key of the

cottage door, invited him to come in and be seated, while she passed

on into the next room. A few moments, and then the door swung open,

revealing that cool darkened dining-room, and Faith, with

ill-concealed triumph in the tones, said:--

"Please walk out to tea, my dear; I'm sure you must be hungry by this

time." He saw as through a mist the white table arranged with

exquisite neatness and care, decked with flowers and spread with

angel's fare, he almost thought, for he turned to Faith a bewildered

look, as he said:--

"Where are we? Is this heaven? Tell me quick!"

What a merry tea-table it was; how they talked and laughed, and

almost cried by turns! and even baby seemed to realise that some

great event had happened, and laughed and crowed appropriately.

After tea, when they talked it all over, Frank said:--

"Who but you would have thought of all this? How happy we shall be

here, and I owe it all to you!"

"You forget Mrs. Macpherson," Faith said.

"Yes, and the gasoline stove; but for that it seems this could not

have been accomplished," said her husband.

"We both forget the dear Father in heaven," Faith said, in reverent

tones, "that we owe everything to him alone."

By a mutual impulse they knelt down, and the husband, in a few words

of prayer, consecrated this new home to the Lord, and themselves anew

to his service, thereby feeling added dignity and joy in his manhood,

now that "he was a priest in his own house" indeed.

So the months go on in peace and joy. Faith sings at her work, and

baby plays in the garden, and Frank Vincent thinks there is but just

one woman in the whole world that knows how to cook. The plan failed

in no particular; the magical stove has proved itself a most

efficient servant, and moreover, Faith manages to lay aside a snug

sum every week.

BENJAMIN'S WIFE.

A busy, toilsome life she had led--this mother. She had reared a

family; had laid some of them down to sleep in the old cemetery; had

struggled through poverty, sickness, and sorrow--she and Ephraim

together--always together. He brought her to no stately home that day

so long ago, that she put her hand in his, and he had no stocks or

bonds or broad acres, yet Mrs. Kensett had for forty years counted

herself a rich woman. She possessed the true, tender, undivided heart

of a good man--a love that nothing dimmed, that trials only made

stronger, that hedged her life about with thoughtful care; even when

grey hairs crowned the heads of both, this husband and wife rejoiced

in the love of their youth. Nay, that love purified, tried, as gold

is tried in the fire. In the last few years this good old couple

seemed to have reached a Beulah land. They had enough laid by to

support them comfortably now that their children had all flown from

the home nest, and their quiet happy life flowed on without a ripple.

"Mother," Mr. Kensett had said, "I'm going to stop work now and lay

by. I'm getting old and we've got enough to do us I guess as long as

we stay. You can tend your flower-beds and darn my stockings, and

I'll make the garden and take care of the chickens, we'll just take

comfort a spell; if any body has earned the right to we have."

As often as once a week he remarked, "There's one thing I must see

to, right away; I must make my will, so that if I go first you'll be

sure to have the old place all to yourself. I want you to have every

cent of it to do as you please with."

And "Mother" always answered, "Now, father, don't! It won't make much

difference how it's fixed; it isn't anyways likely that I'll stay

long behind you, we've been together so long."

There came a morning when the hale, cheery old man did not rise with

the sun and step briskly about his work. The messenger came for him

in the night; and when the first streak of light in the early dawn

stole through his chamber window, and fell upon his face to waken

him, he did not awake, he had gone--in the darkness alone with the

messenger. Strange journey! Mysterious messenger! His grey coat hung

over the chair where he laid it off, the garden tools stood against

the fence, the house had a strange silence, the sunshine a cold

glare. He who passed in and out yesterday, and worked and smiled and

talked and read the news, to-day lay in the darkened parlour white,

cold, and still. No, not that! To-day walked the golden

streets--joined in the everlasting song, and looked upon the face of

his Lord. The old Bible lay open on the stand, the psalm-book beside

it, his glasses shut into the place where he sung at family worship a

few hours before, and the psalm he sung--his favourite--was in the

words of the quaint old version:

"I will both lay me down in peace,

And quiet sleep will take;

Because then only me to dwell

In safety, Lord, dost make."

Had he known how quiet the sleep was to be, the calm triumphant faith

of the singer would not have wavered, nor would the peace with which

he laid down have been less.

The will had never been made, so the old homestead must be sold and

divided among them all. They met at an early day to arrange affairs.

Mr. John Kensett, the eldest son, and Mrs. Maria Sinclair, the eldest

daughter, were the self-appointed managers. They were both wealthy,

but were just as eager to secure the small sum that would fall to

them as was Hannah, another daughter, who married a poor man and had

many mouths to feed. Whatever of sentiment or tender feeling these

two might originally have possessed had been well rubbed out by the

world. In their catechism, the answer to "What is the chief end of

man?" read: To make money, to be fashionable, to please ourselves,

now and here, always and everywhere.

In Benjamin, the youngest of the family, were condensed all the

noble qualities and tender, poetical nature of both father and

mother, while the other children brought out the unlovely characters

of some distant ancestors.

"Why not give it all up to mother?" said Benjamin. "It will only be

enough to keep her in comfort."

"No doubt you think that would be a most excellent arrangement," John

answered, "inasmuch as you being the youngest would naturally live

with her, and share the benefits, and in the end hope to fall heir to

the whole, by skilful management. Pretty sharp, Benny! I see you have

an eye to business."

"I am willing to go to the end of the earth and never set foot in the

house again, nor get a cent," Ben exclaimed indignantly, "if mother

can have a place of her own to live in comfort while she does live."

"Hold on, my dear boy! Who said she was not going to live in comfort?

I believe we all have comfortable homes, and it will be much more

sensible for her to live amongst us than try to keep house, and take

care of this place. Women always let property run down; it will only

be a trouble."

After much talk and some bickerings, it was arranged that mother had

better not try to keep house, but would spend a year or two at a time

around among them all.

"A year or two in a place," burst out Benjamin again. "The idea of

mother running about like that, begging to be taken in, no place that

she can call home; it's too bad! This place is hers, she helped to

earn it, and father meant she should have it all; I heard him say

so."

"Really, Benjie!" Mrs. Sinclair said, "you are getting excited.

Mother does not care for the property; it would only be a trouble to

her; she will live much more easily with us. You ought to see that we

propose to be quite generous with mother. Of course the interest of

her share will not pay her board anywhere else, but we shall take

turns in keeping her, for that, besides making her presents of

clothing."

"Keep her!" Ben groaned.

"Perhaps Benny proposes to set up housekeeping on his own account,

soon," said John, "then mother will have a royal place to go to, and

stay, no doubt."

"By the way, my dear young brother, do you think it quite the thing

for you to come around finding fault with us who propose to bear all

the burdens ourselves, knowing that you haven't a cent to give toward

it?"

The young man restrained the bitter answer that was rising to his

lips, for father's mild eye looked into his from the photograph on

the wall. He made a firm resolve, though, as he walked sadly away,

that the one purpose of his life should be to make a home for mother,

and he would never say "burden," either.

Dear old Mrs. Kensett was so smitten, so amazed to find that her

other self had gone--where she could not follow, that for days it

seemed as if she sat waiting, expecting the summons to go herself.

"Surely, Ephraim would send for me," she thought in her sorrow and

bewilderment. It mattered little to her, then, how or where she

lived; all places were alike, since he was not in any of them, and

she mechanically assented to any proposal that was made her, though

she did cry out as one hurt, when John proposed an auction for the

sale of household effects. "Oh, I can't," she moaned. "Your father

made some of that furniture with his own hands," but the worldly-wise

son, who had outgrown "foolish sentimentality," over-ruled her. It

all went, the cradle in which they rocked, the old clock, the table

they surrounded so many years. The rage for the antique had not yet

shown itself, or John's wife and Maria, would have secured some of

the old-fashioned furniture. As it was, they could not think of

having their houses lumbered by it. The other two daughters were not

well-to-do, and prized money more than mementos. Benjamin protested

most earnestly at this sacrilegious disposal of the dear home things.

He could do but little himself, as he was still pursuing his law

studies, though he did bid in his father's armchair and a few other

cherished articles. John touched him on the shoulder, and said, "Ben,

are you crazy? What in the world will you do with a lot of old

furniture?"

"You'll see," said Ben quickly.

If John could have seen his brother's next proceeding he would

certainly have pronounced him a hopeless lunatic. He took the sum

that fell to him and placed it in the bank to his mother's credit.

"The interest money won't amount to much, mother," he said, as he

handed her the certificate of deposit, "but I shall enjoy thinking

that if you want some little thing you can get it without asking

anybody."

Mrs. Sinclair was a woman who lived for society; she had long ago

cast aside as Puritanical the wholesome restraints that had governed

her girlhood. What with parties, operas and theatres, she was a very

busy woman. Her young family was much neglected and she was only too

glad to transfer to her old mother what little care she did give

them. The restful days were gone, one would have supposed that Mrs.

Sinclair had engaged, in her mother, a maid and seamstress. "It's so

nice," she told her friends. "Mother takes the entire charge of them,

and relieves me; children are such a responsibility." It was news to

her friends, the fact that she was an anxious burdened mother.

It was hard for Mrs. Kensett to take up her life at the beginning

again, to be confined day after day in a close room with noisy,

fretful children, to go through the round of story-telling, tying

shoes, mending tops and dolls, and minister to the thousand small

wants and worries of undisciplined childhood. She had gone through

all that, those chapters of her life she had considered finished and

sealed up.

There is no occupation in this world more soul and body trying than

the care of young children. What patience and wisdom, skill, and

unlimited love it calls for. God gave the work to mothers and has

furnished them for it, and they cannot shirk it and be guiltless.

It was not unusual when there was a heavy press of work in the house,

calling for all the forces, for baby too to be bundled into grandma's

room and left for hours. This worked very well while all were in good

humour, for grandma loved children, but when baby writhed and fretted

with aching teeth and would not be comforted, and Master Freddy

resented the least correction by vigorous kicks from his stout little

boots, and Miss Maude lisped, "I shan't! You ain't my mamma!"--what

wonder that grandma, absorbed as she was by sad memories, should lose

her patience too, and speak the sharp word that did not mend matters,

while she sighed in spirit for the days that would not come back

again.

The daughter remembered, too, that mother was cunning with her

needle; how very convenient it became to send the mending basket to

her room, "just for some work to pass the time away," and in time

numberless little garments were sent there too, aprons and dresses,

and she sat and stitched from morning till night when she was not

tending baby. Nobody suggested a ride or a walk for her, or invited

her down stairs to while away an evening when there was company.

"Mother isn't used to it," Maria said; "besides, she can't hear half

that is said. She enjoys herself better alone; I suppose all old

people do." This course of reasoning seemed to soothe Mrs. Sinclair's

conscience when it proved troublesome, but in truth she would not

have enjoyed introducing her plain-looking mother to her fashionable

friends. "So old style." The old ladies she was accustomed to meet

wore trail and puffs and dress caps; she might have searched long,

though, to find another old face of such sweet placid dignity as her

mother's.

This life in the crowded city was so new and strange and dismal. How

the mother longed amid its dust and smoke for the sweet air of

Hawthorn, for a sprig of lilac, or a June rose from the garden. Once

in a rare while she succeeded in getting to church. It was a

difficult thing to bring about, though; when nothing happened to

prevent, the carriage was driven there, but apparently in that family

there were more hindrances to church-going than to any other sort of

going.

Now that spring had come again, Mrs. Kensett looked forward to a

change of her home with pleasure; she wanted to get into the country

once more, and Martha, the second daughter, had married a farmer and

lived in the country; it was a long distance from Hawthorn, and she

had not visited her daughter since her marriage. The pleasant home

among trees and flowers and greenness that she had pictured was not

there; instead, a bare frame house on a side hill without a tree or

vine; there was no time to enjoy them had they been there; the long

hot days were filled up with work; endless milking and baking and

churning, and the unselfish mother put in her waning strength, early

and late, did what she could to lighten the burden that was making

her daughter prematurely old. Then the dismal winter settled down

upon them, monotonous days of sleet and snow and darkness, when

nothing happened from week to week to break the dreary routine, when

even the Sabbaths brought no relief.

Mrs. Kensett had ever been an untiring church goer; rain or shine,

she was in her place. Her son-in-law was not a Christian, and always

had an excellent excuse for remaining at home, in the summer the

horses were tired, or it was too hot; in the winter it was too cold,

or too something. Many a dreary Sabbath the sad mother sat at her

chamber window and watched the rain come down in slow, straight

drizzle, repeating to herself rather than singing, as she rocked too

and fro,

"How lovely is thy dwelling-place,

O Lord of hosts to me!

The tabernacles of thy grace,

How pleasant, Lord, they be!

"My thirsty soul longs vehemently,

Yea, faints thy courts to see;

My very heart and flesh cry out,

O living God for thee."

Longing meanwhile with intense desire to sit once again in the old

pew, and hear the familiar tones of her pastor's voice in that

far-away, pleasant village that used to be her home; now she had no

home, a wanderer from house to house, and yet she was not a murmurer,

her faith and love did not falter.

In due course of time she went on her pilgrim way and tarried for a

time at her daughter Hannah's; a good-natured soul, who loved her

mother and gave her welcome to such as she had, but she lived in a

small house, with a large flock of children, undisciplined, rough,

and noisy. It seemed that in the full little house there was no quiet

corner for retreat, and grandma often moaned in the words of one of

her dear psalms

"O that I like a dove had wings,

Said I, then would I flee,

Far hence that I might find a place

Where I in rest might be."

"After all I need all this," the old saint would say to herself.

"It's a part of my dear Lord's schooling. I was having too nice a

time, Ephraim and I all alone. I dare say I got out of the way and he

had to bring me back. He sent me all that peaceful, comfortable time;

I was very glad to have his will done when it was according to my

notion; this is his will all the same, and shall not I be willing to

take what he sends? He is only getting me ready.

"Soon the delightful day will come

When my dear Lord will call me home,

And I shall see his face."

Albeit the house was small, and the children noisy, this persecuted

grandmother of many homes found herself dreading to leave it and find

a new home with her eldest son. John's wife had always been to her a

most uncomfortable sort of person; she had dreaded her not frequent

visits to their home. Both were glad when they were over. Twenty

years had passed since his marriage; she never seemed to get any

nearer to his wife. Now the time had come to go and live with them,

she shrank from it, and postponed it for weeks, but John was

inflexible, he was an upright man, and bound to do his part in

sharing the burden of his mother's maintenance.

Mrs. John Kensett was one of those icy women with thin lips and cold

grey eyes, made up from the first without a heart--women who make a

cool atmosphere about them even in the heat of summer. She was tall

and stylish and handsomely dressed, and when she mounted her gold

eyeglasses and through them severely looked one over, she was

formidable indeed to so meek a woman as her mother-in-law. She must

have married John Kensett because an establishment is more complete

with a man at the head of it, for that was the chief end of her life

to keep all things in perfect running order in that elegantly

appointed home, and to keep abreast of the times in all new adornings

and furnishings under the sun. One Scripture admonition at least she

gave heed to: she looked well to the ways of her household. One might

explore from garret to cellar in that house and find nothing out of

place, nothing soiled, nothing left undone that should have been

done. She was withal, a rigid economist in small things. Everything

was kept under lock and key, and doled out in very small quantities

to the servants. Her table could never merit the charge of being

vulgarly loaded; the furnace heat was never allowed to run above a

certain mark on the thermometer, no matter who shivered, and she had

doubtless walked miles in turning gas jets to just the right point.

In this most elegant, precise, immaculate house, where everything and

everybody was controlled by certain unvarying and inflexible rules,

the old mother felt almost as straitened as she ever had in the small

topsy-turvy one.

Her room was scarcely above shivering point, and the back windows

overlooked no cheerful prospect. Here day after day she sat alone;

she had food and shelter and clothes, what more could old people

possibly want? At meal times her son was silent and abstracted or

absorbed in his newspaper. If anybody had told him that his old

mother's heart was nearly breaking for lack of loving sympathy, he

would have been astonished. The faded eyes often grew dim with tears

as she looked at him--the frigid, unbending man--and remembered him

as he was in those first years of her married life, darling little

Johnnie in white dresses and long curls, running after butterflies

and picking flowers; if he only would kiss her once more, or do

something to make her sure that he was Johnnie, she was hungry for a

tender word from him. Ah! if mothers could see down the years that

stretch ahead, it would not always be so hard to lay the little

lisping ones under the ground. Was it decreed that most mothers shall

be in sympathy with that other one, of whom it is written, "A sword

shall pierce thine, own heart also"?

We shall never know about the wounds from those dear,

self-sacrificing mothers, but they are there, even though they may

strive to hide them and find excuses for the cold neglect,

indifference to their comfort, impatience, and the putting them one

side as if to say: "What is all this to you? It is time you were

dead."

"John is busy," she would say, as she mounted the stairs to her

lonely room, and he buttoned his coat and hastened away to business,

without a 'good-bye' or a 'good night,' then she would draw out her

knitting and knit on, often through tear-blinded eyes. Sometimes she

did not hear a remark the first time and would ask to have it

repeated, but the manifest impatience with which it was done always

sent a pang well-likened to a sword-thrust, but the dear mother would

cover the wound and think within herself, "I know it is a great

trouble to talk to deaf people, I ought to keep still."

Strange that these stabs come not alone from the lost sheep of the

family, but from the son who is the honoured citizen; from the

daughter who shines in her circle as a woman of many virtues; from

grandchildren trained up in the Sabbath-school.

"Into each life some sunshine must fall, as well as rain," and Mrs.

Kensett had much of hers from Benjie's letters; they were regular as

the dew and cheery as the sun, a balsam for the wounds in the poor

heart. They were not mere scribbles either--"I am well, and I hope

you are; I haven't time to write more now"--but good long letters,

with accounts of all his comings and goings, the people he met, the

books he read, here a dash of fun and there a poetical fancy; and

through them all ran like a golden thread the dear boy's tender love

and reverence for his mother. Never did maiden watch for lover's

missive with more ardour; sometimes he wrote one day, sometimes

another, but always once a week, and Mrs. Kensett kept a sharp look

out for the postman; when the time drew near for him to come she made

many journeys down the stairs to see if she could get a glimpse of

him. When the expected letter was not forthcoming she felt somehow as

if the postman were to blame. But when he did come, ah! that was the

one bright day of the week; how she read and re-read it, and put it

in her pocket and thought it over, while she went on with her

knitting, then when some little point was not quite distinct in her

mind, brought it out and read it again, so that by the time another

one came this one was worn out. John's wife thought to regulate this

one small pleasant excitement of her mother-in-law's life by

remarking to her husband that "somebody ought to tell Benjamin to

write on a particular day, mother was so fidgety when it was time for

the mail."

How small a thing is a letter to make one happy! and yet some of us

let the sword pierce the dear mother heart by withholding that which

costs us so little. God pity us when our mothers are gone beyond the

reach of voice or pen.

One day her letter contained news of great importance. It was read

and pondered long. Benjie was going to be married! The mother did not

like the news; somehow in all her plans for Benjie the wife had not

come in. Now this would be the last of her comfort in him; he would

marry and settle down, and probably be just like John--given up to

business. He pictured out his future bride as good and lovely. Of

course he thought so, but poor Mrs. Kensett could get no vision of a

daughter-in-law except a tall woman with severe expression. "She is

an heiress," Benjie wrote. Well, what of that? John's wife had

property too. She would likely be proud, and ashamed of a plain old

woman like her.

Benjamin was no fortune-hunter; he was hard at work in his profession

with no other ambition directly before him but to get together a

humble home to which he might take his mother; he intended to

surprise her as soon as his income would at all warrant it. But as

John Milton when he met Mary Powell fastened his eyes earnestly upon

her, knowing that he had found "Mistress Milton," so Benjamin, the

first Sabbath he took a class in the mission Sabbath-school, and

found himself near neighbour to a sweet-faced young teacher, knew

that no other face in all the world could so closely resemble the

ideal picture he had sketched of that dim, shadowy, far-off person,

his wife.

Marian Ledyard, too, would not willingly have confessed with what a

thrill of pleasure she noticed the young stranger was in his place

again on the following Sabbath, nor how for a time she searched

diligently through every assembly for that one face that had such

strange power to attract her; in no place, though, did she happen to

meet him except that one, where there was no opportunity for

acquaintance.

Benjamin had fully resolved to seek her out, but learning that she

was an orphan who possessed a large fortune in her own right, he was

too proud to be counted one of the moths that flutter about a candle,

so he made another resolve, to think no more about her, which stoical

purpose was not easy to carry out, especially as the blue eyes were

often meeting his, much to the discomfiture of their owner. The

coveted opportunity came at last. The holidays brought the annual

entertainment for the children, and under the friendly boughs of the

Christmas tree the acquaintance began, and progressed remarkably

fast. It was not strange either, considering that each had been in

the other's thoughts constantly for the last six weeks. They walked

home in the moonlight wondering at the singular beauty that crowned

the earth. The tell-tale eyes of each must have revealed the secret

to the heart of the other, for the usual preliminaries, formalities,

windings and turnings of modern courtship seemed unnecessary; the two

drifted together as naturally as fleecy, white clouds in the blue

sky. He forgot that she was worth half a million, and what did she

care that he possessed not anything but his own precious self! Had

she not enough for both?

Not alone in stocks and bonds were Marian Ledyard's riches. She had

been a mere butterfly of fashion and frivolity, absorbed in worldly

gaieties, but the Lord met her, and she fell at his feet, saying,

"What wilt thou have me to do?" And as she had eagerly, unreservedly

followed the world, so now she gave herself up body, soul, time and

wealth, to the service of the Lord, and she was far more sweet and

fascinating in her joyful abandonment to her blessed Master's service

than ever she had been in the service of that other master. She was

that rare combination, a young, wealthy, consecrated Christian.

"Now, mother," wrote Benjamin, "just as soon as we are married, which

will be very soon, you are to come to us. Marian says she remembers

her own dear mother, and has been lonely without her these many

years." This was no welcome news to the weary mother; had it been

dear Benjamin alone that she was to live with, how she would have

hailed her deliverance, but another son's wife! How could she face

her, and be dependent on her? It would be her house and her money

that provided everything. She would feel like a beggar she was sure.

She could by no stretch of imagination conceive of a son's wife to be

other than a person to be dreaded. She spent many sleepless nights

over it and shed tears in secret. Her triumphant faith was never more

tried than now.

It may be that in some far-off day, by means of some wonderful

instrument yet uncreated, our eyes shall look upon our friends,

separated from them by long distances, shall know their comings and

goings, their thoughts and motives. Being not possessed of any such

power, mother Kensett vexed her soul in one city, while in another,

two young people, happy as birds, held long consultations as to which

should be mother's room, just how it should be furnished, and ran

here and there with the eagerness of children gathering moss and bits

of china, and all rare and pretty things for a play-house under the

trees.

Marian's ancestral home had been closed for a long time. It was a

stately mansion, of wide halls and towers and spacious apartments,

surrounded by magnificent grounds. During the last few months it had

been thoroughly remodelled and refurnished, and now the young couple,

after a brief bridal tour, were fairly established in it.

One might suppose that Mrs. Kensett would have felt some risings of

pride, as, leaning on the arm of her youngest son, she mounted the

marble steps, and walked through the spacious halls and beautiful

parlours of his home.

But John's home was handsome, too; the carpets were soft and rich,

the chairs luxurious, and curtained windows spread their drapery

about them in soft fine folds.

What of all that when hearts were frozen? Wealth to this mother meant

pride, selfishness, and irreligion.

She looked about her, feeling sure that a tall, elegant lady in a

stiff silk train would sweep in, extend the tips of her fingers, and

call a servant to get her off to her room with all possible despatch.

There was no one in the parlours, and Benjamin led his mother on into

the dining-room--a room full of warmth and light--the tea-table

already spread, and a delicate, home-like aroma of toast and tea

pervading it.

A slight girlish figure in a simple dress of dark blue, her bright

hair rippling away into a knot behind, was bending over the grate

toasting a piece of bread by the coals. So noiselessly had they

approached, that she heard no sound until they stood before her.

Mrs. Kensett was still looking for Benjamin's wife to appear in the

shape of a cold, grim person of imposing appearance, wearing gold

eye-glasses--when suddenly the toasting-fork was dropped, and with a

low cry of joy Marian sprang into her husband's arms; then, without

waiting for formal words of introduction, clasped loving arms about

the tired mother, and nestled a rosy face close to hers, and gave her

warm clinging kisses, such as are reserved only for our best beloved.

"Dear mother," she said, "I am so glad you have come! You are cold;

sit right here," and she wheeled a large chair into the warmest

corner, and with her own hands removed the wrappings and carried them

away. "I wanted to have the toast just the right brown, so I was

doing it myself," she explained, as she took up her toasting-fork and

went on with her work, and the old mother sat and feasted her eyes on

the pretty picture--the bright, happy face, the quick, graceful

movements, as she dexterously put last little touches to the table,

chatting pleasantly meanwhile, making tender inquiries about her

health and her journey. Mrs. Kensett began already to feel as if this

was a dear daughter separated from her years ago and now restored.

"It seemed just as if I had been away visiting and got home again,"

she told someone afterward.

After tea and resting, they both went with her in merry procession to

her room, carrying shawls and satchel, and waiting with the eager joy

of two children to see how she liked everything. She would have been

hard to suit if she had not liked it. The room was a large, pleasant

one, with a sunny bay window, a stand of plants, a case of books, and

every other thing that she could possibly need or desire.

Mrs. Kensett started as her eye fell on familiar objects; there was

the claw-footed mahogany centre-table with antique carvings, her

straight-backed old rocker, and "father's" dear arm-chair, both newly

cushioned, and otherwise brightened up. The sofa, too, of ancient

pattern, that had stood in her parlour at Hawthorn for forty years,

looked like an old friend in a new dress. Benjamin had ransacked all

the carpet stores to find a carpet that would resemble as nearly as

possible, in colour and design, his mother's parlour carpet when he

was a boy. He succeeded so well that his mother put on her glasses

and bent nearer to make sure that it was not that identical one.

In an out-of-the-way corner she discovered her little three-legged

stand holding a tiny brass candlestick (one of her wedding presents)

and the snuffers on the japanned trays. It was not alone that the old

times were brought back so vividly that made the tears come, but this

one little thing showed such loving thoughtfulness for her comfort.

(John's wife would never have allowed a candle in the house.)

This was Benjamin's hour of triumph and gladness; for this he had

spent years of patient toil, and now it had come in such a strange,

unexpected way, it, and so much more than he had asked or looked for;

this princely home, this precious wife, and mother abiding with them

all the rest of her days; it was too much, such loving-kindness!

Marian understood; she did not express surprise when he brought out a

little worn psalm-book that she had never seen, and said:

"Sing this for me, dear, to some old tune that fits it; I wish I knew

what my father sang it to when I was a boy."

"I have a book of old music here, perhaps I can find the very one,"

she said; and then the pure voice soared out in the song of praise

his father had loved:

"Praise God, for he is kind;

His mercy lasts for aye;

Give thanks with heart and mind

To God of Gods alway.

For certainly

His mercies dure,

Most firm and sure,

Eternally."

The quaint rendering--new to her--pleased her, and she sang others,

closing in low, soft notes, with:

"The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want,

He makes me down to lie;

In pastures green he leadeth me

The quiet waters by."

And the dear old mother dreamed, as a strain or two of Lenox and St.

Martin's floated up to her room, that she was in the old home, and

"father" was conducting family worship. Little by little, with her

coaxing ways, Marian succeeded in effecting a change in her

mother-in-law's dress, and when one day everything was finished, and

she had her arrayed in a fine black cashmere, made according to her

own ideas of simplicity, the white hair crowned with a soft white

lace cap, and the same soft folds about hep neck, her delight was

complete.

"You dear, beautiful mother," she said, clasping the lace with a

plain jet pin; "it is just delightful to fix you up, everything sets

you out so; its better than dressing dolls. Won't Benjie be

delighted?"

When Maria, and John, and John's wife came to visit their new

sister-in-law, they were astonished beyond measure to find that

mother had been transformed into that handsome old lady who moved

about this elegant home with easy dignity, as if it were her own.

This rare son and daughter never made their mother feel that she was

that uncomfortable third person who spoiled delightful confidences

for young people; they talked freely together, and with her, and she

renewed her youth in their lively intercourse. When company was

announced she was given to retiring in haste from the room, just as

she did at Maria's and John's, but Marian stopped that with "Please

do stay, mother, and help us entertain them; besides, I want you in

that corner with your bright knitting to make our rooms picturesque;

you're the greatest ornament they contain." Then the old lady would

say, "Pooh! you don't want an old body like me," albeit she was well

pleased that she was wanted, and would remain, occasionally throwing

in her quaint remark, adding zest to the conversation.

If an old lady could be easily spoiled, Mrs. Kensett was in danger;

these two fond children were continually bringing offerings to her

shrine, flowers, choice fruit, new books, wherever they went they

remembered her. It was an altogether new and delightful life that she

had entered upon. With Marian she visited charitable institutions,

dispensed bounties--read the Bible to the sick and poor, and

ministered comfort to many a distressed soul. They attended wonderful

meetings, and sat in heavenly places, and Marian and she enjoyed each

other quite as much as they did everything else. The tie that united

them was not Benjamin alone; each recognised in the other the

lineaments of the Lord she loved, their sympathies flowed together as

if half a century did not stretch between them.

Is there any other influence known that levels all differences and

brings souls so near together as this strange personal love to

Christ? They talked and read together, they were dear, confidential

friends--such intercourse is rarely found between mother and

daughter.

The following summer, when they all took up their abode in Hawthorn,

in the old home that Marian had purchased and refitted for a

summer residence, and Mrs. Kensett trained again the vines in her

garden, her cup was full; especially when in the old church she

joined her voice to the great congregation and sang her joy and

thanks in the sweet psalm:

"O thou my soul, bless God the Lord;

And all that in me is,

Be stirred up, his holy name

To magnify and bless.

Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God,

And not forgetful be

Of all his gracious benefits."

PRINTED BY J.S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON

End of Project Gutenberg's Divers Women, by Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston