"Jennie was not engaged to him, however. Three times she had refused

him. The fourth time, in deference to her father's wishes, she had

consented to 'think about it' for a week. In truth, Henry had been at

home ten days and had not called upon her, and all the hope she had

cherished in that direction, and all the weary waiting, seemed in vain.

When the colonel's week was nearly out she heard that Henry was to

leave in two days. In a sort of desperation she determined to accept

Colonel Pearson without waiting for the time appointed for her answer.

But that gentleman spoiled it all by his own overconfidence.

"For when he called, after Jennie had determined on this course, he

found her so full of kindness that he hardly knew how to behave with

moderation. And so he fell to flattering her, and flattering himself at

the same time that he knew all the ins and outs of a girl's heart, he

complimented her on the many offers she had received.

"'And I tell you what,' he proceeded, 'there are plenty of others that

would lay their heads at your feet if they were only your equals.

There's that young parson--Gilbert, I think they call him--that is

visiting his mother in the unpainted and threadbare-looking little

house that stands behind this one. I've actually seen that fellow, in

his rusty, musty coat, stop and look after you on the street; and every

night, when I go home, he is sitting at the window that looks over this

way. The poor fool is in love with you. Only think of it! And I chuckle

to myself when I see him, and say, "Don't you wish you could reach so

high?" I declare, it's funny.'

"In that one speech Colonel Pearson dashed his chances to pieces. He

could not account for the sudden return of winter in Jennie Morton's

manner. And all his sunshine was powerless to dispel it, or to bring

back the least approach of spring.

"Poor Jennie! You can imagine, doctor, how she paced the floor all that

night. She began to understand something of the courage of Henry

Gilbert's heart, and something of the manliness of his motives. All

night long she watched the light burning in the room in the widow's

house; and all night long she debated the matter until her head ached.

She could reach but one conclusion: Henry was to leave the day after

to-morrow. If any communication should ever be opened between them she

must begin it. It was as if she had seen him drifting away from her

forever, and must throw him a rope. I think even such a woman's-right

man as yourself would hardly justify her, however, in taking any step

of the kind."

"I certainly should," said the doctor.

"But she could not find a way--she had no rope to throw. Again the

colonel, meaning to do anything else but that, opened the way. At the

breakfast table the next morning she received from him a magnificent

valentine. All at once she saw her method. It was St. Valentine's day.

The rope was in her hand. Excusing herself from breakfast she hastened

to her room.

"To send a valentine to the faithful lover was the uppermost thought.

But how? She dare not write her name, for, after all, she might be

mistaken in counting on his love, or she might offend his prejudices or

his pride by so direct an approach. She went fumbling in a drawer for

stationery. She drew out a little pine boat that Henry had whittled for

her many years before. He had named it 'Hope,' but the combined wisdom

of the little boy and girl could not succeed in spelling the name

correctly. And here was the little old boat that he had given, saying

often afterward that it was the boat they two were going to sail in

some day. The misspelt name had been the subject of many a laugh

between them. Now--but I mustn't be sentimental.

"It did not take Jennie long to draw an exact likeness of the little

craft. And that there might be no mistake about it, she spelled the

name as it was on the side of the boat:

"'HOAP.'

"There was not another word in the valentine. Sealing it up, she

hurried out with it and dropped it in the post office. No merchant,

sending all his fortune to sea in one frail bark, ever watched the

departure and trembled for the result of venture as she did. Spain did

not pray half so fervently when the invincible armada sailed. It was an

unuttered prayer--an unutterable prayer. For heart and hope were the

lading of the little picture boat that sailed out that day, with no

wind but her wishes in its sails.

"She sat down at her window until she saw Henry Gilbert pass the next

street corner on his morning walk to the post office. Three minutes

after, he went home, evidently in a great state of excitement, with her

valentine open in his hand. After a while he went back again toward the

post office, and returned. Had he taken a reply?

"Jennie again sought the office. There were people all around, with

those hideous things that they call comic valentines open in their

hands. And they actually seemed to think them funny! She had a reply.

It did not take her long to find her room and to open it. There was

another picture of a boat, but the name on its side read 'DESPAIR.' And

these words were added: '_Your boat is the pleasantest, but

understanding that there was no vacant place upon it, I have been

obliged to take passage on this._' Slowly the meaning forced itself

upon her. Henry had fears that she whom he thought engaged was

coqueting with him. I think, doctor, you will hardly justify her in

proceeding further with the correspondence?"

"Why not? Hasn't a woman as much right to make herself understood in

such a matter as a man? And when the social advantages are on her side

the burden of making the advances often falls upon her. Many women do

it indirectly and are not censured."

"Well, you know I'm conservative, doctor, but I'm glad you're

consistent. She did send another valentine. I am afraid she strained

this figure of speech about the boat. But when everything in the world

depends on one metaphor, it will not do to be fastidious. Jennie drew

again the little boat with misspelt name. And this time she added five

words: '_The master's place is vacant._'

"And quite late in the afternoon the reply was left at the door: '_I

am an applicant for the vacant place, if you will take that of master's

maté._'"

"Good!" cried the doctor; "I always advocated giving women every

liberty in these matters."

"But I will stump you yet, doctor," said Hubert. "That evening Gough

was to lecture in the village, and my friend went not to hear Gough but

to see Miss Jennie Morton at a distance. Somehow in the stupefaction of

revived hope he had not thought of going to the house to see her yet.

He had postponed his departure and had thrown away his scruples.

Knowing how much opposition he would have to contend with, he

thought--if he thought at all--that he must proceed with caution. But

some time after the lecture began he discovered the Morton family

without Jennie! Slowly it all dawned upon him. She was at home waiting

for him. He was near the front of the church in which the lecture was

held, and every inch of aisle was full of people. To get out was not

easy. But as he thought of Jennie waiting, it became a matter of life

and death. If the house had been on fire he would not have been more

intent on making his exit. He reached the door, he passed the happiest

evening of his life, only to awake to sorrow, for Jennie's father is

'dead set' against the match."

"He has no right to interfere," said the doctor vehemently. "You see, I

stand by my principles."

"But if I tell the story out I am afraid you would not," said Hubert.

"Why, isn't it done?"

"I beg your pardon, doctor, for having used a little craft. I had much

at stake. I have disguised this story in its details. But it is true, I

am the hero----"

The doctor looked quickly towards his daughter. Her head was bent low

over her book. Her long hair hung about it like a curtain, shutting out

all view of the face. The doctor walked to the other window and looked

out. Hubert sat like a mummy. After a minute Dr. Hood spoke.

"Cornelia!"

She lifted a face that was aflame. Tears glistened in her eyes, and I

doubt not there was a prayer in her heart.

"You are a brave girl. I had other plans. You have a right to choose

for yourself. God bless you both! But it's a great pity Hu is not a

lawyer; he pleads well." So saying he put on his hat and walked out.

This is the conversation that Hubert repeated to me that day sitting in

his own little parsonage in Allenville. A minute after his wife came

in. She had been prescribing for the minor ailments of some poor

neighbors. She took the baby from her crib, and bent over her till that

same long hair curtained mother and child from sight.

"I think," said Hubert, "that you folks who write love stories make a

great mistake in stopping at marriage. The honeymoon never truly begins

until conjugal affection is enriched by this holy partnership of loving

hearts in the life of a child. The climax of a love story is not the

wedding. It is the baby!"

"What do you call her?" I asked.

"Hope," said the mother.

"Hope Valentine," added the father, with a significant smile.

"And you spell the Hope with an 'a,' I believe," I said.

"You naughty Hu!" said Mrs. Cornelia. "You've been telling. You think

that love story is interesting to others because _you_ enjoy it so

much!"

_1871._

HULDAH, THE HELP.[2]

A THANKSGIVING LOVE STORY.

I remember a story that Judge Balcom told a few years ago on the

afternoon of Thanksgiving Day. I do not feel sure that it will interest

everybody as it did me. Indeed, I am afraid that it will not, and yet I

can not help thinking that it is just the sort of a trifle that will go

well with turkey, celery, and mince pie.

[2] This is the first story written by me, beyond a few juvenile

tales; and it was the first short story to appear in Scribner's

Monthly, the present Century Magazine. Mr. Gilder, then

associated with Dr. Holland in editing that newborn periodical,

begged me to write a short story for the second number of the

magazine. I told him that something Helps had written suggested

that a story might be devised in which the hero should marry a

servant. He said it couldn't be done, and I wrote this, on a

wager, as it were. But a "help" is not a servant. The popularity

of this story encouraged me to continue, but I can not now

account for the popularity of the story.

It was in the judge's own mansion on Thirty-fourth Street that I heard

it. It does not matter to the reader how I, a stranger, came to be one

of that family party. Since I could not enjoy the society of my own

family, it was an act of Christian charity that permitted me to share

the joy of others. We had eaten dinner and had adjourned to the warm,

bright parlor. I have noticed on such occasions that conversation is

apt to flag after dinner. Whether it is that digestion absorbs all of

one's vitality, or for some other reason, at least so it generally

falls out, that people may talk ever so brilliantly at the table, but

they will hardly keep it up for the first half-hour afterward. And so

it happened that some of the party fell to looking at the books, and

some to turning the leaves of the photograph album, while others were

using the stereoscope. For my own part, I was staring at an engraving

in a dark corner of the parlor, where I could not have made out much of

its purpose if I had desired, but in reality I was thinking of the

joyous company of my own kith and kin, hundreds of miles away, and

regretting that I could not be with them.

"What are you thinking about, papa?" asked Irene, the judge's second

daughter.

She was a rather haughty-looking girl of sixteen, but, as I had

noticed, very much devoted to her parents. At this moment she was

running her hand through her father's hair, while he was rousing

himself from his revery to answer her question.

"Thinking of the old Thanksgivings, which were so different from

anything we have here. They were the genuine thing; these are only

counterfeits."

"Come, tell us about them, please." This time it was Annie Balcom, the

elder girl, who spoke. And we all gathered round the judge. For I

notice that when conversation does revive, after that period of silence

that follows dinner, it is very attractive to the whole company, and in

whatsoever place it breaks out there is soon a knot of interested

listeners.

"I don't just now think of any particular story of New England

Thanksgivings that would interest you," said the judge.

"Tell them about Huldah's mince pie," said Mrs. Balcom, as she looked

up from a copy of Whittier she had been reading.

I can not pretend to give the story which follows exactly in the

judge's words, for it is three years since I heard it, but as nearly as

I can remember it was as follows:

There was a young lawyer named John Harlow practicing law here in New

York twenty odd years ago. His father lived not very far from my

father. John had been graduated with honors, had studied law, and had

the good fortune to enter immediately into a partnership with his law

preceptor, ex-Gov. Blank. So eagerly had he pursued his studies that

for two years he had not seen his country home. I think one reason why

he had not cared to visit it was that his mother was dead, and his only

sister was married and living in Boston. Take the "women folks" out of

a house, and it never seems much like home to a young man.

But now, as Thanksgiving day drew near, he resolved to give himself a

brief release from the bondage of books. He told his partner that he

wanted to go home for a week. He said he wanted to see his father and

the boys, and his sister, who was coming home at that time, but that he

specially wanted to ride old Bob to the brook once more, and to milk

Cherry again, just to see how it felt to be a farmer's boy.

"John," said the old lawyer, "be sure you fix up a match with some of

those country girls. No man is fit for anything till he is well

married; and you are now able, with economy, to support a wife. Mind

you get one of those country girls. These paste and powder people here

aren't fit for a young man who wants a woman."

"Governor," said the young lawyer, laying his boots gracefully up on

top of a pile of law books, as if to encourage reflection by giving his

head the advantage of the lower end of the inclined plane, "Governor, I

don't know anything about city girls. I have given myself to my books.

But I must have a wife that is literary, like myself--one that can

understand Emerson, for instance."

The old lawyer laughed. "John," he answered, "the worst mistake you can

make is to marry a woman just like yourself in taste. You don't want to

marry a woman's head, but her heart."

John defended his theory, and the governor only remarked that he would

be cured of that sooner or later, and the sooner the better.

The next morning John had a letter from his sister. Part of it ran

about thus:

"I've concluded, old fellow, that if you don't marry you'll dry up and

turn to parchment. I'm going to bring home with me the smartest girl I

know. She reads Carlyle, and quotes Goethe, and understands Emerson. Of

course she don't know what I am up to, but you must prepare to

capitulate."

John did not like Amanda's assuming to pick a wife for him, but he did

like the prospect of meeting a clever girl, and he opened the letter

again to make sure that he had not misunderstood. He read again,

"understands Emerson." John was pleased. Why? I think I can divine.

John was vain of his own abilities, and he wanted a woman that could

appreciate him. He would have told you that he wanted congenial

society. But congenial female society to an ambitious man whose heart

is yet untouched is only society that, in some sense, understands his

greatness and admires his wisdom.

In the old home they were looking for the son. The family proper

consisted of the father, good Deacon Harlow, John's two brothers, ten

and twelve years old, and Huldah, the "help." This last was the

daughter of a neighboring farmer who was poor and hopelessly rheumatic,

and most of the daughter's hard earnings went to eke out the scanty

subsistence at home. Aunt Judith, the sister of John's mother, "looked

after" the household affairs of her brother-in-law, by coming over once

a week and helping Huldah darn and mend and make, and by giving Huldah

such advice as her inexperience was supposed to require. But now Deacon

Harlow's daughter had left her husband to eat his turkey alone in

Boston, and had brought her two children home to receive the paternal

blessing. Not that Mrs. Amanda Holmes had the paternal blessing chiefly

in view in her trip. She had brought with her a very dear friend, Miss

Janet Dunton, the accomplished teacher in the Mount Parnassus Female

Seminary. Why Miss Janet Dunton came to the country with her friend she

could hardly have told. Not a word had Mrs. Holmes spoken to her on the

subject of the matrimonial scheme. She would have resented any allusion

to such a project. She would have repelled any insinuation that she had

ever dreamed that marriage was desirable under any conceivable

circumstances. It is a way we have of teaching girls to lie. We educate

them to catch husbands. Every superadded accomplishment is put on with

the distinct understanding that its sole use is to make the goods more

marketable. We get up parties, we go to watering places, we buy

dresses, we refurnish our houses, to help our girls to a good match.

And then we teach them to abhor the awful wickedness of ever confessing

the great desire that nature and education have combined to make the

chief longing of their hearts. We train them to lie to us, their

trainers; we train them to lie to themselves; to be false with

everybody on this subject; to say "no" when they mean "yes"; to deny an

engagement when they are dying to boast of it. It is one of the

refinements of Christian civilization which we pray the Women's

Missionary Society not to communicate to poor ignorant heathens who

know no better than to tell the truth about these things.

But, before I digressed into that line of remark, I was saying that

Miss Janet Dunton would have resented the most remote suggestion of

marriage. She often declared sentimentally that she was wedded to her

books, and loved her leisure, and was determined to be an old maid. And

all the time this sincere Christian girl was dying to confer herself

upon some worthy man of congenial tastes; which meant, in her case,

just what it did in John Harlow's--some one who could admire her

attainments. But, sensitive as she was to any imputation of a desire to

marry, she and Mrs. Holmes understood each other distinctly. There is a

freemasonry of women, and these two had made signs. They had talked

about in this wise:

_Mrs. Holmes._--My dear Janet, you'll find my brother a bear in

manners, I fear. I wish he would marry. I hope you won't break his

heart, for I know you wouldn't have him.

_Miss Dunton._--You know my views on that subject, my dear. I love

books, and shall marry nobody. Besides, your brother's great legal

and literary attainments would frighten such a poor little mouse as

I am.

And in saying those words they had managed to say that John Harlow was

an unsophisticated student, and that they would run him down between

them.

Mrs. Holmes and her friend had arrived twenty-four hours ahead of John,

and the daughter of the house had already installed herself as

temporary mistress by thoughtlessly upsetting, reversing, and turning

inside out all the good Huldah's most cherished arrangements. All the

plans for the annual festival that wise and practical Huldah had

entertained were vetoed, without a thought that this young girl had

been for a year and a half in actual authority in the house, and might

have some feeling of wrong in having a guest of a week overturn her

plans for the next month. But Mrs. Holmes was not one of the kind to

think of that. Huldah was hired and paid, and she never dreamed that

hired people could have any interests in their work or their home other

than their pay and their food. But Huldah was patient, though she

confessed that she had a feeling that she had been rudely "trampled all

over." I suspect she had a good cry at the end of the first day. I can

not affirm it, except from a general knowledge of women.

When John drove up in the buggy that the boys had taken to the depot

for him his first care was to shake hands with the deacon, who was glad

to see him, but could not forbear expressing a hope that he would

"shave that hair off his upper lip." Then John greeted his sister

cordially, and was presented to Miss Dunton. Instead of sitting down,

he pushed right on into the kitchen, where Huldah, in a calico frock

and a clean white apron, was baking biscuit for tea. She had been a

schoolmate of his, and he took her hand cordially as she stood there,

with the bright western sun half-glorifying her head and face.

"Why, Huldah, how you've grown!" was his first word of greeting. He

meant more than he said, for, though she was not handsome, she had

grown exceeding comely as she developed into a woman.

"Undignified as ever!" said Amanda, as he returned to the sitting room.

"How?" said John. He looked bewildered. What had he done that was

undignified? And Amanda Holmes saw well enough that it would not do to

tell him that speaking to Huldah Manners was not consistent with

dignity. She saw that her remark had been a mistake, and she got out of

it as best she could by turning the conversation. Several times during

the supper John addressed his conversation to Huldah, who sat at the

table with the family; for in the country in those days it would have

been considered a great outrage to make a "help" wait for the second

table. John would turn from the literary conversation to inquire of

Huldah about his old playmates, some of whom had gone to the West, some

of whom had died, and some of whom were settling into the same fixed

adherence to their native rocks that had characterized their ancestors.

The next day the ladies could get no good out of John Harlow. He got up

early and milked the cow. He cut wood and carried it in for Huldah. He

rode old Bob to the brook for water. He did everything that he had been

accustomed to do when a boy, finding as much pleasure in forgetting

that he was a man as he had once found in hoping to be a man. The two

boys enjoyed his society greatly, and his father was delighted to see

that he had retained his interest in the farm life, though the deacon

evidently felt an unconquerable hostility to what he called "that

scrub-brush on the upper lip." I think if John had known how strong his

father's feeling was against this much cherished product he would have

mowed the crop and grazed the field closely until he got back to the

city.

John was not insensible to Janet Dunton's charms. She could talk

fluently about all the authors most in vogue, and the effect of her

fluency was really dazzling to a man not yet cultivated enough himself

to see how superficial her culture was; for all her learning floated on

top. None of it had influenced her own culture. She was brim full of

that which she had acquired, but it had not been incorporated into her

own nature. John did not see this, and he was infatuated with the idea

of marrying a wife of such attainments. How she would dazzle his

friends! How the governor would like to talk to her! How she would

shine in his parlors! How she would delight people as she gave them tea

and talk at the same time. John was in love with her as he would have

been in love with a new tea urn or a rare book. She was a nice thing to

show. Other people than John have married on the strength of such a

feeling and called it love; for John really imagined that he was in

love. And during that week he talked and walked and rode in the sleigh

with Miss Dunton, and had made up his mind that he would carry this

brilliant prize to New York. But, with lawyerlike caution, he thought

he would put off the committal as long as possible. If his heart had

been in his attentions the caution would not have been worth much.

Caution is a good breakwater against vanity, but it isn't worth much

against the springtide of love, as John Harlow soon found out.

For toward the end of the week he began to feel a warmer feeling for

Miss Janet. It was not in the nature of things that John should walk

and talk with a pleasant girl a week, and not feel something more than

his first interested desire to marry a showy wife. His heart began to

be touched, and he resolved to bring things to a crisis as soon as

possible. He therefore sought an opportunity to propose. But it was

hard to find. For though Mrs. Holmes was tolerably ingenious, she could

not get the boys or the deacon to pay any regard to her hints. Boys are

totally depraved on such questions anyhow, and always manage to stumble

in where any privacy is sought. And as for the deacon, it really seemed

as though he had some design in intruding at the critical moment.

I do not think that John was seriously in love with Miss Dunton. If he

had been he would have found some means of communicating with her. A

thousand spies with sleepless eyes all round their heads can not keep a

man from telling his love somehow, if he really have a love to tell.

There is another fact which convinces me that John Harlow was not yet

very deeply in love with Janet. He was fond of talking with her of

Byron and Milton, of Lord Bacon and Emerson--i.e., as I have already

said, he was fond of putting his own knowledge on dress parade in the

presence of one who could appreciate the display. But whenever any

little thing released him for the time from conversation in the sitting

room he was given to slipping out into the old kitchen, where, sitting

on a chair that had no back, and leaning against the chimney side, he

delighted to talk to Huldah. She couldn't talk much of books, but she

could talk most charmingly of everything that related to the country

life, and she could ask John many questions about the great city. In

fact, John found that Huldah had come into possession of only such

facts and truths as could be reached in her narrow life, but that she

had assimilated them and thought about them, and that it was more

refreshing to hear her original and piquant remarks about the topics

she was acquainted with than to listen to the tireless stream of Janet

Dunton's ostentatious erudition. And he found more delight in telling

the earnest and hungry-minded country girl about the great world of men

and the great world of books than in talking to Janet, who was, in the

matter of knowledge, a little _blasée_, if I may be allowed the

expression. And then, to Huldah he could talk of his mother, whom he

had often watched moving about that same kitchen. When he had spoken to

Janet of the associations of the old place with his mother's

countenance, she had answered with a quotation from some poet, given in

a tone of empty sentimentality. He instinctively shrank from mentioning

the subject to her again; but to Huldah it was so easy to talk of his

mother's gentleness and sweetness. Huldah was not unlike her in these

respects, and then she gave him the sort of sympathy that finds its

utterance in a tender silence--so much more tender than any speech can

be.

He observed often during the week that Huldah was depressed. He could

not exactly account for it, until he noticed something in his sister's

behavior toward her that awakened his suspicion. As soon as opportunity

offered he inquired of Huldah, affecting at the same time to know

something about it.

"I don't want to complain of your sister to you, Mr. Harlow----"

"Pshaw! call me John; and as for my sister, I know her faults better

than you do. Go on, please."

"Well, it's only that she told me that Miss Dunton wasn't used to

eating at the same table with _servants_; and when one of the boys told

your father, he was mad, and came to me, and said, 'Huldah, you must

eat when the rest do. If you stay away from the table on account of

these city snobs I'll make a fuss on the spot.' So, to avoid a fuss, I

have kept on going to the table."

John was greatly vexed with this. He was a chivalrous fellow, and he

knew how such a remark must wound a person who had never learned that

domestic service had anything degrading in it. And the result was just

the opposite of what his sister had hoped. John paid more attention

than ever to Huldah Manners because she was the victim of oppression.

The evening before Thanksgiving day the ladies were going to make a

visit. It was not at all incumbent on John to go, but he was seeking an

opportunity to carry off the brilliant Miss Dunton, who would adorn his

parlors when he became rich and distinguished, and who would make so

nice a headpiece for his table. And so he had determined to go with

them, trusting to some fortunate chance for his opportunity.

But, sitting in the old "best room" in the dark, while the ladies were

getting ready, and trying to devise a way by which he might get an

opportunity to speak with Miss Dunton alone, it occurred to him that

she was at that time in the sitting room waiting for his sister. To

step out to where she was, and present the case in a few words, would

not be difficult, and it might all be settled before his sister came

downstairs. The Fates were against him, however; for, just as he was

about to act on his thought, he heard Amanda Holmes's abundant skirts

sweeping down the stairway. He could not help hearing the conversation

that followed:

"You see, Janet, I got up this trip to-night to keep John from spending

the evening in the kitchen. He hasn't a bit of dignity, and would spend

the evening romping with the children and talking to Huldah if he took

it into his head."

"Well," said Janet, "one can overlook everything in a man of your

brother's culture. But what a queer way your country servants have of

pushing themselves! Wouldn't I make them know their places!"

And all this was said with the kitchen door open, and with the

intention of wounding Huldah.

John's castles tumbled. The erudite wife alongside the silver tea urn

faded out of sight rapidly. If knowledge could not give a touch of

humane regard for the feelings of a poor girl toiling dutifully and

self-denyingly to support her family, of what account was it?

Two minutes before he was about to give his life to Janet Dunton. Now

there was a gulf wider than the world between them. He slipped out of

the best room by the outside door and came in through the kitchen. The

neighbor's sleigh that was to call for them was already at the door,

and John begged them to excuse him. He had set his heart on helping

Huldah make mince pies, as he used to help his mother when a boy. His

sister was in despair, but she did not say much. She told John that it

was time he was getting over his queer freaks. And the sleigh drove

off.

For an hour afterward John romped with his sister's children and told

stories to the boys and talked to his father. When a man has barely

escaped going over a precipice he does not like to think too much about

it. John did not.

At last the little children went to bed. The old gentleman grew sleepy,

and retired. The boys went into the sitting room and went to sleep, one

on the lounge and one on the floor. Huldah was just ready to begin her

pies. She was deeply hurt, but John succeeded in making her more

cheerful. He rolled up his sleeves and went to rolling out the pastry.

He thought he had never seen a sweeter picture than the young girl in

clean dress and apron, with her sleeves rolled above her elbows. There

was a statuesque perfection in her well-rounded arms. The heat of the

fire had flushed her face a little, and she was laughing merrily at

John's awkward blunders in pie-making. John was delighted, he hardly

knew why. In fixing a pie crust his fingers touched hers, and he

started as if he had touched a galvanic battery. He looked at Huldah,

and saw a half-pained expression on her flushed face.

For the first time it occurred to him that Huldah Manners had excited

in him a feeling a thousand times deeper than anything he had felt

toward Janet, who seemed to be now in another world. For the first time

he realized that he had been more in love with Huldah than with Janet

all the time. Why not marry her? And then he remembered what the

governor had said about marrying a woman's heart and not her head.

He put on his hat and walked out--out, out, into the darkness, the

drizzling rain, and the slush of melting snow, fighting a fierce

battle. All his pride and all his cowardly vanity were on one side, all

the irresistible torrent of his love on the other. He walked away into

the dark wood pasture, trying to cool his brow, trying to think,

and--would you believe it?--trying to pray, for it was a great

struggle, and in any great struggle a true soul always finds something

very like prayer in his heart.

The feeling of love may exist without attracting the attention of its

possessor. It had never occurred to John that he could love or marry

Huldah. Thus the passion had grown all the more powerful for not being

observed, and now the unseen fire had at a flash appeared as an

all-consuming one.

Turning back, he stood without the window, in the shadow, and looked

through the glass at the trim young girl at work with her pies. In the

modest, restful face he read the story of a heart that had carried

great burdens patiently and nobly. What a glorious picture she was of

warmth and light, framed in darkness! To his heart at that moment all

the light and warmth of the world centered in Huldah. All the world

besides was loneliness and darkness and drizzle and slush. His fear of

his sister and of his friends seemed base and cowardly. And the more he

looked at this vision of the night, this revelation of peace and love

and light, the more he was determined to possess it. You will call him

precipitate. But when all a man's nobility is on one side and all his

meanness on the other, why hesitate? Besides, John Harlow had done more

thinking in that half hour than most men do in a month.

The vision had vanished from the window, and he went in and sat down.

She had by this time put in the last pie, and was sitting with her head

on her hand. The candle flickered and went out, and there was only the

weird and ruddy firelight. I can not tell you what words passed between

John and the surprised Huldah, who had thought him already betrothed to

Miss Dunton. I can not tell what was said in the light of that fire; I

don't suppose Harlow could tell that story himself.

Huldah asked that he should not say anything about it till his sister

was gone. Of course John saw that she asked it for his sake. But his

own cowardice was glad of the shelter.

Next day a brother of John's, whom I forgot to mention before, came

home from college. Mrs. Holmes's husband arrived unexpectedly. Aunt

Judith, with her family, came over at dinner time, so that there was a

large and merry party. Two hearts, at least, joined in the deacon's

thanksgiving before dinner with much fervor.

At the table the dinner was much admired.

"Huldah," said Janet Dunton, "I like your pies. I wish I could hire you

to go to Boston. Our cook never does so well."

John saw the well-aimed shaft hidden under this compliment, and all his

manhood rallied. As soon as he could be sure of himself he said:

"You can not have Huldah; she is already engaged."

"How's that?" said Aunt Judith.

"Oh! I've secured her services," said John.

"What?" said Mrs. Holmes, "engaged your--your--your help before you

engaged a wife!"

"Not at all," said John; "engaged my help and my wife in one. I hope

that Huldah Manners will be Huldah Harlow by Christmas."

The deacon dropped his knife and fork, and dropped his lower jaw, and

stared. "What! How! What did you say, John?"

"I say, father, that this good girl Huldah is to be my wife."

"John!" gasped the old man, getting to his feet and reaching his hand

across the table, "you've got plenty of sense if you do wear a

mustache! God bless you, my boy; there ain't no better woman here, nor

in New York, nor anywhere, than Huldah. God bless you both! I was

afraid you'd take a different road, though."

"Hurrah for our Huldah and our John!" said George Harlow, the college

boy, and his brothers joined him. Even the little Holmes children

hurrahed.

* * * * *

Here the judge stopped.

"Well," said Irene, "I don't think it _was_ very nice in him to marry

the 'help.' Do you, father?"

"Indeed I _do_," said the judge, with emphasis.

"Did she ever come to understand Emerson?" asked Anna, who detested the

Concord philosopher because she could not understand him.

"Indeed I don't know," said the judge; "you can ask Huldah herself."

"Who? what? You don't mean that mother is Huldah?"

It was a cry in concert.

"Mother" was a little red in the face behind the copy of Whittier she

was affecting to read.

_1870._

THE NEW CASHIER.

My friend Macartney-Smith has working theories for everything. He

illustrated one of these the other day by relating something that

happened in the Giralda apartment house, where he lives in a suite

overlooking Central Park. I do not remember whether he was expounding

his notion that the apartment house has solved the question of

co-operative housekeeping, or whether he was engaged in demonstrating

certain propositions regarding the influence of the city on the

country. Since I have forgotten what it was intended to prove, the

incident has seemed more interesting. It is bad for a story to medicate

it with a theory. However, here are the facts as Macartney-Smith

relates them with his Q.E.D. omitted.

* * * * *

I do not know [he began] by what accident or on what recommendation the

manager of the Giralda brought a girl from Iowa to act as clerk and

cashier in the restaurant.

The new cashier had lived in a town where there were differences in

social standing, but no recognized distinctions, after you had left out

the sedimentary poverty-stricken class. She not only had no notions of

the lines of social cleavage in a great apartment-house, but she had

never heard of chaperonage, or those other indelicacies that go along

with the high civilization of a metropolis. I have no doubt she was the

best scholar in the arithmetic class in the village high school, and

ten to one she was the champion at croquet. She took life with a zest

unknown to us New Yorkers, and let the starchiest people in the house

know that she was glad to see them when they returned after an absence

by going across the dining-room to shake hands with them and to inquire

whether they had had a good time. Even the gently frigid manner of Mrs.

Drupe could not chill her friendliness; she was accustomed to accost

that lady in the elevator, and demand, "How is Mr. Drupe?" whenever

that gentleman chanced to be absent. It was not possible for her to

imagine that Mrs. Drupe could be otherwise than grateful for any

manifestation of a friendly interest in her husband.

To show any irritation was not Mrs. Drupe's way; that would have

disturbed the stylish repose of her bearing even more than misplaced

cordiality. She always returned the salutations of Miss Wakefield, but

in a tone so neutral, cool, and cucumberish that she hoped the girl

would feel rebuked and learn a little more diffidence, or at least

learn that the Drupes did not care for her acquaintance. But the only

result of such treatment was that Miss Wakefield would say to the clerk

in the office: "Your Eastern people have such stiff ways that they

make me homesick. But they don't mean any harm, I suppose."

Some of the families in the Giralda rather liked the new cashier; these

were they who had children. The little children chatted and laughed

with her across her desk when they came down as forerunners to give the

order for the family dinner. If it were only lunch time, when few

people were in the restaurant, they went behind the desk and embraced

the cashier and had a romp with her. The smallest chaps she would take

up in her arms while she pulled out the drawers to show them her paper

knife and trinkets; and when there were flowers, she would often break

off one apiece for even those least amiable little plagues that in an

apartment house are the torment of their nurses and their mammas the

livelong day. This not only gave pleasure to the infantry, but relieved

an aching which the poor girl had for a once cheerful home, now broken

up by the death of her parents and the scattering abroad of brothers

and sisters.

The young men in the house thought her "a jolly girl," since she would

chat with them over her desk as freely as she would have chatted across

the counter with the clerks in Cedar Falls, where she came from. She

was equally cordial with the head waiter, and with those of his staff

who knew any more English than was indispensable to the taking of an

order. But her frank familiarity with young gentlemen and friendly

speech with servants were offensive to some of the ladies. They talked

it over, and decided that Miss Wakefield was not a modest girl; that at

least she did not know her place, and that the manager ought to dismiss

her if he meant to maintain the tone of the house. The manager--poor

fellow!--had to hold his own place against the rivalry of the

treasurer, and when such complaints were made to him what could he do?

He stood out a while for Miss Wakefield, whom he liked; but when the

influential Mrs. Drupe wrote to him that the cashier at the desk in the

restaurant was not a well-behaved girl, he knew that it was time to

look out for another.

If the manager had forewarned her, she could have saved money enough to

take her back to Iowa, where she might dare to be as friendly as she

pleased with other respectable humans without fear of reproach. But he

was not such a fool as to let go of one cashier till he had found

another. It was while the manager was deciding which of three other

young women to take that Mr. Drupe was stricken with apoplexy. He had

finished eating his luncheon, which was served in the apartment, and

had lighted a cigar, when he fell over. There were no children, and the

Drupes kept no servant, but depended on the housekeeper to send them a

maid when they required one, so that Mrs. Drupe found herself alone

with her prostrate husband. The distracted wife did not know what to

do. She took hold of the needle of the teleseme, but the words on the

dial were confused; she quickly moved the needle round over the whole

twenty-four points, but none of them suited the case. She stopped it at

"porter," moved it to "bootblack," carried it around to "ice water,"

and successively to "coupe," "laundress," and "messenger-boy," and then

gave up in despair, and jerked open the door that led to the hall. Miss

Wakefield had just come up to the next apartment to inquire after a

little girl ill from a cold, and was returning toward the elevator when

Mrs. Drupe's wild face was suddenly thrust forth upon her.

"Won't you call a boy--somebody? My husband is dying," were the words

that greeted Miss Wakefield at the moment of the apparition of the

despairing face.

Miss Wakefield rushed past Mrs. Drupe into the apartment, and turned

the teleseme to the word "manager," and then pressed the button three

times in quick succession. She knew that a call for the manager would

suggest fire, robbery, and sudden death, and that it would wake up the

lethargic forces in the office. Then she turned to the form of the man

lying prostrate on the floor, seized a pillow from the lounge, and

motioned to Mrs. Drupe to raise his head while she laid it beneath.

"Who is your doctor?" she demanded.

"Dr. Morris; but it's a mile away," said the distracted woman. "Won't

you send a boy in a coupé"

"I'll go myself, the boys are so slow," said the cashier. "Shall I send

you a neighboring doctor till Dr. Morris can get here?"

"Do! do!" pleaded the wife, now wildly wringing her hands.

Miss Wakefield caught the elevator as it landed the manager on the

floor, and she briefly told him what was the matter. Then she

descended, and had the clerk order a coupé by telephone, and then

herself sent Dr. Floyd from across the street, while she ran to the

stable, leaped into the coupé before the horse was fairly hitched up,

and drove for Dr. Morris.

Dr. Morris found Mrs. Drupe already a widow when he arrived with the

cashier. The latter promptly secured the addresses of Mr. Drupe's

brother and of his business partner, again entered the coupé, and soon

had the poor woman in the hands of her friends.

The energetic girl went to her room that night exhilarated by her own

prompt and kind-hearted action. But the evil spirit that loves to mar

our happiness had probably arranged it that on that very evening she

received a note from the manager notifying her that her services would

not be required after one more week. On inquiry the next day she

learned that some of the ladies had complained of her behavior, and she

vainly tried to remember what she had done that was capable of

misconstruction. She also vainly tried to imagine how she was to live,

or by what means she was to contrive to get back to those who knew her

too well to suspect her of any evil. She was so much perplexed by the

desperate state of her own affairs that she even neglected to attend

Mr. Drupe's funeral, but she hoped that Mrs. Drupe would not take it

unkindly.

It was with a heavy heart that the manager called Miss Wakefield into

his office on the ground floor in order that he might pay her last

week's wages. He was relieved that she seemed to accept her dismissal

with cheerfulness.

"What are you going to do?" he asked timidly.

"Why, didn't you know?" she said. "I am to live with Mrs. Drupe as a

companion, and to look out for her affairs and collect her rents. I

used to think she didn't like me. But it will be a good lesson to those

ladies who found fault with me for nothing when they see how much Mrs.

Drupe thinks of me."

And she went her way to her new home in Mrs. Drupe's apartment, at the

end of the hall on the sixth floor, while the manager took from a

pigeonhole Mrs. Drupe's letter of complaint against the former cashier,

and read it over carefully.

The thickness of the walls at the base of so lofty a building made it

difficult for daylight to work its way through the tunnel-like windows,

so that in this office a gas jet was necessary in the daytime. After a

moment's reflection the manager touched Mrs. Drupe's letter of

complaint to the flame, and it was presently reduced to everlasting

illegibility.

PRISCILLA.

The trained novel readers, those who have made a business of it (if any

such should honor this poor little story with their attention), will

glance down the opening paragraphs for a description of the heroine's

tresses. The opening sentences of Miss Braddon are enough to show how

important a thing a head of hair is in the getting up of a heroine for

the popular market. But as my heroine is not a got-up one, and as I can

not possibly remember even the color of her hair or her eyes as I

recall her now, I fear I shall disappoint the professionals, who never

feel that they have a complete heroine till the "long waving tresses of

raven darkness, reaching nearly to the ground, enveloping her as with a

cloud," have been artistically stuck on by the author. But be it known

that I take Priscilla from memory, and not from imagination. And the

memory of Priscilla, the best girl in the school, the most gifted, the

most modest, the most gentle and true, is a memory too sacred to be

trifled with. I would not make one hair light or dark, I would not

change the shading of the eyebrows. Priscilla is Priscilla forever, to

all who knew her. And as I can not tell the precise color of her hair

and eyes, I shall not invent a shade for them. I remember that she was

on the blond side of the grand division line. But she was not blond.

She was--Priscilla. I mean to say that since you never lived in that

dear old-fogy Ohio River village of New Geneva, and since,

consequently, you never knew our Priscilla, no words of mine can make

you exactly understand her. Was she handsome? No--yes. She was

"jimber-jawed"--that is, her lower teeth shut a little outside her

upper. Her complexion was not faultless. Her face would not bear

criticism. And yet there is not one of her old schoolmates that will

not vow that she was beautiful. And indeed she was. For she was

Priscilla. And I never can make you understand it.

As Priscilla was always willing to oblige any one, it was only natural

that Mrs. Leston should send for her to help entertain the marquis. It

was a curious chance that threw the young Marquis d'Entremont for a

whole summer into the society of our little village. His uncle, who was

his guardian, a pious _abbé_, wishing to remove him from Paris to get

him out of socialistic influences, had sent him to New Orleans,

consigned to the care of the great banking house of Challeau, Lafort &

Company. Not liking to take the chances of yellow fever in the summer,

he had resolved to journey to the North, and as Challeau, Lafort &

Company had a correspondent in Henry Leston, the young lawyer, and as

French was abundantly spoken in our Swiss village of New Geneva, what

more natural than that they should dispatch the marquis to our pleasant

town of vineyards, giving him a letter of introduction to their

attorney, who fortunately spoke some book French. He had presented the

letter, had been invited to dinner, and Priscilla Haines, who had

learned French in childhood, though she was not Swiss, was sent for to

help entertain the guest.

I can not but fancy that D'Entremont was surprised at meeting just such

a girl as Priscilla in a rustic village. She was not abashed at finding

herself face to face with a nobleman, nor did she seem at all anxious

to attract his notice. The vanity of the marquis must have been a

little hurt at finding a lady that did not court his attention. But

wounded vanity soon gave place to another surprise. Even Mrs. Leston,

who understood not one word of the conversation between her husband,

the marquis, and Priscilla, was watching for this second surprise, and

did not fail to read it in D'Entremont's eyes. Here was a young woman

who had read. She could admire Corinne, which was much in vogue in

those days among English-speaking students of French; she could oppose

Saint Simon. The Marquis d'Entremont had resigned himself to the ennui

of talking to Swiss farmers about their vineyards, of listening to

Swiss grandmothers telling stories of their childhood in Neufchatel and

Vaud. But to find in this young village school-teacher one who could

speak, and listen while he spoke, of his favorite writers, was to him

very strange. Not that Priscilla had read many French books, for there

were not many within her reach. But she had read Grimm's

Correspondence, and he who reads this has heard the echo of many of the

great voices in French literature. And while David Haines had lived his

daughter had wanted nothing he could get to help her to the highest

culture.

But I think what amazed the marquis most was that Priscilla showed no

consciousness of the unusual character of her attainments. She spoke

easily and naturally of what she knew, as if it were a matter of course

that the teacher of a primary school should have read Corneille, and

should be able to combat Saint Simonism. As the dinner drew to a close,

Leston lifted his chair round to where his wife sat and interpreted the

bright talk at the other side of the table.

I suspect that Saint Simon had lost some of his hold upon the marquis

since his arrival in a country where life was more simple and the

manner of thought more practical. But he dated the decline of his

socialistic opinions from his discussion with Priscilla Haines.

The next Sunday morning he strolled out of the Le Vert House, breathing

the sweet air perfumed with the blossoms of a thousand apple trees. For

what yard is there in New Geneva that has not apple trees and

grapevines? And every family in the village keeps a cow, and every cow

wears a bell, and every bell is on a different key; so that the three

things that penetrated the senses of the marquis on this Sunday morning

were the high hills that stood sentinels on every hand about the valley

in which New Geneva stood, the smell of the superabundant apple

blossoms, and the _tinkle_ and _tankle_ and _tonkle_ of hundreds of

bells on the cows grazing on the "commons," as the open lots were

called. On this almost painfully quiet morning D'Entremont noticed the

people going one way and another to the early Sunday schools in the

three churches. Just as he came to the pump that stood in front of the

"public square" he met Priscilla. At her heels were ten ragged little

ruffians, whom she was accustomed to have come to her house every

Sunday morning and walk with her to Sunday school.

"You are then a Sister of Charity also," he said in French, bowing low

with sincere admiration as he passed her. And then to himself the young

marquis reflected: "We Saint Simonists theorize and build castles in

Spain for poor people, but we do not take hold of them." He walked

clear round the square, and then followed the steps of Priscilla into

the little brick Methodist church which in that day had neither steeple

nor bell nor anything churchlike about it except the two arched front

windows. There was not even a fence to inclose it, nor an evergreen nor

an ivy about it; only a few straggling black locusts. For the

puritanism of New England was never so hard a puritanism as the

Methodist puritanism of a generation ago in the West--a puritanism that

forbade jewelry, that stripped the artificial flowers out of the

bonnets of country girls, that expelled, and even yet expels, a country

boy for looking with wonder at a man hanging head downward from a

trapeze in a circus tent. No other church, not even the Quaker, ever

laid its hand more entirely upon the whole life of its members. The

dead hand of Wesley has been stronger than the living hand of any pope.

Upon the hard, open-backed, unpainted and unvarnished oak benches,

which seemed devised to produce discomfort, sat the Sunday-school

classes, and upon one of these, near the door, D'Entremont sat down. He

looked at the bare walls, at the white pulpit, at the carpetless

floors, at the general ugliness of things, the box stove, which stood

in the only aisle, the tin chandeliers with their half-burned candles,

the eight-by-ten lights of glass in the windows, and he was favorably

impressed. With a quick conscience he had often felt the frivolous

emptiness of a worldly life, and had turned toward the religion of his

uncle the _abbé_ only to turn away again antagonized by what seemed to

him frivolity in the religions pomp that he saw. But here was a

religion not only without the attractions of sensuous surrounding, but

a religion that maintained its vitality despite a repelling plainness,

not to say a repulsive ugliness, in its external forms. For could he

doubt the force of a religious principle that had divested every woman

in the little church of every ornament? Doubtless he felt the

narrowness that could read the scriptural injunction so literally, but

none could doubt the strength of a religious conviction that submitted

to such self-denial. And then there was Priscilla, with all her gifts,

sitting in the midst of her boys, gathered from that part of the

village known as "Slabtown." Yes, there must be something genuine in

this religious life, and its entire contrast to all that the marquis

had known and grown weary of attracted him.

As eleven o'clock drew on, the little church filled with people. The

men sat on one side of the aisle and the women on the other. The old

brethren and sisters, and generally those who prayed in prayer meeting

and spoke in love feast, sat near the front, many of them on the cross

seats near the pulpit, which were thence said by scoffers to be the

"Amen corners." Any one other than a leader of the hosts of Israel

would as soon have thought of taking a seat in the pulpit as on one of

these chief seats in the synagogue. The marquis sat still and watched

the audience gather, while one of the good brethren led the

congregation in singing

"When I can read my title clear,"

which hymn was the usual voluntary at the opening of service. Then the

old minister said, "Let us continue the worship of God by singing the

hymn on page 554." He "lined" the hymn--that is, he read each couplet

before it was sung. With the coming in of hymn books and other

newfangled things the good old custom of "lining the hymn" has

disappeared. But on that Sunday morning the Marquis d'Entremont thought

he had never heard anything more delightful than these simple melodies

sung thus lustily by earnest voices. The reading of each couplet by the

minister before it was sung seemed to him a sort of recitative. He knew

enough of English to find that the singing was hopeful and triumphant.

Wearied with philosophy and _blasé_ with the pomp of the world, he

wished that he had been a villager in New Geneva, and that he might

have had the faith to sing of the

"--land of pure delight

Where saints immortal reign,"

with as much earnestness as his friend Priscilla on the other side of

the aisle. In the prayer that followed D'Entremont noticed that all the

church members knelt, and that the hearty _amens_ were not intoned, but

were as spontaneous as the rest of the service. After reverently

reading a chapter the old minister said: "Please sing without lining,

"'A charge to keep I have,'"

and then the old time of "Kentucky" was sung with animation, after

which came the sermon, of which the marquis understood but few words,

though he understood the pantomime by which the venerable minister

represented the return of the prodigal and the welcome he received.

When he saw the tears in the eyes of the hearers, and heard the

half-repressed "Bless the Lord!" of an old brother or sister, and saw

them glance joyfully at one another's faces as the sermon went on, he

was strangely impressed with the genuineness of the feeling.

But the class meeting that followed, to which he remained, impressed

him still more. The venerable Scotchman who led it had a face that

beamed with sweetness and intelligence. It was fortunate that the

marquis saw so good a specimen. In fact, Priscilla trembled lest Mr.

Boreas, the stern, hard-featured "exhorter," should have been invited

to lead. But as the sweet-faced old leader called upon one and another

to speak, and as many spoke with streaming eyes, D'Entremont quivered

with sympathy. He was not so blind that he could not see the sham and

cant of some of the speeches, but in general there was much earnestness

and truth. When Priscilla rose in her turn and spoke, with downcast

eyes, he felt the beauty and simplicity of her religious life. And he

rightly judged that from the soil of a cult so severe there must grow

some noble and heroic lives. Last of all the class leader reached the

marquis, whom he did not know.

"Will our strange brother tell us how it is with him to-day?" he asked.

Priscilla trembled. What awful thing might happen when a class leader

invited a marquis, who could speak no English, and who was a disciple

of Saint Simon, to tell his religious experience, was more than she

could divine. If the world had come to an end in consequence of such a

concatenation, I think she would hardly have been surprised. But

nothing of the sort occurred. To her astonishment the marquis rose and

said:

"Is it that any one can speak French?"

A brother who was a member of one of the old Swiss families volunteered

his services as interpreter, and D'Entremont proceeded to tell them how

much he had been interested in the exercises; that it was the first

time he had ever been in such a meeting, and that he wished he had the

simple faith which they showed.

Then the old leader said, "Let us engage in prayer for our strange

brother."

And the marquis bowed his knees upon the hard floor.

He could not understand much that was said, but he knew that they were

praying for him; that this white-haired class leader, and the old

ladies in the corner, and Priscilla, were interceding with the Father

of all for him. He felt more confidence in the efficacy of their

prayers than he had ever had in all the intercessions of the saints of

which he was told when a boy. For surely God would hear such as

Priscilla!

It happened not long after this that D'Entremont was drawn even nearer

to this simple Methodist life, which had already made such an

impression on his imagination, by an incident which would make a

chapter if this story were intended for the New York Weekly Dexter.

Indeed, the story of his peril in a storm and freshet on Indian Creek,

and of his deliverance by the courage of Henry Stevens, is so well

suited to that periodical and others of its class, that I am almost

sorry that Mrs. Eden, or Cobb, Jr., is not the author of this story.

Either of them could make a chapter which would bear the title of "A

Thrilling Incident." But with an unconquerable aversion to anything and

everything "thrilling," the present writer can only say in plainest

prose that this incident made the young marquis the grateful friend of

his deliverer, Henry Stevens, who happened to be a zealous Methodist,

and about his own age.

The effort of the two friends to hold intercourse was a curious

spectacle. Not only did they speak different languages, but they lived

in different worlds. Not only did D'Entremont speak a very limited

English, while Stevens spoke no French, but D'Entremont's life and

thought had nothing in common with the life of Stevens, except the one

thing that made a friendship possible. They were both generous, manly

men, and each felt a strong drawing to the other. So it came about that

when they tired of the marquis's English and of the gulf between their

ideas, they used to call on Priscilla at her home with her mother in

the outskirts of the village. She was an interpreter indeed! For with

the keenest sympathy she entered into the world in which the marquis

lived, which had always been a sort of intellectual paradise to her. It

was strange indeed to meet a living denizen of a world that seemed to

her impossible except in books. And as for the sphere in which Stevens

moved, it was her own. He and she had been schoolmates from childhood,

had looked on the same green hills, known the same people, been molded

of the same strong religious feeling. Nothing was more delightful to

D'Entremont than to be able to talk to Stevens, unless it was to have

so good an excuse for conversation with Priscilla; and nothing was so

pleasant to Henry Stevens as to be able to understand the marquis,

unless it was to talk with Priscilla; while to Priscilla those were

golden moments, in which she passed like a quick-winged messenger

between her own native world and the world that she knew only in books,

between the soul of one friend and that of another. And thus grew up a

triple friendship, a friendship afterward sorely tried. For how strange

it is that what brings together at one time may be a wall of division

at another.

I can not pretend to explain just how it came about. Doubtless Henry

Stevens's influence had something to do with it, though I feel sure

Priscilla's had more. Doubtless the marquis was naturally susceptible

to religions influences. Certain it is that the socialistic opinions,

never very deeply rooted, and at most but a reaction, disappeared, and

there came a religious sentiment like that of his friends. He was drawn

to the little class meeting, which seemed to him so simple a

confessional that all his former notions of "liberty, fraternity, and

equality" were satisfied by it. I believe he became a "probationer,"

but his creed was never quite settled enough for him to accept "full

membership."

Some of the old folks could not refrain from expressions of triumph

that "the Lord had got a hold of that French infidel": and old Sister

Goodenough seized his hand, and, with many sighs and much upturning of

the eyes, exhorted him: "Brother Markus, give up everything! give up

everything, and come out from the world and be separated!" Which led

D'Entremont to remark to Stevens, as they walked away, that "Madame

Goodenough was vare curus indeed!" And Brother Boreas, the exhorter,

who had the misfortune not to have a business reputation without

blemish, but who made up for it by rigid scruples in regard to a

melodeon in the church, and by a vicarious conscience which was kindly

kept at everybody's service but his own--old Brother Boreas always

remarked in regard to the marquis, that "as for his part he liked a

deeper repentance and a sounder conversion." But the gray-haired old

Scotch class leader, whose piety was at a premium everywhere, would

take D'Entremont's hand and talk of indifferent subjects while he

_beamed_ on him his affection and Christian fellowship.

To the marquis Priscilla was a perpetual marvel. More brilliant women

he had known in Paris, more devout women he had seen there, but a woman

so gifted and so devout, and, above all, a woman so true, so modest,

and of such perfect delicacy of feeling he had never known. And how

poorly these words describe her! For she was Priscilla; and all who

knew her will understand how much more that means than any adjectives

of mine. Certainly Henry Stevens did, for he had known her always, and

would have loved her always had he dared. It was only now, as she

interpreted him to the marquis and the marquis to him, idealizing and

elevating the thoughts of both, that he surrendered himself to hope.

And so, toward the close of the summer, affairs came to this awkward

posture that these two sworn friends loved the same woman.

D'Entremont discovered this first. More a man of the world than Henry

Stevens, he read the other's face and voice. He was perturbed. Had it

occurred two years before, he might have settled the matter easily by a

duel, for instance. And even now his passion got the better for a while

of all his good feelings and Christian resolutions. When he got back to

the Le Vert House with his unpleasant discovery he was burning like a

furnace. In spite of a rain storm just beginning and a dark night, he

strode out and walked he knew not whither. He found himself, he knew

not how, on the bank of the Ohio. He untied a skiff and pushed out into

the river. How to advance himself over his rival was his first thought.

But this darkness and this beating rain and this fierce loneliness

reminded him of that night when he had clung desperately to the

abutment of the bridge that spanned Indian Creek, and when the courage

and self-possession of Henry Stevens had rescued him. Could he be the

rival of a man who had gone down into the flood that he might save the

exhausted marquis?

Then he hated himself. Why had he not drowned that night? And with this

feeling of self-disgust added to his general mental misery and the

physical misery that the rain brought to him, there came the great

temptation to write "_Fin_," in French fashion, by jumping into the

water. But something in the influence of Priscilla and that class

meeting caused him to take a better resolution, and he returned to the

hotel.

The next day he sent for Henry Stevens to come to his room.

"Henry, I am going to leave to-night on the mail boat. I am going back

to New Orleans, and thence to France. You love Priscilla. You are a

noble man; you will make her happy. I have read your love in your face.

Meet me at the river to-night. When you are ready to be married, let me

know, that I may send some token of my love for both. Do not tell

mademoiselle that I am going; but tell her good-by for me afterward.

Now, I must pack."

Henry went out stupefied. What did it mean? And why was he half glad

that D'Entremont was going? By degrees he got the better of his

selfishness.

"Marquis d'Entremont," he said, breaking into his room, "you must not

go away. You love Priscilla. You have everything--learning, money,

travel. I have nothing."

"Nothing but a good heart, which I have not," said D'Entremont.

"I will never marry Priscilla," said Henry, "unless she deliberately

chooses to have me in preference to you."

To this arrangement, so equitable, the marquis consented, and the

matter was submitted to Priscilla by letter. Could she love either, and

if either, which? She asked a week for deliberation.

It was not easy to decide. By all her habits of thought and feeling, by

all her prejudices, by all her religious life, she was drawn toward the

peaceful and perhaps prosperous life that opened before her as the wife

of Henry Stevens, living in her native village, near to her mother,

surrounded by her old friends, and with the best of men for a husband.

But by all the clamor of her intellectual nature for something better

than her narrow life, by all her joy in the conversation of

D'Entremont, the only man her equal in culture she had ever known, she

felt drawn to be the wife of the marquis. Yet if there were roses,

there were thorns in such a path. The village girl knew that _madame la

marquise_ must lead a life very different from any she had known. She

must bear with a husband whose mind was ever in a state of unrest and

skepticism, and she must meet the great world.

In truth there were two Priscillas. There was the Priscilla that her

neighbors knew, the Priscilla that went to church, the Priscilla that

taught Primary School No. 3. There was the other Priscilla, that read

Chaucer and Shakespeare, Molière and De Staël. With this Priscilla New

Geneva had nothing to do. And it was the doubleness of her nature that

caused her indecision.

Then her conscience came in. Because there might be worldly attractions

on one side, she leaned to the other. To reject a poor suitor and

accept a rich and titled one, had something of treason in it.

At the end of a week she sent for them both. Henry Stevens's flatboat

had been ready to start for New Orleans for two days. And Challeau,

Lafort & Company were expecting the marquis, who was in some sort a

ward of theirs. Henry Stevens and the Marquis Antoine d'Entremont

walked side by side, in an awkward silence, to the little vine-covered

cottage. Of that interview I do not know enough to write fully. But I

know that Priscilla said such words as these:

"This is an awful responsibility. I suppose a judge trembles when he

must pass sentence of death. But I must make a decision that involves

the happiness of both my friends and myself. I can not do it now. Will

you wait until you both return in the spring? I have a reason that I

can not explain for wishing this matter postponed. It will be decided

for me, perhaps."

I do not know that she said just these words, and I know she did not

say them all at once. But so they parted. And Miss Nancy More, who

retailed ribbons and scandal, and whose only effort at mental

improvement had been the plucking out of the hairs contiguous to her

forehead, that she might look intellectual--Miss Nancy More from her

lookout at the window descried the two friends walking away from Mrs.

Haines's cottage, and remarked, as she had often remarked before, that

it was "absolutely scandalious for a young woman who was a professor to

have two beaux at once, and such good friends, too!"

Gifted girls like Priscilla usually have a background in some friend,

intelligent, quiet, restful. Anna Poindexter, a dark, thoughtful girl,

was sometimes spoken of as "Priscilla's double"; but she was rather

Priscilla's opposite: her traits were complementary to those of her

friend. The two were all but inseparable; and so, when Priscilla found

herself the next evening on the bank of the river, she naturally found

Anna with her. Slowly the flatboat of which Henry Stevens was owner and

master drifted by, while the three or four men at each long oar strode

back and forward on the deck as they urged the boat on. Henry was

standing on the elevated bench made for the pilot, holding the long

"steering oar" and guiding the craft. As his manly form in the western

sunlight attracted their attention, both the girls were struck with

admiration. Both waved their handkerchiefs, and Henry returned the

adieu by swinging his hat. So intent was he on watching them that he

forgot his duty, and one of the men was obliged to call out, "Swing her

round, captain, or the mail boat'll sink us."

Hardly was the boat swung out of the way when the tall-chimneyed mail

boat swept by.

"See the marquis!" cried Anna, and again adieux were waved. And the

marquis stepped to the guard and called out to Henry, "I'll see you in

New Orleans," and the swift steamer immediately bore him out of

speaking distance. And Henry watched him disappear with a choking

feeling that thus the nobleman was to outstrip him in life.

"See!" said Anna, "you are a lucky girl. You have your choice; you can

go through life on the steamboat or on the flatboat. Of course you'll

go by steam."

"There are explosions on steamboats sometimes," said Priscilla. Then

turning, she noticed a singular expression on Anna's face. Her insight

was quick, and she said, "Confess that _you_ would choose the

flat-float." And Anna turned away.

"Two strings to her bow, or two beaux to her string, I should say," and

she did say it, for this was Miss More's comment on the fact which she

had just learned, that Miss Haines had received letters from "the lower

country," the handwriting of the directions of which indicated that she

had advices from both her friends. But poor Miss More, with never a

string to her bow and never a beau to her string, might be forgiven for

shooting popguns that did no harm.

There was a time when Priscilla had letters from only one. Henry was

very ill, and D'Entremont wrote bulletins of his condition to Priscilla

and to his family. In one of these it was announced that he was beyond

recovery, and Priscilla and Anna mingled their tears together. Then

there came a letter saying that he was better. Then he was worse again.

And then better.

In those days the mail was brought wholly by steamboats, and it took

many days for intelligence to come. But the next letter that Priscilla

had was from Henry Stevens himself. It was filled from first to last

with praises of the marquis; that he had taken Henry out of his

boarding place, and put him into his own large room in the St. Charles;

that he had nursed him with more than a friend's tenderness, scarcely

sleeping at all; that he had sold his cargo, relieved his mind of care,

employed the most prominent physicians, and anticipated his every

want--all this and more the letter told.

And the very next steamboat from the lower country, the great heavy

Duke of Orleans, with a green half moon of lattice work in each paddle

box, brought the convalescent Henry and his friend. Both were invited

to supper at the house of Priscilla's mother on the evening after their

arrival. Neither of them liked to face Priscilla's decision, whatever

it might be, but they were more than ever resolved that it should not

in any way disturb their friendship. So they walked together to the

cottage.

Priscilla's mother was not well enough to come to the table, and she

had to entertain both. It was hard for either of the guests to be

cheerful, but Priscilla at least was not depressed by the approaching

decision. Equally attentive to both, no one could have guessed in which

direction her preference lay.

"We must enjoy this supper," she said. "We must celebrate Henry's

recovery and the goodness of his nurse together. Let's put the future

out of sight and be happy."

Her gayety proved infectious, and as she served her friends with her

own hands they both abandoned themselves to the pleasure of the moment

and talked of cheerful and amusing things.

Only when they rose to leave did she allow her face to become sober,

and even then the twilight of her joyousness lingered in her smile as

she spoke, facing them both:

"How I have enjoyed your coming! I wanted us to have this supper

together before coming to the subject you spoke of before leaving. I

shall have to say what will give you both pain." There was a moment's

pause. Then she resumed:

"The matter has been decided for me. I can marry neither of you. My

father and all my brothers and sisters have died of consumption. I am

the only one left of five. In a few months--" She lowered her voice,

which trembled a little as she glanced toward her mother's room--"my

poor mother will be childless."

For the first time, in the imperfect light, they noticed the flushed

cheeks, and for the first time they detected the quick breathing. When

they walked away the two friends were nearer than ever by virtue of a

common sorrow.

And as day after day they visited her in company, the public, and

particularly that part of the public which peeped out of Miss Nancy

More's windows, was not a little mystified. Miss More thought a girl

who was drawing near to the solemn and awful realities of eternal bliss

should let such worldly vanities as markusses alone!

A singular change came over Priscilla in one regard. As the prospect of

life faded out, she was no longer in danger of being tempted by the

title and wealth of the marquis. She could be sure that her heart was

not bribed. And when this restraint of conscience abnormally sensitive

was removed, it became every day more and more clear to her that she

loved D'Entremont. Of all whom she had ever known, he only was a

companion. And as he brought her choice passages from favorite writers

every day, and as her mind grew with unwonted rapidity under the

influence of that strange disease which shakes down the body while it

ripens the soul, she felt more and more that she was growing out of

sympathy with all that was narrow and provincial in her former life,

and into sympathy with the great world, and with Antoine d'Entremont,

who was the representative of the world to her.

This rapidly growing gulf between his own intellectual life and that of

Priscilla Henry Stevens felt keenly. But there is one great

compensation for a soul like Henry's. Men and women of greater gifts

might outstrip him in intellectual growth. He could not add one cell to

his brain, or make the slightest change in his temperament. But neither

the marquis nor Priscilla could excel him in that generosity which does

not always go with genius, and which is not denied to the man of the

plainest gifts. He wrote to the marquis:

"MY DEAR FRIEND: You are a good and generous friend. I have read in

her voice and her eyes what the decision of Priscilla must have

been. If I had not been blind, I ought to have seen it before in

the difference between us. Now I know that it will be a comfort to

you to have that noble woman die your wife. I doubt not it will be

a comfort to her. Do you think it will be any consolation to me to

have been an obstacle in the way? I hope you do not think so meanly

of me, and that you and Priscilla will give me the only consolation

I can have in our common sorrow--the feeling that I have been able

to make her last days more comfortable and your sorrow more

bearable. If you refuse, I shall always reproach myself.

"HENRY."

I need not tell of the discussions that ensued. But it was concluded

that it was best for all three that Priscilla and the marquis should be

married, much to the disgust of Miss Nancy More, who thought that

"she'd better be sayin' her prayers. What good would it do to be a

march-oness and all that when she was in her coffin?"

A wedding in prospect of death is more affecting than a funeral. Only

Henry Stevens and Anna Poindexter were to be present. Priscilla's

mother had completed the arrangements, blinded by tears. I think she

could have dressed Priscilla for her coffin with less suffering. The

white dress looked so like a shroud, under those sunken cheeks as white

as the dress! Once or twice Priscilla had drawn her mother's head to

her bosom and wept.

"Poor mother!" she would say; "so soon to be alone! But Antoine will be

your son."

Just as the dressing of the pale bride was completed, there came one of

those sudden breakdowns to which a consumptive is liable. The doctor

gave hope of but a few hours of life. When the marquis came he was

heartbroken to see her lying there, so still, so white--dying. She took

his hand. She beckoned to Anna and Henry Stevens to stand by her, and

then, with tear-blinded eyes, the old minister married them for

eternity!

Outside the door Priscilla's class of Slabtown boys stood with some

roses and hollyhocks they had thought to bring for her wedding or her

funeral, they hardly knew which. They were all abashed at the idea of

entering the house.

"You go in, Bill," said one.

"No, you go. I can't do it," said Bill, scratching the gravel walk with

his toes.

"I say somebody's got to go," said the first speaker.

"I'll go," said Boone Jones, the toughest of the party. "I ain't

afeerd," he added huskily, as he took the flowers in his hand and

knocked at the door.

But when Boone got in, and saw Priscilla lying there so white, he began

to choke with a strange emotion. Priscilla tried to take the flowers

from his hand, but Anna Poindexter took them. Priscilla tried to thank

him, but she could only whisper his name.

"Boone----" she said, and ceased from weakness.

But the lad did not wait. He burst into weeping, and bolted out the

door.

"I say, boys," he repeated, choking his sobs, "she's just dyin', and

she said Boone--you know--and couldn't say no more, and I couldn't

stand it."

Feeling life ebbing, Priscilla took the hand of the marquis. Then,

holding to the hand of D'Entremont, she beckoned Henry to come near. As

he bent over her she whispered, looking significantly at the marquis,

"Henry, God bless you, my noble-hearted friend!" And as Henry turned

away, the marquis put his arm about him, but said nothing.

Priscilla's nature abhorred anything dramatic in dying, or rather she

did not think of effect at all; so she made no fine speeches. But when

she had ceased to breathe, the old preacher said, "The bridegroom has

come."

She left an envelope for Henry. What it had in it no one but Henry ever

knew. I have heard him say that it was one word, which became the key

to all the happiness of his after life. Judging from the happiness he

has in his home with Anna, his wife, it would not be hard to tell what

the word was. The last time I was at his house I noticed that their

eldest child was named Priscilla, and that the boy who came next was

Antoine. Henry told me that Priscilla left a sort of "will" for the

marquis, in which she asked him to do the Christian work that she would

have liked to do. Nothing could have been wiser if she had sought only

his own happiness, for in activity for others is the safety of a

restless mind. He had made himself the special protector of the ten

little Slabtown urchins.

Henry told me in how many ways, through Challeau, Lafort & Company, the

marquis had contrived to contribute to his prosperity without offending

his delicacy. He found himself possessed of practically unlimited

credit through the guarantee which the great New Orleans banking house

was always ready to give.

"What is that fine building?" I said, pointing to a picture on the

wall.

"Oh! that is the 'Hospice de Sainte Priscille,' which Antoine has

erected in Paris. People there call it 'La Marquise.'"

"By the way," said Priscilla's mother, who sat by, "Antoine is coming

to see us next month, and is to look after his Slabtown friends when he

comes. They used to call him at first 'Priscilla's Frenchman.'"

And to this day Miss More declares that markusses is a thing she can't

no ways understand.

_1871._

TALKING FOR LIFE.

For many years following the war I felt that I owed a grudge to the

medical faculty. Having a romantic temperament and a taste for heroics,

I had wished to fight and eat hard tack for my country. But whenever I

presented the feeble frame in which I then dwelt, the medical man stood

in my path with the remonstrance, "Why should you fill another cot in a

hospital and another strip in the graveyard?" In these late years I

have been cured of my regrets; not by service-pension slogans and

pension agents' circulars, as you may imagine, but by the war

reminiscence which has flooded the magazines, invaded every social

circle, and rendered the listener's life a burden. In any group of men

of my own age, North or South, I do not dare introduce any military

topic, not even the Soudan campaign of General Wolseley, or the East

Indian yarns of Private Mulvaney, lest I should bring down upon my head

stories of campaigning on the Shenandoah, the Red River, or the

Rappahannock--stories that have gained like rolling snowballs during

the rolling years. Not that the war reminiscence is inherently

tedious, but it is frightfully overworked. A scientific friend of mine

of great endurance has discovered, by a series of prolonged

observations and experiments at the expense of his own health, that

only one man in twenty-seven hundred and forty-six can tell a story

well, and that only one in forty-three can narrate a personal

experience bearably. If I had gone into the army the chances are

forty-two to one that I should have bored my friends intolerably from

that day to this, and twenty-seven hundred and forty-five to one

against my stories having anything engaging in them. I thank Heaven for

the medical man that made me stay at home.

But once in a while it has been my luck to meet among old soldiers the

twenty-seven hundred and forty-sixth man who can tell a story well. Ben

Tillye is one of them, and here is an anecdote I heard from him, which

is rather interesting, and which may even be true:

"I had just been promoted to a first lieutenancy, and thought that I

saw a generalship in the dim distance. Why, with such prospects, I

should have straggled right into the arms of three bushwhackers, I do

not know.

"Falling into the hands of guerrillas was a serious business then. An

order had been issued by the wiseacre in command of the Army of the

Potomac that all guerrillas taken should be put to death. This did not

deprive the bushwhackers of a single man, but they naturally retaliated

by a counter-order that all prisoners of theirs should be shot. In this

game of pop and pop again the guerrillas had decidedly the advantage,

and I was one of the first to fall in their way. I had hardly

surrendered before I regretted that I had not resisted capture. I might

have killed one of them, or at least have forced them to shoot me on

the spot, which would not have been so much worse than dying in cold

blood the next morning, and which would have led to a pursuit and the

breaking up of their camp. But here I was disarmed, and after an hour's

march seated among them bushwhacking in an old cabin on a hillside.

"The leader of the party of three who had captured me seemed a kindly

man--one that, if it were his duty to behead me, would prefer to give

me chloroform before the amputation. For obvious reasons I made myself

as agreeable as possible to him. I tried also to talk to the captain of

the band after I reached the camp, but he repelled my friendly advances

with something like surliness. I reasoned that he intended to execute

me, and did not wish to have his feelings taxed with regrets. At any

rate, after finding that he could get no information of value from me,

he went on with his writing at a table made by propping up an old

wooden shutter in the corner of the cabin. Meantime I reflected that

the only way in which I could avoid my doom was by awakening a friendly

sympathy in the minds of my captors. I fell to talking for life. I

trotted out my funniest stories, and the eight men about me laughed

heartily as I proceeded.

"The captain was visibly annoyed. My interlocutor in this conversation

was his second in authority, the one who had captured me. He had no

distinct mark of rank, but I fancied him to be a sergeant. At length

the captain turned to him, and said, 'Jones, I can't write if you keep

up this talking.'

"I knew that this was meant as a hint for me, but I knew also that my

very last hope lay in my winning the hearts of the guerrilla officer

and his men. So with slightly lowered voice I kept on talking to the

men, who looked at me from under their ragged slouched hats with the

most eager interest. At the end of one of my stories their amusement

broke forth into hearty laughter. The captain stopped writing, and

turned upon me with the remark, only half in jest, I thought:

"'I'll have to shoot you, lieutenant. You must be a valuable man in the

Yankee camp.'

"I forced a laugh, but went on with my stories, explaining to the

captain that I meant to enjoy my last hours at all hazards. The accent

of those about me reminded me irresistibly of the year that I, though

of Northern birth, had spent in a school in eastern Virginia.

"'You are a Virginian,' I said to Sergeant Jones.

"'Yes.'

"'What county?'

"'I'm from Powhatan.'

"'I went to school in the next county,' I said, 'at what was called

Amelia Academy.'

"'Goatville?' demanded Jones.

"'Yes, I went to old Goat. That's what we all called him on account of

his red goatee. We never dated a letter otherwise than "Goatville." And

yet we loved and revered the principal. Did you go there?'

"'No,' said Jones, 'but I knew a good many who did.'

"Well, from this I broke into my stock of schoolboy stories of the

jokes about the 'cat,' or roll pudding we had twice a week, of the rude

tricks put upon greenhorns and their retorts in kind. The men enjoyed

these yarns, and even the captain was amused, as I inferred, because I

could no longer hear his pen scratching, for he sat behind me.

"'Did you ever swim in the Appomattox?' asked Jones.

"'Yes,' I replied; 'I came near losing my life there once. I had a

roommate who was a good swimmer. I was also a pretty good swimmer, and

we foolishly undertook for a small wager to see who could swim the

river the oftenest, only stopping to touch bottom with our toes at each

side. We went over side by side five times. The sixth crossing I fell

behind; it was all I could do, and at its close I crept out on the bank

and lay down. My roommate, Tom Freeman, struck out for a seventh. He

was nearly over when the boys by my side uttered a cry. Tom was giving

out. He was in a sort of hysterical laughter from exhaustion, and,

though able to keep above the water, he could not make any headway. I

got to my feet and begged the boys to go to his help, but they all had

their clothes on, and they had so much confidence in Freeman as a

swimmer that they only said, "He'll get out."

"'But I could see no way in which he could get out. I had recovered a

little by this time, and I seized a large piece of driftwood, plunged

into the river again, and pushed this old limb of a tree across the

stream ahead of me. Freeman was sinking out of sight when he got his

hand on the bough. I was able to push him into water where he could get

a footing, but I somehow lost my own hold on the wood and found myself

sinking, utterly faint from a sort of collapse. There was a tree that

had fallen into the stream a few yards below. I was just able to turn

on my back and keep afloat until I could grasp the top branches of the

tree. Then I crept out--I never knew how, for I was only half

conscious. But I'll never forget the cry from the boys on the other

side of the stream that reached my ears as I lay exhausted alongside of

Freeman on the bank. "Hurrah for Tilley!" they shouted.'

"'No, they didn't.' It was the captain who contradicted me thus

abruptly, and I looked up in surprise.

"'That's not what they called you in those days,' said the captain.

'They shouted, "Hurrah for Stumpey!" They never called you anything but

"Stumpey."'

"'Who in thunder are you?' I said, getting to my feet.

"'Tom Freeman,' replied the captain, rising and grasping my hand.

"Well, I wasn't shot, as you can see for yourselves."

PERIWINKLE.

"Bring me that slate, Henriettar!"

Miss Tucker added a superfluous r to some words, but then she made

amends by dropping the final r where it was preceded by a broad vowel.

If she said _idear_, she compounded for it by saying _waw_. She said

_lor_ for law, and _dror_ for draw, but then she said _cah_ for car.

Some of our Americans are as free with the final r as the cockney is

with his initial h.

Miss Tucker was the schoolmistress at the new schoolhouse in West

Easton. I am not quite sure, either, that I have the name of the place

right. I think it may have been East Weston. Weston or Easton,

whichever it is, is a country township east of the Hudson River, whose

chief article of export is chestnuts; consequently it is not set down

in the gazetteer. After all, it doesn't matter. We'll call it East

Weston, if you please.

The schoolhouse was near a brook--a murmuring brook, of course. Its

pleasant murmur could not be shut out. The school trustees had built

the windows high, so that the children might not be diverted from their

lessons by any sight of occasional passers-by. As though children could

study better in a prison! As though you could shut in a child's mind,

traveling in its vagrant fancies like Prospero's Ariel round about the

earth in twenty minutes! The dull sound of a horse's hoofs would come

in now and then from the road, and the children, longing for some new

sight, would spend the next half hour in mental debate whether it could

have been a boy astride a bag of turnips, for instance, or the doctor

in his gig, that had passed under the windows.

It was getting late in the afternoon. Miss Tucker had dominated her

little flock faithfully all day, until even she grew tired of

monotonous despotism. Perhaps the drowsy, distant sounds--the cawing of

crows far away, the almost inaudible rattle of a mowing machine, and

the unvarying gurgle of the brook near at hand--had softened Miss

Tucker's temper. More likely it had made her sleepy, for she relaxed

her watchfulness so much that Rob Riley had time to look at the radiant

face of Henrietta full two minutes without a rebuke. At last Miss

Tucker actually yawned two or three times. Then she brought herself up

with a guilty start. Full twenty minutes had passed in which she,

Rebecca--or, as she pronounced it, Rebekker--Tucker, schoolmistress and

intellectual drum-major, had scolded nobody and had scowled at nobody.

She determined to make amends at once for this remissness. Her eye

lighted on Henrietta. It was always safe to light on Henrietta. Miss

Tucker might punish her at any time on general principles and not go

far astray, especially when she sat, as now, bent over her slate.

Henrietta was a girl past sixteen, somewhat tallish, and a little

awkward; her hair was light, her eyes blue, and her face not yet

developed, but there were the crude elements of a possible beauty in

her features. When her temper was aroused, and she gathered up the

habitual slovenly expression of her face into a look of vigor and

concentrated resolution, she was "splendid," in the vocabulary of her

schoolmates. She was one of those country girls who want only the

trimmings to make a fine lady. Rob Riley, for his part, did not miss

the trimmings. Fine lady she was to him, and his admiration for her was

the only thing that interfered with his diligence. For Rob had actually

learned a good deal in spite of the educational influences of the

school. In fact, he had long since passed out of the possibility of

Miss Tucker's helping him. When he could not "do a sum" and referred it

to her, she always told him that it would do him much more good to get

it himself. Thus put upon his mettle, Rob was sure to come out of the

struggle somehow with the "answer" in his teeth. Miss Tucker would have

liked Rob if Rob had not loved Henrietta, who was Miss Tucker's

deadliest foe.

"Bring me that slate this instant!" repeated the schoolmistress when

Henrietta hesitated, "and don't you rub out the picture."