THE OTHER GIRLS

By

MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY

BOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANYThe Riverside Press, Cambridge1893

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, byJAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

 * * * * *

 By Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. 

 WRITINGS. New Edition, from new plates. The set, 17 vols. 16mo, $21. 25. FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD. 16mo, $1. 25. HITHERTO: A Story of Yesterdays. 16mo, $1. 25. PATIENCE STRONG'S OUTINGS. 16mo, $1. 25. THE GAYWORTHYS. 16mo, $1. 25. A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 16mo, $1. 25. WE GIRLS: A Home Story. Illustrated. 16mo, $1. 25. REAL FOLKS. 16mo, $1. 25. THE OTHER GIRLS. 16mo, $1. 25. SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS. 2 vols. 16mo, $2. 50. ODD, OR EVEN? 16mo, $1. 25. BONNYBOROUGH. 16mo, $1. 25. BOYS AT CHEQUASSET. Illustrated. 16mo, $1. 25. MOTHER GOOSE FOR GROWN FOLKS. Enlarged Edition. Illustrated by HOPPIN. 16mo, $1. 25. HOMESPUN YARNS. Short Stories. 16mo, $1. 25. ASCUTNEY STREET. A Neighborhood Story. 16mo, $1. 25. A GOLDEN GOSSIP. Neighborhood Story Number Two. 16mo, $1. 25. DAFFODILS. Poems. Illustrated. 16mo, $1. 25. PANSIES. Poems. New Edition. 16mo, $1. 25. HOLY-TIDES. Seven Songs for the Church's Seasons. 16mo, illuminated paper, 75 cents. BIRD-TALK. New Poems. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1. 00. JUST HOW: A Key to the Cook-Books. 16mo, $1. 00. 

 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 

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PREFACE. 

"Wait until you are helped, my dear! Don't touch the pie until it iscut!"

The old Mother, Life, keeps saying that to us all. 

As individuals, it is well for us to remember it; that we may nothave things until we are helped; at any rate, until the full andproper time comes, for courageously and with right assurance helpingourselves. 

Yet it is good for _people_, as people, to get a morsel--aflavor--in advance. It is well that they should be impatient for theKing's supper, to which we shall all sit down, if we will, one day. 

So I have not waited for everything to happen and become a usage, that I have told you of in this little story. I confess that thereare good things in it which have not yet, literally, come to pass. Ihave picked something out of the pie beforehand. 

I meant, therefore, to have laid all dates aside; especially as Ifound myself a little cramped by them, in re-introducing among these"Other Girls" the girls whom we have before, and rather lately, known. Lest, possibly, in anything which they have here grown to, orexperienced, or accomplished, the sharply exact reader should seemto detect the requirement of a longer interval than the almanacscould actually give, I meant to have asked that it should beremembered, that we story-tellers write chiefly in the PotentialMood, and that tenses do not very essentially signify. It will allhave had opportunity to be true in eighteen-seventy-five, if it havenot had in eighteen-seventy-three. Well enough, indeed, if theprophecies be justified as speedily as the prochronisms will. 

The Great Fire, you see, came in and dated it. I could not helpthat; neither could I leave the great fact out. 

Not any more could I possibly tell what sort of April days we shouldhave, when I found myself fixed to the very coming April and Easter, for the closing chapters of my tale. If persistent snow-storms flinga falsehood in my face, it will be what I have not heretoforebelieved possible, --a _white_ one; and we can all think of balmyAprils that have been, and that are yet to be. 

With these appeals for trifling allowance, --leaving the larger needto the obvious accounting for in a largeness of subject which noslight fiction can adequately handle, --I give you leave to turn thepage. 

 A. D. T. W. BOSTON, _March_, 1873. 

CONTENTS. 

 CHAPTER I. SPILLED OUT II. UP-STAIRS III. TWO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN IV. NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT V. SPILLED OUT AGAIN VI. A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR VII. BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW VIII. TO HELP: SOMEWHERE IX. INHERITANCE X. FILLMER AND BYLLES XI. CHRISTOFERO XII. LETTERS AND LINKS XIII. RACHEL FROKE'S TROUBLE XIV. MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL XV. BONNY BOWLS XVI. RECOMPENSE XVII. ERRANDS OF HOPE XVIII. BRICKFIELD FARMS XIX. BLOSSOMING FERNS XX. "WANTED" XXI. VOICES AND VISIONS XXII. BOX FIFTY-TWO XXIII. EVENING AND MORNING: THE SECOND DAY XXIV. TEMPTATION XXV. BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE PREACHING XXVI. TROUBLE AT THE SCHERMANS' XXVII. BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM XXVIII. "LIVING IN" XXIX. WINTERGREEN XXX. NEIGHBOR STREET AND GRAVES ALLEY XXXI. CHOSEN: AND CALLED XXXII. EASTER LILIES XXXIII. KITCHEN CRAMBO XXXIV. WHAT NOBODY COULD HELP XXXV. HILL-HOPE

THE OTHER GIRLS

CHAPTER I. 

SPILLED OUT. 

Sylvie Argenter was driving about in her mother's littlebasket-phæton. 

There was a story about this little basket-phæton, a story, and abit of domestic diplomacy. 

The story would branch away, back and forward; which I cannot, righthere in this first page, let it do. It would tell--taking the littlecarriage for a text and key--ever so much about aims and ways andprinciples, and the drift of a household life, which was one of thebusy little currents in the world that help to make up its greatuniversal character and atmosphere, at this present age of things, as the drifts and sweeps of ocean make up the climates andatmospheres that wrap and influence the planet. 

But the diplomacy had been this:--

"There is one thing, Argie, I should really like Sylvie to have. Itis getting to be almost a necessity, living out of town as we do. "

Mr. Argenter's other names were "Increase Muchmore;" but his wifepassed over all that, and called him in the grace of conjugalintimacy, "Argie. "

Increase Muchmore Argenter. 

A curious combination; but you need not say it could not havehappened. I have read half a dozen as funny combinations in a singleadvertising page of a newspaper, or in a single transit of the cityin a horse-car. 

It did not happen altogether without a purpose, either. Mr. Argenter's father had been fond of money; had made and saved aconsiderable sum himself; and always meant that his son should makeand save a good deal more. So he signified this in his cradle andgave him what he called a lucky name, to begin with. The wife of theelder Mr. Argenter had been a Muchmore; her only brother had beennamed Increase, either out of oddity, such as influenced a certainMr. Crabtree whom I have heard of, to call his son Agreen, orbecause the old Puritan name had been in the family, or with a likeoriginal inspiration of luck and thrift to that which influenced thelater christening, if you can call it such; and now, therefore, resulted Increase Muchmore Argenter. The father hung, as it were, acharm around his son's neck, as Catholics do, giving saints' namesto their children. But young Increase found it, in his earlieryears, rather of the nature of a millstone. It was a good while, forinstance, before Miss Maria Thorndike could make up her mind to takeupon herself such a title. She did not much mind it now. "I. M. Argenter" was such a good signature at the bottom of a check; andthe surname was quite musical and elegant. "Mrs. Argenter" was allshe had put upon her cards. There was no other Mrs. Argenter to beconfounded with. The name stood by itself in the Directory. All therest of the Argenters were away down in Maine in Poggowantimoc. 

"Living out of town as we do. " Mrs. Argenter always put that in. Itwas the nut that fastened all her screws of argument. 

"Away out here as we are, we _must_ keep an expert cook, you know;we can't send out for bread and cake, and salads and soups, on anemergency, as we did in town. " "We _must_ have a seamstress in thehouse the year round; it is such a bother driving about a ten-milecircuit after one in a hurry;" and now, --"Sylvie _ought_ to have alittle vehicle of her own, she is so far away from all her friends;no running in and out and making little daily plans, as girls do ina neighborhood. All the girls of her class have their ownpony-chaises now; it is a part of the plan of living. "

"It isn't any part of _my_ plan, " said Mr. Argenter, who had hislittle spasms of returning to old-fashioned ideas he was brought upin, but had long ago practically deserted; and these spasms mostlytook him, it must be said, in response to new propositions of Mrs. Argenter's. His own plans evolved gradually; he came to them byimperceptible steps of mental process, or outward constraint; Mrs. Argenter's "jumped" at him, took him at unawares, and by suddenimpinging upon solid shield of permanent judgment struck out sparksof opposition. She could not very well help that. He never had timeto share her little experiences, and interests, and perplexities, and so sympathize with her as she went along, and up to the agreeingand consenting point. 

"I won't set her up with any such absurdities, " said Mr. Argenter. "It's confounded ruinous shoddy nonsense. Makes little fools of themall. Sylvie's got airs enough now. It won't do for her to think shecan have everything the Highfords do. "

"It isn't that, " said Mrs. Argenter, sweetly. Her position, and thesoft "g" in her name, giving her a sense of something elegant andgentle-bred to be always sustained and acted up to, had reallyhelped and strengthened Mrs. Argenter in very much of herestablished amiability. We don't know, always, where our ties andbraces really are. We are graciously allowed many a little temporarystay whose hold cannot be quite directly raced to the everlastingfoundations. 

"It isn't _that_; I don't care for the Highfords, particularly. Though I do like to have Sylvie enjoy things as she sees themenjoyed all around her, in her own circle. But it's the convenience;and then, it's a real means of showing kindness. She can so oftenask other girls, you know, to drive with her; girls who haven'tpony-chaises. "

"_Showing_ kindness, yes; you've just hit it there. But it isn'talways _fun to the frogs_, Mrs. A. !"

Now if Mrs. Argenter disliked one thing more than another, that herhusband ever did, it was his calling her "Mrs. A. ;" and I am verymuch afraid, I was going to say, that he knew it; but of course hedid when she had mildly told him so, over and over, --I am afraid he_recollected_ it, at this very moment, and others similar. 

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Argenter, " she said, with somequiet coldness. 

"I mean, I know how she takes _other_ girls to ride; she _sets themdown at the small gray house, --the house without any piazza or baywindow, Michael_!" and Mr. Argenter laughed. That was the order hehad heard Sylvie give one day when he had come up with his owncarriage at the post-office in the village, whither he had walkedover for exercise and the evening papers. Sylvie had Aggie Townsendwith her, and she put her head out at the window on one side just asher father passed on the other, and directed Michael, with a veryelegant nonchalance, to "set this little girl down" as aforesaid. Mr. Argenter had been half amused and half angry. The anger passedoff, but he had kept up the joke. 

"O, do let that old story alone, " exclaimed Mrs. Argenter. "Sylviewill soon outgrow all that. If you want to make her a real lady, there is nothing like letting her get thoroughly used to havingthings. "

"I don't intend her to get used to having a pony-chaise, " Mr. Argenter said very quietly and shortly. "If she wants to 'show akindness, ' and take 'other' girls to ride, there's the slide-topbuggy and old Scrub. She may have that as often as she pleases. "

And Mrs. Argenter knew that this ended--or had better end--theconversation. 

For that time. Sylvie Argenter did get used to having a pony-chaise, after all. Her mother waited six months, until the pleasant summerweather, when her friends began to come out from the city to spenddays with her, or to take early teas, and Michael had to be sentcontinually to meet and leave them at the trains. Then she beganagain, and asked for a pony-chaise for herself. To "save the cost ofit in Michael's time, and the wear and tear of the heavy carriages. Those little sunset drives would be such a pleasure to her, justwhen Michael had to be milking and putting up for the night. " Mr. Argenter had forgotten all about the other talk, Sylvie's name nowbeing not once mentioned; and the end of it was that a pretty littlelow phæton was added to the Argenter equipages, and that Sylvie'smother was always lending it to her. 

So Sylvie was driving about in it this afternoon. She had been overto West Dorbury to see the Highfords, and was coming round byIngraham's Corner, to stop there and buy one of his fresh big loavesof real brown bread for her father's tea. It was a little unspoken, politic understanding between Sylvie and her mother, that somesmall, acceptable errand like this was to be accomplished wheneverthe former had the basket-phæton of an afternoon. By quiet, unspokendemonstration, Mr. Argenter was made to feel in his own littlecomforts what a handy thing it was to have a daughter flitting aboutso easily with a pony-carriage. 

But there was something else to be accomplished this time thatSylvie had not thought of, and that when it happened, she felt withsome dismay might not be quite offset and compensated for by theIngraham brown bread. 

Rod Sherrett was out too, from Roxeter, Young-Americafying with histandem; trying, to-day, one of his father's horses with his own RedSquirrel, to make out the team; for which, if he should come to anygrief, Rodgers, the coachman, would have to bear responsibility forbeing persuaded to let Duke out in such manner. 

Just as Sylvie Argenter drew up her pony at the baker's door, RodSherrett came spinning round the corner in grand style. But Duke wasnot used to tandem harness, and Red Squirrel, put ahead, took flyingside-leaps now and then on his own account; and Duke, between hiscomrade's escapades and his driver's checks and admonitions, was tothat degree perplexed in his mind and excited off his well-bredbalance, that he was by this time becoming scarcely more reliable inthe shafts. Rod found he had his hands full. He found this out, however, only just in time to realize it, as they were suddenlyrelieved and emptied of their charge; for, before his call and thetouch of his long whip could bring back Red Squirrel into line atthis turn, he had sprung so far to the left as to bring Duke and the"trap" down upon the little phæton. There was a lock and a crash; awheel was off the phæton, the tandem was overturned, SylvieArgenter, in the act of alighting, was thrown forward over thethreshold of the open shop-door, Rod Sherrett was lying in the road, a man had seized the pony, and Duke and Red Squirrel were shatteringaway through the scared Corner Village, with the wreck at theirheels. 

Sylvie's arm was bruised, and her dress torn; that was all. She felta little jarred and dizzy at first, when Mr. Ingraham lifted her up, and Rodney Sherrett, picking himself out of the dust with a shakeand a stamp, found his own bones unbroken, and hurried over to askanxiously--for he was a kind-hearted fellow--how much harm he haddone, and to express his vehement regret at the "horrid spill. "

Rod Sherrett and Sylvie Argenter had danced together at the RoxeterAssemblies, and the little Dorbury "Germans;" they had boated, andpicknicked, and skated in company, but to be tumbled together into abaker's shop, torn and frightened, and dusty, --each feeling, also, in a great scrape, --this was an odd and startling partnership. Sylvie was pale; Rod was sorry; both were very much demolished as todress: Sylvie's hat had got a queer crush, and a tip that was neverintended over her eyes; Rodney's was lying in the street, and hishair was rumpled and curiously powdered. When they had stood andlooked at each other an instant after the first inquiry and reply, they both laughed. Then Rodney shrugged his shoulders, and walkedover and picked up his hat. 

"It might have been worse, " he said, coming back, as Mr. Ingrahamand the man who had held Sylvie's pony took the latter out of theshafts and led him to a post to fasten him, and then proceededtogether, as well as they could, to lift the disabled phæton androll it over to the blacksmith's shop to be set right. 

"You'll be all straight directly, " he said, "and I'm only thankfulyou're not much hurt. But I _am_ in a mess. Whew! What the oldgentleman will say if Duke don't come out of it comfortable, issomething I'd rather not look ahead to. I must go on and see. I'llbe back again, and if there's anything--anything _more_, " he addedwith a droll twinkle, "that I can do for you, I shall be happy, andwill try to do it a little better. "

The feminine Ingrahams were all around Sylvie by this time: Mrs. Ingraham, and Ray, and Dot. They bemoaned and exclaimed, and were"thankful she'd come off as she had;" and "she'd better step rightin and come up-stairs. " The village boys were crowding round, --allthose who had not been in time to run after the "smash, "--and Sylviegladly withdrew to the offered shelter. Rod Sherrett gave his hair atoss or two with his hands, struck the dust off his wide-awake, putit on, and walked off down the hill, through the staring andadmiring crowd. 

CHAPTER II. 

UP-STAIRS. 

The two Ingraham girls had been sitting in their own room over theshop when the accident occurred, and it was there they now tookSylvie Argenter, to have her dress tacked together again, and towash her face and hands and settle her hair and hat. Mrs. Ingrahamcame bustling after with "arnicky" for the bruised arm. They wereall very delighted and important, having the great Mr. Argenter'sdaughter quite to themselves in the intimacy of "up-stairs, " to waitupon and take care of. Mrs. Ingraham fussed and "my-deared" a gooddeal; her daughters took it with more outward calmness. Althoughbaker's daughters, they belonged to the present youthful generation, born to best education at the public schools, sewing-machines, anduniversal double-skirted full-fashions; and had read novels ofsociety out of the Roxeter town library. 

There was a good deal of time after the bathing and mending andre-arranging were all done. The axle of the phæton had been split, and must be temporarily patched up and banded. There was nothing forSylvie to do but to sit quietly there in the old-fashioned, dimity-covered easy-chair which they gave her by the front window, and wait. Meanwhile, she observed and wondered much. 

She had never got out of the Argenter and Highford atmospherebefore. She didn't know--as we don't about the moon--whether theremight _be_ atmosphere for the lesser and subsidiary world. But hereshe found herself in the bedroom of two girls who lived over abake-shop, and, really, it seemed they actually _did_ live, muchafter the fashion of other people. There were towels on the stand, aworked pincushion on the toilet, white shades and red tassels to thewindows, this comfortable easy-chair beside one and a low splintrocker in the other, --with queer, antique-looking soft footstools ofdark cloth, tamboured in bright colors before each, --white quiltedcovers on table and bureau, and positively, a striped, knittedfoot-spread in scarlet and white yarn, folded across the lower endof the bed. 

She had never thought of there being anything at Ingraham's Cornerbut a shop on a dusty street, with, she supposed, --only she neverreally supposed about it, --some sort of places, behind and above it, under the same roof, for the people to get away into when theyweren't selling bread, to cook, and eat, and sleep, she had neverexactly imagined how, but of course not as they did in real housesthat were not shops. And when Mrs. Ingraham, who had bustled offdown-stairs, came shuffling up again as well as she could with bothhands full and her petticoats in her way, and appeared bearing a cupof hot tea and a plate of spiced gingerbread, --the latter _not_ outof the shop, but home-made, and out of her own best parlorcupboard, --she perceived almost with bewilderment, that cup andplate were of spotless china, and the spoon was of real, worn, bright silver. She might absolutely put these things to her own lipswithout distaste or harm. 

"It'll do you good after your start, " said kindly Mrs. Ingraham. 

The difference came in with the phraseology. A silver spoon is asilver spoon, but speech cannot be rubbed up for occasion. Sylviethought she must mean _before_ her start, about which she wasgrowing anxious. 

"O, I'm sorry you should have taken so much trouble, " she exclaimed. "I wonder if the phæton will be ready soon?"

"Mr. Ingraham he's got back, " replied the lady. "He says Rylocks'llbe through with it in about half an hour. Don't you be a miteconcerned. Jest set here and drink your tea, and rest. Dot, I guessyou'd as good's come down-stairs. I shall be wantin' you with themfly nets. Your father's fetched home the frames. "

Ray Ingraham sat in the side window, and crocheted threadedging, --of which she had already yards rolled up and pinnedtogether in a white ball upon her lap, --while Sylvie sipped her tea. 

The side window looked out into a shady little garden-spot, in thefront corner of which grew a grand old elm, which reached aroundwith beneficent, beautiful branches, and screened also a part of thestreet aspect. Seen from within, and from under these great, green, swaying limbs, --the same here in the village as out in free field orforest, --the street itself seemed less dusty, less common, lessimpossible to pause upon for anything but to buy bread, or mend awheel, or get a horse shod. 

"How different it is, in behind!" said Sylvie, speaking outinvoluntarily. 

Ray shot a quick look at her from her bright dark eyes. 

"I suppose it is, --almost everywheres, " she answered. "I've gotturned round so, sometimes, with people and places, until they neverseemed the same again. "

If Ray had not said "everywheres, " Sylvie would not have beenreminded; but that word sent her, in recollection, out to thehouse-front and the shop-sign again. Ray knew better; she was agood scholar, but she heard her mother and others like her talkvernacular every day. It was a wonder she shaded off from it asdelicately as she did. 

Ray Ingraham, or Rachel, --for that was her name, and her sister'swas Dorothy, though these had been shortened into two as charming, pet little appellatives as could have been devised by the mostelegant intention, --was a pretty girl, with her long-lashed, quick-glancing dark eyes, her hair, that crimped naturally and felloff in a deep, soft shadow from her temples, her little mouth, neatly dimpled in, and the gypsy glow of her clear, bright skin. Dotwas different: she was dark too, not _so_ dark; her eyes were full, brilliant gray, with thick, short lashes; she was round andcomfortable: nose, cheeks, chin, neck, waist, hands; her mouth waslarge, with white teeth that showed easily and broadly, instead of, like Ray's, with just a quiver and a glimmer. She was like hermother. She looked the smart, buxom, common-sense village girl toperfection. Ray had the hint of something higher and more delicateabout her, though she had the trigness, and readiness, andevery-day-ness too. 

Sylvie sat silent after this, and looked at her, wondering, morethan she had wondered about the furniture. Thinking, "how many girlsthere were in the world! All sorts--everywhere! What did they alldo, and find to care for?" These were not the "other" girls of whomher mother had blandly said that she could show kindnesses by takingthem to drive. Those were such as Aggie Townsend, the navy captain'swidow's daughter, --nice, but poor; girls whom everybody noticed, ofcourse, but who hadn't it in their power to notice anybody. Thatmade such a difference! These were _otherer_ yet! And for all thatthey were girls, --girls! Ever so much of young life, and glow, andcompanionship, ever so much of dream, and hope, and possible story, is in just that little plural of five letters. A company of girls!Heaven only knows what there is _not_ represented, and suggested, and foreshadowed there!

Sylvie Argenter, with all her nonsense, had a way of puttingherself, imaginatively, into other people's places. She used to tellher mother, when she was a little child and said her hymns, --whichMrs. Argenter, not having any very fresh, instant spiritual life, Iam afraid, out of which to feed her child, chose for her in dimremembrance of what had been thought good for herself when she waslittle, --that she "didn't know exactly as she _did_ 'thank thegoodness and the grace that on her birth had smiled. '" She "shouldlike pretty well to have been a little--Lapland girl with a sledge;or--a Chinese; or--a kitchen girl; a little while, I mean!"

She had a way of intimacy with the servants which Mrs. Argenterfound it hard to check. She liked to get into Jane's room when shewas "doing herself up" of an afternoon, and look over her cheaplittle treasures in her band-box and chest-drawer. She made especiallove to a carnelian heart, and a twisted gold ring with two claspedhands on it. 

"I think it's real nice to have only _two_ or _three_ things, and to'clean yourself up, ' and to have a 'Sunday out!'" she said. 

Mrs. Argenter was anxiously alarmed at the child's low tastes. Yetthese were very practicably compatible with the alternations ofimportance in being driven about in her father's barouche, takingAggie Townsend up on the road, and "setting her down at the smallgray house. "

Sylvie thought, this afternoon, looking at Ray Ingraham, in herstriped lilac and white calico, with its plaited waist andcross-banded, machine-stitched double skirt, sitting by her shadywindow, beyond which, behind the garden angle, rose up the red brickwall of the bakehouse, whence came a warm, sweet smell of manynew-drawn loaves, --looking around within, at the snug tidiness ofthe simple room, and even out at the street close by, with its stirand curious interest, yet seen from just as real a shelter as shehad in her own chamber at home, --that it might really be nice to bea baker's daughter and live in the village, --"when it wasn't yourown fault, and you couldn't help it. "

Ray nodded to some one out of her window. 

Sylvie saw a bright color come up in her cheeks, and a sparkle intoher eyes as she did so, while a little smile, that she seemed tothink was all to herself, crept about her mouth and lingered at thedimpled corners. There was an expression as if she hid herself quiteaway in some consciousness of her own, from any recollection of thestrange girl sitting by. 

The strange girl glanced from _her_ window, and saw a youngcarpenter with his box of tools go past under the elm, with somesort of light subsiding also in like manner from his face. He was inhis shirt sleeves, --but the sleeves were white, --and his straw hatwas pushed back from his forehead, about which brown curls lay dampwith heat. Sylvie did not believe he had even touched his hat, whenhe had looked up through the friendly elm boughs and bowed to thevillage girl in her shady corner. His hands were full, of course. Such people's hands were almost always full. That was the reasonthey did not learn such things. But how cute it had been of RayIngraham _not_ to sit in the front window! He was certain to comeby, too, she supposed. To be sure; that was the street. Ray Ingrahamwould not have cared to live up a long avenue, to wait for people tocome on purpose, in carriages. 

She got as far as this in her thinkings, at the same moment that shecame to the bottom of her cup of tea. And then she caught a glimpseof Rylocks, rolling the phæton across from the smithy. 

"What a funny time I have had! And how kind you have all been!" shesaid, getting up. "I am ever so much obliged, Miss Ingraham. Iwonder"--and then, suddenly, she thought it might not be quite civilto wonder. 

Ray Ingraham laughed. 

"So do I!" she said quickly, with a bright look. She knew wellenough what Sylvie stopped at. 

Each of these two girls wondered if there would ever be any more"getting in behind" for them, as regarded each other, in their twodifferent lives. 

As Sylvie Argenter came out at the shop-door, Rodney Sherrettappeared at the same point, safely mounted on the runaway Duke. Theteam had been stopped below at the river; he had found a stable anda saddle, had left Red Squirrel and the broken vehicle to be sentfor, and was going home, much relieved and assured by being able topresent himself upon his father's favorite roadster, whole in bonesand with ungrazed skin. 

The street boys stood round again, as he dismounted to make freshcertainty of Sylvie's welfare, handed her into her phæton, and then, springing to the saddle, rode away beside her, down the East Dorburyroad. 

Mrs. Argenter was sitting with her worsted work in the high, many-columned terrace piazza which gave grandeur to the greatshow-house that Mr. Argenter had built some five years since, whenSylvie, with Rod Sherrett beside her, came driving up the longavenue, or, as Mrs. Argenter liked to call it, out of the Englishnovels, the _approach_. She laid back her canvas and wools into thegraceful Fayal basket-stand, and came down the first flight of stonesteps to meet them. 

"How late you are, Sylvie! I had begun to be quite worried, " shesaid, when Sylvie dropped the reins around the dasher and stood upin the low carriage, nodding at her mother. She felt quite brave andconfident about the accident, now that Rodney Sherrett had come allthe way with her to the very door, to account for it and to help herout with the story. 

Rodney lifted his hat to the lady. 

"We've had a great spill, Mrs. Argenter. All my fault, and RedSquirrel's. Miss Argenter has brought home more than I have from the_mêlée_. I started with a tandem, and here I am with only Gray Dukeand a borrowed saddle. It was out at Ingraham's Corner, --a quickturn, you know, --and Miss Argenter had just stopped when Squirrelsprang round upon her. My trap is pretty much into kindlings, butthere are no bones broken. You must let me send Rodgers round on hisway to town to-morrow, to take the phæton to the builder's. It wantsa new axle. I'm awful sorry; but after all"--with a brightsmile, --"I can't think it altogether an ill wind, --for _me_, at anyrate. I couldn't help enjoying the ride home. "

"I don't believe you could help enjoying the whole of it, exceptthe very minute of the tip-out itself, before you knew, " saidSylvie, laughing. 

"Well, it _was_ a lark; but the worst is coming. I've got to go homeall alone. I wish you'd come and tell the tale for _me_, MissSylvie. I shouldn't be half so afraid!"

CHAPTER III. 

TWO TRIPS IN THE TRAIN. 

The seven o'clock morning train was starting from Dorbury UpperVillage. 

Early business men, mechanics, clerks, shop-girls, sewing-girls, office-boys, --these made up the list of passengers. Except, perhaps, some travellers now and then, bound for a first express from Boston, or an excursion party to take a harbor steamer for a day's trip toNantasket or Nahant. 

Did you ever contrast one of these trains--when perhaps you weresuch traveller or excursionist--with the after, leisurely, comfortable one at ten or eleven; when gentlemen who only need to bein the city through banking hours, and ladies bent on calls orelegant shopping, come chatting and rustling to their seats, andhold a little drawing-room exchange in the twenty-five minutes'trip?

If you have, --and if you have a little sympathetic imagination thatfills out hints, --you have had a glimpse of some of these "othergirls" and the thing that daily living is to them, with which mystory means to concern itself. 

Have you noticed the hats, with the rose or the feather behind or attop, scrupulously according to the same dictate of style that rulesalike for seven and ten o'clock, but which has often to be wornthrough wet and dry till the rose has been washed by too many ashower, and the feather blown by too many a dusty wind, to stand foranything but a sign that she knows what should be where, if sheonly had it to put there? Have you seen the cheap alpacas, in twoshades, sure to fade in different ways and out of kindred with eachother, painfully looped in creasing folds, very much sat upon, butwhich would not by any means resign themselves to simple smoothedstraightness, while silks were hitched and crisp Hernanis puffed?

Yet the alpacas, and all their innumerable cousinhood, have alsotheir first mornings of fresh gloss, when the newness of the counteris still upon them; there is a youth for all things; a first time, acharm that seems as if it might last, though we know it neither willnor was meant to; if it would, or were, the counters might be takendown. And people who wear gowns that are creased and faded, haveeach, one at a time, their days of glory, when they begin again. Thefarther apart they come, perhaps the more of the spring-time thereis in them. 

Marion Kent bloomed out this clear, sweet, clean summer morning in aspan new tea-colored zephyrine polonaise with three little frillsedged with tiny brown braid, which set it off trimly with the duecontrasting depth of color, and cost nearly nothing except thestitches and the kerosene she burned late in the hot July nights inher only time for finishing it. She had covered her little oldcurled leaf of a hat with a tea-colored corner that had been left, and puffed it up high and light to the point of the new style, withbrown veil tissue that also floated off in an abundant cloudy gracebehind; and she had such an air of breezy and ecstatic elegance asshe came beaming and hastening into the early car, that nobodyreally looked down to see that the underskirt was the identicalblack brilliantine that had done service all the spring in thedismal mornings of waterproofs and india-rubbers and general dampwoolen smells and blue nips and shivers. 

Marion Kent always made you think of things that never at allbelonged to her. She gave you an impression of something that sheseemed to stand for, which she could not wholly be. Her zephyrine, with its silky shine, hinted at the real lustres of far more costlyfabrics; her hat, perked up with puffs of grenadine (how all thesethings do rhyme and repeat their little Frenchy tags of endings!)put you in mind of lace and feathers, and a general float andflutter of gay millinery; her step and expression, as she cameairily into this second-rate old car, put on for the "journeymen"train, brought up a notion, almost, of some ball-room advent, flushed and conscious and glad with the turning of all admiring eyesupon it; her face, even, without being absolutely beautiful, sparkled out at you a certain will and force and intent of beautythat shot an idea or suggestion of brilliant prettiness instantlythrough your unresisting imagination, compelling you to fill outwhatever was wanting; and what more, can you explain, do feature andbearing that come nearest to perfect fulfillment effect?

The middle-aged cabinet-maker looked over his newspaper at her asshe came in; he had little daughters of his own growing up togirlhood, and there might have been some thought in his head notpurely admiring; but still he looked up. The knot of office-boys, crowding and skylarking across a couple of seats, stopped theirshuffle and noise for a second, and one said, "My! ain't shestunning?" A young fellow, rather spruce in his own way also, withprecise necktie, deep paper cuffs and dollar-store studs and initialsleeve-buttons, touched his hat with an air of taking credit tohimself, as she glanced at him; and another, in a sober old graysuit, with only a black ribbon knotted under his linen collar, turned slightly the other way as she approached, and with somethinglike a frown between his brows, looked out of the window at awood-pile. 

Marion's cheeks were a tint brighter, and her white teeth seemed toflash out a yet more determined smile, as, passing him by, sheseated herself with friendly bustle among some girls a little behindhim. 

"In again, Marion?" said one. "I thought you'd left. "

"Only in for a transient, " said Marion, with a certain clear tonethat reminded one of the stage-trainer's direction to "speak to thegalleries. " "Nellie Burton is sick, and Lufton sent for me. I'll dofor a month or so, and like it pretty well; then I shall have atiff, I suppose, and fling it up again; I can't stand being orderedround longer than that. "

"Or longer than the _new_ lasts, " said the other slyly, touching thedrapery sleeve of the zephyrine. "It _is_ awful pretty, Marry!"

"Yes, and while the new lasts Lufton'll be awful polite, " returnedMarion. "He likes to see his girls look stylish, I can tell you. When things begin to shab out, then the snubbing begins. And howthey're going to help shabbing out I should like to know, dragginground amongst the goods and polishing against the counters? andwho's going to afford ready-made, or pay for sewing, out of sixdollars a week and cars and dinners, let alone regular board, thatsome of 'em have to take off? Why there isn't enough left for shoes!No wonder Lufton's always changing. Well--there's one good of it!You can always get a temporary there. Save up a month and then putinto port and refit. That's the way I do. "

"But what does it come to, after all's said and done? and what ifyou hadn't the port?" asked Hannah Upshaw, the girl with the shawlon, who never wore suits. 

Marion Kent shrugged her shoulders. 

"I don't know, yet. I take things as they come to me. I don'tpretend to calculate for anybody else. I know one thing, though, there is other things to be done, --and it isn't sewing-machineseither, if you can once get started. And when I can see my wayclear, I mean to start. See if I don't!"

The train stopped at the Pomantic station. The young man in the grayclothes rose up, took something from under the car-seat and wentout. What he had with him was a carpenter's box. It was the sameyouth who had greeted Ray Ingraham from beneath the elm branches. Asthe train got slowly under way again, Marion looked straight out ather window into Frank Sunderline's face, and bowed, --very modestlyand sweetly bowed. He was waiting for that instant on the platform, until the track should be clear and he could cross. 

What he caught in Marion's look, as she turned it full upon him, nobody could see; but there was a quieter earnest in it, certainly, when she turned back; and the young man had responded to hersalutation with a relaxing glance of friendly pleasantness thatseemed more native to his face than the frown of a few minutesbefore. 

Marion Kent had several selves; several relations, at any rate, intowhich she could put herself with others. I think she showed youngSunderline, for that instant, out of gentler, questioning, almostbeseeching eyes, a something she could not show to the wholecar-full with whom at the moment of her entrance she had been inrapport, through frills and puffs and flutters, into which she hadallowed her consciousness to pass. Behind the little window he couldonly see a face; a face quieted down from its gay flippancy; a facethat showed itself purposely and simply to him; eyes that said, "What was that you thought of me just now? _Don't_ think it!"

They were old neighbors and child-friends. They had grown uptogether; had they been growing away from each other in some thingssince they had been older? Often it appeared so; but it was Marionchiefly who seemed to change; then, all at once, in some unspokenand intangible way, for a moment like this, she seemed to comesuddenly back again, or he seemed to catch a glimpse of that in her, hidden, not altered, which _might_ come back one of these days. Wasit a glimpse, perhaps, like the sight the Lord has of each one ofus, always?

Meanwhile, what of Ray Ingraham?

Ray Ingraham was sweet, and proper, and still; just what FrankSunderline thought was prettiest and nicest for a woman to be. Hewas always reminded by her ways of what it would be so pretty andnice for Marion Kent to be. But Marion _would_ sparkle; and it is sohard to be still and sparkle too. He liked the brightness and theairiness; a little of it, near to; he did not like a whole car-full, or room-full, or street full, --he did not like to see a womansparkle all round. 

Mr. Ingraham had come into Dorbury Upper Village some half dozenyears since; had leased the bakery, house, and shop; and two yearsafterward, Rachel had come home to stay. She had been left in Bostonwith her grandmother when the family had moved out of the city, thatshe might keep on a while with the school that she was used to andstood so well in; with her Chapel classes, also, where she heardliterature and history lectures, each once a week. Ray could notbear to leave them, nor to give up her Sunday lessons in the dearold Mission Rooms. Dot was three years younger; she could beginagain anywhere, and their mother could not spare both. Besides, "what Ray got she could always be giving to Dot afterwards. " That isnot so easy, and by no means always follows. Dot turned out themother's girl, --the girl of the village, as was said; practical, comfortable, pleasant, capable, sensible. Ray was something of allthese, with a touch of more; alive in a higher nature, awakened toreceive through upper channels, sensitive to some things thatneither pleased nor troubled Mrs. Ingraham and Dot. 

It took a good while to come to know a girl like Ray Ingraham; mostof her young acquaintance felt the _step up_ that they must take tostand fairly beside her, or come intimately near. Frank Sunderlinefelt it too, in certain ways, and did not suppose that she could seein him more than he saw in himself: a plain fellow, good at histrade, or going to be; bright enough to know brightness in otherpeople when he came across it, and with enough of what, independentof circumstances, goes to the essential making of a gentleman, toperceive and be attracted by the delicate gentleness that makes alady. 

That was just what Ray Ingraham did see; only he hardly set it downin his self-estimate at its full value. 

Do you perceive, story-reader, story-raveller, that Frank Sunderlinewas not quite in love with either of these girls? Do you see that itis not a matter of course that he should be?

I can tell you, you girls who make a romance out of the first word, and who can tell from the first chapter how it will all end, thatyou will make great mistakes if you go to interpreting lifeso, --your own, or anybody's else. 

I can tell you that men--those who are good for very much--comeoften more slowly to their life-conclusions than you think; thatwoman-_nature_ is a good deal to a man, and is meant to be, ingradual bearing and influence, in the shaping of his perception, theworking of comparison, the coming to an understanding of his ownwant, and the forming of his ideal, --yes, even in the mere generalpleasantness and gentle use of intercourse--before the _individual_woman reveals herself, slowly or suddenly, as the one only centralneed, and motive, and reward, and satisfying, that the world holdsand has kept for him. For him to gain or to lose: either way, tohave mightily to do with that soul-forging and shaping that theLord, in his handling of every man, is about. 

That night they all came out together in the last train. RayIngraham had gone in after dinner to make some purchases for hermother, and had been to see some Chapel friends. Marion, as she camein through the gate at the station, saw her far before, walking upthe long platform to the cars. She watched her enter the second inthe line, and hastened on, making up her mind instantly, like afield general, to her own best manoeuvre. It was not exactly whatevery girl would have done; and therein showed her generalship. Shewould get into the same carriage, and take a seat with her. She knewvery well that Frank Sunderline would jump on at Pomantic, his day'swork just done. If he came and spoke to Ray he should speak also toher. She did not risk trying _which_ he would come and speak to. Itshould be, that joining them, and finding it pleasant, he shouldnot quite know which, after all, had most made it so. Different asthey were, she and Ray Ingraham toned and flavored each other, andMarion knew it. They were like rose-color and gray; or like spiceand salt: you did not stop to think which ruled the taste, or whichyour eye separately rested on. Something charming, delicious, resulted of their being together; they set each other off, andhelped each other out. Then it was something that Frank Sunderlineshould see that Ray would let her be her friend; that she was notaltogether too loud and pronounced for her. Ray did not turn asideand look at wood-piles, and get rid of her. 

Furthermore, the way home from the Dorbury depot, for Frank andMarion both, lay _past_ the bakery, on down the under-hill road. 

Marion did not _think out_ a syllable of all this; she grasped thesituation, and she acted in an instant. I told you she acted like ageneral in the field: perhaps neither she nor the general would beas skillful, always, with the maps and compasses, and time to planbeforehand. I do not think Marion _was_ ever very wise in herfore-thoughts. 

Beyond Pomantic, the next one or two stations took off a good manypassengers, so that they had their part of the car almost tothemselves. Frank Sunderline had come in and taken a place upon theother side; now he moved over into the seat behind them, accostingthem pleasantly, but not interrupting the conversation which hadbeen busily going on between them all the way. Ray was reallyinterested in some things Marion had brought up to notice; her facewas intent and thoughtful; perhaps she was not quite so pretty whenshe was set thinking; her dimples were hidden; but Marion wasbeaming, exhilarated partly by her own talk, somewhat by an honest, if half mischievous earnestness in her subject, and very much alsoby the consciousness of the young mechanic opposite, withinobserving and listening distance. Marion could not help talking overher shoulders, more or less, always. 

"Men take the world in the rough, and do the work; women help, andcome in for the finishing off, " said Rachel, just as FrankSunderline changed his place and joined them. "_We_ could not handlethose, for instance, " she said, with a shy, quiet sign toward thecarpenter's tools, and lowering her already gentle voice. 

"Men break in the fields, and plough, and sow, and mow; and womenride home on the loads, --is that it?" said Marion, laughing, andsnatching her simile from a hay-field with toppling wagons, that thetrain was at that moment skimming by. "Well, may be! All is, I shalllook out for my ride. After things _are_ broken in, I don't see whywe shouldn't get the good of it. "

"Value is what things stand for, or might procure, isn't it?" saidRay, turning to Sunderline, and taking him frankly and friendlilyinto the conversation. 

"No fair!" cried Marion. "He doesn't understand the drift of it. Doyou, see, Mr. Sunderline, why a man should be paid any more than awoman, for standing behind a counter and measuring off the samegoods, or at a desk and keeping the same accounts? I don't! That'swhat I'm complaining of. "

"That's the complaint of the day, I know, " said Sunderline. "And nodoubt there's a good deal of special unfairness that needs righting, and will get it. But things don't come to be as they are quitewithout a reason, either. There's a principle in it, you've got tolook back to that. "

"Well?" said Marion, gleefully interrogatory, and settling herselfwith an air of attention, and of demurely giving up the floor. Shewas satisfied to listen, if only Frank Sunderline would talk. 

"I believe I see what you meant, " he said to Ray. "About the valuesthat things stand for. A man represents a certain amount of power inthe world. "

"O, does he?" put in Marion, with an indescribable inflection. "I'mglad to know. "

"He _could_ be doing some things that a woman could not do atall--was never meant to do. He stands for so much force. You mayapply things as you please, but if you don't use them according totheir relative capacity, the unused value has to be paidfor--somewhere. "

"That's a nice principle!" said Marion. "I like that I should liketo be paid for what I _might_ be good for!"

Frank Sunderline laughed. 

"It's a good principle; because by it things settle themselves, inthe long run. You may take mahogany or pine to make a table, and onewill answer the common convenience of a table as well as the other;but you will learn not to take mahogany when the pine will serve thepurpose. You will keep it for what the pine wouldn't be fit for;which wouldn't come to pass if the pine weren't cheapest. Womenwouldn't get those places to tend counters and keep books, if theworld hadn't found out that it was poor economy, as a general rule, to take men for it. "

"But what do you say about mental power? About pay for teaching, forinstance?" asked Ray. 

"Why, you're coming round to _my_ side!" exclaimed Marion. "I shouldreally like to know _where_ you are?"

"I am wherever I can get nearest to the truth of things, " said Ray, smiling. 

"That, " said Sunderline, "is one of the specialties that isgetting righted. Women _are_ being paid more, in proportion, forintellectual service, and the nearer you come to the pure mentalpower, the nearer you come to equality in recompense. A woman whowrites a clever book, or paints a good picture, or sculptures a goodstatue, can get as much for her work as a man. But where _time_ ispaid for, --where it is personal service, --the old principle at theroot of things comes in. Men open up the wildernesses, men sail theseas, work the mines, forge the iron, build the cities, defend thenations while they grow, do the physical work of the world, _makeway_ for all the finishings of education and opportunity that comeafterward, and that put women where they are to-day. And men must becounted for such things. It is man's work that has made thesewomen's platforms. They have the capital of strength, and capitaldraws interest. The right of the strongest isn't necessarily_oppression_ by the strongest. That's the way I look at it. And Ithink that what women lose in claim they gain in privilege. "

"Only when women come to knock about the world without any claims, they don't seem to get much privilege, " said Marion. 

"I don't know. It seems rude to say so, perhaps, but they find aworld ready made to knock round _in_, don't they? And it is becausethere's so much done that they couldn't have done themselves, thatthey find the chances waiting for them that they do. And the chancesare multiplying with civilization, all the time. You see thequestion really goes back to first conditions, and lies upon thefact that first conditions may come back any day, --do come back, here and there, continually. Put man and woman together on theprimitive earth, and it is the man that has got to subdue it; thewoman is what Scripture calls her, --the helpmeet. And my notion isthat if everything was right, a woman never should have to 'knockround alone. ' It isn't the real order of Providence. I thinkProvidence has been very much interfered with. "

"There are widows, " said Rachel, gently. 

"Yes; and the 'fatherless and the widows' are everybody's charge tocare for. I said--if things were right. I wish the energy was spentin bringing round the right that is used up in fitting things to thewrong. "

"They say there are too many women in the world altogether!" saidMarion, squarely. 

"I guess not--for all the little children, " said Frank Sunderline;and his tone sounded suddenly sweet and tender. 

He was helping them out of the car, now, at the village station, andthey went up the long steps to the street. All three walked onwithout more remark, for a little way. Then Marion broke out in herodd fashion, --

"Ray Ingraham! you've got a home and everything sure andcomfortable. Just tell me what you'd do, if you were a widow andfatherless or anything, and nobody took you in charge. "

"The thing I knew best, I suppose, " said Rachel, quietly. "I thinkvery likely I could be--a baker. But I'm certain of this much, " sheadded lightly. "I never would make a brick loaf; that always seemedto me a man's perversion of the idea of bread. "

A small boy was coming down the street toward them as she spoke, from the bake-shop door; a brick loaf sticking out at the two endsof an insufficient wrap of yellow brown paper under his arm. 

As Ray glanced on beyond him, she caught sight of that which putthe brick loaf, and their talk, instantly out of her mind. Thedoctor's chaise, --the horse fastened by the well-known strap andweight, --was standing before the house. She quickened her steps, without speaking. 

"I say, " called out the urchin at the same moment, looking up at heras he passed by with a queer expression of mixed curiosity andknowing eagerness, --"Yer know yer father's sick? Fit--or sunthin'!"

But Ray made no sign--to anybody. She had already hurried in towardthe side door, through the yard, under the elm. 

A neighborly looking woman--such a woman as always "steps in" on anemergency--met her at the entrance. "He's dreadful sick, I'm afraid, dear, " she said, reaching out and putting her hand on Ray'sshoulder. "The doctor's up-stairs; ben there an hour. And I believemy soul every identical child in the village's ben sent in for abrick loaf. "

Marion and Sunderline kept on down the Underhill road. Theconversation was broken off. It was a startling occurrence that hadinterrupted it; but it does not need startling occurrences to turnaside the chance of talk just when one would have said somethingthat one was most anxious to say. A very little straw will do it. Itis like a game at croquet. The ball you want to hit lies close; butit is not quite your turn; a play intervenes; and before you can beallowed your strike the whole attitude and aspect are changed. Nothing lies where it did a minute before. You yourself are drivenoff, and forced into different combinations. 

Marion wanted to try Sunderline with certain new notions--certainhalf-purposes of her own, in the latter part of this walk they wouldhave together. Everything had led nicely up to it; when here, justat the moment of her opportunity, it became impossible to go on fromwhere they were. An event had thrust itself in. It was not seemly todisregard it. They could not help thinking of the Ingrahams. Andyet, "if it would have done, " Marion Kent could have put off hersympathies, made her own little point, and then gone back to thesympathies again, just as really and truly, ten minutes afterward. They would have kept. Why are things jostled up so?

"I am sorry for Ray, " she said, presently. 

Frank Sunderline, with a grave look, nodded his head thoughtfully, twice. 

"If anything happens to Mr. Ingraham, won't it be strange that Ishould have asked her what I did, just that minute?"

"What? O, yes!"

It had fairly been jostled out of the young man's mind. They walkedon silently again. But Marion could not give it up. 

"I don't doubt she _would_ be a baker; carry on the wholeconcern, --if there was money. She keeps all her father's accounts, now. "

"Does she?"

"She wouldn't have had the chance if there had been a boy. That'swhat I say isn't fair. "

"I think you are mistaken. You can't change the way of the world. There isn't anything to hinder a woman's doing work like that, --evengoing on with it, as you say, --when it is set for her by specialcircumstances. It's natural, and a duty; and the world will treather well and think the more of her. Things are so that it isgetting easier every day for it to be done. The facilities of thetimes can't help serving women as much as men. But people won'tgenerally bring up their daughters to the work or the prospects thatthey do their sons, simply because they can't depend upon them inthe same way afterwards. If a girl marries, --and she ought to if shecan _right_, "--

"And what if she _has_ to, if she can, wrong?"

"Then she interferes with Providence again. She hasn't patience. Shetakes what wasn't meant for her, and she misses what was; whetherit's work, or--somebody to work for her. "

They were coming near Mrs. Kent's little white gate. 

"I've a great mind to tell you, " said Marion, "I don't have anybodyto help me judge. "

Sunderline was a little disconcerted. It is a difficult position fora young man to find himself in: that of suddenly elected confidantand judge concerning a young woman's personal affairs; unless, indeed, he be quite ready to seek and assume the permanentprivilege. It is a hazardous appeal for a young woman to make. Itmay win or lose, strengthen or disturb, much. 

"Your mother"--began Sunderline. 

"O, mother doesn't see; she doesn't understand. How can she, livingas she does? I could make her advise me to suit myself. She nevergoes about. The world has run ahead of her. She says I must concludeas I think best. "

Sunderline was silent. 

"I've a chance, " said Marion, "if I will take it. A chance to dosomething that I like, something that I think I _could_ do. I can'tstand the shops; there's a plenty of girls that are crazy for theplaces; let them have 'em. And I can't stay at home and iron lacecurtains for other folks, or go round to rip up and make over otherfolks' old dirty carpets. I don't mean mother shall do it muchlonger. This is what I can do: I can get on to the lecture list, forreading and reciting. The Leverings, --you remember VirginiaLevering, who gave a reading here last winter; her father was withher, --Hamilton Levering, the elocutionist? Well, I know them verywell; I've got acquainted with them since; they say they'll help me, and put me forward. Mr. Levering will give me lessons and get mesome evenings. He thinks I would do well. And next year they mean togo out West, and want me to go with them. Would you?"

Marion looked eagerly and anxiously in Sunderline's face as sheasked the question. He could not help seeing that she cared what hemight think. And on his part, he could not help caring a good dealwhat she might do. He did not like to see this girl, whom he hadknown and been friends with from childhood, spoilt. There was good, honest stuff in her, in spite of her second-rate vanities andhalf-bred ambitions. If she would only grow out of these, what awomanly woman she might be! That fair, grand-featured face of hers, what might it not come to hold and be beautiful with, if it couldonce let go its little airs and consciousnesses that cramped it? Ithad a finer look in it now than she thought of, as she waited withreal ingenuous solicitude, his answer. 

He gave it gravely and conscientiously. 

"I don't think I have any business to advise. But I don't exactlybelieve in that sort of thing. It isn't a genuine trade. "

"Why not? People like it. Virginia Levering makes fifty dollars anight, even when they have to hire a hall. "

"And how often do the nights come? And how long is it likely tolast?"

"Long enough to make money, I guess, " said Marion, laughing. She wasa little reassured at Sunderline's toleration of the idea, even sofar as to make calm and definite objection. "And it's pleasant atthe time. I like going about. I like to please people. I like to besomebody. It may be silly, but that's the truth. "

"And what would you be afterward, when you had had your day? Fornone of these days last long, especially with women. "

"O!" exclaimed Marion, with remonstrative astonishment. "Mrs. Kemble! Charlotte Cushman!"

"It won't do to quote them, I'm afraid. I suppose you'd hardlyexpect to come up into that row?" said Sunderline, smiling. 

"They began, some time, " returned Marion. 

"Yes; but for one thing, it wasn't a time when everybody else wasbeginning. Shall I tell you plainly how it seems to me?"

"I wish you would. "

They had walked slowly for the last three or four minutes, till theyhad come to the beginning of the paling in which, a little furtheron, was the white gate. They paused here; Frank Sunderline restedhis box of tools on the low wall that ran up and joined the fence, and Marion turned and stood with her face toward him in the westernlight, and her little pink-lined linen sunshade up between her andthe low sun, --between her and the roadway also, down which mightcome any curious passers-by. 

"It seems to me, " said Frank Sunderline, "that women are getting onto the platforms nowadays, not so much for any real errand they havethere, as just for the sake of saying, I'm here! I think it is verymuch the 'to be seen of men' motive, --the poorest part of women'scharacters, --that plays itself out in this way, as it always hasdone in dancing and dressing and acting, and what not. It isn't thata woman might not be on a platform, if she were called there, aswell as anywhere else. There never was a woman came out before theworld in any grand, true way, that she wasn't all the more honoredand attended to because she _was_ a woman. There are some things toogood to be made common; things that ought to be saved up for aspecial time, so that they may _be_ special. If it falls to a womanto be a Queen, and to open and dismiss her Parliament, nobody in allthe kingdom but thinks the words come nobler and sweeter for awoman's saying them. But that's because she is _put_ there, notbecause she climbs up some other way. If a woman honestly hassomething that she must say--some great word from the Lord, or forher country, or for suffering people, --then let her say it; andevery real woman's husband, and every real mother's son, will hearher with his very heart. Or if even she has some sure wonderfulgift, --if she can sing, or read, or recite; if she can stir peopleup to good and beautiful things as _one in a thousand_, that's hererrand; let her do it, and let the thousand come to hear. But sheought to be certain sure, or else she's leaving her real errandbehind. Don't let everybody, just because the door is open, rush inwithout any sort of a pass or countersign. That's what it's comingto. A _sham trade_, like hundreds of other sham trades; and theshammer and the shamefuller, because women demean themselves to it. I can't bear to see women changing so, away from themselves. Weshan't get them back again, this generation. The _homes_ are going. Young men of these days have got to lose their wives--that theyought to have--and their homes that they looked forward to, such astheir mothers made. It's hard upon them; it takes away their hopesand their motives; it's as bad for them as for the women. It's theabomination of desolation standing in the holy place. There's no endto the mischief; but it works first and worst with exactly girls ofyour class--_our_ class, Marion. Girls that are all upset out oftheir natural places, and not really fit for the new things theyundertake to do. As I said, --how long will it last? How long willthe Mr. Hamilton Leverings put you forward and find chances for you?Just as long as you are young and pretty and new. And then, whathave you got left? What are you going to turn round to?"

Sunderline stopped. The color flushed up in his face. He had spokenfaster and freer and longer than he had thought of; the feeling thathe had in him about this thing, and the interest he had in MarionKent, all rushed to words together, so that he almost forgot thatMarion Kent in bodily presence stood listening before him, he wasdealing so much more with his abstract thought of her, and hisnotion of real womanhood. 

But Marion Kent did stand there. She flushed up too, when he said, "We are going to lose our wives by it. " What did he mean? Would helose anything, if she took to this that she thought of, and wentabroad into the world, and before it? Why didn't he say so, then?Why didn't he give her the choice?

But what difference need it make, in any such way? Why shouldn't agirl be doing her part beforehand, as a man does? He was gettingahead in his trade, and saving money. By and by, he would think hehad got enough, and then he would ask somebody to be his wife. Whatshould the wife have been doing in the mean time--before she wassure that she should ever be a wife? Why shouldn't she look out forherself?

She said so. 

"I don't see exactly, Mr. Sunderline. "

She called him "Mr. Sunderline, " though she remembered very wellthat in the earnestness of his talk he had called her "Marion. " Theyhad grown to that time of life when a young man and a girl who haveknown each other always, are apt to drop the familiar Christianname, and not take up anything else if they can help it. The timewhen they carefully secure attention before they speak, and then usenothing but pronouns in addressing each other. A girl, however, says"Mr. " a little more easily than a man says "Miss. " The girl hasalways been "Miss" to the world in general; the boy grows up to hismanly title, and it is not a special personal matter to give it tohim. There is something, even, in the use of it, which delicatelymarks an attitude--not of distance, but of a certain maidenly andbewitching consciousness--in a girl friend grown into a woman, andrecognizing the man. 

"I don't see, exactly, Mr. Sunderline, " said Marion. "Why shouldn'ta girl do the best she can? Will she be any the worse for itafterwards? Why should the wives be all spoilt, any more than thehusbands?"

"Real work wouldn't spoil; only the sham and the show. Don't do it, Marion. I wouldn't want my sister to, if I had one--there!"

He had not meant so directly to answer her question. He came to thisend involuntarily. 

Marion felt herself tingle from head to foot with the suddenness ofthe negative that she had asked for and brought down upon herself. Now, if she acted, she must act in defiance of it. She felt angrilyashamed, too, of the position in which his words put her; that of agirl seeking notoriety, for mere show's sake; desiring to do a shamwork; to make a pretension without a claim. How did he know what herclaim might be? She had a mind to find out, and let him see. Sister!what did he say that for? He needn't have talked about sisters, orwives either, after that fashion. Spoilt! Well, what should she saveherself for? It was pretty clear it wouldn't be much to him. 

The color died down, and she grew quiet, or thought she did. Shemeant to be very quiet; very indifferent and calm. She lifted up hereyes, and there was a sort of still flash in them. Now that hercheek was cool, they burned, --burned their own color, blue-gray thatdeepened almost into black. 

"I've a good will, however, " she said slowly, "to find out what I_can_ do. Perhaps neither you nor I know that, yet. Then I can makeup my mind. I rather believe in taking what comes. A bird in thehand is worth two in the bush. Very likely nobody will ever careparticularly whether I'm spoilt or not. And if I'm spoilt for onething, I may be made for another. There have got to be all sorts ofpeople in the world, you know. "

She was very handsome, with her white chin up, haughtily; her nosemaking its straight, high line, as she turned her face half away;her eyes so dark with will, and the curve of hurt pride in her lipsthat yet might turn easily to a quiver. She spoke low and smooth;her words dropped cool and clear, without a tone of temper in them;if there was passionate force, it was from a fire far down. 

If she could do so upon a stage; if she could look like that sayingother people's words--words out of a book: if she could feel intothe passions of a world, and interpret them; then, indeed! ButMarion Kent had never entered into heights and depths of thought andof experience; she knew only Marion Kent's little passions as theycame to her, and spoke themselves in homely, unchoice words. Mrs. Kemble or Charlotte Cushman might have made a study from that facethat would have served for a Queen Katharine; but Queen Katharine'sgrand utterances would never have thrilled Marion Kent to wear thelook as she wore it now, piqued by the plain-speaking--and the _not_speaking--of the young village carpenter. 

"I hope you don't feel hurt with me; I've only been honest, and Imeant to be kind, " said Frank Sunderline. 

"No, indeed; I dare say you did, " returned Marion. "After all, everybody has got to judge for themselves. I was silly to thinkanybody could help me. "

"Perhaps you could help yourself better, " said the young man, lothto leave her in this mood, "if you thought how you would judge forsomebody you cared for. If your own little sister"--

Now the quiver came. Now all the hurt, and pique, and shame, andjealous disappointment rushed together to mingle and disguisethemselves with a swell and pang that always rose in her at the nameof her little dead sister, --dead six years ago, when she was nineand Marion twelve. 

The tears sprang to the darkened eyes, and quenched down theirburning; the color swept into her face, like the color after ablow; the lips gave way; and with words that came like a cry sheexclaimed passionately, --

"Don't speak of little Sue! I can't bear it! I never could! I don'tknow what I say now. Good-night, good-by. "

And she left him there with his box upon the wall; turned andhurried along the path, and in through the little white gate. 

CHAPTER IV. 

NINETY-NINE FAHRENHEIT. 

Rodney Sherrett got up from the breakfast table, where he had eatenhalf an hour later than the rest of the family, threw aside thenewspaper that had served to accompany his meal as it had previouslydone his father's, and walked out through the conservatory upon theslope of lawn scattered over with bright little flower-beds, amongwhich his sister, with a large shade hat on, and a pair of gardenscissors and a basket in her hands, was moving about, cuttingcarnations and tea-roses and bouvardia and geranium leaves and bitsof vines, for her baskets and shells and vases. 

"I say, Amy, why haven't you been over to the Argenters' this longwhile? Why don't you get Sylvie here?"

"Why, I did go, Rod! Just when you asked me to. And she has beenhere; she called three weeks ago. "

"O, poh! After the spill! Of course you did. Just called; and shecalled. Why need that be the end of it? Why don't you make much ofher? I can tell you she's a girl you _might_ make much of. Shebehaved like a lady, that day; and a _woman_, --that's more. She wasneither scared nor mad; didn't scream, nor pout; nor even standround to keep up the excitement. She was just cool and quiet, andtook herself off properly. I don't know another girl that would havedone so. She saved me out of the scrape as far as she was concerned;she might have made it ten times the muss it was. I'd rather rundown a whole flock of sheep than graze the varnish off a woman'swheel, as a general principle. There's real backbone to SylvieArgenter, besides her prettiness. My father would like her, I know. Why don't you bring her here; get intimate with her? I can't doit, --too fierce, you know. "

Amy Sherrett laughed. 

"What a nice little cat's-paw a sister makes! Doesn't she, Rod?"

"I wonder if cats don't like chestnuts too, sometimes, " said Rod;and then he whistled. 

"What a worry you are, Rod!" said Amy, with a little frown that somepretty girls have a way of making; half real and half got up for theoccasion; a very becoming little pucker of a frown that seems to puta lovely sort of perplexed trouble into the beautiful eyes, only toshow how much too sweet and tender they really are ever to bepermitted a perplexity, and what a touching and appealing thing itwould be if a trouble should get into them in any earnest. "In termtime I'm always wishing it well over, for fear of what dreadfulthing you may do next; and when it is vacation, it gets to be somuch worse, here and there and everywhere, that I'm longing for youto be safe back in Cambridge. "

"Coming home Saturday nights? Well, you do get about the best of meso. And we fellows get just the right little sprinkle of familyinfluence, too. It loses its affect when you have it all the time. That's what I tell Truesdaile, when he goes on about home, and whata thing it is to have a sister, --he doesn't exactly say _my_ sister;I suppose he believes in the tenth commandment. By the way, he'sknocking round at the seashore some where using up the time. I'vehalf a mind to hunt him up and get him back here for the last weekor so. I think he'd like it. "

"Nonsense, Rod! You can't. When Aunt Euphrasia's away. "

"She would come back, if you asked her; wouldn't she? I think itwould be a charity. Put it to her as an opportunity. She'd dropanything she might be about for an opportunity. I wonder if she evergoes back upon her tracks and finishes up? She's something like amowing machine: a grand good thing, but needs a scythe to followround and pick out the stumps and corners. "

Amy shook her head. 

"I don't believe I'll ask her, Rod. She's perfectly happy up therein New Ipswich, painting wild flowers and pressing ferns, andswinging those five children in her hammock, and carrying them allto drive in her pony-wagon, and getting up hampers of fish andbaskets of fruit, and beef sirloins by express, and feeding them allup, and paying poor dear cousin Nan ten dollars a week for lettingher do it. I guess it's my opportunity to get along here withouther, and let her stay. "

"Incorruptible! Well--you're a good girl, Amy. I must come down toplain soft-sawder. Put some of those things together prettily, asyou know how, and drive over and take them to Sylvie Argenter thisafternoon, will you?"

"Fish and fruit and sirloins!"

"Amy, you're an aggravator!"

"No. I'm only grammatical. I'm sure those were the antecedents. "

"If you don't, I will. "

"If you will, I will too, Rod! Drive me over, that's a good boy, andI'll go. "

Amy seized with delicate craft her opportunity for getting herbrother off from one of his solitary, roaming expeditions with RedSquirrel that ended too often in not being solitary, but in bringinghim into company with people who knew about horses, or had them toshow, and were planning for races, and who were likely to leadRodney, in spite of his innate gentlemanhood, into more of merejockeyism than either she or her father liked. 

"But the flowers, I fancy, Rod, would be coals to Newcastle. Theyhave a greenhouse. "

"And have never had a decent man to manage it. It came to nothingthis year. She told me so. You see it just is a literal _new_castle. Mr. Argenter is too busy in town to look after it; andthey've been cheated and disappointed right and left. They're not toblame for being new, " he continued, seeing the least possible little_lifted_ look about Amy's delicate lips and eyebrows. "I hate _that_kind of shoddiness. "

"'Don't fire--I'll come down, '" said Amy, laughing. "And I don'tthink I ever get _very_ far up, beyond what's safe and reasonablefor a"--

"Nice, well-bred little coon, " said Rodney, patting her on theshoulder, in an exuberance of gracious approval and beamingly serenecontent. "I'll take you in my gig with Red Squirrel, " he added, byway of reward of merit. 

Now Amy in her secret heart was mortally afraid of Red Squirrel, butshe would have been upset ten times over--by Rodney--sooner than sayso. 

When Sylvie Argenter, that afternoon, from her window with its cool, deep awning, saw Rodney Sherrett and his sister coming up the drive, there flashed across her, by a curious association, the thought ofthe young carpenter who had gone up the village street and bowed toRay Ingraham, the baker's daughter. 

After all, the gentleman's "place, " apart and retired, and the long"approach, " were not so very much worse, when the "people in thecarriages, "--the right people, --really came: and "on purpose" wasnot such a bad qualification of the coming, either. 

And when Mrs. Argenter, hearing the bell, and the movement of anarrival, and not being herself summoned in consequence, rungin her own room for the maid, and received for answer to herinquiry, --"Miss Sherrett and young Mr. Sherrett, ma'am, to see MissSylvie, "--she turned back to her volume of "London Society, " muchand mixedly reconciled in her thoughts to two things that occurredto her at once, --one of them adding itself to the other asmanifestly in the same remarkable order of providence; "thattip-out" from the basket-phæton, and the new white frill-trimmedpolonaise that Miss Sylvie would put on, so needlessly, thisafternoon, in spite of her remonstrance that the laundress had justleft without warning, and there was no knowing when they should everfind another. 

"There is certainly a fate in these matters, " she said to herself, complacently. "_One_ thing always follows another. "

Mrs. Argenter was apt to make to herself a "House that Jack built"out of her providences. She had always a little string of them torehearse in every history; from the malt that lay in the house, andthe rat that ate the malt, up to the priest all shaven and shorn, that married the man that kissed the maid--and so on, all the wayback again. She counted them up as they went along. "There was theoverturn, " she would say, by and by "and there was RodneySherrett's call because of that, and then his sister's because nodoubt he asked her, and then their both coming together; and therewas your pretty white polonaise, you know, the day they did come;and there was"--Mrs. Argenter has not counted up to that yet. Perhaps it may be a long while before she will so readily count itin. 

It had turned out a hot day; one of those days in the nineties, whenif you once hear from the thermometer, or in any way have the factforcibly brought home to you, you relinquish all idea of exertionyourself, and look upon the world outside as one great pause, out ofwhich no movement can possibly come, unless there first come thebeneficence of an east wind, which the dwellers on Massachusetts Bayhave always for a reserve of hope. Yet it may quite well occur tohere and there an individual with a resolute purpose in the day, toactually live through it and pursue the intended plan, withoutrealizing the extra degrees of Fahrenheit at all, and to learn withsurprise at set of sun when the deeds are done, of the excelsiorperformances of the mercury. With what secret amazement and dismayis one's valor recognized, however, when it has led one to renderone's self at four in the afternoon on such a day, near one's friendwho _has_ been vividly conscious of the torrid atmosphere! Did youever make or receive such an afternoon call?

Mrs. Argenter, comfortable in her thin wrapper, reading her thinromance, did not trouble herself to be astonished. "They were youngpeople; young people could do anything, " she dimly thought; andputting the white polonaise into the structure of the House thatJack built, she interrupted herself no farther than presently toring her bell again, and tell the maid on no account to admit anyone to see herself, and to be sure that there were plenty ofraspberries brought in for tea. 

Meanwhile, away in the cities, the thermometer had climbed andclimbed. Pavements were blistering hot; watering carts wentlumbering round only to send up a reek of noisome mist and to leavethe streets whitening again a few yards behind them. Blinds wereclosed up and down the avenues, where people had either long lefttheir houses vacant or were sheltering themselves in depths of gloomin the tomb-like coolness of their double walls. Builders' trowelsand hammers had a sound that made you think of sparks struck out, asif the world were a great forge and all its matter at a white heat. Down in the poor, crowded places, where the gutters fumed withfilth, and doors stood open upon horrible passages and staircases, little children, barefooted, with one miserable garment on, sat ongrimy stone steps, or played wretchedly about the sidewalks, impeding the passers of a better class who hastened with batedbreath, amidst the fever-breeding nuisances, along to railwaystations whence they would escape to country and sea-side homes. 

On the wharves was the smell of tarred seams andcordage, --sweltering in the sun; in the counting-rooms the clerkscould barely keep the drops of moisture from their faces fromfalling down to blot their toilsome lines of figures on thefaultless pages of the ledgers; on the Common, common mensurreptitiously stretched themselves in shady corners on the grass, regardless of the police, until they should be found and orderedoff; little babies in second-rate boarding-houses, where theirfathers and mothers had to stay for cheapness the summer throughwailed the helpless, pitiful cry of a slowly murdered infancy; andout on the blazing thoroughfares where business had to be busy, strong men were dropping down, and reporters were hovering aboutupon the skirts of little crowds, gathering their items; making_their_ hay while this terrible sun was shining. 

What did Mrs. Argenter care?

The sun would be going down now, in a little while; then the coolpiazzas, and the raspberries and cream, and the iced milk, --yellowAlderney milk, --would be delightful. Once or twice she did think of"Argie" in New York, --gone thither on some perplexing, hurriederrand, which he had only half told her, and the half telling ofwhich she had only half heard, --and remembered that the heat must be"awful" there. But to-night he would be on board the splendid Soundsteamer, coming home; and to-morrow, if this lasted, she wouldsurely speak to him about getting off for a while to Rye, or MountDesert. 

She came by and by to the end of her volume, and found that theserial she was following ran on into the next. 

"Provoking, " she said, tossing it down to the end of the sofa, "andneither Sylvie nor I can get into town in this heat, and Argiethinks it such a bother to be asked to go to Loring's. "

Just then Sylvie's step came lightly up the stairs. She looked intothe large cool dressing-room where her mother lay. 

"I'm only up for my 'Confession Album', " she said. "But O MaterAmata! if you'd just come down and help me through! I know they'dstay to tea and go home in the cool, if I only knew how to ask them;but if I said a word I should be sure to drive them away. _You_ cando it; and they would if you came. Please do!"

"You silly child! Won't you ever be able to do anything yourself?When you were a little girl, you wouldn't carry a message, becauseyou could get into a house, but didn't know how to get out! And nowyou are grown up, you can get people into the house to see you, butyou don't know how to ask them to stay to tea! What _shall_ I everdo with you?"

"I don't know. I'm awfully afraid of--_nice_ girls!"

"Sylvie, I'm ashamed of you! As if you had any other kind ofacquaintance, or weren't as nice as any of them! I wouldn't suggestit, even to myself, if I were you. "

"And I don't, " said Sylvie boldly--"when I'm _by_ myself. Butthere's a kind of a little misgiving somehow, when they come, orwhen I go, as if--well, as if there _might_ be something to it thatI didn't know of, or behind it that I hadn't got; or else, thatthere were things that they had nothing to do with that I know toomuch of. A kind of a--Poggowantimoc feeling, mother! Amy Sherrett isso _fearfully_ refined, --all the way through! It doesn't seem as ifshe ever had any common things to say or do. Don't you think it_takes_ common things to get people really near to each other? Itdoesn't seem to me I could ever be intimate--or very easy--with AmySherrett. "

"You seemed to get on well enough with her brother, the other day. "

"Boys aren't half so bad. There isn't any such wax-work about boys. Besides, "--and Sylvie laughed a low, gay little laugh, --we got spiltout together, you know. "

"Well, don't stand talking. You mustn't keep them waiting. It isn'ttime to speak about tea, yet. Look over the album, and get at somemusic. _Keep_ them without saying anything about it. When peoplethink every minute they are just going, is just when they are havingthe very pleasantest time. "

"I know it. But you'll come, won't you, and make it all right? Puton something loose and cool; that lovely black lace jacket with theviolet lining, and your gray silk skirt. It won't take you a minute. Your hair's perfectly sweet now. " And Sylvie hurried away. 

Mrs. Argenter came down, twenty minutes afterwards, into the greatsummer drawing-room, where the finest Indian matting, and dark, richPersian rugs, and inner window blinds folded behind lace curtainsthat fell like the foam of waterfalls from ceiling to floor, made apleasantness out of the very heat against which such furnishingsmight be provided. 

In her silken skirt of silver gray, and the llama sack, violetlined, to need no tight corsage beneath, her fair wrists and armsshowing white and cool in the wide drapery sleeves, she looked avery lovely lady. Sylvie was proud of her handsome, elegant mother. She grew a great deal braver always when Mrs. Argenter came in. Sheborrowed a second consciousness from her in which she took courage, assured that all was right. Chairs and rugs gave her no suchconfidence, though she knew that the Sherretts themselves had nomore faultless surroundings. Anybody could have rugs and chairs. Itwas the presence among them that was wanted; and poor Sylvie seemedto herself to melt quite away, as it were, before such a girl as AmySherrett, and not to be able to be a presence at all. 

It was all right now, as Sylvie had said. They could not leaveimmediately upon Mrs. Argenter joining them and her joining them wasof itself a welcome and an invitation. So Sylvie called upon hermother to admire the lovely basket, wherein on damp, tender, brightgreen moss, clustered the most exquisite blossoms, and the mostdelicate trails of stem and leafage wandered and started up lightly, and at last fell like a veil over rim and handle, and dropped belowthe edge of the tiny round table with Siena marble top, on whichSylvie had placed it between the curtains of the recess that ledthrough to their conservatory, which had been "a failure this year. "

"I would not tell you of it, Amata. I wanted you just to see it, "she said. And Mrs. Argenter admired and thanked, and then lamentedtheir own ill-success in greenhouse and garden culture. 

"I am not strong enough to look after it much myself, and Mr. Argenter never has time, " she said; "and our first man was atipsifier, and the last was a rogue. He sold off quantities of thebest young plants, we found, just before they came to show foranything. "

"Our man has been with us for eight years, " said Rodney Sherrett. "Idare say he could recommend some one to you, if you liked; and hewouldn't send anybody that wasn't right. Shall I ask him?"

Mrs. Argenter would be delighted if he would; and then Mr. Sherrettmust come into the conservatory, where a few ragged palm ferns, their great leaves browning and crumbling at the edges, --somedaphnes struggling into green tips, having lost their last growth ofleaf and dropped all their flower buds, and several calmly enduringorange and lemon trees, gave all the suggestion of foliage that theplace afforded, and served, much like the painter's inscription atthe bottom of his canvas merely to signify by the scant glimpsethrough the drawing-room draperies, --"This is a conservatory. "

Mrs. Argenter asked Rodney something about the best arrangement forthe open beds, and wanted to know what would be surest to do wellfor the rockery, and whether it was in a good part of thehouse, --sufficiently shaded? Meanwhile, Amy and Sylvie were turningover music, and when they all gathered together again the call hadextended to a two hours' visit. 

"It is really unpardonable, " Amy Sherrett was saying, and picking upthe pretty little hat which she had thrown down upon a chair, --"ithad been so warm to wear anything a minute that one need not. " Andthen Mrs. Argenter said so easily and of course, that they"certainly would not think of going now, when it would soon bereally pleasant for a twilight drive; tea would be ready early, forshe and Sylvie were alone, and all they had cared for to-day hadbeen a cold lunch at one. They would have it on the north veranda;"and she touched a bell to give the order. 

Perhaps Amy Sherrett would hardly have consented, but that Rodneygave her a look, comical in its appeal, over Sylvie's shoulder, asshe stood showing him a great scarlet Euphorbia in a portfolio ofwater-colors, and said with a beseeching significance, --

"Consider Red Squirrel, Amy. He really did have a pretty hard pull;and what with the heat and the flies, I dare say he would take itwith more equanimity after sundown, --since Mrs. Argenter is so verykind. "

And so they stayed; and Mrs. Argenter laid another little brick inher "House that Jack built. "

 * * * * *

At this same time, --how should she know it?--something verydifferent was going on in one of the rooms of a great hotel in NewYork. Somebody else who had meant before now to have left for home, had been delayed till after sundown. Somebody else would go over theroad by dark instead of by daylight. By dark, --though there shouldbe broad, beating sunshine over the world again when the journeyshould be made. 

While Mrs. Argenter's maid was bringing out the tray with delicateblack-etched china cups, and costly fruit plates illuminatedwith color, and dainty biscuits, and large, rare, red berries, and cream that would hardly pour for richness in a gleamingcrystal flagon, --and ranging them all on the rustic verandatable, --something very different, --very grim, --at which theoccupants of rooms near by shuddered as it passed their opendoors, --was borne down the long, wide corridor to Number Five, inthe Metropolitan; and at the same moment, again, a gentleman, verygrave, was standing at the counter of the Merchants' Union TelegraphCompany's Office, writing with rapid hand, a brief dispatch, addressed to "Mrs. I. M. Argenter, Dorbury, Mass. , " and signed"Philip Burkmayer, M. D. "

Nobody knew of any one else to send to; at that hour, especially, when the office in State Street would be closed. Closed, with thatname outside the door that stood for nobody now. 

The news must go bare and unbroken to her. 

Something occurred to Doctor Burkmayer, however, as he was justhanding the slip to the attendant. 

"Stop; give me that again, a minute, " he said; and tearing it intwo, he wrote another, and then another. 

"Send this on at once, and the second in an hour, " he said; as ifthey might have been prescriptions to be administered. "They mayboth be delivered together after all, " he continued to himself, ashe turned away. "But it is all I can do. When a weight is let drop, it has got to fall. You can't ease it up much with a string measuredout for all the way down!"

The young woman operator at the little telegraph station at DorburyUpper Village heard the call-click as she unlocked the room and camein after her half-hour supper time. She set the wires and responded, and laid the paper slip under the wonderful pins. 

"Tick-tick-tick; tick-tick; tick-tick-tick-tick, " and so on. Thegirl's face looked startled, as she spelled the signs along. Sheanswered back when it was ended; then wrote out the message rapidlyupon a blank, folded, directed it, and went to the open street door. 

"Sim! Here--quick!" she called to a youth opposite, in astable-yard. 

"This has got to go down to the Argenter Place. And mind how yougive it. It's bad news. "

"How can _I_ mind?" said Sim, gruffly. "I spose I must give it towho comes. "

"You might see somebody on the way, and speak a word; a neighbor, orthe minister, or somebody. 'Tain't fit for it to go right to her, _I_ know. Telegraphs might as well be something else when they can, besides lightning!"

"Donno's I can go travellin' round after 'em, if that's what youmean, " said Sim, putting the envelope in his rough breast pocket, and turning off. 

Sylvie was standing on the stone steps, bidding the Sherrettsgood-by; Amy was just seated in the gig, and Rodney about to springin beside her, when Sim Atwill drove up the avenue in the rustycovered wagon that did telegraph errands. Red Squirrel did not quitelike the sudden coming face to face, as Sim reined up in a hurryjust below the door, and Rodney had to pause and hold him in. 

"A tellagrim for Mrs. Argenter, " said Sim, seizing his opportunity, and speaking to whom it might concern. "Eighty cents to pay, and I'blieve it's bad news. "

"O, Mr. Sherrett, stop, please!" cried Sylvie, turning white in thedim light. "What shall I do? Won't you wait a minute, Miss Sherrett, until I see? Won't you come in again? Mother will be frightened todeath, and I'm all alone. "

"Jump out, Amy; I'll take Squirrel round, " was Rodney's answer. "Goright up; I'll come. "

And as Sylvie took the thin envelope that held so much, and the twogirls silently passed up into the piazza again, he paid Sim theeighty cents which nobody thought of at that moment or ever again, and sent him off. 

Sylvie and Amy stopped under the softly bright hall lantern. Mrs. Argenter was up-stairs in her dressing room, quite at the end of thelong upper hall, changing her lace sack for a cashmere, beforecoming out into the evening air again. 

"I think I shall open it myself, " whispered Sylvie, tremulously; "itwould seem worse to mother, whatever it is, coming this way. She hassuch a horror of a telegram. " She looked at it on both sides, drew alittle shivering breath, and paused again. 

"Is it wicked, do you think, to wish it may be--only grandma, perhaps? Do you suppose it could _possibly_ be--my _father_?"

And by this time there was a hysterical sound in poor littleSylvie's voice. 

"Wait a minute, " said Amy, kindly. "Here's Rod. "

 "OFFICE OF WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO. , NEW YORK, _July_ 24_th_, 187-. 

 "To MRS. I. M. ARGENTER, Dorbury, Mass. 

 "Mr. Argenter has had a sunstroke. Insensible. Very serious. Will telegraph again. 

 "PHILIP BURKMAYER, M. D. "

Sylvie's eyes, so roundly innocent, so star-like in their usualbright uplifting, were raised now with a wide terror in them, firstto Rodney, then to Amy; and "O--O!" broke in short, subdued gaspsfrom her lips. 

Then they heard Mrs. Argenter's step up-stairs. 

"What is the matter, Sylvie? What are you doing? Who is with youdown there?" she said, over the baluster, from the hall above. 

"O, mother!" cried Sylvie, "they aren't gone! Something has _come_!Go up and tell her, Amy, please!" And forgetting all about Amy as"Miss Sherrett, " and all her fear of "nice girls, " she dropped downon the lower step of the staircase after Amy had passed her upon hererrand, put her face between her hands and caught her breath withfrightened sobs. 

Rodney, leaning against the newel post, looked down at her, andsaid, after the manner of men, --"Don't cry. It mayn't be very bad, after all. You'll hear again in an hour or two. Can't I dosomething? I'll go to the telegraph office. I'll get somebody foryour mother. Whom shall I go for?"

"O, you are very kind. I don't know. Wait a minute. They didn't sayany place! We ought to go right to New York, and we don't knowwhere! O, dear!" She had lifted her head a little, just to say thesebroken sentences, and then it went down again. 

Rodney did not answer instantly. It occurred to him all at oncewhat this "not saying any place" might mean. 

Just as he began, --"You couldn't go until to-morrow, "--came Mrs. Argenter's sharp cry from her room above. Amy had walked right oninto the open, lighted apartment, Mrs. Argenter following, notdaring to ask what she came and did this strange thing for, till Amymade her sit down in her own easy chair, and taking her hands, saidgently, --

"It is a telegram from New York. Mr. Argenter--is very ill. " ThenMrs. Argenter cried out, "That's not all! I know how people bringnews! Tell me the whole. " And Sylvie sprang to her feet, hearing thequick, excited words, and leaving Rodney Sherrett standing there, rushed up into the dressing-room. 

This was the way the same sort of news came to Sylvie Argenter ashad come to the baker's daughter. Did it really make anydifference--the different surrounding of the two? The greathouse--the lights--the servants--the friends; and the open bake-shopdoor, the village street, the blunt, common-spoken neighbor-woman, and the boy with the brick loaf?

These two were to be fatherless: their mothers were both to bewidows: that was all. 

Did it happen strangely with the two--in this same story? Who know, always, when they are in the same story? These things are happeningevery day, and one great story holds us all. If one could see wideenough, one could tell the whole. 

These things happen: and then the question comes, --alike in high andlow places, --alike with money and without it, --what the women andthe girls are to do?

Rodney Sherrett took his sister home; drove three miles round andbrought Mrs. Argenter's sister to her from River Point, and thenturned toward Dorbury Upper Village and the telegraph office. But hemet Sim Atwill on the way, received the telegram from him, andhurried back. 

It was the dispatch of the hour later, and this was it:--

 "Mr. Argenter died at five o'clock. His remains will be sent home to-morrow, carefully attended. 

 "PHILIP BURKMAYER. "

CHAPTER V. 

SPILLED OUT AGAIN. 

There were paragraphs in the papers; there were resolutions atmeetings of the Board of Trade, and of the Directors of theTrimountain Bank; there was a funeral from the "late residence, "largely attended; there were letters and calls of condolence; therewas making of crape and bombazine and silk into "mourning;" therewere friends and neighbors asking each other, after mention of thesad suddenness, "how it would be;" "how much he had left;" "wasthere a will?"

And there was a will; made three years before. One hundred thousanddollars, outright, to Increase M. Argenter's beloved wife; also theuse of the homestead; fifty thousand dollars to his daughter Sylviaon her reaching the age of twenty-five, or on her marriage; all elseto be Mrs. Argenter's for her life-time, reverting afterward toSylvia or her heirs. 

There was just time for this to be ascertained and told of; justtime for Sylvie to be named as an heiress, and then all at oncesomething else came to light and was told of. 

There was a mining speculation out in Colorado; there was Mr. Argenter's signature for heavy security; there were memoranda ofgood safe stocks that had stood in his name a little while ago, andno certificates; there had been sales and sacrifices; going indeeper and to more certain loss, because of risk and danger alreadyrun. 

Mr. Sherrett, senior, came home to dinner one day with news fromthe street. 

"I've been very sorry to hear this morning that Argenter left thingsin a bad way, after all. There won't be much of anythingforthcoming. All swallowed up in mines and lands that have goneunder. That explains the sunstroke. Half the cases are mere worryand drive. In the old, calm times it was scarcely heard of. Now, ofa hot summer's day in New York, a hundred or two men drop down. Andthen they talk of unprecedented heat. It is the heat and the fermentthat have got into life. "

"Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish, " said the quietvoice of Aunt Euphrasia. "How strange it is that men have neverinterpreted yet!"

"Ah, well! I'm not sure about sins and judgments. I don't undertaketo blame, " said Mr. Sherrett. "People are born into a whirl, nowadays, --the mass of them. How can they help it?"

"I don't know. But we begin to see how true the words were, and inwhat pity they must have been spoken, " said Aunt Euphrasia. "Tremendous physical forces have been grasped and set to work formere material ends. Spiritual uses and living haven't kept pace. Andso there is a terrible unbalance, and the tower falls upon men'sheads. "

"Well, poor Argenter wasn't a sinner above all that dwelt inJerusalem. And now, there are his wife and daughter. I'm sorry forthem. They'll find it a hard time. "

"I'm sorry, too, " said Aunt Euphrasia, with heart-gentleness. Shecould not help seeing the eternal laws; she read the world and theWord with the inner illumining; but she was tender over all the poorsouls who were not to blame for the whirl of fever and falsenessthey were born into; who could not or dared not fling themselves outof it upon the simple, steadfast, everlasting verities, and--bebroken; upon whom, therefore, these must fall, and grind them topowder. 

"How will it be with them?" she asked. 

"Do you mean there isn't anything left, sir? Nothing to carry outthe will?"

Rodney had dropped his spoon and left his soup untasted, since hisfather first spoke: he had lifted up his eyes quickly, and listenedwith his whole face, but he had kept silence until now. 

Amy had looked up also; startled by the news, and waiting to hearmore. The young people were both too really interested, from theirintimate knowledge of the first misfortune, to reply with any common"Is it possible?" to this. 

"The will, I am afraid, is only a magnificent 'might have been, '"said Mr. Sherrett. "There may be something secured; there ought tobe. Mrs. Argenter had a small property, I believe. Otherwise, assuch things turn out, I should suppose there would be less thannothing. "

"What will they do?" The question came from Aunt Euphrasia, again. "Can't somebody help them? There is so much money in the world. "

"Yes, Effie. And there is gold in the mines. And there are plenty ofkind affections in the world, too; but there's loneliness and brokenheartedness, for all that. The difficulty always is to bring thingstogether. "

"I suppose that is just what _people_ were made for. "

"It will be one more family of precisely that sort whom nobody canhelp, directly, and who scarcely know how to help themselves. Thehardest kind of cases. "

"It's an awful spill-out, this time, " Rodney said to Amy, as shefollowed him, after her usual fashion, to the piazza, when dinnerwas over. "And no mistake!"

Rodney had brought a cigar with him, but he had forgotten his match, and he stood crumbling the end of it, frowning his brows together ina way they were not often used to. 

"Will they have to go away?" asked Amy. 

"Out of that house? Of course. They'll be just tipped out ofeverything. "

"How dreadful it will be for Sylvie!"

"She won't stand round lamenting. I've seen her tipped out before. Amy, I'll tell you what; you ought to stick by. Maybe she won'twant you, at first; but you ought to do it. Father, "--as Mr. Sherrett came out with his evening paper to his cane recliningchair, --"you'll go and see Mrs. Argenter, shall you not?"

"Why, yes, if I could be of any service. But one wouldn't like tointrude. There are executors to the will. I don't know that it isquite my place. "

"I don't believe there will be much intruding--of _your_ sort. Andthe executors have got nothing to do now. Who are they?"

"Jobling and Cardwell, I believe. Men down town. Perhaps she mightlike to see a neighbor. Yes, I think I will go. You can drive meround, Rodney, some evening soon. Whom has she, of her own people, Iwonder?"

"Only her sister, Mrs. Lowndes, you know. The brother-in-law isn'tmuch, I imagine. "

"Stephen A. Lowndes? No. Broken-down and out of the world. Hecouldn't advise to any purpose. I fancy Argenter has been holding_him_ up. "

"I think they'll be very glad to see you, sir. "

Rodney drove his father over the next night. Mr. Sherrett went inalone. Rodney sat in the chaise outside. 

Mr. Sherrett waited some minutes after he had sent up his card, andthen Sylvie came down to him, looking pale in her black dress, andwith the trouble really in her young eyes, over which the brows bentwith a strange heaviness. 

"I could not persuade mother to come down, " she said. "She does notfeel able to see anybody. But I wanted to thank you for coming, Mr. Sherrett. "

"I thought an old neighbor might venture to ask if he could be ofuse. A lady needs some one to talk things over with. I know yourmother must have much to think of, and she cannot have been used tobusiness. I should not come for a mere call at such a time. I shouldbe glad to be of some service. "

"Would you be kind enough to sit down a few minutes and talk withme, Mr. Sherrett?"

There was a difference already between the Sylvie of to-day and theSylvie of a few weeks ago. It was no longer a question of littlenothings, --of how she should get people in and how she could getthem out, --of what she should do and say to seem "nice all through, "like Amy Sherrett. Mr. Sherrett had not come for a "mere call, " ashe said; and there was no mere "receiving. " The llama lace and thegray silk and the small _savoir faire_ could not help her now. Mrs. Argenter was up-stairs in a black tamise wrapper with a large plainblack shawl folded about her, as she lay in the chill of a suddenlycool August evening, on the sofa in her dressing-room, which for thelast week or two she had rarely left. All at once, Sylvie found thatshe must think and speak both for her mother and herself. 

Mrs. Argenter could run smoothly in one polished groove; she wasthrown out now, and to her the whole world was off its axis. HerHouse that Jack built had tumbled down; she thought so, notaccepting this strange block that had come to be wrought in. She hadbeen counting little brick after little brick that she had watchedidly in the piling; now there was this great weight that she couldnot deal with, laid upon her hands for bearing and for using; shelet it crush her down, not knowing that, fitting it bravely into herlife that was building, it might stand there the very threshold overwhich she should pass into perfect shelter of content. 

"Mother has been entirely bewildered by all this trouble, " saidSylvie, quietly, to Mr. Sherrett. "I don't think she reallyunderstands. She has lived so long with things as they are, that shecannot imagine them different. I think it is easier with me, because, you know, I haven't been used to _anything_ such a _very_long while. "

Sylvie even smiled a tremulous little smile as she said this; andMr. Sherrett looked at her with one upon his own face that had asmuch pitiful tenderness in it as could have shown through tears. 

"You see we shall have to do something right off, --go somewhere; andmother can't change the least thing. She can't spare Sabina, who hasheard of a good place, and must go soon at any rate, because nobodyelse would know where things belonged or are put away, or fetch heranything she wanted. And the very things, I suppose, don't belong tous. How shall we break through and begin again?" Sylvie looked upearnestly at Mr. Sherrett, asking this question. This was what shereally wanted to know. 

"You will remove, I suppose?" said Mr. Sherrett "If you could hearof a house, --if you could propose something definite, --if you andSabina could begin to pack up, --how would that be?"

He met her inquiry with primary, practical suggestions, just whatshe needed, wasting no words. He saw it was the best service hecould do this little girl who had suddenly become the real head ofthe household. 

"I have thought, and thought, " said Sylvie; "and after all, mothermust decide. Perhaps she wouldn't want to keep house. I don't knowwhether we could. She spoke once about boarding. But boarding costsa great deal, doesn't it?"

"To live as you would need to, --yes. "

"I should hate to have to manage small, and change round, inboarding. I know some people who live so. It would give me a verymean feeling. It would be like trying to get a bite of everybody'sbread and butter. I'd rather have my own little loaf. "

"You are a brave, true little woman, " said Mr. Sherrett, warmly. "All you want is to be set in the right direction, and see your way. You'll be sure to go on. "

"I _think_ I should. If mother can only be contented. I think Ishould rather like it. I could _understand_ living better. Therewould only be a little at a time. A great deal, and a great manythings, make it a puzzle. "

"Have you any knowledge about the property?"

"Mr. Cardwell has been here two or three times. He says there aretwelve thousand dollars secured to mother by a note and mortgage onthis place. It was money of hers that was put into it. We shall havethe income of that; and there might be things, perhaps, that weshould have the right to sell, or keep to furnish with. Seven and ahalf per cent, on twelve thousand dollars would be nine hundreddollars a year. If we had to pay sixteen dollars a week to board, itwould take eight hundred and thirty-two; almost the whole of it. Butperhaps we could find a place for less; and our clothes would last agood while, I suppose. "

Sylvie went through her little calculation, just as she had made itover and over before, all by herself; she did not stop to think thatshe was doing the small sum now for the enlightenment of the greatMr. Sherrett, who calculated in millions for himself and others, every day. 

"You would hardly be comfortable in a house which you could rent forless than--say, four hundred dollars, and that would leave verylittle for your living. Perhaps I should advise you to board. "

"But we could _do_ things, maybe, if we lived by ourselves, amongstother people in small houses. We can't be _two_ things, Mr. Sherrett, rich and poor; and it seems to me that is what we shouldbe trying for, if we got into a boarding-house. We should have to beidle and ashamed. I want to take right hold. I'd like to earnsomething and make it do. "

Sylvie's eyes really shone. The spirit that had worked in her as alittle child, to make her think it would be nice to be a "kitchengirl, and have a few things in boxes, and Sundays out, " threw acharm of independence and enterprise and cosy thrift over herchanged position, and the chance it gave her. Mr. Sherrett wonderedat the child, and admired her very much. 

"Could you teach something? Could you keep a little school?"

"I've thought about it. But a person must know ever to much, nowadays, to keep even the least little school. They wantKindergartens, and all the new plans, that I haven't learnt. Andit's just so about music. You must be scientific; and all I reallyknow is a few little songs. But I can _dance_ well, Mr. Sherrett. Icould teach that. "

There was something pathetically amusing in this bringing to marketof her one exquisite accomplishment, learned for pleasure, and thesuggestion of it at this moment, as she sat in her strange blackdress, with the pale, worn look on her face, in the home so shadowedby heavy trouble, and about to pass away from their possession. 

"You will be sure to do something, I see, " said Mr. Sherrett. "Yes, I think you had better have a quiet little home. It will be a centreto work from, and something to work for. You can easily furnish itfrom this house. Whatever has to be done, you could certainly beallowed such things as you might make a schedule of. Would you likeme to talk for you with Mr. Cardwell, and have something arranged?"

"O, if you would! Mother dreads the very sound of Mr. Cardwell'sname, and the thought of business. She cannot bear it now. But youradvice would be so different!"

Sylvie knew that it would go far with Mrs. Argenter that Mr. HowlandSherrett, in the relation of neighbor and friend, should plan andsuggest for them, rather than Mr. Richard Cardwell, a stranger andmere man of business, should come and tell them things that must be. 

"I'm afraid you'll think I don't realize things, I've planned andimagined so much, " Sylvie began again, "but I couldn't helpthinking. It is all I have had to do. There's a little house inUpper Dorbury that always seemed to me so pretty and pleasant; andnobody lives there now. At least, it was all shut up the last timeI drove by. The house with the corner piazza and the green sideyard, and the dark red roof sloping down, just off the road in theshady turn beside the bank that only leads to two other littlehouses beyond. Do you know?"

Mr. Sherrett did know. They were three houses built by members ofthe same family, some years ago, upon an old village homesteadproperty. Two of them had passed into other hands; one--thisone--remained in its original ownership, but had been rented oflate; since the war, in which the proprietor had made money, andwith it had bought a city residence in Chester Park. 

"You see we must go where things will be convenient. We can't rideround after them any more. And we could get a girl up there, asother people do, for general housework. I'm afraid mother wouldn'tquite like being in the village, but of course there can't beanything that she _would quite_ like, now. And we aren't reallyseparate people any longer; at least, we don't belong to theseparate kind of people, and I couldn't bear to be _lonesomely_separate. It's good to belong to _some_ kind of people; isn't it?"

"I think it is very good to belong to _your_ kind, where-ever theyare, Miss Sylvie. Tell your mother I say she may be glad of herdaughter. I'll find out about the house for you, at any rate. AndI'll see Mr. Cardwell; and I'll call again. Good-night, my dear. Godbless you!"

And the grand Mr. Howland Sherrett pressed Sylvie Argenter's hand inboth of his, as a father might have pressed it, and went out withthe feeling of a warm rush from his heart toward his eyes. 

"That's a girl like a--whatever there is that means the noblestsort of woman, and I'm not sure it _is_ a queen!" he said to Rodney, as he seated himself in the chaise, and took the reins from hisson's hands. 

Mr. Sherrett was apt to say to Rodney, "You may drive me to this orthat place, " but he was very apt, also, to do the driving himself, after all; especially if he was somewhat preoccupied, and forgot, ashe did now. 

The way Mr. Howland Sherrett inquired about the red-roofed house, was this:

He went down to Mr. John Horner's store, in Opal Street, and askedhim what was the rent of it. 

"Six hundred and fifty dollars. "

"Rather high, isn't it, for the situation?"

"Not for the situation of the _land_, I guess, " said Mr. Horner. "I'mpaying annexation taxes. "

"What will you sell the property for as it stands?"

"Eighty-five hundred dollars. "

"I'll give you eight thousand, Mr. Horner, in cash, upon conditionthat you will not mention its having changed hands. I have somefriends whom I wish should live there, " he added, lest some deepspeculating move should be surmised. 

Mr. Horner thought for the space of thirty seconds, after the rapid, Opal Street fashion, and said, --

"You may have it. When will you take the deed?"

"To-morrow morning, at eleven o'clock. Will that be convenient?"

"All right. Yes, sir. "

And the next morning at eleven o'clock, the two gentlemen exchangedpapers; Mr. Horner received a check on the First National Bank foreight thousand dollars, and Mr. Sherrett the title-deed to house andland on North Centre Street, Dorbury, known as part of the JohnHorner estate, and bordering so and so, and so on. 

The same afternoon, Mr. Sherrett called at Mrs. Argenter's, andtold her of the quiet, pleasant, retired, yet central house andgarden in Upper Dorbury, which he found she could have on a lease oftwo or three years, for a rent of three hundred and fifty dollars. It was in the hands of a lawyer in the village, who would make outthe lease and receive the payments. He had inquired it out, andwould conclude the arrangements for her, if she desired. 

"I don't know that I desire anything, Mr. Sherrett. I suppose I mustdo what I can, since it seems I am not to be left in my own homewhich I put my own money into. If it appears suitable to you, I haveno doubt it is right. I am very much obliged to you, I am sure. Sylvie knows the house, and has an idea she likes it. She ischildish, and likes changing. She will have enough of it, I amafraid. "

She did not even care to go over and inspect the house. Sylvie wasglad of that, for she knew it could be made to seem more homelike, if she and Sabina could get the parlor and her mother's rooms readybefore Mrs. Argenter saw it. During the removal, it was settled thatthey should go and stay with Mrs. Lowndes, at River Point. Thispractically resulted in Mrs. Argenter's remaining with her sister, while Sylvie and Sabina spent their time, night as well as day, often, between Argenter Place and the new house. 

Rodney Sherrett rode through the village one day, when they werebusy there with their arrangements. 

Sylvie stood on a high flight of steps in the bay-window, putting upsome white muslin curtains, with little frills on the edges. Theyhad been in a sleeping-room at Argenter Place. All the furniture ofthe house had been appraised, and an allowance made of two thousanddollars, to which amount Mrs. Argenter might reserve such articlesas she wished, at the valuation. So much, and two thousand dollarsin cash, were given her in exchange for her homestead and her rightof dower in the unincumbered portion of the estate, upon which wasone other smaller mortgage. No other real property appeared in thelist of assets. Mr. Argenter had, unfortunately, invested almostwholly in bonds, stocks, and those last ruinous mining ventures. Theland out in Colorado was useless, and besides, being wild land, didnot come under the law of dower. 

Mrs. Argenter thought it was all very strange, especially that a sumof money, --eighteen hundred dollars, which was in her husband'sdesk, the proceeds of some little mortgage that he had justsold, --was not hers to keep. She came very near stealing it from theestate, quietly appropriating it, without meaning to be dishonest;regarding it as simply money in the house, which her husband "wouldhave given her, if she had wanted it, the very day before he died. "

Possibly he might; but the day after he died, it was no longer hisnor hers. 

To go back to Sylvie in the bay-window. Rodney rode by, then wheeledabout and came back as far as the stone sidewalk before the Bankentrance. He jumped off, hitched Red Squirrel to one of the poststhat sentineled the curbstone, and passed quietly round into the"shady turn. "

The front door was open, and boxes stood in the passage; he walkedin as far as the parlor door; then he tapped with his riding-whipagainst the frame of it. Sylvie started on her perch, and began tocome down. 

"Don't stop. I couldn't help coming in, seeing you as I went by, "said Rodney. 

Sylvie sat down on one of the middle steps. She would rather keepstill than exhibit herself in any further movement. Rodney ought tohave known better than go in then; if indeed he did _not_ knowbetter than Sylvie herself did, how very pretty and graceful shelooked, all out of regular and ordinary gear. 

She had taken off her hoops, for her climbing; her soft, long blackdress fell droopingly about her figure and rested in folds aroundand below her feet as she sat upon the step-ladder; one thick braidof her sunshiny hair had dropped from the fastening which had loopedit up to her head, and hung, raveling into threads of light, downover her shoulder and into her lap; her cheeks were bright withexercise; her eyes, that trouble and thought had sobered lately todove-gray, were deep, brilliant blue again. She was excited with herwork, and flushed now with the surprise of Rodney's coming in. 

"How pretty you are going to look here, " said Rodney, glancingabout. 

The carpet Sylvie had chosen to keep for the parlor--for though Mrs. Argenter had feebly discussed and ostensibly dictated the list asSylvie wrote it down, she had really given up all choosing to herwith a reiterated, helpless, "As you please, " at every question thatcame up--was a small figured Brussels of a soft, shadowy water-gray, with a border in an arabesque pattern. This had been upon a guestchamber; the winter carpet of the drawing-room was an Axminster, andSylvie's ideas did not base themselves on Axminsters now, even ifthey might have done so with a two thousand dollar allowance. Sheonly hoped her mother would not feel as if there were no drawingroom at all, but the whole house had been put up-stairs. 

The window draperies were as I have said; there was a large, plainlibrary table in the middle of the room, with books and baskets andlittle easels with pictures, and paper weights and folders, andother such like small articles of use and grace and cosy expressionlying about upon it, as if people had been there quite a while andgrown at home. There were bronze candelabra on the mantel and uponbrackets each side the bay window. Pictures were alreadyhung, --portraits, and gifts, not included in the schedule, --a fewnice engravings, and one glowing piece of color, by Mrs. Murray, which Sylvie said was like a fire in the room. 

"I am only afraid it is too fine, " said she, replying to Rodney. "Ireally want to be like our neighbors, --to _be_ a neighbor. We belonghere now. People should not drop out of the world, between theranks, when changes happen; they can't change out of humanity. Doyou know, Mr. Sherrett, --if it wasn't for the thought of my poorfather, and my mother not caring about anything any more, --I know Ishould enjoy the chance of being a village girl?"

"You'll be a village girl, I imagine, as your parlor is a villageparlor. All in good faith, but wearing the rue with a difference. "

"I don't mean to. I've been thinking, --_ever_ so much, and I'vefound out a good many things. It's this not falling _on_ to anythingthat keeps people in the misery of falling. I mean to come to land, right here. I guess I preexisted as a barefoot maiden. There's akind of homeishness about it, that there never was in being elegant. I wonder if I _have_ got anything in here that has no business?"

"Not a scrap. I've no doubt the blacksmith's wife's parlor isfiner. But you can't put the _character_ out. "

"I mean to have plants, now; in this bay window. I guess I can, nowthat we have no conservatory. Village people always have plants intheir windows, and mother won't want to see the street staring in. "

"Have you brought some?"

"How could I? Those great oranges and daphnes? No: I shall havelittle window plants and raise them. "

"But meanwhile, won't the street be staring in?"

"Well, we can keep the blinds shut, for the warm weather. "

"Amy will come and see you, when you are settled; Amy and AuntEuphrasia; you'll let them, won't you? You don't mean to be such aviolent village girl as to cut all your old friends?"

"Old friends?" Sylvie repeated, thoughtfully "Well, it does seemalmost old. But I didn't think I knew any of you _very_ well, only alittle while ago. "

"Until the overturns, " said Rodney. "It takes a shaking up, Isuppose, sometimes, to set things right. That's what the Shakerpeople believe has got to be generally. Do you know, theScotch--Aunt Euphrasia is Scotch--have a way of using the word'upset' to mean 'set up. ' I think that is what you make it mean, Miss Sylvie. I understand the philosophy of it now. I got my firstillustration when I tipped you out there at the baker's door. "

"You tipped me out into one of the nicest places I ever was in. I'veno doubt it was a piece of the preparation. I mean to have RayIngraham for my intimate friend. "

Rodney Sherrett did not say anything immediately to this. He sat onthe low cricket upon which he had placed himself near the door, turning his soft felt hat over and over between his hands. He wasnot quite ready to perceive as yet, that the baker's daughter wasjust the person for Sylvie Argenter's intimate friend; and he had adim suspicion, likewise, that there was something in the girlconstitution that prevented the being able to have more than oneintimate friend. 

He repeated presently his assurance that Amy and Aunt Euphrasiawould come over to see them, and took himself off, saying that heknew he must have been horribly in the way all the time. 

The next morning, a light covered wagon, driven by Mr. Sherrett'sman, Rodgers, came up the Turn. There was nobody at the red-roofedhouse so early, and he set down in the front porch what he tookcarefully, one at a time, from the vehicle, --some two dozen lovelygreenhouse plants, newly potted from the choicest and mostflourishing growth of the season. 

When Sylvie and Sabina came round from the ten o'clock street car, they stumbled suddenly upon this beauty that incumbered theentrance. To a branch of glossy green, luxuriant ivy was tied acard, --

 "RODNEY SHERRETT, With friendly compliments. "

Sylvie really sung at her work to-day, placing and replacing tillshe had grouped the whole in her wire frames in the bay window so asto show every leaf and spray in light and line aright. 

"Why, it is prettier than it ever was at the old place; isn't itSabina? It's full and perfect; and that was always a greatbarrenness of glass. The street can't stare in now. I think motherwill be able to forget that there is even a street at all. "

"It's real nobby, " said Sabina. 

The room was all soft green and gray: green rep chairs and sofa, green topped library table; green piano cover; green inside blinds;a green velvet grape leaf border around the gray papered walls. 

Sabina, though a very elegant housemaid, patronized and approvedcheerfully. She was satisfied with the new home. There had not beena word of leaving since it was decided upon. She had her reasons. Sabina was "promised to be married" next spring. Dignity in herprofession was not so much of an object meantime, nor even wages;she had laid up money and secured her standing, living always in thefirst families; she could afford to take it in a quiet way; "itwouldn't be so bothering nor so dressy;" Sabina had a saving turnwith her best things, that spared both trouble and money. Besides, her kitchen windows and the back door suited her; they looked acrossa bit of unoccupied land to the back street where the cabinet-shopbuildings were. Sabina was going to marry into the veneeringprofession. 

CHAPTER VI. 

A LONG CHAPTER OF A WHOLE YEAR. 

Mr. Ingraham, the baker, did not die that day when the doctor'schaise stood at the door, and all the children in the village weresent in for brick loaves. He was only struck down helpless; to liethere and be waited on; to linger, and wonder why he lingered; tofeel himself in the way, and a burden; to get used to all this, andsubmit to it, and before he died to see that it had been all right. 

The bakery lease had yet two years to run. It might have been soldout, but that would have involved a breaking up and a move, whichIngraham himself was not fit to bear, and his wife and daughterswere not willing to think of yet. 

Rachel quietly said, --as soon as her father was so far restored andcomfortable that he could think and speak of things with them, --

"I can go on with the bakehouse. I know how. The men will all stay. I spoke to them Saturday night. "

Ray kept the accounts, and when Saturday night came, the first afterthe misfortune fell upon them, she called all the journeymen intothe little bakery office, where she sat upon the high stool at herfather's desk. She gave each his week's wages, asking each one, ashe signed his name in receipt, to wait a minute. Then she told themall, that she meant, if her father consented, to keep on with thebusiness. 

"He may get well, " she said. "Will you all stand by and help me?"

"'Deed and we wull, " said Irish Martin, the newest, the smallest, and the stupidest--if a quick heart and a willing will can bestupid--of them all. Some stupidity is only brightness not properlyhitched on. 

Ray found that she had to go on making brick loaves, however. Shemust keep her men; she could not expect to train them all to newways; she must not make radical experiments in this trust-work, donefor her father, to hold things as they were for him. Brick loaves, family loaves, rolls, brown bread, crackers, cookies, these had tobe made as the journeymen knew how; as bakers' men had made themever since and before Mother Goose wrote the dear old pat-a-cakerhyme. 

Ray wondered why, when everybody liked home bread and home cake, --ifthey could stop to make them and knew how, --home bread and cakecould not be made in big bakehouse ovens also, and by the quantity. She thought this was one of the things women might be able to dobetter than men; one of the bits of world business that women forcedto work outside of homes might accomplish. Once, men had beennecessary for the big, heavy, multiplied labor; now, there wasmachinery to help, for kneading, for rolling; there was steam forbaking, even; there were no longer the great caverns to be filledwith fire-wood, and cleared by brawny, seasoned arms, when thebreath of them was like the breath of the furnace seven timesheated, in which walked Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 

Ray had often thoughts to herself; thoughts here and there, thattouched from fresh sides the great agitations of the day, which shefelt instinctively were beginning wrong and foremost. "I _will_work; I _will_ speak, " cry the women. Very well; what hinders, ifyou have anything really to do, really to say? Opportunities arewidening in the very nature and development of things; they areshowing themselves at many a turn; but they give definite business, here and there; they quiet down those who take real hold. Outcry isno business; that is why the idle women take to it, and will donothing else. It is not they who are moving the world forward to theclear sun-rising of the good day that must shine. People whoseshoulders are at steady, small, unnoticed wheels are doing that. 

Dot stayed in the house and helped her mother. She had asewing-machine also, and she took in work from the neighbors, andfrom ladies like Miss Euphrasia Kirkbright, and Mrs. Greenleaf, andMrs. Farland, who drove over to bring it from Roxeter, and EastMills, and River Point. 

"Why don't you call and see me?" Sylvie Argenter asked one day, whenshe had walked over to the shop with a small basket, in which to putbrown bread, little fine rolls for her mother, and some sugarcookies. Ray and Dot were both there. Dot was sitting with hersewing, putting in finishing stitches, button-holes, and the like. She was behind the counter, ready to mind the calls. Ray had come into see what was wanting of fresh supplies from the bakehouse. 

"I've been expecting you ever since we moved into the Turn. Ain't Ito have any neighbors?"

The little court-way behind the Bank had come to be called the Turn;Sylvie took the name as she found it; as it named itself to her alsoin the first place, before she knew that others called it so. Sheliked it; it was one of those names that tell just what a thing is;that have made English nomenclature of places, in the old, originalland above all, so quaint and full of pleasant home expression. 

Dot looked up in surprise. It had never entered her head that theArgenters would expect them to call; and truly, the Argenters, inthe plural, were very far indeed from any such imagination. 

Ray took it more quietly and coolly. 

"We are always very busy, since my father has been sick, " she said. "We hardly go to see our old friends. But if you would like it, wewill try and come, some day. "

"I want you to, " said Sylvie. "But I don't want you to _call_, though I said so. I want you to come right in and _see_ me. I nevercould bear calls, and I don't mean ever to begin with them again. "

The Highfords had come and "called, " in the carriage, with pearl-kidgloves and long-tailed carriage dresses; called in such a way thatSylvie knew they would probably never call again. It was a lastshading off of the old acquaintance; a decent remembrance of them intheir low estate, just not to be snobbish on the vulgar face of it;a visit that had sent her mother to bed with a mortified andexasperated headache, and taken away her slight appetite for thedelicate little "tea" that Sylvie brought up to her on a tray. 

The Ingrahams saw she really meant it, and they came in one eveningat first, when they were walking by, and Sylvie sat alone, with abook, in the twilight, on the corner piazza. Her mother had beenthere; her easy-chair stood beside the open window, but she had gonein and lain down upon the sofa. Mrs. Argenter had drooped, physically, ever since the grief and change. It depends upon whatone's life is, and where is the spring of it, and what it feedsupon, how one rallies from a shock of any sort. The ozone had beentaken out of her atmosphere. There was nothing in all the sweetsunshine of generous days, or the rest of calm-brooding nights, torestore her, or to belong to her any more. She had nothing tobreathe. She had nothing to grow to, or to put herself in rapportwith. She was out of relation with all the great, full world. 

"Whom did you have there?" she asked Sylvie, when Ray and Dot weregone, and she came in to see if her mother would like anything. 

"The Ingrahams, mother; our neighbors, you know; they are nicegirls; I like them. And they were very kind to me the day of myaccident, you remember. I called first, you see! And besides, " sheadded, loving the whole truth, "I told them the other morning Ishould like them to come. "

"I don't suppose it makes any difference, " Mrs. Argenter answered, listlessly, turning her head away upon the sofa cushion. 

"It makes the difference, Amata, " said Sylvie, with a brightgentleness, and touching her mother's pretty hair with a tenderfinger, "that I shall be a great deal happier and better to knowsuch girls; people we have got to live amongst, and ought to live alittle like. You can't think how pleasant it was to talk with them. All my life it has seemed as if I never really got hold of people. "

"You certainly forget the Sherretts. "

"No, I don't. But I never got hold of them much while I was justedging alongside. I think some people grasp hands the better for alittle space to reach across. You mayn't be born quite in thepurple, as Susan Nipper would say, but it isn't any reason youshould try to pinch yourself black and blue. I've got all over it, and I like the russet a great deal better. I wish you could. "

"I can't begin again, " said Mrs. Argenter. "My life is torn up bythe roots, and there is the end of it. "

It was true. Sylvie felt that it was so, as her mother spoke, andshe reproached herself for her own light content. How could hermother make intimacy with Mrs. Knoxwell, the old blacksmith's wife, or Mrs. Pevear, the carriage-painter's? Or even good, homely Mrs. Ingraham, over the bake-shop? It is so much easier for girls to cometogether; girls of this day, especially, who in all classes get somuch more of the same things than their mothers did. 

Sylvie, authorized by this feeble acquiescence in what made "nodifference, " went on with her intention of having Ray Ingraham forher intimate friend. She spent many an hour, as the summer woreaway, at the time in the afternoon when Mrs. Argenter was alwayslying down, in the pleasant bedroom over the shop, that looked outunder the elm-tree. This was Ray Ingraham's leisure also; the breadcarts did not come in till tea time, with their returns and orders;the day's second baking was in the oven; she had an hour or two ofquiet between the noon business and the night; then she was alwaysglad to see Sylvie Argenter come down the street with her littlepurple straw work-basket swinging from her forefinger, or a book inher hand. Sylvie and Ray read new books together from the Dorburylibrary, and old ones from Mrs. Argenter's book-shelves. Dot was notso often with them; her leisure was given more to her flower beds, where all sorts of blooms, --bright petunias and verbenas, delicatesweet peas and golden lantanas, scarlet bouvardias and snowydeutzias, fairy, fragrant jessamines, white and crimson androse-tinted fuchsias with their purple hearts, and pansies, poisedon their light stems, in every rich color, like beautiful wingedthings half alighted in a great fluttering flock, --made a gloryand a sweetness in the modest patch of ground between thegrape-trellised wall of the house-end and the bricks of the bakery, against which grew, appropriately enough, some strings of hop vines. 

"I think it is just the nicest place in the world, " said Sylvie, inher girlish, unqualified speech, as they all stood there oneevening, while Dot was cutting a bouquet for Sylvie's mother. "People that set out to have everything beautiful, get the samethings over and over; graveled drives and a smooth lawn, and treesput into groups tidily, and circles and baskets of flowers, and aview, perhaps, of a village away off, or a piece of the harbor, or apeep at the hills. But you are right down _amongst_ such niceness!There's the river, close by; you can hear it all night, tumblingalong behind the mills and the houses; there are the woods just downthe lane beside the bakehouse; and here is the door-stone and theshady trellis, and the yard crowded full of flowers, as if they hadall come because they wanted to, and knew they should have a goodtime, like a real country party, instead of standing off in separateproperness, as people do who 'go into society. ' And the new breadsmells so sweet! I think it's what-for and because that make it somuch better. Somebody came here to _do_ something; and the restwas, and happened, and grew. I can't bear things fixed up to beexquisite!"

"That is the real doctrine of the kingdom of heaven, " said a sweet, cheery voice behind them. They all turned round; Miss EuphrasiaKirkbright stood upon the door-stone. 

"Being and doing. Then the surrounding is born out of the living. The Lord, up there, lets the saints make their own glory. "

"Then you don't think the golden streets are all paved hard, beforehand?" said Sylvie. She understood Miss Euphrasia, and chimedquickly into her key. She had had talks with her before this, andshe liked them. 

"No more than that, " said Miss Kirkbright, pointing to the goldenflush under the soft, piling clouds in the west, that showed inglimpses beneath the arches of the trees and across the openingsbehind the village buildings. "'New every morning, and fresh everyevening. ' Doesn't He show us how it is, every day's work that Hehimself begins and ends?"

"Do you think we shall ever live like that?" asked Ray Ingraham, perceiving. 

"'Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom oftheir Father, '" repeated Miss Euphrasia. "And the shining of the sunmakes his worlds around him, doesn't it? We shall create outside ofus whatever is in us. We do it now, more than we know. We shall findit all, by and by, ready, --whatever we think we have missed; thebuilding not made with hands. "

"I'm afraid we shall find ourselves in queer places, some of us, "said Dot. Dot had a way of putting little round, practical periodsto things. She did not do it with intent to be smart, orepigrammatic. She simply announced her own most obvious conclusion. 

"'The first last, and the last first. ' That is a part of the samething. The rich man and Lazarus; knowing as we are known; beingclothed upon; unclothed and not found naked; the wedding garment. You cannot touch one link of spiritual fact, without drawing a wholechain after it. Some other time, laying hold somewhere else, thesame sayings will be brought to mind again, to confirm the newthought. It is all alive, breathing; spirit in atoms, given to moveand crystallize to whatever central magnetism, always showing somefresh phase of what is one and everlasting. "

Miss Euphrasia could no more help talking so--given the rightcircumstances to draw her forth--than she could help breathing. Herwhole nature was fluid to the truth, as the atoms she spoke of. Talking with her, you saw, as in a divine kaleidoscope, the gleamsand shiftings and combinings of heavenly and internal things; shownin simplest movings and relations of most real and every dayexperience and incident. 

But she never went on--and "went over, " exhorting. She did notbelieve in _discourses_, she said, even from the pulpit--very much. She believed in a _sermon_, and letting it go. And a sermon is justa word; as the Word gives itself, in some fresh manna-particle, toany soul. 

So when the girls stood silent, as girls will, not knowing how tobreak a pause that has come upon such speaking, she broke itherself, with a very simple question; a question of mere littlebusiness that she had come to ask Dot. 

"Were the little under-kerchiefs done?"

It was just the same sweet, cheery tone; she dropped nothing, shetook up nothing, turning from the inward to the outside. It was allone quiet, harmonious sense of wholeness; living, and expression ofliving. That was what made Miss Euphrasia's "words" chord sopleasantly, always, without any jar, upon whatever string was beingplayed; and the impulse and echo of them to run on through the musicafterward, as one clear bell-stroke marking an accent, will seem tosend its lingering impression through the unaccented measuresfollowing. 

Dot went into the house and got the things; fine cambricneck-covers, frilled around the throat with delicate lace. Shefolded them small, and put them in a soft paper. Miss Kirkbrighttook the parcel, and paid Dot the money for her work; she gave herthree dollars. Then she said to Sylvie, --

"Will you walk as far as the car corner with me? I have missed areal call that I meant to have had with you. I have been to yourhouse. "

"Did you see mother?" Sylvie asked, as they walked on, having saidgood-by, and passed out through the shop. 

"No: Sabina said she was lying down, and I would not have herdisturbed. I came partly to tell you a little news. Amy is engagedto Mr. Robert Truesdaile. They will be married in the fall, and goout to England. He has relatives there; his mother's family. Thereis an uncle living near Manchester; a large cotton manufacturer; hewould like to take his nephew into the business; he has a greatdesire to get him there and make an Englishman of him. "

"Does Amy like it? I mean, going to England? I am ever so glad forher being so happy. "

"Yes, she likes it. At any rate she likes, as we all do, the newpleasant beginnings. We are all made to like fresh corners to turn, unless they seem very dark ones, or unless we have grown very oldand tired, which _I_ think there is never any need of doing. "

"How busy she will be!" was Sylvie's next remark, made after a pausein which she realized to herself the news, and received also alittle suggestion from it. 

"Yes, pretty busy. But such preparations are made easily in thesedays. "

"Won't there be ever so many little things of that sort to bedone?" asked Sylvie, signifying the parcel which Miss Kirkbrightheld lightly in her fingers. "I wish I could do some of them. Imean, "--she gathered herself up bravely to say, --"I should likedearly to do _anything_ for Amy; but I have thought it would be agood plan--if I could--to do something like that for the sake ofearning; as Dot Ingraham does. "

"Do you not have quite enough money, my dear?" asked MissKirkbright, in her kindly direct way that could never hurt. 

"Not quite. At least, it don't seem to go very far. There are alwaysthings that we didn't expect. And things count up so at thegrocer's. And a little nice meat every day, --which we _have_ tohave, --turns out so very expensive. And Sabina's wages--and mother'swine--and cream--and fresh eggs, --I get so worried when the billscome in!"

Sylvie's voice trembled with the effort and excitement of tellingher money and housekeeping troubles. 

"Sometimes I think we ought to have a cheaper girl; but I have justas much as I can do, --of those kinds of work, --and a poor girl wouldwaste everything if I left her to go on. And I don't know much, myself. If Sabina were to go, --and she will next spring, --I amafraid it would turn out that we should have to keep two. "

For all Sylvie's little "afternoons out, " it was very certain thatshe, and Sabina also, did have their hands full at home. It iswonderful how much work one person, who _does_ none of it and whomust live fastidiously, can make in a small household. From Mrs. Argenter's hot water, and large bath, and late breakfast in themorning to her glass of milk at nine o'clock at night, which shenever _could_ remember to carry up herself from the tea-table, --sheneeded one person constantly to look after her individual wants. Andshe couldn't help it, poor lady, either; that is the worst of it;one gets so as not to be able to help things; "it was the shape ofher head, " Sabina said, in a phrase she had learned of thecabinet-maker. 

"You shall have anything you can do; just as Dot does, " said MissEuphrasia. "And Amy will like it all the better for your doing. Youcan put the love into the work, as much as we shall into the pay. "

Was there ever anybody who handled the bare facts of life sograciously as this Miss Euphrasia? She did it by taking right holdof them, by their honest handles, --as they were meant to be takenhold of. 

"You like your home? You haven't grown tired of being a villagegirl?" she said, as she and Sylvie sat down on a great flatprojecting rock in the shaded walk beside the railroad track. Theyhad just missed one car; there would not be another for twentyminutes. 

"O, yes. No; I haven't got tired; but I don't feel as if I had quite_been it_, yet. I don't think I am exactly that, or anything, now. That is the worst of it. People don't understand. They won't take usin, --all of them. It's just as hard to get into a village, if youweren't born in it, as it is to get into upper-ten-dom. Mrs. Knoxwell called, and looked round all the time with her nose up in asort of a way, --well, it _was_ just like a dog sniffing round forsomething. And she went off and told about mother's poor, dear, old, black silk dress, that I made into a cool skirt and jacket for her. 'Some folks must be always set up in silk, she _sposed_. ' Everybodyisn't like the Ingrahams. "

"No garment of _this_ life fits exactly. There was only oneseamless robe. But we mustn't take thought for raiment, you see. Thebody is more. And at last, --somehow, sometime, --we shall be allclothed perfectly--with his righteousness. "

This was too swift and light in its spiritual touching and linkingfor Sylvie to follow. She had to ask, as the disciples did, for ameaning. 

"It isn't clothes that I am thinking of, or that trouble me; or anyoutside. And I know it isn't actual clothes you mean. Please tell meplainer, Miss Euphrasia. "

"I mean that I think He meant by 'raiment, ' not _clothes_ so much as_life_; what we put on or have put on to us; what each soul wearsand moves in, to feel itself by and to be manifest; history, circumstance. 'Raiment, '--'garment, '--the words always stand forthis, beyond their temporary and technical sense. 'He laid aside his_garment_, '--He gave up his own life that He might have beenliving, --to come and wash our feet!"

"And the people cast their garments before Him, when He rode intoJerusalem, " Sylvie said presently. 

"Yes; that is the way He must come into his kingdom, and lead uswith Him. We are to give up our old ways, and the selfish things welived in once, and not think about our own raiment any more. He willgive it to us, as He gives it to the lilies; and the glory of itwill be something that we could not in any way spin for our selves. And by and by it will come to be full and right, all through; weshall be clothed with his righteousness. What is righteousness butrightness?"

"I thought it only meant goodness. That we hadn't any goodness ofour own; that we mustn't trust in it, you know?"

"But that his, by faith, is to cover us? That is the oldletter-doctrine, which men didn't look through to see how graciouslytrue it is, and how it gives them all things. For it _is things_they want, all the time; realities, of experience and having. Theytalk about an abstract 'justification by faith, ' and struggle for anabstract experience; not seeing how good God is to tell them plainlythat his 'justifying' is _setting everything right_ for them, andround them, and in them: his _rightness_ is sufficient for them;they need not go about, worrying, to establish their own. The minutethey give up their wrongness, and fall into its line, it works forthem as no working of their own could do. God doesn't forgive a soulideally, and leave it a mere clean, naked consciousness; He bringsforth the best robe and puts it on; a ring for the hand, and shoesfor the feet. People try painfully to achieve a ghostly sort ofregeneration that strips them and leaves them half dead. The Lordheals and binds up, and puts his own garment upon us; He _knows_that we have _need_, " Miss Kirkbright repeated, earnestly. "Salvation is a real having; not an escape without anything, aspeople run for their lives from fire or flood. "

Sylvie had listened with a shining face. 

"You get it all from that one word, --'raiment. ' Your words--thewords you find out, Miss Kirkbright--are living things. "

"Yes, words _are_ living things, " Miss Kirkbright answered. "Goddoes not give us anything dead. But the life of them is his spirit, and his spirit is an instant breath. You can take them as if theywere dead, if you do not inspire. Men who wrote these words, inspired. We talk about their _being_ inspired, as if it were apassive thing; and quarrel about it, and forget to breatheourselves. It is all there, just as live as it ever was; it is givenover again every time we go for it; when we find it so, we neverneed trouble any more about authority. We shall only thank God thatHe has kept in the world the records of his talk with men; and themore we talk with Him ourselves, the deeper we shall understandtheir speech. "

"Isn't all that about 'inner meanings, '--that words in the Biblestand for, --Swedenborgian, Miss Kirkbright?"

"Well?" Miss Kirkbright smiled. 

"Are you a Swedenborgian?" Sylvie asked the question timidly. 

"I believe in the New Church, " answered Miss Euphrasia. "But I don'tbelieve in it as standing apart, locked up in a system. I believe init as a leaven of all the churches; a life and soul that is cominginto them. I think a separate body is a mistake; though I like toworship with the little family with which I find myself most kin. Weshould do that without any name. The Lord gave a great deal toSwedenborg: but when his time comes, He doesn't give all in any oneplace, or to any one soul; his coming is as the lightening from theone part to the other part under heaven. _Lightening_--notlightning; it is wrongly printed so, I think. He set the sun in thesky, once and forever, when He came in his Christ; since then, dayafter day dawns, everywhere, and uttereth speech; and even nightafter night showeth knowledge. I believe in the fuller, more inwarddispensation. Swedenborg illustrated it, --received it, wonderfully;but many are receiving the same at this hour, without ever havingheard of Swedenborg. For that reason, we may never be afraid aboutthe truth. It is not here or there. This or that may fail or passaway, but the Word shall never pass away. "

"What a long talk we have had! How did we get into it?"

The car was coming up the slope, half a mile off. They could see thered top of it rising, and could hear the tinkle of the bell. 

"I wish we didn't need to get out!" said Sylvie. "I wish I couldtell it to my mother!"

"Can't you?"

"I'm afraid it wouldn't keep alive, --with me, " Sylvie answered, witha little sigh and shadow. "Not even as these flowers will that I amtaking to her. I can take, --but I can't give, and I always feel sothat I ought to. Mother needs the comfort of it. Why don't you comeand talk to her, Miss Kirkbright?"

"Talk on purpose never does. You and I 'got into it, ' as you say. Perhaps your mother and I might. But I have got over feeling aboutsuch sort of giving--in words--as a duty. Even with people whom Iwork among sometimes, who need the very first gift of truth, somuch! We can only keep near and dear to each other, Sylvie, and nearand dear to the Lord. Then there are the two lines; and things thatare equal--or similarly related--to the same thing, are related toone another. He can make the mark that proves and joins, any time. Did you know there was Bible in geometry, Sylvie? I very often go tomy old school Euclid for a heavenly comfort. "

"I think you go to everything for it--and to everybody with it, "said Sylvie, squeezing her friend's hand as he left her on thecar-step. 

Nothing comes much before we need it. This talk stayed by Sylviethrough months afterwards, if not the word of it, always the subtlecheer and strength of it, that nestled into her heart underneath allher upper thinkings and cares of day by day, and would not quite letthem settle down upon the living core of it with a hopelesspressure. 

For the real stress of her new life was bearing upon her heavily. The first poetry, the first fresh touches with which she had madepleasant signs about their altered condition, were passed intoestablished use, and dulled into wornness and commonness. Thedifficulties--the grapples--came thick and forceful about her. Atthe same time, her reliances seemed slipping away from her. 

She had hardly known, any more than her mother, how much thecountenance and friendliness of the Sherrett family had done inupholding her. It was a link with the old things--the very best ofthe old things, --that stood as a continual assurance that theythemselves were not altered--lowered in any way--by their alterings. This came to Sylvie with an interior confirmation, as it did to Mrs. Argenter exteriorly. So long as Miss Kirkbright and the Sherrettsindorsed anything, it could not harm them much, or fence them outaltogether from what they had been. Amy Sherrett and Miss Kirkbrightthought well of the Ingrahams, and maintained all their dealingswith them in a friendly--even intimate--fashion. If Sylvie chose tosit with them of an afternoon, it was no more than Miss Euphrasiadid. Also, the old Miss Goodwyns, who lived up the Turn behind themaples, were privileged to offer Miss Kirkbright a cup of tea whenshe went in there, as she would often for an hour's talk overknitting work and books that had been lent and read. Sylvie mightwell enough do the same, or go to them for hints and helps in herwindow-gardening and little ingenuities of housekeeping. Mrs. Argenter deluded herself agreeably with the notion that therelations in each case were identical. But what with the Sherrettsand Miss Kirkbright were mere kindly incidents of living, apartsomewhat from the crowd of daily demand and absorption, were toSylvie the essential resource and relaxation of a living that couldfind little other. 

Sylvie let her mother's reading pass, not knowing how far Mrs. Argenter was able actually to believe in it herself, but clearly andthankfully recognizing, on her own part the reality, --that she hadthese friends and resources to brighten what would else be, afterall, pretty hard to endure. 

The Knoxwells and the Kents and old Mrs. Sunderline were hardlyneighbors, as she had meant to neighbor with them. The Knoxwells andthe Kents were a little jealous and suspicious of her overtures, asshe had said, and would not quite let her in. Besides, she did notdraw toward Marion Kent, who came to church with French giltbracelets on, and a violently trimmed polonaise, as she did towardDot and Ray. 

Old Mrs. Sunderline was as nice and cosy as could be but she neverwent out herself, and her whole family consisted of herself, hersister, --Aunt Lora, the tailoress, --and her son, the youngcarpenter, whom Sylvie could not help discerning was much noted anddiscussed among the womenkind, old and young, as a village--whatshall I say, since I cannot call my honest, manly Frank Sunderline avillage beau? A village _desirable_ he was, at any rate. Of course, Sylvie Argenter could not go very much to his home, to make avoluntary intimacy. And all these, if she and they had caredmutually ever so much, would hare been under Mrs. Argenter'sproscription as mere common work-and-trade people whom nobody knewbeyond their vocations. There was this essential difference betweenthe baker's daughters whom the Sherrett family noticed exceptionallyand the blacksmith's and carpenter's households, the woman who "tookin fine washing, " and her forward, dressy, ambitious girl. Thoughthe baker's daughters and the good Miss Goodwyns themselves knew allthese in their turn, quite well, and belonged among them. The social"laying on of hands" does not hold out, like the apostolicbenediction, all the way down. 

I began these last long paragraphs with saying, that neither Sylvienor her mother had known how far their comfort and acquiescence intheir new life had depended on the "backing up" of the Sherretts. This they found out when the Sherretts went away that autumn. Amywas married in October and sailed for England; Rodney was atCambridge, and when the country house at Roxeter was closed, MissEuphrasia took rooms in Boston for the winter, where her winter workall lay, and Mr. Sherrett, who was a Representative to Congress, went to Washington for the session. There were no more calls; nomore pleasant spending of occasional days at the Sherrett Place; nomore ridings round and droppings in of Rodney at the village. Allthat seemed suddenly broken up and done with, almost hopelessly. Sylvie could not see how it was ever to begin again. Next yearRodney was to graduate, and his father was to take him abroad. Theseplans had come out in the talks over Amy's marriage and her leavinghome. 

Sylvie was left to her village; she could only go in to the MissGoodwyns and down to the bakery; and now that her condescensionswere unlinked from those of Miss Kirkbright, and just dropped intonext-door matter of course, Mrs. Argenter fretted. Marion Kent wouldcome calling, too, and talk about Mrs. Browning, and borrowpatterns, and ask Sylvie "how she hitched up her Marguerite. "

[In case this story should ever be read after the fashion I alludeto shall have disappeared from the catalogues of Butterick andDemorest, to be never more mentioned or remembered, I will explainthat it is a style of upper dress most eminently un-daisy-like inexpression and effect, and reminding of no field simplicitieswhatsoever, unless possibly of a hay-load; being so very muchpitch-forked up into heaps behind. ]

Not that Sylvie dressed herself with a pitchfork; she had beengrowing more sensible than that for a long time, to say nothing ofher quiet mourning; though for that matter, I have seen bombazineand crape so voluminously bundled and massed as to remind one of theslang phrase "piling on the agony. " But Marion Kent came to Sylviefor the first idea of her light loops and touches: then shedeveloped it, as her sort do, tremendously; she did grandly by theyard, what Sylvie Argenter did modestly by the quarter; she had asoul beyond mere nips and pinches. But this was small vexation, tobe caricatured by Miss Kent. Sylvie's real troubles came closer andharder. 

Sabina Bowen went away. 

She had not meant to be married until the spring; but she and thecabinet-maker had had their eyes upon a certain half-house, --neatand pretty, with clean brown paint and a little enticing gingerbreadwork about the eaves and porch, --which was to be vacated at thattime; and it happened that, through some unforeseen circumstances, the family occupying it became suddenly desirous to get rid of theremainder of their lease, and move this winter. John came to Sabinaeagerly one evening with the news. 

Sabina thought of the long winter evenings, and the brightdouble-burner kerosene she had saved up money for; of a little roundtable with a red cloth, and John one side of it and she the other;of sitting together in a pew, and going every Sunday in herbride-bonnet, instead of getting her every-other-Sunday forenoon andhurrying home to fricassee Mrs. Argenter's chicken or sweet-bread, and boil her cauliflower; and so she gave warning the next morningwhen she was emptying Mrs. Argenter's bath and picking up thetowels. She steeled herself wisely with choice of time and person;it would have been hard to tell Miss Sylvie when she came down todust the parlor, or into the kitchen to make the little dessert fordinner. 

And now poor Sylvie fell into and floundered in that slough ofdespond, the lower stratum of the Irish kitchen element, which ifone once meddles with, it is almost hopeless to get out of; and onevery soon finds that to get out of it is the only hope, forlorn asit may be. 

She had one girl who made sour bread for a fortnight, and thenflounced off on a Monday morning, leaving the clothes in the tubs, because "her bread was never faulted before, an' faith, she wudn'tpit up biscuits of a Sunday night no more for annybody!" The nextone disposed of all the dish towels in four days, behind barrels andin the corners of the kettle closet, and complained insolently ofill furnishing; a third kindled her fire with the clothes-pins; afourth wore Mrs. Argenter's cambric skirts on Sunday, "for a finish, jist to make 'em worth while for the washin', " and trod out theheels of three pairs of Sylvie's best stockings, for a likeconsiderate and economical reason. Another declined peremptorily theuse of a flat-iron stand, and burnt out triangular pieces from theironing sheet and blanket; and when Sylvie remonstrated with herabout the skirt-board, which she had newly covered, finding herusing it as a cleaning cloth after she had heated her "flats" uponthe coals, she was met with a torrent of abuse, and the assurancethat she "might get somebody else to save her old rags with theirapurns, an' iron five white skirts and tin pairs o' undersleeves aweek for two women, at three dollars an' a half. She had heardenough about the place or iver she kim intil it, an' the bigger foolshe iver to iv set her fut inside the dooers. "

That was it. It came to that pass, now. They "heard about the placebefore iver they kim intil it. " The Argenter name was up. There wasno getting out of the bog-mire. Sylvie ran the gauntlet of thevillage refuse, and had to go to Boston to the intelligence offices. By this time she hadn't a kitchen or a bedroom fit to show a decentservant into. They came, and looked, and went away; half-dozens ofthem. The stove was burnt out; there was a hole through into theoven; nothing but an entire new one would do, and a new one wouldcost forty dollars. Poor Sylvie toiled and worried; she went to Mrs. Ingraham and the Miss Goodwyns, and Sabina Galvin, for advice; shemade ash-paste and cemented up the breaches, she hired a woman bythe day, put out washing, and bought bread at the bakehouse. Allthis time, Mrs. Argenter had her white skirts and her ruffledunderclothing to be done up. "What could she do? She hadn't anyplain things, and she couldn't get new, and she must be clean. "

At New Year's, they owed three hundred dollars that they could notpay, beside the quarter's rent. They had to take it out of theirlittle invested capital; they sold ten shares of railroad stock at apoor time; it brought them eight hundred and seventy-five dollars. They bought their new stove, and some other things; they hired, atlast, two girls for the winter, at three dollars and two and a half, respectively; this was a saving to what they had been doing, andthey must get through the cold weather somehow. Besides, Mrs. Argenter was now seriously out of health. She had had nothing to dobut to fall sick under her troubles, and she had honestly andeffectually done it. 

But how should they manage another year, and another? How long wouldthey have any income, if such a piece was to be taken out of theprincipal every six months?

In the spring, Mrs. Argenter declared it was of no use; they mustgive up and go to board. They ought to have done it in the firstplace. Plenty of people got along so with no more than they had. Acheap place in the country for the summer would save up to pay forrooms in town for the winter. She couldn't bear another hot seasonin that village, --nor a cold one, either. A second winter would bejust madness. What could two women do, who had never had anything toprovide before, with getting in coal, and wood, and vegetables, andeverything, and snow to be shoveled, and ashes sifted, and fires tomake, and girls going off every Monday morning?

She had just enough reason, as the case stood, for Sylvie not to beable to answer a word. But the lease, --for another year? What shouldthey do with that? Would Mr. Frost take it off their hands?

If Sylvie had known who really stood behind Mr. Frost, and how!

The little poem of village living, --of home simpleness and frugalprettiness, --of _that_, the two first lines alone had rhymed!

They had entered upon the last quarter of their first year when theycame to this united and definite conclusion. That month of May washarsh and stormy. Nothing could be done about moving until clearerand finer weather. So the rent was continued, of course, until theyear expired, and in June they would pack up and go away. 

Sylvie had been to the doctor, first, and told him about her mother;and he had called, in a half-friendly, half-professional way, to seeher. After his call, he had had an honest talk with Sylvie. 

God sometimes shows us a glimpse of a future trouble that He holdsin his hand, to neutralize the trouble we are immediately under;even, it may be, to turn it into a quietness and content. WhenSylvie had heard all that Doctor Sainswell had to say, she put awayher money anxiety from off her mind, at once and finally. Nothingwas any matter now, but that her mother should go where shewould, --have what she wanted. 

Then she went to see Mr. Frost. 

"He would write to his employer, " he said; he could not give ananswer of himself. 

The answer came in five days. They might relinquish the house at anymoment; they need pay the rent only for the time of their occupancy. It would suit the owner quite as well; the place would let readily. 

Sylvie was happy as she told her mother how nicely it had come out. She might have been less so, had she seen Mr. Sherrett's face whenhe read his agent's letter and replied to it in those three lineswithout moving from his seat. 

"I might have expected it, " he said to himself. "She's a child afterall. But she began so bravely! And it can't help being worse by andby. Well, one can't live people's lives for them. " And he turnedback to his other papers, --his notes of yesterday's debate in theHouse. 

 * * * * *

Early in June, there came lovely days. 

Sylvie was very busy. She had kept her two girls with her to theend, by dint of raising their wages a dollar a week each, for theremainder of their stay. She had the whole house to go over; even ayear's accumulation is formidable, when one has to turn out anddispose of everything anew. She began with the attic; the trunks andthe boxes. She had to give away a great deal that would have been ofservice had they continued to live quietly on. Two old proverbsasserted themselves to her experience now, and kept sayingthemselves over to her as she worked: "A rolling stone gathers nomoss;" "Three removes are as bad as a fire. "

She had come down in her progress as far as the closets of their ownrooms, and the overlooking of their own clothing, when oneafternoon, as, still in her wrapper, she was busy at the topmostshelves of her mother's wardrobe, with little fear of any butvillage calls, and scarcely those, wheels came up the Turn, andnames were suddenly announced. 

"Miss Harkbird and Mr. Shoot!"

Sylvie caught in a flash the idea of what the girl ought to havesaid. She laughed, she turned red, and the tears very nearly sprangto her eyes, with surprise, amusement, embarrassment and flurry. 

"What _shall_ I do? Give me your hand, Katy! And where on earth _is_my other dress? Can't you learn to get names right ever, Katy? MissKirkbright and Mr. Sherrett. Say I will be down presently. O, whathair!"

She was before the glass now; she caught up stray locks and thrustin hairpins here and there; then she tied a little violet-edgedblack ribbon through the toss and rumple, and somehow it looked allright. Anyway, her eyes were brilliant; the more brilliant for thatcloudiness beneath which they shone. 

Her eyes shone and her lips trembled, as she came into the room andtold Miss Euphrasia how glad she was to see them. For she rememberedthen why she was so glad; she remembered the things she had longedto go to Miss Euphrasia with, all the hard winter and doubtfulspring. 

"We are going away, you see, " she told her presently. "Mother musthave a change. It does not suit her here in any way. We are going toLebanon for a little while; then we shall find some quiet place, inthe mountains, perhaps. In the winter, we shall have to board in thecity. Mother can't be worried any longer; she must have what shewants. "

Miss Kirkbright glanced round the pretty parlor, as yet undisturbed;at all that, with such labor, Sylvie had arranged into a home a yearago. 

"What a care for you, dear! What will you do with everything?"

"We are going to store some of our furniture, and sell some. DotIngraham is to take my plants for me till we come back to Boston;then I shall have them in our rooms. I hope the gas won't killthem. "

Rodney Sherrett said nothing after the first greeting for someminutes. He only sat and listened, with a sober shadow in hishandsome eyes. All this was so different from anything he hadanticipated. 

By and by, in a little pause, he told her that he had come out toask her for Class Day. 

"I wouldn't just send a card for the spread, " said he. "AuntEuphrasia wants you to go with her. I'm in the Reward of Merit list, you see; I've earned my good time; been grinding awfully all winter. I've even got a part for Commencement. Only a translation; and itprobably won't be called; but wouldn't you like to hear it, if itwere?"

"O, I wish I could!" said Sylvie, replying in earnest good faith tothe question he asked quizzically for a cover to his real eagernessin letting her know. "I _wish_ I could! But we shall be gone. "

"Not before Class Day?"

"Yes; just about then. I'm so sorry. "

Rod Sherrett looked very much as if he thought he had "ground" fornothing. 

Then they talked about Lebanon, and the new Vermont Springs; perhapsMrs. Argenter would go to some of them in July. Miss Kirkbright toldSylvie of a dear little place she had found last year, in the edgeof the White Mountain country; "among the great rolling hills thatlead you up and up, " she said, "through whole counties of wonderfulwild beauty; the sacred places of simple living that can never becrowded and profaned. It is a nook to hide away in when one getsdiscouraged with the world. It consoles you with seeing how greatand safe the world is, after all; how the cities are only dots thatmen have made upon it; picnicking here and there, as it were, withtheir gross works and pleasures, and making a little rubbish whichthe Lord could clean all away, if He wanted, with one breath, out ofhis grand, pure heights. "

All the while Sylvie and Rodney had their own young disappointedthoughts. They could not say them out; the invitation had been givenand been replied to as it must be; this was only a call with AuntEuphrasia; everything that they might have in their minds could notbe spoken, even if they could have seen it quite clearly enough tospeak; they both felt when the half hour was over, as if they hadsaid--had done--nothing that they ought, or wanted to. And neitherknew it of the other; that was the worst. 

When Rodney at last went out to untie his horse, Miss Euphrasiaturned round to Sylvie with a question. 

"Is this all quite safe and easy for you, dear?"

"Yes, " returned Sylvie, frankly, understanding her. "I have given upall that worry. There is money enough for a good while if we don'tmind using it. And it is _mother's_ money; and Dr. Sainswell saysshe _cannot_ have a long life. "

Sylvie spoke the last sentence with a break; but her voice was clearand calm, --only tender. 

"And after that?" Miss Kirkbright asked, looking kindly into herface. 

"After that I shall do what I can; what other girls do, who haven'tmoney. When the time comes I shall see. All that comes hard tome--after mother's feebleness--is the changing; the not staying ofanything anywhere. My life seems all broken and mixed up, MissKirkbright. Nothing goes right on as if it belonged. "

"'Lo, it is I; be not afraid, '" repeated Miss Kirkbright softly. "When things work and change, in spite of us, we may know it is theLord working. That is the comfort, --the certainty. "

The tenderness that had been in heart and voice sprang to tears inSylvie's eyes, at that word. 

"How _do_ you think of such things?" she said, earnestly. "I shallnever forget that now. "

Aunt Euphrasia could not help telling Rodney as they drove awaytoward the city, how brave and good the child was. She could nothelp it, although, wise woman that she was, she refrained carefully, in most ways, from "putting things in his head. "

"I knew it before, " was Rodney's answer. 

Aunt Euphrasia concluded, at that, in her own mind, that we may beas old and as wise as we please, but in some things the young peopleare before us; they need very little of our "putting in heads. "

"Aunt Effie, " said Rodney, presently, "do you think I have been avery great good-for-nothing?"

"No, indeed. Why?"

"Well, I certainly haven't been good for much; and I'm not surewhether I could be. I don't know exactly what to think of myself. Ihaven't had anything to do with _horses_ this winter; I sent RedSquirrel off into the country. What is the reason, Auntie, that if afellow takes to horses, they all think he is going straight to thebad? What is there so abominable about them?"

"Nothing, " said Miss Kirkbright. "On the contrary, everything grandand splendid, --in _type_, --you know. Horses are powers; men are madeto handle powers, and to use them; it is the very manliest instinctof a man by which he loves them. Only, he is terribly mistaken if hestops there, --playing with the signs. He might as well ride astick, or drive a chair with worsted reins, as the little ones do, all his life. "

Rodney's face lit straight up; but for a whole mile he made noanswer. Then he said, as people do after a silence, --

"How quiet we are, all at once! But you have a way of finishing upthings, Aunt Euphrasia. You said all I wanted in about fifty words, just now. I begin to see. It may be just because I _might_ dosomething, that I haven't. Aunt Euphrasia, I've done being a boy, and playing with reins. I'm going to be a man, and do some realdriving. Do you know, I think I'd better not go to Europe with myfather?"

"I don't _know_ that, " returned Miss Kirkbright. "It might be; butit is a thing to consider seriously, before you give it up. Youought to be quite sure what you stay for. "

"I won't stay for any nonsense. I mean to talk with him to-night. "

"Talk with yourself, first, Rod; find yourself out, and then talk itall out honestly with him. "

Which advice--the first clause of it--Rodney proceeded instantly tofollow; he did not say another word all the way over the Mill Damand up Beacon Hill, and Aunt Euphrasia let him blessedly alone; oneof the few women, as she was, capable of doing that great andpassive thing. 

When he had left her at her door, and driven his horse to the liverystable, he went round to his father's rooms and took tea with him. 

The meal over, he pushed back his chair, saying, "I want a talk withyou, father. Can I have it now? I must be back at Cambridge by ten. "

Mr. Sherrett looked in his son's face. There was nothing there ofuncomfortableness, --of conscious bracing up to a difficult matter. He repressed his first instinctive inquiry of "No scrape, I hope, Rod?" The question was asked and answered between their eyes. 

"Certainly, my boy, " he said, rising. "Step in there; the man willbe up presently to take away these things. "

The door stood open to an inner apartment; a little study, beyondwhich were sleeping and bath-rooms. 

Rodney stepped upon the threshold, leaning against the frame, whileMr. Sherrett went to the mantel, found a match and a cigar, cut thelatter carefully in two, and lit one half. 

"The thing is, father, " said Rodney, not waiting for a formalbeginning after they should be closeted and seated, --"I've beenthinking that I'd better not go abroad, if you don't mind. I'mrather waking up to the idea of earning my own way first, --before Itake it. It's time I was doing something. If I use up a year or morein travelling, I shall be going on to twenty-two, you see; and Iought to have got ahead a little by that time. "

Mr. Sherrett turned round, surprised. This was a new phase. Hewondered how deep it went, and what had occasioned it. 

"Do you mean you wish to study a profession, after all?"

"No. I don't think I've much of a 'head-piece'--as Nurse Pond usedto say. At least, in the learned direction. I've just about enoughto do for a gentleman, --a _man_, I hope. But I _should_ like to takehold of something and make it go. I'll tell you why, father. I wantto see what's in me in the first place; and then, I might wantsomething, sometime, that I should have no right to if I couldn'ttake care of myself--and more. "

"Come in, Rodney, and shut the door. "

After that, of course, we cannot listen. 

They two sat together for almost two hours. In that time, Mr. Sherrett was first discomposed; then set right upon one or twolittle points that had puzzled and disappointed him, and to whichhis son could furnish the key; then thoroughly roused and anxious atthis first dealing with his boy as a man, with all a man's hopes andwishes quickening him to a serious purpose; at last, touchedsympathetically, as a good father must be, with the very desire ofhis child, and the fears and uncertainties that may environ it. Whathe suggested, what he proposed and promised, what was partly plannedto be afterward concluded in detail, did not transpire through thatheavy closed door; neither we, nor the white-jacketed serving-man, can be at this moment the wiser. It will appear hereafter. When theycame out together at last, Mr. Sherrett was saying, --

"Two years, remember. Not a word of it, decisively, till then, --forboth your sakes. "

"Let what will happen, father? You don't remember when you wereyoung. "

"Don't I?" said his father, with emphasis, and a kindly smile. "Ifanything happens, come to me. Meanwhile, --you may talk, if you like, to Aunt Euphrasia. I'll trust her. "

And so the Lord set this angel of his to watch over this thread ofour story. 

We may leave it here for a while. 

CHAPTER VII. 

BEL AND BARTHOLOMEW. 

 "Kroo! kroo! I've cramp in my legs, Sitting so long atop of my eggs! Never a minute for rest to snatch; I wonder when they are going to hatch!

 "Cluck! cluck! listen! tseep! Down in the nest there's a stir and a peep. Everything comes to its luck some day; I've got chickens! What will folks say?"

Bel Bree made that rhyme. It came into her head suddenly onemorning, sitting in her little bedroom window that looked rightover the grass yard into the open barn-door, where the hensstalked in and out; and one, with three chickens, was at thatminute airing herself and her family that had just come out oftheir shells into the world, and walked about already as if thegreat big world was only there, just as they had of courseexpected it to be. The hen was the most astonished. _She_ was justold enough to begin to be able to be astonished. Her whole mindexpressed itself in that proud cluck, and pert, excited carriage. She had done a wonderful thing, and she didn't know how she haddone it. Bel "read it like coarse print, "--as her step-mother waswont to say of her own perspicacities, --and put it into jingle, asshe had a trick of doing with things. 

Bel Bree lived in New Hampshire; fifteen miles from a railway; inthe curious region where the old times and the new touch eachother and mix up; where the women use towels, and table-cloths, andbed-spreads, of their mothers' own hand-weaving, and hem their newones with sewing-machines brought by travelling agents to theirdoors; where the men mow and rake their fields with moderninventions, but only get their newspapers once a week; where the"help" are neighbors' girls, who wear overskirts and high hats, andsit at the table with the family; where there are rag carpets and"painted chamber-sets;" where they feed calves and young turkeys, and string apples to dry in the summer, and make wonderful patchworkquilts, and wax flowers, and worsted work, perhaps, in the longwinters; where they go to church and to sewing societies from milesabout, over tremendous hills and pitches, with happy-go-lucky wagonsand harnesses that never come to grief; where they have few schoolsand intermitted teaching, yet turn out, somehow, young men who worktheir way into professions, and girls who take the world byinstinct, and understand a great deal perfectly well that is beyondtheir practical reach; where the old Puritan stiffness keeps themstraight, but gets leavened in some marvelous way with the broaderand more generous thought of the time, and wears a geniality that itis half unconscious of; the region where, if you are lucky enough toget into it to know it, you find yourself, as Miss Euphrasia said, encouraged and put in heart again about the world. Things are sogenuine; when they make a step forward, they are really there. 

But Bel Bree was not very happy in her home, though she sat at thewindow and made rhymes in half merry fashion; though she loved thehills, and the lights, and the shadows, the sweet-blossoming springsand the jeweled autumns, the sunsets, and the great rains, that setall the wild little waterfalls prancing and calling to each otheramong the ravines. 

Bel had two lives; one that she lived in these things, and onewithin the literal and prosaic limit of the farmhouse, where herfather, as farmers must, had married a smart second wife to "lookafter matters. "

Not that Mrs. Bree ever looked _after_ anything: nothing ever gotahead of her; she "whewed round;" when she was "whewing, " sheneither wanted Bel to hinder nor help; the child was left toherself; to her idleness and her dreams; then she neglectedsomething that she might and ought to have done, and then there wasreproach, and hard speech; partly deserved, but running over intothat wherein she should not have been blamed, --the precinct of herstep-mother's own busy and self-arrogated functions. She was tauntedand censured for incapacity in that to which she was not admitted;"her mother made ten cheeses a week, and flung them in her face, "she said. On the other hand, Mrs. Bree said "Bel hadn't got a miteof _snap_ to her. " One might say that, perhaps, of an electricbattery, if the wrong poles were opposed. Mrs. Bree had not foundout where the "snap" lay in Bel's character. She never would findout. 

Bel longed, as human creatures who are discontent always do, to getaway. The world was big; there must be better things somewhere. 

There was a pathos of weariness, and an inspiration of hope, in herlittle rhyme about the hen. 

Bel was named for her Aunt Belinda. Miss Belinda Bree came up for aweek, sometimes, in the summer, to the farm. All the rest of theyear she worked hard in the city. She put a good face upon it inher talk among her old neighbors. She spoke of the grand streets, the parades, Duke's balls, --for which she made dresses, --andjubilees, of which she heard afar off, --as if she were part andparcel of all Boston enterprise and magnificence. It was a greatthing, truly, to live in the Hub. Honestly, she had not got over itsince she came there, a raw country girl, and began herapprenticeship to its wonders and to her own trade. She could notturn a water faucet, nor light her gas, nor count the strokes of theelectric fire alarm, without feeling the grandeur of havingCochituate turned on to wash her hands, --of making her one littlespark of the grand illumination under which the Three Hills shoneevery night, --of dwelling within ear-shot and protection of thequietly imposing system of wires and bells that worked by lightningagainst a fierce element of daily danger. She was proud ofpolicemen; she was thrilled at the sound of steam-engines thunderingalong the pavements; she felt as if she had a hand in it. When theyfired guns upon the Common, she could only listen and look out ofwindows; the little boys ran and shouted for her in the streets;that is what the little boys are for. Somebody must do the runningand the shouting to relieve the instincts of older and busierpeople, who must pretend as if they didn't care. 

All this kept Miss Belinda Bree from utterly wearing out at her dullwork in the great warerooms, or now and then at days' seamstressingin families. It really keeps a great many people from wearing out. 

Miss Bree's work _was_ dull. The days of her early "mantua making"were over. Twenty years had made things very different in Boston. The "nice families" had been more quiet then; the quietest of themnow cannot manage things as they did in those days; for the samereason that you cannot buy old-fashioned "wearing" goods; they arenot in the market. "Sell and wear out; wear out and sell;" that isthe principle of to-day. You must do as the world does; there is noother path cut through. If you travel, you must keep on night andday, or wait twenty-four hours and start in the night again. 

Nobody--or scarcely anybody--has a dress-maker now, in the old, cosyway, of the old, cosy sort, staying a week, looking over thewardrobes of the whole family, advising, cutting, altering, remaking, getting into ever so much household interest and historyin the daily chat, and listening over daily work: sitting at thesame table; linking herself in with things, spring and fall, as theleaves do with their goings and comings; or like the equinoxes, thatin March and September shut about us with friendly curtains of rainfor days, in which so much can be done in the big up-stairs roomwith a cheerful fire, that is devoted to the rites and mysteries ofscissors and needle. We were always glad, I remember, when ourdress-making week fell in with the equinoctial. 

But now, all poor Miss Bree's "best places" had slipped away fromher, and her life had changed. People go to great outfitting stores, buy their goods, have themselves measured, and leave the whole thingto result a week afterward in a big box sent home with everythingfitted and machined and finished, with the last inventions andaccumulations of frills, tucks, and reduplications; and at thebottom of the box a bill tucked and reduplicated in the same modernproportions. 

Miss Bree had now to go out, like any other machine girl, to thewarerooms; except when she took home particular hand-work of buttonholes and trimmings, or occasionally engaged herself for two orthree days to some family mother who could not pay the big bills, and who ran her own machine, cut her own basques and gores, andhired help for basting and finishing. She had almost done with eventhis; most people liked young help; brisker with their needles, sewing without glasses, nicer and fresher looking to have about. Poor "Aunt Blin" overheard one man ask his wife in her dressing-roombefore dinner, "Why, if she must have a stitching-woman in thehouse, she couldn't find a more comfortable one to look at; somebodya little bright and cheerful to bring to the table, instead of thatold callariper?"

Miss Bree behaved like a saint; it was not the lady's fault; sheresisted the temptation to a sudden headache and declining herdinner, for fear of hurting the feelings of her employer, who hadalways been kind to her; she would not let her suspect or be afraidthat the speech had come to her ears; she smoothed her thin oldhair, took off her glasses, wiped her eyes a little, washed herhands, and went down when she was called; but after that day she"left off going out to work for families. "

The warehouses did not pay her very well; neither there was she ableto compete with the smart young seamstresses; she only got a dollarand a quarter a day, and had to lodge and feed herself; yet she kepton; it was her lot and living; she looked out at her third-storywindow upon the roofs and spires, listened to the fire alarms, heardthe chimes of a Sunday, saw carriages roll by and well-dressedpeople moving to and fro, felt the thrill of the daily bustle, andwas, after all, a part of this great, beautiful Boston! Strangethough it seem, Miss Belinda Bree was content. 

Content enough to tell charming stories of it, up in the country, to her niece Bel, when she was questioned by her. 

Of her room all to herself, so warm in winter, with a red carpet(given her by the very Mrs. "Callariper" who could not help amisgiving, after all, that Miss Bree's vocation had been ended withthat wretched word), and a coal stove, and a big, splendid brindledgray cat--Bartholomew--lying before it; of her snug littlehousekeeping, with kindlings in the closet drawer, and milk-jug outon the stone window-sill; of the music-mistress who had the roombelow, and who came up sometimes and sat an hour with her, and tookher cat when she came away, leaving in return, in her own absences, her great English ivy with Miss Bree. Of the landlady who lived inthe basement, and asked them all down, now and then, to play a gameof cassino or double cribbage, and eat a Welsh rabbit: of thingsoutside that younger people did, --the girls at the warerooms andtheir friends. Of Peck's cheap concerts, and the Public Librarybooks to read on holidays and Sundays; of ten-cent trips down theharbor, to see the surf on Nantasket Beach; of the brilliant streetsand shops; of the Public Garden, the flowers and the pond, the boatsand the bridge; of the great bronze Washington reared up on hishorse against the evening sky; of the deep, quiet old avenues of theCommon; of the balloons and the fireworks on the "Fourth of Julies. "

I do not think she did it to entice her; I do not think it occurredto her that she was putting anything into Bel's head; but when Belall at once declared that she meant to go to Boston herself and seekher fortune, --do machine-work or something, --Aunt Blin felt a suddenthankful delight, and got a glimpse of a possible cheerfulnesscoming to herself that she had never dreamed of. If it was pleasantto tell over these scraps of her small, husbanded enjoyments to Bel, what would it be to have her there, to share and make and enlargethem? To bring young girls home sometimes for a chat, or even a cupof tea; to fetch books from the library, and read them aloud of awinter evening, while she stitched on by the gas-light with herglasses on her little homely old nose? The little old nose radiatedthe concentrated delight of the whole diminutive, withered face; theintense gleam of the small, pale blue eyes that bent themselvestogether to a short focus above it, and the eagerness of the thin, shrunken lips that pursed themselves upward with an expression thatwas keener than a smile. Bel laughed, and said she was "all puckeredup into one little admiration point!"

After that, it was of no use to be wise and to make objections. 

"I'll take you right in with me, and look after you, if you do!"said Miss Bree. "And two together, we can housekeep realcomfortable!"

It was as if a new wave of youth, from the far-retreated tide, hadswept back upon the beach sands of her life, to spend its sparkleand its music upon the sad, dry level. Every little pebble ofcircumstance took new color under its touch. Something belonging toher was still young, strong, hopeful. Bel would be a brightness inthe whole old place. The middle-aged music-mistress would likeher, --perhaps even give her some fragmentary instruction in theclippings of her time. Mrs. Pimminy, the landlady, --old Mr. Sparrow, the watch-maker, who went up and down stairs to and from his nestunder the eaves, --the milliner in the second-floor-back, --why, shewould make friends with them all, like the sunshine! There would besinging in the house! The middle-aged music-mistress did notsing, --only played. And this would be her doing, --her bringing; itwould be the third-floor-front's glory! The pert girls at thewareroom would not snub the old maid any more, and shove her intothe meanest corner. She had got a piece of girlhood of her ownagain. Let them just see Bel Bree--that was all!

Yet she did set before Bel, conscientiously, the difference betweenthe free country home and the close, bricked up city. 

"There isn't any out-doors there, you know--round the houses; _home_out-doors; you have to be dressed up and go somewhere, when you goout. The streets are splendid, and there's lots to look at; butthey're only made to _get through_, you know, after all. "

They were sitting, while she spoke, on a flat stone out under theold elm-trees between the "fore-yard" and the barn. Up above wasgreat blue depth into which you could look through the delicatestems and flickering leaves of young far tips of branches. Onelittle white cloud was shining down upon them as it floated in thesun. Away off swelled billowy tops of hills, one behind another, making you feel how big the world was. That was what Bel had beensaying. 

"You feel so as long as you stay here, " replied Miss Blin, "as ifthere was room and chance for everything 'over the hills and faraway. ' But in the city it all crowds up together; it gets just asclose as it can, and everybody is after the same chances. 'Tain't_all_ Fourth-of-July; you mustn't think it. Milk's ten cents aquart, and _jest_ as blue! Don't you 'spose you're better off uphere, after all? Do you think Mrs. Bree could get along without you, now?"

Bel replied most irrelevantly. She sat watching the fowlsscratching around the barn-door. 

"How different a rooster scratches from a hen!" said she. "He justgives one kick, --out smart, --and picks up what he's after; _she_makes ever so many little scrabbles, and half the time concludes itain't there!--What was it you were saying? About mother? O, _she_don't want me! The trouble is, Aunt Blin, we two _don't_ want eachother, and never did. " She picked up a straw and bent it back andforth, absently, into little bits, until it broke. Her lips curledtremulously, and her bright eyes were sad. 

Miss Blin knew it perfectly well without being told; but shewouldn't have pretended that she did, for all the world. 

"O, tut!" said she. "You get along well enough. You like one anotherfull as well as could be expected, only you ain't constitutedsimilar, that's all. She's great for turning off, and goingahead, and she ain't got much patience. Such folks never has. Youcan't be smart and easy going too. 'Tain't possible. She'sright-up-an'-a-comin', and she expects everybody else to be. But you_like_ her, Bel; you know you do. You ain't goin' away for that. Iwon't have it that you are. "

"I like her--yes;" said Bel, slowly. "I know she's smart. I _mean_to like her. I do it on purpose. But I don't _love_ her, with a_can't help it_, you see. I feel as if I ought to; I want to have myheart go out to her; but it keeps coming back again. I could behappy with you, Aunt Blin, in your up-stairs room, with the bluemilk out in the window-sill. There'd be room, enough for _us_, butthis whole farm isn't comfortable for Ma and me!"

After that, Miss Blin only said that she would speak to Kellup;meaning her brother, Caleb Bree. 

Caleb Bree was just the sort of man that by divine compensationgenerally marries, or gets married by a woman that is"right-up-and-a-comin'. " He "had no objections, " to this plan ofBel's, I mean; perhaps his favorite phrase would have expressed hisstrongest feeling in the crisis just referred to, also; it was anormal state of mind with him; he had gone through the world, thusfar, on the principle of _not_ "having objections. " He had none now, "if Ma'am hadn't, and Blin saw best. " He let his child go out fromhis house down into the great, unknown, struggling, hustling, devouring city, without much thought or inquiry. It settled _that_point in his family. "Bel had gone down to Boston to be adress-maker, 'long of her Aunt Blindy, " was what he had to say tohis neighbors. It sounded natural and satisfactory. House-holdsbreak up after the children are grown, of course; they all settle tosomething; that is all it comes to--the child-life out of which ifthey had died and gone away, there would have been wailing andheart-breaking; the loving and tending and watching through cunningways and helpless prettiness and small knowledge-getting: they turninto men and women, and they go out into the towns, or they getmarried, even--and nobody thinks, then, that the little children aredead! But they are: they are dead, out of the household, and theynever come back to it any more. 

Caleb Bree let Bel go, never once thinking that after this she never_could_ come back the same. 

Mrs. Bree had her own two children, --and there might be more--thatwould claim all that could be done for them. She would miss Bel'stelling them stories, and washing their faces, and carrying them offinto the barn or the orchard, and leaving the house quiet of aSunday or a busy baking-day. It had been "all Bel was good for;"and it had been more than Mrs. Bree had appreciated at the time. Belcried when she kissed them and bade them good-by; but she was gone;she and her round leather trunk and her little bird in its cage thatshe could not leave behind, though Aunt Blin did say that "shewouldn't altogether answer for it with Bartholomew. "

Bel herself, --the other little bird, --who had never tried herwings, or been shut up in strange places with fierce, prowlingcreatures, --she could answer for her, she thought!

It is worth telling, --the advent of Bel and her bird in theup-stairs room in Leicester Place, and what came of it withBartholomew. Miss Blin believed very much in her cat with theapostolic name, though she had never tried his principles with acaged bird. She had tutored him to refrain from meat and milk unlessthey were set down for him in his especial corner upon the hearth. He took his airings on the window-ledge where the sun slanted in ofa morning, beside the very brown paper parcel in which was wrappedthe mutton chop for dinner; he never touched the cheese upon thetable, though he knew the word "cheese" as well as if he could spellit, and would stand up tall on his hind paws to receive his morselwhen he was told, even in a whisper, and without a movement, that hemight come and have some. He preferred his milk condensed in thisway; he got very little of it in the fluid form, and did not thinkvery highly of it when he did. He knew what was good, Aunt Blinsaid. 

He understood conversation; especially moral lectures andadmonitions; Miss Bree had talked to him precisely as if he had asoul, for five years. He knew when she was coming back at oneo'clock to dinner, or at nine in the evening, by the ringing of thebells. After she had told him so, he would be sitting at the door, watching for its opening, from the instant of their first sounduntil she came up-stairs. 

When Aunt Blin thought over all this and told it to Bel, on theirway down in the cars, she almost persuaded her niece and quiteconvinced herself, that Bartholomew could be dealt with onprinciples of honor and confidence. They would not attempt to keepthe cage out of his reach; that would be almost to keep it out oftheir own. She would talk to Bartholomew. She would show him thebird, and make him understand that they set great store by it, thatit must not be meddled with on any account. "Why, he never _offers_to touch my tame pigeon that hops in on the table to eat thecrumbs!"

"But a pigeon is pretty big, Aunt Blin, " Bel answered, "and may beBartholomew suspects that it is old and tough. I _am_ afraid aboutmy tiny, tender little bird. "

Bel was charmed with Aunt Blin's room, when she opened the blindsand drew up the colored shades, and let the street-light in untilshe could find her matches and light the gas. It was just after darkwhen they reached Leicester Place. The little lamp-lighter ran downout of the court with his ladder as they turned in. There were twobright lanterns whose flames flared in the wind; one just oppositetheir windows, and one below at the livery stable. There was a biglivery stable at the bottom of the court, built right across theend; and there was litter about the doors, and horse odor in theair. But that is not the very worst kind of city smell that mightbe, and putting up with that, the people who lived in LeicesterCourt had great counterbalancing advantages. There was only one sideto the place; and though the street way was very narrow, theopposite walls shut in the grounds of a public building, where therewere trees and grass, and above which there was really a chance atthe sky. Further along, at the corner, loomed the eight stories ofan apartment hotel. All up and down this great structure, and up anddown the little three-storied fronts of the Court as well, the wholeplace was gay with illumination, for these last were nearly alllodging houses, and at night at least, looked brilliant and grand;certainly to Bel Bree's eyes, seeing three-storied houses andgas-lights for the first time. Inside, at number eight, the onelittle gas jet revealed presently just what Aunt Blin had toldabout: the scarlet and black three-ply carpet in a really handsomepattern of raised leaves; the round table in the middle with a redcloth, and the square one in the corner with a brown linen one; thelittle Parlor Beauty stove, with a boiler atop and an oven in theside, --an oval braided mat before it, and a mantel shelf above withsome vases and books upon it, --all the books, some dozen in number, that Aunt Blin had ever owned in the whole course of her life. Oneof the blue vases had a piece broken out of its edge, but that wasturned round behind. The closets, one on each side of thefire-place, answered for pantry, china closet, store-room, wardrobe, and all. The _refrigerator_ was out on the stone window-sill on theeast side. The room had corner windows, the house standing at thehead of a little paved alley that ran down to Hero Street. 

"There!" says Aunt Blin turning up the gas cheerily, and droppingher shawl upon a chair. "Now I'll go and get Bartholomew, and thenI'll run for some muffins, and you can make a fire. You know whereall the things are, you know!"

That was the way she made Bel welcome; treating her at once as partand parcel of everything. 

Down stairs ran Aunt Blin; she came up more slowly, bringing thegreat Bartholomew in her arms, and treading on her petticoats allthe way. 

Straight up to the square table she walked, where Bel had set downher bird-cage, with the newspaper pinned over it. Aunt Blin pulledthe paper off with one hand, holding Bartholomew fast under theother arm. His big head stuck out before, and his big tail behind;both eager, restless, wondering, in port and aspect. 

"Now, Bartholomew, " said Aunt Blin, in her calmest, most confident, most deliberate tones, "see here! We've brought--home--a little_bird_, Bartholomew!"

Bartholomew's big head was electric with feline expression; his earsstood up, his eyes sent out green sparks; hair and whiskers were onend; he devoured poor little Cheeps already with his gaze; his tailgrew huger, and vibrated in great sweeps. 

"O see, Aunt Blin!" cried Bel. "He's just ready to spring. He don'tcare a bit for what you say!"

Aunt Blin gave a fresh grip with her elbow against Bartholomew'ssides, and went on with unabated faith, --unhurried calmness. 

"We set _everything_ by that little bird, Bartholomew! We wouldn'thave it touched for all the world! Don't--you--never--go--_near_ it!Do you hear?"

Bartholomew heard. Miss Bree could not see his tail, fairly lashingnow, behind her back, nor the fierce eyes, glowing like green fire. She stroked his head, and went on preaching. 

"The little bird _sings_, Bartholomew! You can hear it, mornings, while you eat your breakfast. And you shall have CHEESE forbreakfast as long as you're good, and _don't_--_touch_--the _bird_!"

"O, Aunt Blin! He will! He means to! Don't show it to him any more!Let me hang it way up high, where he _can't_!"

"Don't you be afraid. He understands now, that we're precious of it. Don't you, Bartholomew? I want him to get used to it. "

And Aunt Blin actually set the cat down, and turned round to take upher shawl again. 

Bartholomew was quiet enough for a minute; he must have hiscat-pleasure of crouching and creeping; he must wait till nobodylooked. He knew very well what he was about. But the tail trembledstill; the green eyes were still wild and eager. 

"The kindlings are in the left-hand closet, you know, " said AuntBlin, with a big pin in her mouth, and settling her shoulders intoher shawl. "You'll want to get the fire going as quick as you can. "

Poor Bel turned away with a fearful misgiving; not for that veryminute, exactly; she hardly supposed Bartholomew would go straightfrom the sermon to sin; but for the resistance of evil enticementshereafter, under Miss Bree's trustful system, --though he walked offnow like a deacon after a benediction, --she trembled in her poorlittle heart, and was sorely afraid she could not ever come to loveAunt Blin's great gray pet as she supposed she ought. 

Aunt Blin had not fairly reached the passage-way, Bel had justemerged from the closet with her hands full of kindlings, and pushedthe door to behind her with her foot, when--crash! bang!--what _had_happened?

A Boston earthquake? The room was full of a great noise andscramble. It seemed ever so long before Bel could comprehend andturn her face toward the centre of it; a second of time hasinfinitesimal divisions, all of which one feels and measures in sucha crisis. Then she and Aunt Blin came together at a sharp angle ofincidence in the middle of the room, the kindlings scattered aboutthe carpet; and there was the corollary to the exhortation. Theoverturned cage, --the dragged-off table-cloth, --the clumsyBartholomew, big and gray, bewildered, yet tenacious, clinging tothe wires and sprawling all over them on one side with his fearfulbulk, and the tiny green and golden canary flattened out against theother side within, absolutely plane and prone with the mere smite ofterror. 

"You awful wild beast! I _knew_ you didn't mind!" shrieked Bel, snatching at the little cage from which Bartholomew droppeddiscomfited, and chirping to Cheepsie with a vehemence meant to bereassuring, but failing of its tender intent through franticindignation. It is impossible to scold and chirp at once, howevermuch one may want to do it. 

"You dreadful tiger cat!" she repeated. It almost seemed asif her love for Aunt Blin let loose more desperately herdenunciations. There is something in human nature which turnsmost passionately, --if it does turn, --upon one's very own. 

"I can't bear you! I never shall! You're a horrid, monstrous, abominable, great, gray--wolf! I knew you were!"

Miss Bree fairly gasped. 

When she got breath, she said slowly, mournfully, "O Bartholomew! I_thought_ I could have trusted you! _Was_ you a murderer in yourheart all the time? Go away! I've--no--_con_--fidence _in_ you! No_co-on_--fidence _in_ you, Bartholomew Bree!"

It is impossible to write or print the words so as to suggest theirgrieved abandonment of faith, their depth of loving condemnation. 

If Bartholomew had been a human being! But he was not; he was only agreat gray cat. He retreated, shamefaced enough for the moment, under the table. He knew he was scolded at; he was found out anddisappointed; but there was no heart-shame in him; he would doexactly the same again. As to being trusted or not, what did he careabout that?

"I don't believe you do, " said Aunt Blin, thinking it out to thissame point, as she watched his face of greed, mortified, butpersistent; not a bit changed to any real humility. Why do they say"_dogged_, " except for a noble holding fast? It is a cat which isselfishly, stolidly obstinate. 

"I don't know as I shall really like you any more, " said Aunt Blin, with a terrible mildness. "To think you would have ate that littlebird!"

Aunt Blin's ideal Bartholomew was no more. She might give thecreature cheese, but she could not give him "_con_fidence. "

Bel and the bird illustrated something finer, higher, sweeter to hernow. Before, there had only been Bartholomew; he had had to standfor everything; there was a good deal, to be sure, in that. 

But Bel was so astonished at the sudden change, --it was so funny inits meek manifestation, --that she forgot her wrath, and laughedoutright. 

"Why, Auntie!" she cried. "Your beautiful Bartholomew, whounderstood, and let alone!"

Aunt Blin shook her head. 

"I don't know. I _thought_ so. But--I've no--_con_-fidence in him!You'd better hang the cage up high. And I'll go out for themuffins. "

Bel heard her saying it over again, as she went down the stairs. 

"No, I've no--_con_-fidence in him!"

CHAPTER VIII. 

TO HELP: SOMEWHERE. 

There was an administratrix's notice tacked up on the great elm-treeby the Bank door, in Upper Dorbury Village. 

All indebted to the estate of Joseph Ingraham were called upon tomake payment, --and all having demands against the same to presentaccounts, --to Abigail S. Ingraham. 

The bakery was shut up. The shop and house-blinds were closed uponthe street. The bright little garden at the back was gay with summercolor; roses, geraniums, balsams, candytuft; crimson and purple, andwhite and scarlet flashed up everywhere. But Mrs. Ingraham had on aplain muslin cap, instead of a ribboned one such as she was used towear; and Dot was in a black calico dress; they sat in the kitchenwindow together, ripping up some breadths of faded cloth that theywere going to send to the dye-house. Ray was in the front room, looking over papers. Mrs. Ingraham's name appeared in the notices, but Ray really did the work, all except the signing of the necessarydocuments. 

Everything was very different here, the moment Joseph Ingraham'sbreath was gone from his body. Everything that had stood in his namestood now in the name of an "estate. " Large or small, an estate hasalways to be settled. There had been a man already applying to buyout the remainder of the bakery lease, --house and all. He was readyto take it for eight years, including the one it had yet to run inthe present occupancy; he would pay them a considerable bonus forrelinquishing this and the goodwill. 

Ray had stood at the helm and brought the vessel to port; that wasdifferent from undertaking another voyage. She did not see that shehad any right to hazard her mother's and sister's little means, andincur further risks which she had not actual capital to meet, forthe ambition, or even possible gain, of carrying on a business. Sheunderstood it perfectly; she could have done it; she could, perhaps, have worked out some of her own new ideas; if she and Dot had beenbrothers, instead of sisters, it would very likely have been whatthey would have done. There was enough to pay all debts and leavethem upwards of a thousand dollars apiece. But Ray sat down andthought it all over. She remembered that they _were_ women, and shesaw how that made all the difference. 

"Suppose either of us should wish to marry? Dot might, at any rate. "

That was the way she said it to herself. She really thought of Dotespecially and first; for it would be her doing if her sister werebound and hampered in any way; and even though Dot were willing, could she see clear to decide upon an undertaking that would involvethe seven best years of the child's life, in which "who knew whatmight happen?"

She did not look straight in the face her own possibilities, yet shesaid simply in her own mind, "A woman ought to leave room for that. It might be cheating some one else, as well as herself, if shedidn't. " And she saw very well that a woman could not marry andassume family ties, with a seven years' lease of a bakehouse and aseven years' business on her hands. "Why--he might be a--anything, "was the odd little wording with which she mentally exclaimed at thispoint of her considerations. And if he were anything, --anything of aman, and doing anything in the world as a man does, --what would theydo with two businesses? The whole vexed question solved itself toher mind in this home-fashion. "It isn't natural; there never willbe much of it in the world, " she said. "Young women, with their realwomanhood in them, won't; and by the time they've lived on and foundout, the chances will be over. To do business as a man does, youmust choose as a man does, --for your whole life, at the beginning ofit. "

Ray Ingraham, with all her capacity and courage, at thisturning-point where choice was given her, and duty no longer showedher one inevitable way, chose deliberately to be a woman. She tookup a woman's lot, with all its uncertainty and disadvantage; the lotof _working for others_. 

"I can find something simply to do and to be paid for; that will besafe and faithful; that will leave room. "

She said something like that to Frank Sunderline, when he sattalking with her over some building accounts one evening. 

He had come in as a friend and had helped them in many little ways;beside having especial occasion in this matter, as representing hisown employer who held a small demand against the estate. 

"I am too young, " she told him. "Dot is too young. I should feel asif I _must_ have her with me if I kept on, and we should need tokeep all the little money together. How can I tell what Dot--how canI tell what either of us"--she changed her word with brave honesty, "might have a wish for, before seven years were over? If I wereforty years old, and could do it, I would; I would take girls forjourneymen, --girls who wanted work and pay; then they would bebrought up to a very good business for women, if they came to wantbusiness and they would be free, while they _were_ girls, forhappier things that might happen. "

"That is good Woman's Rights doctrine; it doesn't leave out the bestright of all. "

"A woman can't shape out her life all beforehand, as a man can; shecan't be sure, you see; and nobody else could feel sure about her. Isuppose _that_ is what has kept women out of the real businessworld, --the ordering and heading of things. But they can help. I'mwilling to help, somehow; and I guess the world will let me. "

There was something that went straight to Frank Sunderline'sdeepest, unspoken apprehension of most beautiful things, in RayIngraham's aspect as she said these words. The man in him suddenlyperceived, though vaguely, something of what God meant when He madethe woman. Power shone through the beauty in her face; but powerready to lay itself aside; ready to help, not lead. Made the mosttender, because most perfect outcome and blossom of humanity, womanaccepts her conditions, as God Himself accepts his own, when Hehides Himself away under limitations, that the secret force may lieready to the work man thinks he does upon the earth and with it. Indumb, waiting nature, his own very Self bides subject; yes, and inthe things of the Spirit, He gives his Son in the likeness of aservant. He lays _help_ upon him; He lays help for man upon thewoman. He took her nearest to Himself when He made her to be a helpmeet in all things to his Adam-child. To "_help_" is to do the workof the world. 

Ray's face shone with the splendor of self-forgetting, when she saidthat she would "help, somewhere. "

What made him suddenly think of his own work? What made him say, with a flash in his eyes, --

"I've got a job of my own, Ray, at last. Did you know it?"

"I'm _very_ glad, " said Ray, earnestly. "What is it?"

"A house at Pomantic. Rather a shoddy kind of house, --flashy, Imean, and ridiculously grand; but it's work; and somebody has tobuild all sorts, you know. When I build _my_ house--well, nevermind! Holder has put this contract right into my hands to carry out. He'll step over and look round, once in a while, but I'm to have thecare of it straight through, --stock, work, and all; and I'm to havehalf the profits. Isn't that high of Holder? He has his hands full, you know, at River Point. There's no end of building there, thisyear a whole street going up--with Mansard roofs, of course. Everything is going into this house that _can_ go into a house; andto see that it gets in right will be--practice, anyhow. "

Sunderline chattered on like a boy; almost like a girl, telling Raywhat he was so glad of. And Ray listened, her cheek glowing; she wasso glad to be told. 

He had not said a word of this to Marion Kent that afternoon, whenshe had stopped him at her window, going by. He had stood there afew minutes, leaning against the white fence, and looking across thelittle door-yard, to answer the questions she asked him; about theIngrahams, the questions were; but he did not offer to come nearer. 

Marion was sewing on a rich silk dress, sea-green in color; itglistened as she shifted it with busy fingers under the light; itcontrasted exquisitely with her fair, splendid hair, and the creamand rose of her full blonde complexion. It was a "platform dress, "she told him, laughing; she was going with the Leverings on areading and musical tour; they had got a little company together, and would give entertainments in the large country towns; perhaps goto some of the fashionable springs, or up among the mountain places;folks liked their amusements to come after them, from the cities;they were sure of audiences where people had nothing to do. 

Marion was in high spirits. She felt as if she had the world beforeher. She would travel, at any rate; whether there were anything elseleft of it or not, she would have had that; that, and the sea-greendress. While she talked, her mother was ironing in the back room. The dress was owed for. She could not pay for it till she began toget her own pay. 

What was the use of telling a girl like that--all flushed withbeauty and vanity, and gay expectation--about his having a house tobuild? What would it seem to her, --his busy life all spring andsummer among the chips and shavings, hammering, planing, fitting, chiseling, buying screws, and nails, and patent fastenings, tilesand pipes; contriving and hurrying, working out with painstaking inlaborious detail an agreement, that a new rich man might get intohis new rich house by October? When she had only to make herselflovely and step out among the lights before a gay assembly, to beapplauded and boqueted, to be stared at and followed; to live in adream, and call it her profession? When Frank Sunderline knew therewas nothing real in it all; nothing that would stand, or remain;only her youth, and prettiness, and forwardness, and the facility ofpeople away from home and in by-places to be amused with second-rateamusement, as they manage to feed on second-rate fare?

It was no use to say this to her, either; to warn her as he had donebefore. She must wear out her illusions, as she would wear out herglistening silk dress. He must leave her now, with the shimmer ofthem all about her imagination, bewildering it, as the lovely, lustrous heap upon her lap threw a bewilderment about her own veryface and figure, and made it for the moment beautiful with allenticing, outward complement and suggestion. 

He told Ray Ingraham; and he said what a pity it was; what amistake. 

Ray did not answer for a minute; she had a little struggle withherself; a little fight with that in her heart which made itselfmanifest to her in a single quick leap of its pulses. 

Was she glad? Glad that Marion Kent was living out, perversely, thispoor side of her--making a mistake? Losing, perhaps, so much?

"Marion has something better in her than that, " she made herselfsay, when she replied. "Perhaps it will come out again, some day. "

"I think she has. Perhaps it will. You have always been good andgenerous to her, Ray. "

What did he say that for? Why did he make it impossible for her tolet it go so?

"Don't!" she exclaimed. "I am not generous to her this minute! Icouldn't help, when you said it, being satisfied--that you shouldsee. I don't know whether it is mean or true in me, that I always dowant people to see the truth. "

She covered it up with that last sentence. The first left byitself, might have shown him more. It was certainly so; that therewas a little severity in Ray Ingraham, growing out of her clearperception and her very honesty. When she could see a thing, itseemed as if everybody ought to see it; if they did not, as if sheought to show them, that they might fairly understand. A halfunderstanding made her restless, even though the other half wereless kind and comfortable. 

"You show the truth of yourself, too, " said Frank. "And that isgrand, at any rate. "

"You need not praise me, " said Ray, almost coldly. "It is impossibleto be _quite_ true, I think. The nearer you try to come to it, themore you can't"--and then she stopped. 

"How many changes there have been among us!" she began again, suddenly, at quite a different point, "All through the village therehave been things happening, in this last year. Nobody is at all asthey were a year ago. And another year"--

"Will tell another year's story, " said Frank Sunderline. "Don't youlike to think of that sometimes? That the story isn't done, ever?That there is always more to tell, on and on? And that means more to_do_. We are all making a piece of it. If we stayed right still, yousee, --why, the Lord might as well shut up the book!"

He was full of life, this young man, and full of the delight ofliving. There was something in his calling that made him rejoice ina confident strength. He was born to handle tools; hammer and chiselwere as parts of him. He builded; he believed in building; insomething coming of every stroke. Real work disposes and qualifies aman to believe in a real destiny, --a real God. A carpenter can seethat nails are never driven for nothing. It is the sham work, perhaps, of our day, that shakes faith in purpose and unity; ascrambling, shifty living of men's own, that makes to their sight achance huddle and phantasm of creation. 

Mrs. Ingraham came down into the room where they were, at thismoment, and Dot presently followed. They began to talk of theirplans. They were going, now, to live with the grandmother in Boston, in Pilgrim Street. 

It was a comfortable, plain old house, in a little strip ofneighborhood long since left of fashion, and not yet demanded ofbusiness; so Mrs. Rhynde could afford to occupy it. She had used, for many years, to let out a part of her rooms, --these that theIngrahams would take, --in a tenement, as people used to say, makingno ambitious distinctions; now, it might be spoken of as "a flat, "or "apartments. " Everything is "apartments" that is more than afoothold. 

The rooms were large, but low. At the back, they were sunny andairy; they looked through, overlapping a court-way, into ProvidenceSquare. It was a real old Boston homestead, of which so few remain. There were corner beams and wainscots, some tiled chimney-pieces, even. It made you think of the pre-Revolutionary days oftea-drinkings, before the tea was thrown overboard. The step intothe front passage was a step down from the street. 

Ray and Dot told these things; beguiled into reminiscences ofpleasant childish visiting days; Ray, of long domestication in stilllater years. It would be a going home, after all. 

Leicester Place was only a stone's throw from Pilgrim Street. Fromold Mr. Sparrow's attic window, you could look across to thePilgrim Street roofs, and see women hanging out clothes there uponthe flat tops of one or two of the houses. But what of that, in agreat city? Will the Ingrahams ever come across Aunt Blin and brightlittle Bel Bree?

In the book that binds up this story, there is but the turn of aleaf between them. A great many of us may be as near as that to eachother in the telling of the world's story, who never get the leafturned over, or between whom the chapters are divided, with never aconnecting word. 

The Ingrahams moved into Boston in the early summer. It was Julywhen Bel came down from the hill-country with Aunt Blin. 

CHAPTER IX. 

INHERITANCE. 

Do you remember somebody else who lives in Boston? Have you heard ofthe old house in Greenley Street, and Uncle Titus Oldways, andDesire Ledwith, who came home with him after her mother and sisterswent off to Europe, and something had touched her young life thathad left for a while an ache after it? Do you know Rachel Froke, andthe little gray parlor, and the ferns, and the ivies, and thecanary, --and the old, dusty library, with its tall, crowded shelves, and the square table in the midst, where Uncle Oldways sat? All isthere still, except Uncle Oldways. The very year that had been sobusy elsewhere, with its rushing minutes that clashed out events andchanges as moving atoms clash out heat--that had brought to pass allthat it has taken more than a hundred pages for me to tell, --thathad drawn toward one centre and focus, whither, as into a greatwhirling maelstrom of life, so many human affairs and interests arecontinually drifting, the far-apart persons that were to be thepersons of one little history, --this same year had lifted UncleTitus up. Out of his old age, out of his old house, --out from amonghis books, where he thought and questioned and studied, into theyouth and vigor to which, underneath the years, he had been growing;into the knowledges that lie behind and beyond all books andScriptures; into the house not made with hands, the Innermost, theDivine. Not _away_; I do not believe that. Lifted up, in the life ofthe spirit, if only taken within. 

Outside, --just a little outside, for she loved him, and her lifehad grown into his and into his home, --Desire remained, in this homethat he had given her. 

People talked about her, eagerly, curiously. They said she was agreat heiress. Her mother and Mrs. Megilp had written letters to heroverflowing with a mixture of sentiment and congratulation, condolence and delight. They wanted her to come abroad at once, now, and join them. What was there, any longer, to prevent?

Desire wrote back to them that she did not think they understood. There was no break, she said; there was to be no beginning again. She had come into Uncle Titus's living with him; he had let her dothat, and he had made it so that she could stay. She was not goingto leave him now. She would as soon have robbed him of his money andrun away, while the handling of his money had been his own. It wasbut mere handling that made the difference. _Himself_ was notdependent on his breath. And it was himself that she was joinedwith. "How can people turn their backs on people so?" She broke offwith that, in her old, odd, abrupt, blindly significant fashion. 

No: they could not understand. "Desire was just queerer than ever, "they said. "It was such a pity, at her age. What would she be if shelived to be as old as Uncle Titus himself?" Mrs. Megilp sighed, long-sufferingly. 

Mrs. Froke lived on in the gray parlor; Hazel Ripwinkley ran in andout; she hardly knew which was most home now, Greenley or AspenStreet. She and Desire were together in everything; in the bakeryand laundry and industrial asylum that Luclarion Grapp's missionarywork was taking shape in; in Chapel classes and teachers meetings;in a Wednesday evening Read-and-Talk, as they called it, that theyhad gathered some dozen girls and young women into, for which thedear old library was open weekly; in walks to and fro about the city"on errands;" in long plans and consultations, now, since so muchpower had been laid on their young heads and hands. 

Uncle Oldways had made "the strangest will that ever was, " if thatwere not said almost daily of men's last disposals. Out of the twosister's families, the Ripwinkleys and the Ledwiths, he had chosenthese two girls, --children almost, --whom he declared his "next ofkin, in a sense that the Lord and they would know;" and to them heleft, in not quite equal shares, the bulk of his large property; theincome of each portion to be severally theirs, --Desire's withoutrestriction, Hazel's under her mother's guardianship, until eachshould come to the age of twenty-five years. If either of the twoshould die before that age, her share should devolve upon the other;if neither should survive it, --then followed a division amongpersons and charities, such, as he said, with his best knowledge, and the Lord's help, he felt himself at the moment of devising movedto direct. At twenty-five he counseled each heir to make, promptly, her own legal testament, searching, meanwhile, by the light givenher in the doing of her duty, for whom or whatsoever should be shownher to be truly, and of the will of God--not man, her own "next ofkin. "

"For needful human form, " he said, in conclusion, "I name FrancesRipwinkley executrix of this my will; but the Lord Himself shall beexecutor, above and through all; may He give unto you a rightjudgment in all things, and keep us evermore in his holy comfort!"

Some people even laughed at such a document as this, made as if theAlmighty really had to do with things, and were surer than trusteesand cunning law-conditions. 

"Two girls!" they said, "who will marry--the Lord knows whom--anddo, the Lord knows what, with it all!"

That was exactly what Titus Oldways believed. He believed the Lord_did_ know. He had shown him part; enough to go by to the end of_his_ beat; the rest was his. "Everything escheats to the King, atlast. "

And so Desire Ledwith and Hazel Ripwinkley sat in the old housetogether, and made their pure, young, generous plans; so they wentin and out, and did their work, blessedly; and Uncle Titus'sarm-chair stood there, where it always had, at the library table;and the Book of the Gospels, with its silver cross, lay in itssilken cover where it always lay; and nothing had gone but the bentold form from which the strength had risen and the real presenceloosened itself; and Uncle Titus's grand, beautiful life passed overto them continually; for hands on earth, he had their hands; forfeet, their feet. There was no break, as Desire had said; it was thewonderful "fellowship of the mystery" which God meant, in themanifold wisdom that they know in heavenly places, when He ordainedthe passing over. We call it death; we _make_ it death; aseparation. We leave off there. We gather up the tools that lovedones drop, and use them to carve out, selfishly, our own pleasures;we let their _life_ go, as if it were no matter to keep it up uponthe earth. We turn our backs, and go our ways, and leave saints'hands outstretched invisibly in vain. 

It was ever so bright and cheerful in this house into whichdeath--that was such a birth--had come. These children werebrimming over with happy thankfulness that Uncle Titus had loved andtrusted them so. They never solemnized their looks or lengthenedtheir accent when they spoke of him; he had come a great deal nearerto them in departing than he had ever known how to come, or they toapproach him, before. Something young in his nature that had beenhidden by gray hairs and slowness of years, sprang to join itself totheir youth on which he had laid his bequest of the Lord's work. They ran lightly up and down where he had walked with measuredgravity; they chatted and laughed, for they knew he was gladder thaneither; they sat in Desire's large, bright chamber at their work, orthey went down to find out things in books in the library; and here, though nothing fell with any chill upon their spirits, they handledreverently the volumes he had loved, --they used tenderly theappliances that had been his daily convenience. With an unspokenconsent, they never sat in the seat that had been his. The youngheiresses of his place and trust made each a place for herself atopposite ends of the large writing-table, and left his chair beforehis desk as if he himself had just left it and might at any momentcome in and sit again there with them. They always kept a vase offlowers beside the desk, at the left hand. 

One day, that summer, they were up-stairs, sewing. Rachel Froke wasbusy below; they could hear some light movement now and then, in thestillness; or her voice came up through the open windows as shespoke to Frendely, the dear old serving woman, helping her dust andsort over glasses and jars for the yearly preserving. 

I cannot tell you what an atmosphere of things and relations thathad grown and sweetened and mellowed there was about this old home;what a lovely repose of stability, in the midst of the domesticferments that are all about us in the changing households of thesechanging days. Frendely, who had served her maiden apprenticeship ina country family of England, said it was like the real old placesthere. 

"Hazel, " said Desire, suddenly, --(she did her _thinking_ deeply andslowly, but she had never got over her old suddenness in speech; itwas like the way a good old seamstress I knew used to advise withthe needle, --"Take your stitch deliberate, but pull out your threadas quick as you can, ")--"Hazel! I think I may go to Europe afterall. "

"Desire!"

"And more than that, Hazie, you are to go with me. "

"Desire Ledwith!"

"Yes, those are my names. I haven't any more; so your surprise can'texpend itself any further in that direction. Now, listen. It's allto be done in our Wednesday evening Read-and-Talks. See?"

"O!"

"Very well; begin on interjections; they'll last some time. What Imean is, an idea that I got from Mrs. Hautayne, when I saw her lastspring at the Schermans'. She says she always travelled so much onpaper; and that paper travelling is very much like paper weddings;you can get all sorts of splendid things into it. There are books, and maps, and gazetteers, and pictures, and stereoscopes. Friends'letters and art galleries. I took it right up into my mind, silently, for my class, sometime. And pretty soon, I think we'llgo. "

"O, Desire, how nice!"

"That's it! One new word, or two, every time, and repeat. 'Now saythe five?' as Fay's Geography used to tell us. "

"O, Desire Ledwith, how nice!"

"Good girl. Now, don't you think that Mrs. Geoffrey and MissKirkbright would lend us pictures and things?"

"How little we seem to have seen of the Geoffreys lately! I mean, all this spring, even before they went down to Beverly, " said Hazel, flying off from the subject in hand at the mention of their names. "I wonder why it is fixed so, Des', that the _best_ people--thoseyou want to get nearest to--are so busy _being_ the best that youdon't get much chance?"

"Perhaps the chance is laid up, " said Desire, thoughtfully. "I thinka good many things are. But to keep on, Hazel, about my plan. Youknow those two beautiful girls who came in Sunday before last, andjoined Miss Kirkbright's class? Not _beautiful_, I don't meanexactly, --though one of them was that, too; but real"--

"Splendid!" filled out Hazel. "Real ready-made sort of girls. As ifthey'd had chapel all their lives, somehow. Not like first-Sundaygirls at all. "

"One of them _was_ a chapel girl. Miss Kirkbright told me. She grewup there till she was sixteen years old; then she went to live inthe country. Now I must have those two in, you see. I don't know butMr. Vireo would say it was making a feast for friends and neighbors, if I pick out the ready-made. But this sort of thing--you must havesome reliance, you know; then there's something for the rest to cometo, and grow to. I think I shall begin about it before vacation, while they're all together and alive to things. It takes so long towarm up to the same point after the break. We might have onemeeting, just to organize, and make it a settled thing. O, how goodit will be when Mr. Vireo comes home!"

If I had not so many things to tell before my story can be at allcomplete, I should like nothing better than to linger here in DesireLedwith's room, where there was so really "a beautiful east window, and the morning had come in. " I should like to just stay in thesunshine of it, and show what the stir of it was, and what it hadcome to with these two; what a brightness, day by day, they livedin. I should be glad to tell their piece of the story minutely; butI should not be able to get at it to tell. We may touch such lives, and feel the lovely pleasantness; but to enter in, and have thewhole--that may only be done in one way; by going and doinglikewise. 

This talk of theirs gives one link; it shows you how easily andnaturally they came to have to do with the Ingrahams; how theybelonged in one sphere and drew to one centre; how simply thingshappen, after all, when they have any business to happen. 

Somebody speaks of the ascent of a lofty church spire, as givingsuch a wonderful glimpse of the unity of a great city; showing itsconverging movements, its net-work of connection, --its humancurrents swayed and turned by intelligible drifts of purpose; allwhich, when one is down among them, seem but whirls of a confusingand distracting medley; a heaping and a rushing together of manythings and much conflicting action; where the wonder is that itstays together at all, or that one part plays and fits in with anyother to harmony of service. If we could climb high enough, and seedeep enough, to read a spiritual panorama in like manner, we shouldlook into the mystery of the intent that builds the worlds and workswith "birth and death and infinite motion" to evolve the wonders ofall human and angelic history. We should only marvel, then, at whatwe, with our little bit of wayward free will, hinder; not at whatGod gently and mightily forecasts and brings to pass. 

To find another link, we must go away and look in elsewhere. 

CHAPTER X. 

FILLMER AND BYLLES. 

It was a hot morning in the heart of summer. The girls, coming in totheir work, after breakfasts of sour rolls, cheap, raw, bittercoffee and blue milk, with a greasy relish, perhaps, of sausage, bacon, fried potatoes, or whatever else was economical anduntouchable, --with the world itself frying in the fervid blaze of asun rampant for fifteen hours a day, --saw in the windows earlypeaches, cool salads, and fresh berries; yellow and red bananas inmellow, heavy clusters; morning bouquets lying daintily on wetmosses; pale, beryl-green, transparent hothouse grapes hanging theirglobes of sweet, refrigerant juices before toil-parched, unsatisfied, feverish lips. 

Let us hope that it did them good; it is all we can do now about it. 

Up in the work-room of a great dress-making establishment were heapsof delicate cambric, Victoria lawn, piqués, muslins, piles offrillings, Hamburg edgings, insertions, bands. Machines weretripping and buzzing; cutters were clipping at the tables; theforewoman was moving about, directing here, hurrying there, reproving now and then for some careless tension, rough fastening, or clumsy seam. Out of it all were resulting lovely white suits;delicate, cloud-like, flounced robes of bewitching tints; gracefulmorning wrappers, --perfect toilets of all kinds for girls atwatering-places and in elegant summer homes. 

Orders kept coming down from the mountains, up from thesea-beaches, in from the country seats, where gay, friendly circleswere amusing away the time, and making themselves beautiful beforeeach others' eyes. 

For it was fearfully hot again this year. 

Bel Bree did not care. It all amused her. She had not got worn downyet, and she did not live in a cheap, working-girls' boarding-house. She had had radishes that morning with her bread and butter, and alittle of last year's fruit out of a tin can for supper the nightbefore. That was the way Miss Bree managed about peaches. I believethat was the way she thought the petition in the Litany wasanswered, --"Preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth, thatin due time we may enjoy them;" after the luckier people have hadtheir fill, and begun on the new, and the cans are cheap. There areways of managing things, even with very little money. If you pay forthe _managing_, you have to do without the things. Bel and her aunttogether, with their united earnings and their nice, cosy ways, werevery far from being uncomfortable. Bel said she liked thepinch, --what there was of it. She liked "a little bit brought homein a paper and made much of. "

Bel had been just a fortnight in the city. She had gone right towork with her aunt at Fillmer & Bylles, she was bright and quick, knew how to run a "Wilcox & Gibbs, " and had "some perception, " theforewoman said, grimly; with a delicate implication that some othershad not. Miss Tonker's praises always pared off on one side whatthey put on upon another. 

It had taken Bel a fortnight to feel her ground, and to get exactlythe "lay of the land. " Then she went to work, unhesitatingly, to setsome small things right. 

This morning she had hurried herself and her aunt, come early, andput Miss Bree down, resolutely, against all her disclaimers, in acorner of the very best window in the room. To do this, she movedMatilda Meane's sewing-machine a little. 

When Matilda Meane came in, she looked as though she thought theworld was moved. She did not exactly dare to order Miss Bree up; butshe elbowed about, she pushed her machine this way and that; shebehaved like a hen hustled off her nest and not quite making up hermind whether she would go back to it or not. Miss Bree's nose grewapprehensive; it drew itself up with a little, visible, tremblinggasp, --her small eyes glanced timidly from under the drawn, puckeredlids, it was evidently all she could do to hold her ground. But Belhad put her there, and loyalty to Bel kept her passive. It is somuch harder for some poor meek things ever to take anything, than itis forever to go without. Only for love and gratefulness can theyever be made to assume their common human rights. 

Presently it had to come out. 

Bel was singing away, as she gathered her work together in anopposite quarter of the room, keeping a glance out at her righteye-corner, expectantly. 

"Who moved this machine?" asked Matilda Meane, stopping short in herendeavors to make it take up the middle of the window withoutabsolutely rolling it over Aunt Blin's toes. 

"I did, a little, " answered Bel, promptly. "There was plenty of roomfor two; and if there hadn't been, Aunt Blin must have a good light, and have it over her left shoulder, at that. She's the oldest personin the room, Miss Meane!"

"She was spoken to yesterday about her buttonholes, " she added, ina lower tone, to Eliza Mokey, as she settled herself in her own seatnext that young lady. "And it was all because she could hardly see. "

"Buttonholes or not, " answered Eliza, who preferred to be called"Elise, " "I'm glad somebody has taken Mat Meane down at last. Sheneeded it. I wish you could take her in hand everywhere. If _you_boarded at our house"--

"I shouldn't, " interrupted Bel, decisively. "Not under anycircumstances, from what you tell of it. "

"That's all very well to say now; you're in clover, comparatively. 'Chaters' and real tea, --_and_ a three-ply carpet!"

Miss Mokey had gone home with Bel and Aunt Blin, one evening lately, when there had been work to finish and they had made a "bee" of it. 

"See if you could help yourself if you hadn't Aunt Blin. "

"Why couldn't I help myself as well as she? She had a nice place allalone, before I came. "

"She must have half starved herself to keep it, then. Stands toreason. Dollar and a quarter a day, and five dollars a week for yourroom. Where's your muffins, and your Oolong? Or else, where's yourshoes?--Where's that Hamburg edging?"

"We don't have any Hamburg edging, " said Bel, laughing. 

"Nonsense. You know what I mean. O, here it is, under all thatpiqué! For mercy's sake, won't Miss Tonker blow?--Now I get my ninedollars a week, and out of it I pay six for my share of thatmiserable sky-parlor, and my ends of the crusts and thecheese-parings. No place to myself for a minute. Why, I feel mixedup sometimes to that degree that I'd almost like to die, and beginagain, to find out who I am!"

"Well, I wouldn't live so. And Aunt Blin wouldn't. I'm afraid she_didn't_ have other things quite so--corresponding--when she was byherself; but she had the home comfort. And, truly, now, I shouldn'twonder if there was real nourishment in just looking round, --at ared carpet and things, --when you've got 'em all just to your ownmind. You can piece out with--peace!"

For two or three minutes, there was nothing heard after that in Beland Elise's corner, but the regular busy click of the machines, asthe tucks ran evenly through. Miss Tonker was hovering in theneighborhood. But presently, as she moved off, and Elise had a spoolto change, Bel began again. 

"Why don't you get up something different? Why couldn't a dozen, ortwenty, take a flat, or a whole house, and have a housekeeper, andlive nice? I believe I could contrive. "

Bel was a born contriver. She was a born reformer, as all poets are;only she did not know yet that she was either. That had been thereal trouble up in New Hampshire. She had her ideals, and she couldnot carry them out; so she sat and dreamed of what she would do ifshe could. If she might in any way have moulded her home to her ownmore delicate instincts, it may be that her step-mother need nothave had to complain that "there was no spunk or snap to her aboutanything. " It was not in her to "whew round" among tubs andwhey, --to go slap-dash into soapmaking, or the coarse Monday'swashing, when all nicer cares were evaded or forbidden, when chairswere shoved back against each other into corners, table-cloths leftcrooked, and dragging and crumby, drawing the flies, --mantelornaments of uncouth odds and ends pushed all awry and one sideduring a dusting, and left so, --carpets rough and untidy at thecorners; no touch of prettiness or pleasantness, nothing but clear, necessary _work_ anywhere. She would have made home _home_; then shewould have worked for it. 

Aunt Blin was like her. She would rather sit behind her blinds inher neat, quiet room of a Sunday, too tired to go to church, butwith a kind of sacred rest about her, and a possible hushed thoughtof a presence in a place that God had let her make that He mightabide with her in it, --than to live as these girls did, --even tohave been young like them; to have put on fine, gay things, boughtwith the small surplus of her weekly earnings after the wretchedboard was paid, and parade the streets, or sit in a pew, with aSunday-consciousness of gloves and new bonnet upon her. 

"O, faugh!" said Elise Mokey, impatiently, to Bel's "I couldcontrive. " "I should like to see you, with girls like Matilda Meane. You've got to _get_ your dozen or twenty, first, and make themagree. "

Miss Mokey had very likely never heard of Mrs. Glass, or of the"catching your hare, " which is the impracticable hitch at the startof most delicious things that might otherwise be done. 

"I think this world is a kind of single-threaded machine, after all. There's always something either too tight or too loose the minuteyou double, " she said, changing her tension-screw as she spoke. "No;we've just got to make it up with cracker-frolics, the best way wecan; and that takes one more of somebody's nine dollars, every time. There's some fun in it, after all, especially to see Matilda Meanecome to the table. I do believe that girl would sell her soul if shecould have a Parker House dinner every day. When it's a littleworse, or a little better than usual, when the milk gives out, or wehave a yesterday's lobster for tea, --I wish you could just see her. She's so mad, or she's so eager. She _will_ have claw-meat; it _is_claw-meat with her, sure enough; and if anybody else gets it first, or the dish goes round the other way and is all picked over, --she_looks_! Why, she looks as if she desired the prayers of thecongregation, and nobody would pray!"

"What _are_ you two laughing at?" broke in Kate Sencerbox, leaningover from her table beyond. "Bel Bree, where are your crimps?"

In the ardor of her work, or talk, or both, Bel's hair, as usual, had got pushed recklessly aside. 

"O, I only have a little smile in my hair early in the morning, "replies quick, cheery Bel. "It never crimps decidedly, and it allgets straightened out prim enough as the day's work comes on. It'slike the grass of the field, and a good many other things; in themorning it is fresh and springeth up; in the evening it _giveth_ up, and is down flat. "

"I guess you'll find it so, " said Elise Mokey, splenetically. 

"Was _that_ what you were laughing at?" asked Kate. "Seems to me youchoose rather aggravating subjects. "

"Aggravations are as good as anything to laugh at, if you only knowhow, " Bel Bree said. 

"They're always handy, at any rate, " said Elise. 

"I thought 'aggravate' meant making worse than it is, " said quietlittle Mary Pinfall. 

"Just it, Molly!" answered Bel Bree, quick as a flash. "Take aplague, make it out seven times as bad as it is, so that it'sperfectly ridiculous and impossible, and then laugh at it. Next timeyou put your finger on it, as the Irishman said of the flea, itisn't there. "

"That's hommerpathy, " said Miss Proddle. "Hommerpathy cures byaggravating. "

Miss Proddle was tiresome; she always said things that had been saidbefore, or that needed no saying. Miss Proddle was another of thoseold girls who, like Miss Bree among the young ones, have outlivedand lost their Christian names, with their vivacity. Never mind; itis the Christian name, and the Lord knows them by it, as He didMartha and Mary. 

"_Reductio ad absurdum_, " put in Grace Toppings, who had been at aHigh School, and studied geometry. 

"Grace Toppings!" called out Kate Sencerbox, shortly, "you'vestitched that flounce together with a twist in it!"

Miss Tonker heard, and came round again. 

"Gyurls!" she said, with elegantly severe authority, "I _will_ nothave this talking over the work. Miss Toppings, this whole skirt isan unmitigated muddle. Head-tucks half an inch too near the bottom!No _room_ for your flounce. If you can't keep to your measures, you'd better not undertake piece-work. Take that last welt out, andput it in over the top. And make no more blunders, if you please, unless you want to be put to plain yard-stitching. "

"Eight inches and a half is _some_ room for a flounce, I guess, ifit ain't nine inches, " muttered the mathematical Grace, as she beganthe slow ripping of the lock-stitched tucking, that would take halfan hour out of the value of her day. 

"That's a comfort, ain't it?" whispered mischievous, sharp, good-natured Kate. "Look here; I'll help, if you won't talk any moreLatin, or Hottentot. "

It was of no use to tell those girls not to talk over their work. The more work they had in them, the more talk; it was a test, like asteam-gauge. Only the poor, pale, worn-out ones, like Emma Hollen, who coughed and breathed short, and could not spend strength even inlistening, amidst the conflicting whirr of the feeds andwheels, --and the old, sobered-down, slow ones, like Miss Bree andMiss Proddle, button-holing and gather-sewing for dear life, withtheir spectacles over their noses, and great bald places showing onthe tops of their bent heads, --kept time with silent thoughts to thebeat of their treadles and the clip of their needles against thethimble-ends. 

Elise Mokey stretched up her back slowly, and drew her shoulderspainfully out of their steady cramp. 

"There! I went round without stopping! I put a sign on it, and I'vegot my wish! I'd rather sweep a room, though, than do it again. "

"You _might_ sweep a room, instead, " said Emma Hollen, in her low, faint tone, moved to speak by some echo in that inward rhythm of herthinking. "I partly wish _I_ had, before now. "

"O, you goose! Be a kitchen-wolloper!"

"May be I sha'n't be anything, very long. I should like to feel asif I _could_ stir round. "

"I wouldn't care if anybody could see what it came to, or what therewas left of it at the year's end, " said Elise Mokey. 

"I'd sweep a room fast enough if it was my own, " said KateSencerbox. "But you won't catch me sweeping up other folks' dust!"

"I wonder what other folks' dust really is, when you've sifted it, and how you'd pick out your own, " said Bel. 

"I'd have my own _place_, at any rate, " responded Kate, "and thedust that got into it would go for mine, I suppose. "

Bel Bree tucked away. Tucked away thoughts also, as she worked. Notone of those girls who had been talking had anything like a home. What was there for them at the year's end, after the wearing roundand round of daily toil, but the diminishing dream of a happierliving that might never come true? The fading away out of theirhealth and prettiness into "old things like Miss Proddle and AuntBlin, "--to take their turn then, in being snubbed and shoved aside?Bel liked her own life here, so far; it was pleasanter than thatwhich she had left; but she began to see how hundreds of other girlswere going on in it without reward or hope; unfitting themselves, many of them utterly, by the very mode of their careless, rootlessexistence, --all of them, more or less, by the narrow specialty oftheir monotonous drudgery, --for the bright, capable, adaptivemany-sidedness of a happy woman's living in the love and use andbeauty of home. 

Some of her thoughts prompted the fashion in which she recurred tothe subject during the hour's dinner-time. 

They were grouped together--the same half dozen--in a littleante-room, with a very dusty window looking down into an alley-way, or across it rather, since unless they really leaned out from theirfifth story, the line of vision could not strike the base of theopposite buildings, a room used for the manifold purposes ofclothes-hanging, hand-washing, brush and broom stowing, andluncheon eating. 

"Girls! What would you do most for in this world? What would youhave for your choice, if you could get it?"

"Stories to read, and theatre tickets every night, " said GraceToppings. 

"Something decent to eat, as often as I was hungry, " said MatildaMeane, speaking thick through a big mouthful of cream-cake. 

"To be married to Lord Mortimer, and go and live in an Abbey, " saidMary Pinfall, who sat on a box with a cracker in one hand, and thethird volume of her old novel in the other. 

The girls shouted. 

"That means you'd like a real good husband, --a Tom, or a Dick, or aHarry, " said Kate Sencerbox. "Lord Mortimers don't grow in thiscountry. We must take the kind that do. And so we will, every one ofus, when we can get 'em. Only I hope mine will keep a store of hisown, and have a house up in Chester Park!"

"If I can ever see the time that I can have dresses made for me, instead of working my head and feet off making them for otherpeople, I don't care where my house is!" said Elise Mokey. 

"Or your husband either, I suppose, " said Kate, sharply. 

"Wouldn't I just like to walk in here some day, and order old Tonkerround?" said Elise, disregarding. "I only hope she'll hold out tillI can! Won't I have a black silk suit as thick as a board, withfifteen yards in the kilting? And a violet-gray, with a yard oftrain and Yak-flounces!"

"That isn't _my_ sort, " said Kate Sencerbox, emphatically. "It'splayed out, for me. People talk about our being in the way oftemptation, always seeing what we can't have. It isn't _that_ wouldever tempt me; I'm sick of it. I know all the breadth-seams, and thegores, and the gathers, and the travelling round and round with thehems and trimmings and bindings and flouncings. If I could get _out_of it, and never hear of it again, and be in a place of my own, withmy time to myself! Wouldn't I like to get up in the morning and_choose_ what I would do?--when it wasn't Fast Day, nor Fourth ofJuly, nor Washington's Birthday, nor any day in particular? I think, on the whole, I'd choose _not_ to get up. A chance to be lazy;that's my vote, after all, Bel Bree!"

"O, dear!" cried Bel, despairingly. "Why don't some of you wish fornice, cute little things?"

"Tell us what, " said Kate. "I think we _have_ wished for all sorts, amongst us. "

"O, a real little _home_--to take care of, " said Bel. "Not fine, norfussy; but real sweet and pleasant. Sunny windows and flowers, and apretty carpet, and white curtains, and one of those chromos oflittle round, yellow chickens. A best china tea-set, and a real triglittle kitchen; pies to make for Sundays and Thanksgivings; justenough work to do in the mornings, and time in the afternoons to sitand sew, and--somebody to read to you out loud in the evenings! Ithink I'd do anything--that wasn't wicked--to come to live just likethat!"

"There isn't anybody that does live so nowadays, " said Kate. "There's nothing between horrid little stivey places, and a regularscrub and squall and slop all the week round, and silk and snow andordering other folks about. You've got to be top or bottom; and ifit's all the same to you, I mean to be top if I can; even if"--

Kate was a great deal better than her pretences, after all. She didnot finish the bad sentence. 

"I'll tell you what I do wonder at, " said Bel Bree. "So many great, beautiful homes in this city, and so few people to live in them. Allthe rest crowded up, and crowded out. When I go round through HeroStreet, and Pilgrim Street, and past all the little crammy courtsand places, out into the big avenues where all the houses stand backfrom each other with such a grand politeness, I want to say, Move upa little, can't you? There's such small room for people in there, behind!"

"Say it, why don't you? I'll tell you who'd listen. Washington, sitting on his big bronze horse, pawing in the air at CommonwealthAvenue!"

"Well--Washington _would_ listen, if he wasn't bronze. And its grandfor _everybody_ to look at him there. I shouldn't really want thehouses to move up, I suppose. It's good to have grandness somewhere, or else nobody would have any place to stretch in. But there must besome sort of moving up that could be, to make things evener, if weonly knew!"

Poor little Bel Bree, just dropped down out of New Hampshire! What aproblem the great city was already to her!

Miss Tonker put her sub-aristocratic face in at the door. It is acurious kind of reflected majesty that these important functionariesget, who take at first hand the magnificent orders, and sustaintemporary relations of silk-and-velvet intimacy with SpreadsplendidPark. 

The hour was up. Mary Pinfall slid her romance into the pocket ofher waterproof; Matilda Meane swallowed her last mouthful of thefour cream-cakes which she had valorously demolished withoutassistance, and hastily washed her hands at the faucet; Kate andElise and Grace brushed by her with a sniff of generous contempt. 

In two minutes, the wheels and feeds were buzzing and clickingagain. What did they say, and emphasize, and repeat, in the earsthat bent over them? Mechanical time-beats say something, always. They force in and in upon the soul its own pulses of thought, ormemory, or purpose; of imagination or desire. They weld andconsolidate our moods, our elements. Twenty miles of musing to therhythmic throbbings of a railroad train, who does not know how itcan shape and deepen and confirm whatever one has started with inmind or heart?

CHAPTER XI. 

CRISTOFERO. 

A September morning on the deck of a steamer bound into New York, two days from her port. 

A fair wind; waves gleaming as they tossed landward, with the whitecrests and the grand swell that told of some mid-Atlantic storm, which had given them their impulse days since, and would send thembreaking upon the American capes and beaches, in splendid tumult offoam, and roar, and plunge; "white horses, " wearing rainbows intheir manes. 

The blue heaven full of sunshine; the air full of sea-tingle; amorning to feel the throb and spring of the vessel under one's feet, as an answer to the throb and spring of one's own life andeagerness; the leap of strength in the veins, and the homeward hastein the heart. 

Two gentlemen, who had talked much together in the nine days oftheir ship-companionship, stood together at the taffrail. 

One was the Reverend Hilary Vireo, minister of Mavis Place Chapel, Boston, --coming back to his work in glorious renewal from his eightweeks' holiday in Europe. The other was Christopher Kirkbright, younger partner of the house of Ferguson, Ramsay, and Kirkbright, tea and silk merchants, Hong Kong. Christopher Kirkbright had goneout to China from Glasgow, at the age of twenty-one, pledged to aten years' stay. For five years past, he had had a share in thebusiness for himself; for the two last, he had represented also theinterest of Grahame Kirkbright, his uncle, third partner; hadinherited, besides, half of his estate; the other half had come toour friend at home, his sister, Miss Euphrasia. 

"I had no right to stay out there any longer, making my tools;multiplying them, without definite purpose. It was time to put themto their use; and I have come home to find it. A man may take tillthirty-one to get ready, mayn't he, Mr. Vireo?"

"The man who took up the work of the world's salvation, began to beabout thirty years of age when he came forth to public ministry, "returned Mr. Vireo. 

"I never thought of that before. I wonder I never did. It has comehome to me, in many other parts of that Life, how full it is ofscarcely recognized analogy to prevailing human experience. That'driving into the Wilderness!' What an inevitable interval it isbetween the realizing of a special power and the finding out of itsspecial purpose! I am in the Wilderness, --or was, --Vireo; but I knewmy way lay through it. I have been pausing--thinking--striving toknow. The temptations may not have been wanting, altogether, either. There are so many things one can do easily; considering one's self, largely, in the plan. My whole life has waited, in some chiefrespects, till the end of these ten pledged years. What was I to dowith it? Where was I to look for, and find most speedily, all that aman begins to feel the desire to establish for himself at thirtyyears old? Home, society, sphere; I can tell you it is a strangefeeling to take one's fortune in one's hand and come forth from sucha business exile, and choose where one will make the firstlink, --decide the first condition, which may draw after all therest. Happily, I had my sister to come home to; and I had theremembrance of the little story my mother told me--about my name. Ithink she looked forward for the boy who could know so little thenof the destiny partly laid out for him already. "

"About your name?" reminded Mr. Vireo. He always liked to hear thewhole of a thing; especially a thing that touched and influencedspiritually. 

"Yes. The story of Saint Cristofero. The strong man, Offero, whowould serve the strongest; who served a great king, till he learnedthat the king feared Satan; who then sought Satan and served him, till he found that Satan feared the Cross; who sought for Jesus, then, that he might serve Him, and found a hermit who bade him fastand pray. But he would not fast, since from his food came hisstrength to serve with; nor pray, because it seemed to him idle; buthe went forth to help those who were in danger of being swept away, as they struggled to cross the deep, wide River. He bore themthrough upon his shoulders, --the weak, the little, the weary. Atlast, he bore a little child who entreated him, and the child grewheavy, and heavier, till, when they reached the other side, Offerosaid, --'I feel as if I had borne the world upon my shoulders!' Andhe was answered, --'Thou may'st say that; for thou hast borne Him whomade the world. ' And then he knew that it was the Lord; and he wascalled no more 'Offero, ' but 'Cristofero. ' My mother told me thatwhen I was a little child; and the story has grown in me. The Christhas yet to be borne on men's shoulders. "

Hilary Vireo stood and listened with gleaming eyes. Of course, heknew the old saint-legend; of course, Christopher Kirkbrightsupposed it; but these were men who understood without the saying, that the verities are forever old and forever new. A mother's wiseand tender tale, --a child's life growing into a man's, andsanctifying itself with a purpose, --these were the informing thatfilled afresh every sentence of the story, and made its repetition amost fair and sweet origination. 

"And so, "--

"And so, I must earn my name, " said Christopher Kirkbright, simply. 

"Lift them up, and take them across, " said Hilary Vireo, as ifthinking it over to himself. The old story had quickened him. Agrand perception came to him for his friend, who had begged him tothink for and advise him. "Lift them up and take them across!" herepeated, looking into Mr. Kirkbright's face, and speaking the wordsto him with warm energy. "They are waiting--so many of them! Theyare sinking down--so many! They want to be lifted through. Theywant--and they want terribly--a place of safety on the other side. Go down into the river of temptation, and hardship, and sin, andhelp them up out of it, Christopher. Take them up out of their cruelconditions; make a place for some of them to begin over again in;for some of them to rest in, once in a while, and take courage. Whyshouldn't there be cities of refuge, now, Kirkbright? Men aremapping out towns for their own gain, all over the land, wherever awater power or a railroad gives the chance for one to grow; why notbuild a Hope for the hopeless? Nowhere on earth could that be doneas it could in our own land!"

"A City of Refuge'" Kirkbright repeated the words gravely, earnestly; like those of some message of an angel of the Lord, thatsounded with self-attested authority in his ears. 

After a pause, in which his thought followed out the word ofsuggestion into a swift dream of possible fulfillment, he said tohis companion, --

"I believe there was nothing in that old Jewish economy, Vireo, thatwas not given as a 'pattern of things' that should be. That wholeOld Testament is a type and prophecy of the kingdom coming. Only itwas but the first Adam. It was given right into the very conditionsthat illustrated its need. It would have meant nothing, given into asociety of angels. Yet because men were not angels, but very mortaland sinful men, we of to-day must fling contempt upon the Myth ofthe Salvation of God! It will stand, for all that, --that history ofGod's intimacy with men. It was _lived_, not told as a vision, thatit _might_ stand! It was lived, to show how near, in spite of sin, God came, and stayed. The second coming shall be without sin untosalvation. "

"I'm not sure, Kirkbright, but you ought to be a minister. "

"Not to stand in a pulpit. God helping me, I mean to be a minister. Wouldn't a preacher be satisfied to have studied a week upon asermon, if he knew that on Sunday, preaching it, he had sent it, live, into one living soul? Fifty-two souls a year, to reach andsave, --would not that be enough? Well, then, every day a man mightbe giving the Lord's word out somewhere, in some fashion, I think. He needn't wait for the Sundays. Everybody has a congregation in thecourse of the week. I don't doubt the week-day service is often youpreachers' best. "

"I _know_ it is, " Hilary Vireo replied. 

"Come down into the cabin with me, " said Mr. Kirkbright. "I want tolook up that old pattern. It will tell me something. "

Down in the cabin they seated themselves together where they hadhad many a talk before, at a corner table near Mr. Kirkbright'sstate-room door. Out of the state-room he had brought his Bible. 

He got hold of one word in that old ordination, --"unawares. "

"'He that doeth it _unawares_, " he repeated, holding the Bible withhis finger between the half-shut leaves, at that thirty-fifthchapter of Numbers. "How that reminds of, and connects with, theAtoning Prayer, --'Forgive them, for they know not what they do!''Sins, negligences, ignorances;' how they shade and change into eachother! If all the mistakes could be forgiven and set right, how muchevil, virulent and unmixed, would there be left in the world, do yousuppose?"

"Not more than there was before the mistakes began, " replied Vireo. "Like the Arabian genie, the monster would be drawn down from itshorrible expansion to a point again, --the point of a possibility;the serpent suggestion of evil choice. When God has done his work offorgiving, there is where it will be, I think; and the Son of thewoman shall set his heel upon its head. "

"I wish I could see what lies behind this, " said Mr. Kirkbright. "'He shall abide in it unto the death of the high-priest, ' and afterthat, 'the slayer shall return into the land of his possession. 'That might almost seem to point to the old sacrificial idea; theatonement by death. I cannot rest in that. I wish I could see itswhole meaning, --for meaning it must have, and a meaning of _life_. "

"A temporary ministry; a limited exile; the one the measure of theother, " sail Hilary Vireo, slowly thinking it out, and taking thebook from the hand of his friend, to look over the words themselves, as he did so. 

"The glory is in the promise: 'he shall return into the land of hispossession. ' His life shall be given back to him, --all that it wasmeant to be. It shall be kept open for him, till the time of hisbanishment is over. Meanwhile, over even this period is a holyproviding, an anointed commission of grace. "

"But hear this, " he continued, turning to the Epistle to theHebrews, "and put the suggestions alongside. All but God's final andeternal _best_ is transitional. 'They truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. Butthis man, because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeablepriesthood. Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost, that come to God by Him. ' Did it ever occur to you to think aboutthat saving to the uttermost? Not a scrap of blessed possibilityforfeited, lost? All gathered up, restored, put into our handsagain, from the redeeming hands of Christ? Backward and forward, through all that was irretrievable to us; sought, and traced, andfound, and brought back with rejoicing; the whole house swept, untilnot one silver piece is missing. That is the return into the land ofour possession. _That_ is God's salvation, and his gospel! That iswhat shall come to pass. Not yet; not while we are only under thelesser ministry; but when that priesthood over the time of ourwaiting ends, and we have believed unto the full appearing of theLord!"

The speaker's face flushed and glowed; Hilary Vireo, always glad andstrong in look and bearing, was grandly joyful when the power of thegospel he had to preach came upon him; the gospel of a full, perfect, and unstinted hope. 

"Is that what you tell your simple people?" asked ChristopherKirkbright, fixing deeply eager eyes upon him. 

"Yes; just that. In simplest words, changed and repeated often. Itis the whole burden of my message. What other message is there, tomen's souls? 'Repent, and receive the remission of your sins!' Buildyour city of refuge, Mr. Kirkbright, and show them a beginning ofthe fulfillment. "

Whist and euchre tables not far off were breaking up, just beforelunch, with laughter and raised voices. Ladies were coming down fromthe deck. In the stir, Mr. Vireo rose and went away. ChristopherKirkbright carried his Bible back into his state-room, and shut thedoor. 

CHAPTER XII. 

LETTERS AND LINKS. 

That same September morning, Miss Euphrasia, sitting in her prettycorner room at Mrs. Georgeson's, --just returned to her city lifefrom the rest and sweetness of a country summer, --had lettersbrought to her door. 

The first was in a thin, strong, blue envelope, with London andLiverpool postmarks, and "per Steamer Calabria, " written up in thecorner, business-wise, with the date, and a dash underneath. Thisshe opened first, for the English postmarks, associated with thathandwriting, gave her a sudden thrill of bewildered surprise:--

 "MY DEAR SISTER, --Within a very few days after this will reach you, I hope myself to land in America, and to see if, after all these years, you and I can do something about a home together. We learn one good of long separations, by what we get of them in this world. We can't help beginning again, if not actually where we left off, at least with the thought we left off at, 'live and fresh in our hearts. The thought, I mean, as regards each other; we have both got some thoughts uppermost by this time, doubtless, that we had not lived to then. At any rate, I have, who had ten years ago only the notions and dreams of twenty-one. I come straight to you with them, just as I went from you, dear elder sister, with your love and blessing upon me, into the great, working world. 

 "Send a line to meet me in New York at Frazer and Doubleday's, and let me know your exact whereabouts. I found Sherrett here, and had a run to Manchester with him to see Amy. That's the sort of thing I can't believe when I do see it, --Mary's baby married and housekeeping! I'm glad you are my elder, Effie; I shall not see much difference in you. Thirty-one and forty-three will only have come nearer together. And you are sure to be what only such fresh-souled women as you _can_ be at forty-three. "

With this little touch of loving compliment the letter ended. 

Miss Euphrasia got up and walked over to her toilet-glass. Do youthink, with all her outgoing goodness, she had not enough in herfor this, of that sweet woman-feeling that desires a truebeauty-blossoming for each good season of life as it comes? A pure, gentle showing, in face and voice and movement, of all that islovely for a woman to show, and that she tells one of God's ownwords by showing, if only it be true, and not a putting on offalseness?

If Miss Euphrasia had not cared what she would seem like in the eyesas well as to the heart of this brother coming home, there wouldhave been something wanting to her of genuine womanhood. Yet she hadgone daily about her Lord's business, thinking of that first; notstopping to watch the graying or thinning of hairs, or the gatheringof life-lines about eyes and mouth, or studying how to replace orsmooth or disguise anything. She let her life write itself; she onlymade all fair, according to the sense of true grace that was in her;fair as she could with that which remained. She had neitherneglected, nor feverishly contrived and worried; and so at fortythree she was just what Christopher, with his Scotch second-sight, beheld her; what she beheld herself now as she went to look at herface in the glass, and to guess what he would think of it. 

She saw a picture like this:--

Soft, large eyes, with no world-harass in them; little curvesimprinted at the corners that may be as beautiful in later age aslip-dimples are in girlhood; a fair, broad forehead, that had neverlearned to frown; lines about mouth and chin, in sweet, honestharmony with the record of the eyes; no strain, no distortion ofconsciousness grown into haggard wornness; a fine, open, contentedplay of feature had wrought over all like a charm of sunshine, tosoften and brighten continually. Her hair had been golden-brown;there was plenty of it still; it had kept so much of the gold thatit was now like a tender mist through which the light flashes andsmiles. Of all color-changes, this is the rarest. 

Miss Euphrasia smiled at her own look. "It is the home-face, Iguess; Christie will know it. " Smiling, she showed white edges ofperfect teeth. 

"What a silly old thing I am!" she said, softly; and she blushed upand looked prettier yet. 

"Why, I _will_ not be such a fool!" she exclaimed, then, reallyindignant; and sat down to read her second letter, which she hadhalf forgotten:--

 "BRICKFIELD FARMS, (near Tillington), Maine. 

 "DEAR MISS EUPHRASIA, --I have not written to you since we left Conway, because there seemed so little really to trouble you with; but your kind letter coming the other day made me feel as if I must have a talk with you, and perhaps tell you something which I did not fully tell you before. We left our address with Mr. Dill, although except you, I hardly know of anybody from whom a letter would be likely to come. Isn't it strange, how easily one may slip aside and drop out of everything? We heard of this place from some people who bad been to Sebago Lake and Pleasant Mountain, and up from there across the country to Gorham, and so round to Conway through the Glen. 

 "Mother was not well at Conway; indeed, dear Miss Euphrasia, she is more ill, perhaps, than I dare to think. She is very weak; I dread another move, and the winter is so near! May be the pleasant October weather will build her up; at any rate, we must stay here until she is much better. We have found such good, kind, plain people! I will tell you presently how nice it is for us, and the plans I have been able to make for the present. It has been a very expensive summer; we have moved about so much; and in all the places where we have been before, the board has been so high. At Lebanon and Sharon it was dreadful; I really had to worry mother to get away; and then Stowe was not much better, and at Jefferson the air was too bracing. At Crawford's it was lovely, but the bill was fearful! So we drifted down, till we finished August in Conway, and heard of this. I wish we had known of it at the beginning; but then I suppose it would not have suited mother for all summer. 

 "I had a great worry at Sharon, Miss Euphrasia, and it has grown worse since. I can't help being afraid mother has been dreadfully cheated. We got acquainted with some people there; a Mr. And Mrs. Farron Saftleigh, rich Westerners, who made a good deal of show of everything; money, and talk, and conjugal devotion, and friendship. Mrs. Saftleigh came a great deal to mother's room, and gave her all the little chat of the place, --I'm afraid I don't amuse mother myself as much as I ought, but some things do seem so tiresome to tell over, when you've seen more than enough of them yourself, --and she used to take her out to drive nearly every day. 

 "Well, it seemed that Mr. Saftleigh had gone out West only six years ago, and had made all his money since, in land and railroad business. Mrs. Saftleigh said that 'whatever Farron touched was sure to double. ' She _meant_ money; but I thought of our perplexities when she said it, and he certainly has managed to double _them_. He went to New York two or three times while we were at the Springs; he was transacting railroad business; getting stock taken up in the new piece of road laid out from Latterend to Donnowhair; and he was at the head of a company that had bought up all the land along the route. 'Sure to sell at enormous profits any time after the railroad was opened. ' Poor mother got so feverish about it! She didn't see why our little money shouldn't be doubled as well as other people's. And then she cried so about being left a widow, with nobody out in the world to get a share of anything for her; and Mrs. Saftleigh used to tell her that such work was just what friends were made for, and it was so providential that she had met her here just now; and she was always calling her 'sweet Mrs. Argenter. '

 "Nobody could help it; mother worried herself sick, when I begged her to wait till we could come home and consult some friend we knew. 'The chance would be lost forever, ' she said; 'and who could be kinder than the Saftleighs, or could know half so much? Mr. Farron Saftleigh risked his own money in it. ' And at last, she wrote home and had her Dorbury mortgage sold, and paid eight thousand dollars of it to Mr. Saftleigh, for shares in the railroad, and land in Donnowhair. And, dear Miss Euphrasia, that is all we've got now, except just a few hundred dollars on deposit in the Continental, and the other four thousand of the mortgage, that mother put into Manufacturers' Insurance stock, to pacify me. If the land _doesn't_ sell out there in six months, as Mr. Saftleigh says it will, I don't know where any more income for us is to come from. 

 "I am saving all I can here, for the winter _must_ cost. You would laugh if you knew how I am saving! I am helping Mrs. Jeffords do her work, and she doesn't charge me any board, and so I lay up the money without letting mother know it. I don't feel as if that were quite right, --or comfortable, at least; but after all, why shouldn't she be cheated a little bit the other way, if it is possible? That is why I hope we shall be here all through October. 

 "We are having lovely weather now; not a sign of frost. Although this place is so far north, it is sheltered by great hills, and seems to lie under the lee, both ways, of high mountain ranges, so that the cold does not really set in very early. It is a curious place. I wish I had left room to tell you more about it. There is a great level basin, around which slope the uplands, rising farther and farther on every side except the south, until you get among the real mountain regions. On these slopes are the farms; the Jeffords', and the Applebees', and the Patchons', and the Stilphins'. Aren't they quaint, comfortable old country names? I think they only have such names among farmers. The name of the place, --or rather neighborhood, for I don't know where the _place_ actually is--there are three places, and they are all four or five miles off--Mill Village, and Pemunk, and Sandon; the name of the neighborhood, --Brickfield Farms, comes from there having been brickmaking done here at one time; but it was given up. The man who owned it got in debt, and failed, I believe; and nobody has taken hold of it again, because it is so far from lines of transportation; but there are some cottages about the foot of Cone Hill, where the laborers used to live; and a big queer, old red brick house, that looks as if it were walking up stairs, --built on flat, natural steps of the rock, and so climbing up, room behind room, with steps inside to correspond. I have liked so much to go through it, and imagine stories about it, though all the story there is, is that of Mr. Flavius Josephus Browne, the man of the brick enterprise, who built it in this odd way, and probably imagined a story for himself that he never lived out in it, because his money and his business came to an end. How strange it is that work doesn't always make money, and that it takes so much combination to make anything worth while! I wonder that even men know just what to do. And as for women, --why, when they take to elbowing men out, what will it all come to?

 "I have written on, until I have written off some of my heavy feelings that I began with. If I could only _talk_ to you, dear Miss Euphrasia, I think they would all go. But I will not trouble you any longer now; I am quite ashamed of the great packet this will make when it is folded up. But you told me to let you know all about myself, and I can't help minding such an injunction as that!

 "Yours gratefully and affectionately always, "SYLVIE ARGENTER. "

Miss Kirkbright had not read this straight through without a pause. Two or three times she had let her hands drop to her lap with theletter in them, and sat thinking. When she came to what Sylvie saidabout her "laughing to know how she had been saving, " Miss Euphrasiastopped, not to laugh, but to wipe tears from her eyes. 

"The poor, dear, brave little soul!" she said to herself. "And thatblessed Mrs. Jeffords, --to let her think she is earning her boardwith ironing sheets, perhaps, and washing dishes! Km!"

That last unspellable sound was a half choke and half chuckle, thatMiss Euphrasia surprised herself in making out of the sudden, mixedimpulse to sob, and laugh, and to catch somebody in her arms andkiss that wasn't there. 

"If I were an angel, I suppose I _could_ wait, " she went on sayingto herself after that. "But even for them, it must be hard work sometimes. And so, --how the great Reasons Why flash upon one out ofone's own little experience!--of that wonderful, blessed Day, whenall shall be made right, the angels in heaven know not, neither theSon, but the Father only! The Lord cannot even trust the pure humanthat is in Himself to dwell, separately, upon that End which is tobe, but may not be yet!"

I do not suppose anything whatever could come into Miss Euphrasia'slife, or touch her with its circumstance, that she did notstraightway read in it the wider truth beyond the letter. She was aSwedenborgian, not after Swedenborg, but by the living gift itself. Her insight was no separate thing, taken up and used now and then, of a purpose. It was as different from that as eyes are fromspectacles. She could not help her little sermons. They preachedthemselves to her and in her, continually. So, if we go along withher, we must take her with her interpretations. Some friend said ofher once, that she was a life with marginal notes; and the noteswere the larger part of it. 

But Miss Euphrasia found a postscript, presently, to Sylvie'sletter, written hurriedly on the other side of the last leaf; as ifshe had made haste, before she should lose courage and change hermind about saying it:--

"Do you think it would be possible to find any sort of place inBoston where I could do something to help pay, this winter, --andwill you try for me? I could sew, or do little things about a house, or read or write for somebody. I could help in a nursery, or teach, some hours in a day, --hours when mother likes to be quiet; and shewould not know. "

This was essential. "Mother must not know. "

The finding of this postscript drove out of Miss Euphrasia's mindanother thought that had suddenly come into it as she turned theletter over in her fingers. It was some minutes before she went backto it; minutes in which she was quite absorbed with simplesuggestions and peradventures in Sylvie's behalf. 

But--"Brickfield Farms? Sandon? Josephus Browne. " When had she heardthose names before? What hopeless piece of property was it she hadheard her brother-in-law speak of long ago, --somewhere downEast, --where there were old kilns and clay-pits? Something that hadcome into or passed through his hands for a debt?

"There is a great tangling of links here. What are they shaken intomy fingers for, I wonder? What is there here to be tied, or to beunraveled?"

For she believed firmly, always, that things did not happen in ajumble, however jumbled they might seem. Though she could scarcelykeep two thoughts together of the many crowded ones that had come toher, one upon another, this strange morning, she was sure the Lordknew all about it, and that He had not sent them upon her in anyreal confusion. She knew that there was no precipitance--noinconsequence--with Him. 

"They are threads picked out for some work that He will do, " shesaid, as she tucked her brother's letter into a low, broad basketbeside the white and rose and violet wools with which she was at oddminutes crocheting a dainty footspread for an invalid friend, andput the other in her pocket. 

"Now I will tie my bonnet on, and go, as I had meant, to see Desire. That, also, is a piece of this same morning. "

Miss Kirkbright, likewise, watched and learned a story that told andrepeated itself as it went along, of a House that was building bitby bit, and of life that lay about it. Only hers was the house theLord builds; and the stories of it, and all the sentences of thestory, were the things He daily puts together. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

RACHEL FROKE'S TROUBLE. 

Desire was out. She had gone down to Neighbor Street, to seeLuclarion Grapp. 

Luclarion had a Home there now; a place where girls and women cameand went, and always found a rest and a welcome, to stay a night, ora week, or as long as they needed, provided only, that they enteredinto the work and spirit of the house while they did stay. 

Luclarion still sold her good, cheap white loaves and brown, hermuffins and her crumpets; and she had what she called her "bigbaking room, " where a dozen women could work at the troughs and thekneaders and the ovens; and in this bakery they learned an honesttrade that would stand them in stead for self-support, whether tofurnish a commodity for sale, or in homes where daily bread must beput together as well as prayed for. 

"You can do something now that all the world wants done; that's asgood as a gold mine, and ever so much better, " said Luclarion Grapp. 

Then she had a laundry. From letting her lodgers wash and iron forthemselves, to put their scanty wardrobes into the best conditionand repair, she went on to showing them nice work and taking it infor them to do; until now there were some dozen families who senther weakly washing, three to five dollars' worth each; and for tenmonths in the year a hundred and eighty dollars were her averagereceipts. 

Down at "The Neighbors, "--as from the name of the street and thespirit and growth of the thing it had come to be called, --they had"Evenings;" when friends of the place came in and made it pleasant;brought books and pictures, flowers and fruit, and made a littletreat of it for mind and heart and body. It was some plan for one ofthese that had taken Desire and Hazel to Miss Grapp's to-day. 

Miss Euphrasia's first feeling was disappointment. It seemed as ifher morning were going a wee wrong after all. But her secondthought--that it was surely all in the day's work, and had happenedso by no mistake--took her in, with a cheery and really expectantface, to Rachel Froke's gray parlor, to "sit her down a fiveminutes, and rest. " She confidently looked for her business then tobe declared to her, since the business she thought she had come uponwas set aside. 

"I have had a great mind to come to thee, " were the first wordsRachel said, as her visitor seated herself in the low chair, twin toher own, which she kept for friends. Rachel Froke liked her own; butshe never felt any special comfort comfortably her own, until shecould hold it thus duplicated. 

"I have wanted for a little while past to talk to some one, andHapsie Craydocke would not do. Everything she knows shines soquickly out of those small kind eyes of hers. Hapsie would havelooked at me in an unspeakable way, and told it all out too soon. Ihave a secret, Euphrasia, and it troubleth me; yet not very much formyself; and I know it need not trouble me for anything. I have areason that may make me leave this place, --for a time at least; andI am sorry for Desire, for she will miss me. Frendely can do allthat I do, and she hath the same wish for everything at heart; butthen who would help Frendely? She could not get on alone for theeknows the house is large, and Desire is always very busy, with workthat should not be hindered. Can thee think of any way? I cannotbear that any uncertain, trustless person should come in here. Therehath never been a common servant in this house. Doesn't thee thinkthe Lord hath some one ready since He makes my place empty? And howshall we go rightly to find out?"

"Tell me first, Rachel, of your own matter. Is it any trouble, --anygrief or pain?"

Rachel had quite forgot. The real trouble of it was this perplexitythat she had told. The rest of it--that she knew was all right. Shewould not call it trouble--that which she simply had to wait andbear; but that in which she had to do, and knew not just how to "gorightly about, "--it was that she felt as the disquiet. 

She smiled, and laid her hand upon her breast. 

"The doctor calls it trouble--trouble here. But it may be helped;and there is a man in Philadelphia who treats such ailments withgreat skill. My cousin-in-law, Lydia Froke, will receive me at herhouse for this winter, if I will come and try what he can do. Theesees: I suppose I ought to go. "

"And Desire knows nothing?"

"How could I tell the child, until I saw my way? Now, can theethink?"

Rachel Froke repeated her simple question with an earnestness as ifnothing were between them at this moment but the one thing to carefor and provide. She waited for no word of personal pity or sympathyto come first. She had grown quite used to this fact that she hadfaced for herself, and scarcely remembered that it must be a pain toMiss Kirkbright for her sake to hear it. 

It was hard even for Miss Kirkbright to feel it at once as a fact, looking in the fair, placid, smiling face that spoke of neithercomplaint nor pain nor fear; though a thrill had gone through her atthe first word and gesture which conveyed the terrible perception, and had made her pale and grave. 

"Must it be a servant to do mere servant's work; or could some niceyoung person, under Frendely's direction, relieve her of the actualcare that you have taken, and keep things in the kitchen as theyare?"

"That is precisely the best thing, if we could be sure, " saidRachel. 

"Then I think perhaps I came here with an errand straight to you, though I had no knowledge of it in coming, " said Miss Kirkbright. 

"That looks like the Lord's leading, " said Rachel Froke. "There isalways some sign to believe by. "

Miss Euphrasia took out Sylvie's letter, as the best way of tellingthe story, and put it into Rachel Froke's hand. She did not feel itany breach of confidence to do so. Breach of confidence is lettingstrange air in upon a tender matter. The self-same atmosphere, theself-same temperature, --these do not harm or change anything. It isonly widening graciously that which the confidence came for, to letit touch a heart tuned to the celestial key, ready with the sameresponse of understanding. There are friends one can trust withone's self so; sure that only by true and inward channels the word, the thought, shall pass. Gossip--betrayal--sends from hand to hand, from mouth to mouth; tosses about our sacredness, or themisinterpreted sign of it, on the careless surface. From heart toheart it may be given without disloyalty. That is the way GodHimself works round for us. 

"It is very clear to me, " said Rachel Froke, folding up the sheetsof the letter, and putting them back into their envelope. "ShallDesire read this?"

"I think so. It would not be a real thing, unless she understood. "

So Desire had the letter to read that day when she came home; andthen Rachel Froke told her how it was that she must go away for awhile; and Desire went round to Miss Euphrasia's room in thetwilight, and gave her back her letter, and talked it all over withher; and they two next day explained the most of it to Hazel. It wasnot needful that she should know the very whole about Rachel or theArgenters; only enough was said to make plain the real companionshipthat was coming, and the mutual help that it might be; enough of thestory to make Hazel cry out joyfully, --"Why, Desire! MissKirkbright! She's another! She belongs!" And then, without suchdrawback of sadness as the other two had had to feel, she caughtthem each by a hand, and danced them up and down a little dancebefore the fire upon the hearth-rug--singing, --

 "Four of us know the Muffin-man, Five of us know the Muffin-man, All of us know the Muffin-man, That lives in Drury Lane. "

CHAPTER XIV. 

MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL. 

It was on the corner of Merle Street and Mavis Place. The ReverendHilary Vireo, as I have told you, was the minister. 

It might have been called, if anybody had thought of it, "The Chapelof the New Song. " For it was the very gospel of hope and gladnessthat Hilary Vireo preached there, and had preached and lived fortwenty years, making lives to sing that would have moaned. 

"Haven't you a song in your heart, somewhere?" was his word once, toa man of hard life, who came to him in a trouble, and telling him ofit, passed to a spiritual confidence, such as Vireo drew out ofpeople without the asking. At the end of his story, the man had saidthat "he supposed it was as good as he ought to expect; he hadn'tany business to look for better, and he must just bear it, for_this_ life. He hoped there _was_ something afterwards for them thatcould get to it, but he didn't know. "

"Aren't you _glad_ of things, sometimes?" said Mr. Vireo. "Of apleasant day, even, --or a strong, fresh feeling in the morning?Don't you touch the edge of the great gladness that is in the world, now and then, in spite of your own little single worries? Well, _that's_ what God means; and the worry is the interruption. He_never_ means that. There's a great song forever singing, and we'reall parts and notes of it, if we will just let Him put us in tune. What we call trouble is only his key, that draws our heart-stringstruer, and brings them up sweet and even to the heavenly pitch. Don't mind the strain; believe in the _note_, every time his fingertouches and sounds it. If you are glad for one minute in the day, that is his minute; the minute He means, and works for. "

The man was a tuner of pianofortes. He went away with that lesson inhis heart, to come back to him repeatedly in his own work, day byday. He had been believing in the twists and stretches; he beganfrom that moment to believe in the music touches, far apart thoughthey might come. He lived from a different centre; the growth beganto be according to the life. 

"It's queer, " he said once, long afterward, reminding Mr. Vireo ofwhat he had spoken in the moment it was given through him, and thenforgotten. "A man can put himself a'most where he pleases. Into ahurt finger or a toothache, till it is all one great pain with him;or outside of that, into something he cares for, or can do with hiswell hand, till he gets rid of it and forgets it. There's generallymore comfort than ache, I do suppose, if we didn't live right in themiddle of the ache. But you see, that's the great secret to findout. If ever we _do_ get it, --complete"--

"Ah, that's the resurrection and the life, " said Mr. Vireo. 

Among the crowd that waited about the open chapel doors, and throughthe porches, and upon the stair-ways, one clear, sunny, Octobermorning, on which the congregation would not gather quietly to itspews, stood this man, and many another man, and woman, and littlechild, to whom a word from Hilary Vireo was a word right out ofheaven. 

They would all have a first sight of him to-day, --his first Sundayamong them after the whole summer's absence in Europe. He mighteasily not get into his pulpit at all, but give his gift in crumbs, all the way along from the street curb-stones to the aisles in thechurch above, --they waylaid him so to snatch at it from hand, face, voice, as he should come in. It would not be altogether unlikeHilary Vireo, if seeing things this way, he stopped right thereamongst them, to deal out heart-cheer and sympathy right and left, face to face, and hand to hand, --the Gospel appointed for that day. 

"What a crowd there'll be in heaven about some people!" said a tall, good-looking man to Hilary Vireo, in an undertone, as he came up thesidewalk with him into the edge of these waiting groups. 

"May be. There'll be some scattering, I fancy, that we don't lookfor. We shall find _all_ our centres there, " returned Mr. Vireo, hastily, as his people closed about him and the hand-shaking began. 

Christopher Kirkbright made his way to the stairs, as the passage onone side became cleared by the drifting of the parish over to thewestern door, by which the minister was entering. A little way up hefound his sister, sitting with a young woman in the deep windowledge at the turn, whence they could look quietly down and watch thescene. Overhead, the heavy bell swung out slow, intermitted peals, that thrilled down through all the timbers of the building, andforth upon the crisp autumn air. 

"My brother--Miss Ledwith, " said Miss Euphrasia, introducing them. 

Desire Ledwith looked up, The intensity that was in her gray eyesturned full into Christopher Kirkbright's own. It was like thesudden shifting of a lens through which sun-rays were pouring. Shehad been so absorbed with watching and thinking, that her face hadgrown keen and earnest without her knowing, as it had been alwayswont to do; only it was different from the old way in this, --thatwhile the other had been eager, asking, unsatisfied, this was simplydeep, intent; a searching outward, that was answered and fedsimultaneously from within and behind; it was the _transmitted_light by which the face of Moses shone, standing between the Lordand the people. 

She was not beautiful now, any more than she had been as a veryyoung girl, when we first knew her; in feature, that is, and withmere outward grace; but her earnestness had so shaped for itself, with its continual, unthwarted flow, a natural and harmonious outletin brow and eyes; in every curve by which the face conforms itselfto that which genuinely animates it, that hers was now a countenancetruly radiant of life, hope, purpose. The small, thin, clear cutnose, --the lip corners dropped with untutored simplicity into a restand decision that were better than sparkle and smile, --the coolness, the strength, that lay in the very tint and tone of hercomplexion, --these were all details of character that had asserteditself. It had changed utterly one thing; the old knitting andnarrowing of the forehead were gone; instead, the eyes had widenedtheir spaces with a real calm that had grown in her, and their outercurves fell in lines of largeness and content toward the contour ofthe cheeks, making an artistic harmony with them. 

It was not a face, so much as a living soul, that turned itselftoward Miss Euphrasia's brother, as Miss Kirkbright spoke his nameand Desire's. 

For some reason, he found himself walking into the church besidethem afterward, thinking oddly of the etymology of thatword, --"introduced. "

"Brought within; behind the barriers; made really known. Effie gaveme a glimpse of that girl, --her _self_. I don't think I was ever soreally introduced before. "

He did not know at all who Miss Ledwith was; she might have been oneof the chapel protégées; from Hanover or Neighbor Street, or wherenot; they all looked nice, in their Sunday dress; those who werehelped to dress were made to look as nice as anybody. 

Desire Ledwith had on a dark maroon-colored serge, made very simply;bordered, I believe, with just a little roll binding of velvetaround the upper skirt. Any shop-girl might have worn that; anyshop-girl would perhaps have been scarcely satisfied to wear theplain black hat, with just one curly tip of ostrich feather tuckedin where the velvet band was folded together around it. 

Desire sat with her class; it was her family, she said; herchurch-family, at any rate; she had chosen her scholars from thosewho had no parents to come with, and sit by; they were all glad oftheir home-place weekly, at her side. 

Miss Kirkbright and her brother went into the minister's pew. MissKirkbright did not usually come to the service; the school, in whichshe taught, met in the afternoon; but this was Mr. Vireo's firstSunday, and his friend, her brother Christopher, had just come homewith him across the Atlantic. 

There was singing, in which nearly every voice joined; there waspraying, in which one voice spoke as to a Presence felt closebeside; and all the people felt at least that _he_ felt it, and thattherefore it must be there. They believed in it through him, as weall believe in it through Christ, who is in the bosom of the Father. That they might some time come where he stood now, and know as heknew, many of them were simply, carefully, daily striving to "do theWill. "

He spoke to them of "journeyings;" of how God was everywhere in thewhole earth; of how Abraham had the Lord with him, as he travelledup through a land he knew not, as he dwelt in Padan Aram, as hecrossed the desert and came down through the hill-country intoCanaan. Of how the Lord met Jacob at Bethel, when he was on his waythrough strange places, to go and serve his uncle Laban; how he wentwith Joseph into Egypt, and afterwards led out the children ofIsrael through forty years of wandering, showing them signs, andcomforting them all the way; how "He leadeth me" is still thebeliever's song, still the heart-meaning of every human life. 

"Whether we go or stay, as to place, we all move on; from ourMondays to our Saturdays; from one experience to another; and beforeus and beside us, passes always and abides near that presenceof _the Lord_. Do you know what 'the Lord' means? It is thebread-giver; the feeder; the provider of every little thing. That isthe name of God when He comes close to humanity. In the beginning, _God_ created the heavens and the earth; but _the Lord_ spoke untoAdam; _the Lord_ appeared unto Abraham; _the Lord_ was the God ofIsrael. 

"God is _our_ Lord; our daily leader; our bread-giver, from meal tomeal, from mouthful to mouthful. The Angel of his Presence saves uscontinually. And in these latter days, the 'Lord' is 'Christ;' thehuman love of Him come down into our souls, to take away oursins, --to give us bread from heaven to eat; to fulfill in the inwardkingdom every type and sign of the old leading; through need andtoil, through strange places, through tedious waitings, through thelong wilderness, and over the river into the Land that is beautifuland very far off. "

The four walked away from the church together; they stopped on thecorner of Borden Street. Here Desire and Mr. Vireo would leavethem, --their way lying down the hill. 

"I liked your doctrine of the Lord, " said Miss Euphrasia to theminister. "That is true New Church interpretation, as I receive it. "

"How can any one help seeing it? It shines so through the whole, "said Desire. 

"Leader and Giver; it is the one revelation of Scripture, frombeginning to end, " said Mr. Vireo. "'Come forth into the land that Ishall show thee. ' 'Follow Me, and I will give unto you everlastinglife. ' The same call in the Old Testament and in the New. "

"'One Lord, one faith, one baptism, '" repeated Miss Euphrasia. 

"Leading--_by the hand_; giving--_morsel by morsel_, " said Mr. Kirkbright, emphasizing the near and dear detail. 

"That makes me think, " said Miss Euphrasia, suddenly. "Desire, " shewent on, without explaining why, "we are going up to BrickfieldFarms next week, Christopher and I. Why shouldn't you go too, --andbring her home, you know?"

As true as she lived, Miss Euphrasia hadn't a thought--whatever_you_ may think--of this and that, or anything, when she said it. 

Except the simple fact, that it was beautiful October weather, andthat _she_ should like it, and that Sylvie and Desire would getacquainted. 

"It will do you good. You'd better, " said Mr. Vireo, kindly. 

Christopher Kirkbright said nothing, of course. There was nothingfor him to say. He did not think very much. He only had a passingfeeling that it would be pleasant to see this grave-faced girlagain, and to understand her, perhaps, a little. 

CHAPTER XV. 

BONNY BOWLS. 

The great show house at Pomantic was almost finished. Thearchitect's and builder's cares were over. There was a stained glasswindow to go in upon the high second landing of the splendid carvedoak staircase, through which gold and rose and purple light shouldpour down upon the panels of the soft-tinted walls and the richinlaying of the floors. There was a little polishing of walnut workand oiling of dark pine in kitchen and laundry, and the fastening onof a few silver knobs and faucets here and there, up-stairs, remaining to be done; then it would be ready for the upholsterer. 

Mr. Newrich had builded better than he thought; thanks to thedelicate taste and the genius of his architect, and the carefulskill of his contractor. He was proud of his elegant mansion, andfancied that it expressed himself, and the glory that his life hadgrown to. 

Frank Sunderline knew that it expressed _him_-self; for he had puthimself--his hope, his ambition, his sense of right andfitness--into every stroke and line. Now that it was done, it wasmore his than the man's who paid the bills, --"out of his waistcoatpocket, " as he exultingly said to his wife. The designer and thebuilder had paid for it out of brain and heart and will, and werethe real men who had got a new creation and possession of their own, though they should turn their backs upon their finished labor, andnever go within the walls again. 

It was a kind of a Sunday feeling with which Frank Sunderline wasglad, though it was the middle of the week. The sense ofaccomplishment is the Sunday feeling. It is the very feeling inwhich God Himself rested; and out of his own joy, bade all his sonsrest likewise in their turn, every time that they should end a sixdays' toil. 

Frank Sunderline had been in Boston all the afternoon, making upaccounts and papers with his employer. He came round to PilgrimStreet to tea. 

He had got into a way of coming in to tell the Ingrahams the storyof his work as it went on, at the same time that he continued hisfriendly relation with their own affairs, as always ready to do anylittle turn for them in which a man could be of service. This Sundayrest of his, --though a busier day had not gone over his head sincethe week began, --must be shared and crowned by them. 

There is no subtler test of an unspoken--perhaps anunexamined--relation of a man with his women friends, than thisinstinctive turning with his Sabbath content and rest to thecompanionship he feels himself most moved to when it is in hisheart. All custom, however homely, grows out of some reality, morethan out of any mere convenience; this is why the Sunday coming ofthe country lover means so much more than his common comings, andsets an established seal upon them all. 

Walking down Roulstone Street, the lowering afternoon sun full inhis face across the open squares, Frank Sunderline thought howpleasant it would be to have Ray Ingraham go out to Pomantic such anafternoon as this, and see what he had done; just now, while it wasstill his work, warm from his hand, and before it was shut away fromher and him by the Newrich carpets and curtains and china andservants going in and fastening the doors upon them. 

He would make a treat of it, --a holiday, --if she would go; he wouldcome and take her with a horse and buggy. He would not ask her to gowith him in the cars and be stared at. 

He had never thought of asking her to go to ride, or of showing herany set "attention" before. Frank Sunderline was not one of theyoung fellows who begin, and begin in a hurry, at that end. 

He walked faster, as it came into his head at that moment; somethingof the same perception that would come to her, --if she cared forthis asking of his, --came to him with the sudden suggestion that itwas the next, the natural thing to do; that their friendship hadgrown so far as that. The story comes to a man with some suchbeautiful, scarce-anticipated steps of revelation as it does to awoman, when he takes his life in the true, whole, patient order, anddoes not go about to make some pretty sham of living before he hasdone any real living at all. 

Yes; he would ask her to ride out to Pomantic with him to-morrow;and he thought she would go. 

He liked her looks, to-night; he looked at her with this plan in histhoughts, and it lighted her up; he was conscious of his own noticeof her, and of what it had grown to in him, insensibly, knowing herso well and long. He analyzed, or tried to analyze, his rest andpleasure in her; the reason why all she did and wore and said hadsuch a sweet and winning fitness to him. What was it that made herlook so different from other girls, and yet so nice?

"I like the way you dress, Ray; you and Dot;" he said to her, whentea was over and taken away, and she was replacing the cloth andsetting the sewing-lamp down upon the table. "You don't snarlyourselves up. I can't bear a tangle of things. "

Ray colored. 

"You mean skirts, I suppose, " she said, laughing "We can't affordtwo apiece, at a time. So we have taken to aprons. "

It was a very simple expedient, and yet it came near enough tocustom to avoid a strait and insufficient look. They wore plainblack cashmere dresses, plaited in at the waist, and belted to theirpretty figures, over these, round, full aprons, tied behind withbroad, hemmed bows. They were of cross-barred muslin, for everyday, --cheap and pretty and fresh; black silk ones replaced them uponserious occasions. This was their house wear; in the street theycontented themselves with their plain basquines; and I think ifanybody missed the bunches and festoons, it was only as FrankSunderline said, with an unexplained impression of the absence of a"snarl. "

"There's one thing certin, " put in Mrs. Ingraham. "Women can't bedolls and live women too. I don't ever want anything on that'llhender me from goin' right into whatever there is to be gone into. It's cloe's that makes all the diffikelty nowadays. Young womencan't do housework because of their cloe's; 'tisn't because theyain't as strong as their grandmothers; their grandmothers didn't tryto wear a load and move one too. Folks that live a little nicer thancommon, and keep girls, don't have more than five hours to theirday; the rest of the time, they're dressed up; and that means _tied_up. They can't _see_ to their girls; they grow helplesser all thetime and the help grows sozzlier; and so it comes to sauciness andupstrupperousness, and changes; and there's an up-stairs and adown-stairs to every house, and no _home_ anywhere. That's how itis, and how it must be, till women take down some of their furbelowsand live real, and keep house, and take old-fashioned comfort in it. Why, the help has to get into _their_ humpty-dumpties by three orfour o'clock, and see _their_ company. If there's sickness oranything, that they can't, they're up a tree and off. I've known offolks breakin' up and goin' to board, because they were _afraid_ ofsickness; they knew their girls would clear right out if there wasgruel to make and waitin' up and down to do. There ain't much leftto depend on but hotels and hospitals. _Home_ is too big a worry. And I do believe, my soul, its cloe's that's at the bottom of it. It's been growin' wuss and wuss ever since tight waists and hollerbiasses came in, and that's five and twenty years ago. "

Mrs. Ingraham grew more Yankee in her dialect, --as the Scotch growmore Scotch, --with warming up to the subject. 

Sunderline laughed. 

"Well, I must go, " he said; "though you do look so bright and cosyhere. Half past seven's the last train, and there's a little job athome I promised mother I'd do to-night. I've been so busy latelythat I haven't had any hammer and nails of my own. Ray!"

He had come round behind her chair, where she had seated herself ather sewing. 

"It's pleasant out of town these fall days; and I want you to see myhouse before I give it over. If I come for you to-morrow, will youride out with me to Pomantic?"

Ray felt half a dozen things at that moment between his question andher reply. She felt her mother's eyes just lifted at her, withoutanother movement, over the silver rims of her spectacles; she feltDot's utter stillness; she felt her own heart spring with a singlequick beat, and her cheeks grow warm, and a moisture at her fingers'ends as they held work and needle determinedly, and she set two orthree stitches with instinctive resolution of not stopping. Shefelt, inwardly, the certainty that this would count for much in Mrs. Ingraham's plain, old-fashioned way of judging things; she wasafraid of a misjudgment for Frank Sunderline, if he did not, perhaps, mean anything particular by it; she would have refused himten times over, and let the refusal rest with her, sooner than havehim blamed; for what business had she, after all, --

"Well, Ray?"

She felt his hand upon the back of her chair, close to her shoulder;she felt that he leaned down a little. She heard something in that"Well, Ray, " that she could not turn aside, though in an hourafterward she would be taking herself to task that she had let itseem like "anything. "

"I was thinking, " she said, quietly. "Yes, I think I could go. Thankyou, Frank. "

Frank Sunderline was not sure, as he walked up Roulstone Streetafterward, whether Ray cared much. She made it seem all matter ofcourse, in a minute, with that calm, deliberate answer of hers. Andshe sat so still, and let him go out of the room with hardly anotherword or look. She never stopped sewing, either. 

Well, --he did not see those ten stitches! He might not have been thewiser if he had. They were not carpenter-work. 

But Ray knew better than to pick them out, while her mother and Dotwere by. 

That next day was made for them. 

Days are made for separate people, though they shine or storm overso many. Or the people are drifted into the right days; what is thedifference?

I must stop for the thought here, that has to do with this questionof rain and shine, --with need, and asking, and giving. 

Prayers and special providences! Are these thrust out of the scheme, because there is a scheme, and a steadfastness of administration inGod's laws? "No use to pray for rain, or the calming of the storm, or a blessing on the medicine?" When it was all set going, was notthe _prayer_ provided for? It was answered a million of yearsbeforehand, in the heart of God, who put it into your heart andnature to pray. Long before the want or the sin, the beseeching forhelp or for forgiveness was anticipated; provision was made for theundoing or the counteracting of the evil, --the healing of thewrong, --just as it should be longed for in the needing and repentingsoul. The more law you have, the more all things come under itsforesight. 

So, under the dear Law, --which is Love, and cares for thesparrow, --came the fair October day, with its unflecked firmament, its golden, conquering warmth, its richness of scent and color; andthey two went forth in it. 

They went early, after dinner; so that the brightness might lastthem home again; and because the Newriches, in their afternoondrive, might be coming out from the city, perhaps, a little later, to look at their waistcoat-pocket plaything. 

Mrs. Ingraham turned away from the basement window with a longbreath, as they drove off. 

"Well, I suppose _that's_ settled, " she said, with themother-sadness, in the midst of the not wishing it by any means tobe otherwise, inflecting her voice. 

"I don't believe Ray thinks so, " said Dot. 

In some of the hundred little indirect ways that girls find the useof, Ray had managed to really impose this impression upon the sturdymind of Dot, without discussion. If Dot had had the least bit ofexperience of her own, as yet, she would not have been imposed upon. But Mrs. Ingraham had great reliance on Dorothy's common sense, andshe left no lee-way for uninitiation. 

"Do you really mean to say, child, " she asked, turning roundsharply, "that Ray don't suppose, --or don't want, --or don'tintend--? She's a goose if she don't, then; and they're both geese;and I shouldn't have any patience with 'em! And that's _my_ mindabout it!"

It is not such a very beautiful drive straight out to Pomantic overthe Roxeter road. There are more attractive ones in many directions. But no drive out of Boston is destitute of beauty; and even the longturnpike stretches--they are turnpike stretches still, though thePike is turned into an Avenue, and built all along with blocks oflittle houses, exactly alike, in those places where used to be theflat, unoccupied intervals between the scattered suburbanresidences--have their breaks of hill and orchard and garden, andtheir glimpses across the marshes, of the sea. 

Ray enjoyed every bit of it, --even the rows of new tenements withtheir wooden door-steps, and their disproportionate Mansard roofsthat make them all look like the picture in "Mother Goose, " of theboy under a big hat that might be slid down over him and just coverhim up. 

The rhyme itself came into Ray's head, and she said it to hercompanion. 

 "Little lad, little lad, where were you born? Far off in Lancashire, under a thorn, Where they sup buttermilk from a ram's horn; And a pumpkin scooped, with a yellow rim, Is the bonny bowl they breakfast in. "

"Those houses make me think of that, " she said; "and the pictureover it--do you remember?"

Everybody remembers "Mother Goose. " You can't quote or remind amissfrom her. 

"To be sure, " Frank answered, laughing. "And the histories and thelives there carry out the idea. They all came from Lancashire, orsomewhere across the big sea, and they were all born under thethorn, pretty much, --of poverty and pinches. But they sup theirbuttermilk, and the bowl is bonny, if it is only a pumpkin rind. Isn't that rhyme just the perfection of the glorifying of commonthings by imagination?"

"It always seems to me that living _might_ be pretty in such places. All just alike, and snug together. I should think Mrs. Fitzpatrickand Mrs. Mahoney would have beautiful little ambitions and rivalriesabout their tidy parlors and kitchens, setting up housekeeping sideby side, as they do. I should think they might have such niceneighborliness, back and forth. It looks full of all possiblepleasantness; like the cottage quarters of the army families, downat Fort Warren, that you see so white and pretty among the trees, asyou go by in the steamboat. "

"Only they don't make it out, " said Frank Sunderline, "after all. The prettiest part of it is the going by in the steamboat. Here, Imean. The 'Mother Goose' idea is very suggestive; but if you wentthrough that block, from beginning to end, I wonder how many 'bonnybowls' you would really find, that you'd be willing to breakfast outof?"

"I wonder how many bonny bowls there'll be, one of these days, inthe cook's closet of the grand house we're going to?" said Ray. 

"That's it, " said Sunderline. "It's pretty to build, and it's prettyto look at; but I should like to hear what your mother would say tothe 'conveniences. ' One convenience wants another to take care ofit, till there's such a compound interest of them that it takes aregiment just to man the pumps and pipes, and open and shut thecupboards. Living doesn't really need so much machinery. But everyhousehold seems to want a little universe of its own, nowadays. "

"I suppose they make it wrong side out, " said Ray. "I mean alloutside. "

Further on, along the bay shores, and across the long bridge, andreaching over crests of hills that gave beautiful pictures of landand waterscape, the way was pleasanter and pleasanter. Other anddifferent homesteads were set along the route, suggesting endlessimaginations of the different character and living of the dwellers. More than once, either Ray or Frank was on the point of saying, asthey passed some modest, pretty structure, with its field andgarden-piece, its piazza, porch, or balcony, and its sunnywindows, --"There! _that_ is a nice place and way to live!"

But a young man and woman are shy of sharing such imaginations, before the sharing is quite understood and openly promised. So, manytimes a silence fell upon their casual talk, when the same thing wasin the thought of each. 

For miles before they came to it, the sightly Newrich edifice gaveitself, in different aspects, to the view. Mr. Newrich, himself, never saw anything else in his drives out, of sky, or hill, orwater, after the first glimpse of "my house, " and the way it "showedup" in the approach. 

Men were busy wheeling away rubbish, as they drove in between thegreat stone posts that marked the entrance, where the elegant, light-wrought, gilded iron gates were not yet hung. 

Other laborers were rolling the lawn and terraces, newly sown withEnglish grass seed that was to come up in the spring, and begin toweave its green velvet carpet. Piles of bricks and boards weregathered at the back of the house and about the stables. 

The plate-glass windows glittered in the sun. The tiled-roofs, withtheir towers and slopes, looked like those in pictures of palacebuildings. It was a group, --a pile; under these roofs a family offive--Americans, republicans, with no law of primogeniture toconserve the estate beyond a single lifetime--were to live like alittle royal household. And the father had made all his money infifteen years in Opal Street. This country of ours, and the ways ofit, are certainly pretty nearly the queerest under the sun, when onelooks it all through and thinks it all over. 

Frank Sunderline pointed out the lovely work of the pillars in theporched veranda; every pillar a triple column, of the slenderestgrace, capitaled with separate devices of leaf and flower. 

Then they went into the wide, high hall, and through the lowerrooms, floored and ceiled and walled most richly; and up over thestately staircase, copied from some grand old English architecture;along the galleries into the wings, where were the sleeping anddressing-rooms; up-stairs, again, into other sleeping-rooms, --placesfor the many servants that there must be, --pressrooms, closets, trunk-rooms, --space for stowing all the ample providings for use andchange from season to season. Every frame and wainscot and panel astudy of color and exact workmanship and perfect finish. 

It was a "show house;" that was just what it was. "And I can'timagine the least bit of home-iness in the whole of it, " said Ray, coming down from the high cupola whence they had looked far out tosea, and over inland, upon blue hills and distant woods. 

They stopped half way, --on the wide second landing where they hadseen, as they went up, that the great window space was open; theboards that had temporarily covered it having been removed, and thecostly panes and sashes that were to fill it resting against thewall at one side. 

"That is the greatest piece of nonsense in the whole house, "Sunderline had said. "A crack in that would be the spoiling of athousand dollars. "

"How very silly, " said Ray, quietly. "It is only fit for a church ora chapel. "

"It shuts out the stables, " said Sunderline. "Take care of that openframe, " he had added, cautioning her. 

Now, coming down, he stopped right here, and stood still with hisback to the opening, looking across the front hall at someimperfection he fancied he detected in the joining of a carvedcornice. Ray stood on the staircase, a little way up, facing thegorgeous window, and studying its glow of color. 

"It won't do. The meeting of the pattern isn't perfect. Thosegrape-bunches come too near together, and there's a leaf-tip takenoff at the corner. What a bungle! Come and look, Ray. "

Ray turned her face toward him as he spoke, and saw what thrilledher through with sudden horror. Saw him, utterly forgetful of wherehe stood, against the dangerous vacancy, his heel upon the veryedge, beyond which would be death!

A single movement an inch further, and he would be off his balance. Behind him was a fall of thirty feet, down to those piles of brickand timber. And he would make the movement unless he were instantlysnatched away. His head was thrown back, --his shoulders leanedbackward, in the attitude of one who is endeavoring to judge of aneffect a little distance off. 

Her face turned white, and her limbs quivered under her. 

One gasping breath--and then--she turned, made two steps upward, andflung herself suddenly, as by mischance, prostrate along the broad, slowly-sloping stairs. 

Half a dozen thoughts, in flashing succession, shaped themselveswith and into the action. She wondered, afterward, recollecting themin a distinct order, how there had been time, and how she hadthought so fast. 

"I must not scream. I must not move toward him. I must make him comethis way. "

In the two steps up--"He might not follow; he would not understand. He _must_: I must _make_ him come!" And then she flung herself down, as if she had fallen. 

Once down, her strength went from her as she lay; she turned reallyfaint and helpless. 

It was all over. He was beside her. 

"What is the matter, Ray? Are you ill? Are you hurt?" he said, quickly, stooping down to lift her up. She sat up, then, on thestair. She could not stand. 

A man's step came rapidly through the lower hall, ringing upon thesolid floor, and sounding through the unfurnished house. 

"Sunderline! Thank heaven, sir, you're safe! Do you know how nearyou were to backing out of that confounded window? I saw you fromthe outside. In the name of goodness, have that place boarded upagain! It shouldn't be left for five minutes. "

"Was _that_ it?" asked Frank, still bending over Ray, while Mr. Newrich said all this as he hurried up the stairs. 

"I didn't fall, I tumbled down on purpose! It was the only thing Icould think of, " said Ray, nervously smiling; justifying herself, instinctively, from the betrayal of a feeling that makes girls faintaway in novels. "I felt weak afterward. Anybody would. "

"That's a fact, " said Mr. Newrich, stopping at the landing, andglancing out through the aperture. "I shall never think of it, without shivering. You were as good as gone: a hair's breadth morewould have done it. God bless my soul! If my place had had such achristening as that!"

The whiteness came over Ray Ingraham's face again She was justrising to her feet, with her hand upon the rail. 

"Sit still, " said Frank. "Let me go and bring you some water. "

"She'll feel better to be by herself a minute or two, I dare say, "said Mr. Newrich, following Frank as he went down. He had the tactto think of this, but not to go without saying it. 

"A quick-witted young woman, " he remarked, as they passed out of herhearing. "And sensible enough to keep her wits ahead of herfeelings. If she had come _at_ you, as half the women in the worldwould have done, you'd be a dead man this minute. Your sister, Sunderline?"

"No, sir--only a friend. "

"Ah! _onlier_ than a sister, may be? Well!"

Sunderline replied nothing, beyond a look. 

"I beg your pardon. It's none of my business. "

"It's none of my business, so far as I know, " said Frank. "If itwere, there would be no pardon to beg. "

"You're a fine fellow; and she's a fine girl. I suppose I may saythat. I tell you what; if you _had_ come to grief, at the very endof this job you've done so well for me, I believe I should have putthe place under the hammer. I couldn't have begun with such a pieceof Friday luck as that!"

There were long pauses between the talk, as Ray and Frank drove backtogether into the city. 

"Ray!" Frank said at last, suddenly, just as they came opposite tothe row of little brown big-hatted houses, where they had talkedabout the bonny bowls, --"My life is either worth more or less to me, after this. You are the only woman in the world I could like to oweit to. Will you take what I owe? Will you be the _onliest_ woman inthe world to me?"

Oddly enough, that word of Mr. Newrich's, that had half affrontedhim, came up to his lips involuntarily and unexpectedly, now. Wordsare apt to come up so--in a sort of spite of us--that have made animpression, even when it has been that of simple misuse. 

Ray did not answer. She felt it quite impossible to speak. 

Frank waited--three minutes perhaps. Then he said, "Tell me, Ray. If it is to be no, let me know it. "

"If it had been no. I could have said it sooner, " Ray answered, softly. 

 * * * * *

"May I come back?" he asked, when he helped her down at the door inPilgrim Street, and held her hand fast for a minute. 

"O yes; come back and see mother, " Ray replied, her face allbeautiful with smile and color. 

Mother knew all the story, that minute, as well as when it was toldher afterward. She saw her child's face, and that holding of thehand, from her upper window, where a half blind had fallen to. Mothers do not miss the home-comings from such drives as that. 

 * * * * *

"There's one thing, Frank, "--said Ray. She was standing with him, three hours afterward, at the low step of the entrance, he above heron the sidewalk, looking down upon her upturned face. The happy teaand family evening were over; that first family evening, when onecomes acknowledged in, who has been almost one of the family before;and they were saying the first beautiful good-by, which has thebeginning of all joining and belonging in it. "There is one thing, Frank. I'm under contract for the present; for quite a while. I'mgoing into the bread business, after all. I've promised Miss Grappto take her bakery, and manage it for her, for a year or so. "

"Who--is--Miss Grapp?" exclaimed Frank, pausing between the words inhis astonishment. 

Ray laughed. "Haven't I told you? I thought everybody knew. It's toolong a story for the door-step. When you come again"--

"That'll be to-morrow. "

"I'll tell you all about it. "

"You'll have to manage the bakery and me too, somehow, before--a'year or so'! How long do you suppose I expect to wait?"

"Dear me! how long _have_ you waited?" returned Ray, demurely. 

She only meant the three hours since they had been engaged; but itis a funny fact about the nature and prerogative of a man, that hemay take years in which to come to the point of asking--years inwhich perhaps a woman's life is waiting, with a wear and anuncertainty in it; but the point of _having_ must be moved up then, to suit his sudden impatience of full purpose. 

A woman shrinks from this hurry; she wants a little of the blessedtime of sure anticipation, after she knows that they belong to oneanother; a time to dream and plan beautiful things together in; tolet herself think, safely and rightly, all the thoughts she has hadto keep down until now. It is the difference of attitude in theasking and answering relations; a man's thoughts have been freeenough all along; he has dreamt his dream out, and stands claimingthe fulfillment. 

Dot had her hair all down that night, and her nightgown on, and wassitting on the bed, with her feet curled up, while Ray stood inskirts and dressing-sack, before the glass, her braids halfunfastened, stock-still, looking in at herself, or through her ownimage, with a most intent oblivion of what she pretended to be therefor. 

"Well, Ray! Have you forgotten the way to the other side of yourhead, or are you enchanted for a hundred years? I shall want theglass to-morrow morning. "

Ray roused up from her abstraction. 

"I was thinking, " she said. 

"Yes'm. I suppose you'll be always thinking now. You had justoutgrown that trick, a little. It was the affliction of mychildhood; and now it's got to begin again. 'Don't talk, Dot; I'mthinking. ' Good-by. "

There was half a whimper in Dorothy's last word. 

"Dot! You silly little thing!"

And Rachel came over to the bedside, and put her arms round Dorothy, all crumpled as she was into a little round white ball. 

"I was thinking about Marion Kent. "

CHAPTER XVI. 

RECOMPENSE. 

That night, Marion Kent was fifty miles off, in the great, mixed-up, manufacturing town of Loweburg. 

She had three platform dresses now, --the earnings of some half-dozen"evenings. " The sea-green silk would not do forever, in place afterplace; they would call her the mermaid. She must have a quiet, elegant black one, and one the color of her hair, like that she hadseen the pretty actress, Alice Craike, so bewitching in. She coulddeepen it with chestnut trimmings, all toning up together to onerich, bright harmony. Her hair was "_blond cendré_, "--not thered-golden of Alice Craike's; but the same subtle rule of art wasavailable; "_café-au-lait_" was her shade; and the darker velvetjust deepened and emphasized the effect. 

She was putting this dress on to-night, with some brown and goldenleaves in the high, massed braids of her hair. She certainly knewhow to make a picture of herself; she was just made to make apicture of. 

The hotel waitress who had brought up her tea on a tray, had gonedown with a report that Miss Kent was "stunning;" and two or threehousemaids and a number of little boys were vibrating and loiteringabout the hall and doorway below, watching for her to come down toher carriage. It was just as good, so far as these things went, asif she had been Mrs. Kemble, or Christine Nilsson, or anybody. 

And Marion, poor child, had really got no farther than "thesethings, " yet. She reached, for herself, to just what she had beenable to appreciate in others. She had taken in the housemaid andsmall-boy view of famousness, and she was having her shallow littleday of living it. She had not found out, yet, how short a time thatwould last. "Verily, " it was said for us all long ago, "ye shallhave each your reward, " such as ye look and labor for. 

One great boy was waiting for her, _ex officio_, and withoutdisguise, --the President of the Lyceum Club, before which she was toread to-night. 

He sat serenely in the reception-room, ready to hand her to hercarriage, and accompany her to the hall. 

The little boys observed him with exasperation. The housemaidsdropped their lower jaws with wonder, when she swept down thestaircase; her _café-au-lait_ silk rolling and glittering behindher, as if the breakfast for all Loweburg were pouring down thePhoenix Hotel stairs. 

The President of the People's Lyceum Club heard the rustle ofelegance, and met her at the stair-foot with bowing head and bendedarm. 

That was a beautiful, triumphant moment, in which she crossed thespace between the staircase and the door, and went down over thesidewalk to the hack. What would you have? There could not have beenmore of it, in her mind, though all Loweburg were standing by. Shewas Miss Kent, going out to give her Reading. What more could FannyKemble do?

Around the hall doors, when they arrived, other great boys weregathered. She was passed in quickly, to the left, through somepassages and committee rooms, to the other end of the building, whence she would enter, in full glory, upon the platform. 

She came in gracefully; a little breezy she could not help being;it was the one movement of the universe to her at that moment, herten steps across the platform, --her little half bow, half droop, before the applauding audience, --the taking up of the bouquet laidupon her table, --her smile, with a scarcely visible inclinationagain, --and the sitting down among those waves of amber that rose upshining in the gas-light, about her, as she subsided among hersilken draperies. 

She was imitative; she had learned the little outsides of her artwell; but you see the art was not high. 

It was the same with her reading. She had had drill enough to makeher elocution passable; her voice was clear and sweet; she had anatural knack, as we have seen, for speaking to the galleries. Whenthere was a sensational, dramatic point to make, she could make itafter her external fashion, strongly. The deep magnetism--theelectric thrill of soul-reality--these she had nothing to do with. 

Yet she read some things that thrilled of themselves; the very wordsof which, uttered almost anyhow, were fit to bring men to their feetand women to tears, with sublimity and pathos. Somebody had helpedher choose effectively, and things very cunningly adaptive toherself. 

The last selection for the first part of her reading to-night wasMrs. Browning's "Court Lady. "

"Wear your fawn-colored silk when you read this, " Virginia Leveringhad counseled. 

Her self-consciousness made the first lines telling. 

 "Her hair was tawny with gold, --her eyes with purple were dark; Her cheeks pale opal burned with a red and restless spark. "

Her head, bright with its golden-dusty waves and braids, leanedforward under the light as she uttered the words; her great, gray-blue eyes, deepening with excitement to black, liftedthemselves and looked the crowd in the face; the color mounted likea crimson spark; she glowed all over. Yes, over; not up, northrough; but some things catch from the outside. A flush and rustleran over the faces, and the benches; she felt that every eye wasupon her, lit up with an admiring eagerness, that answered to hereagerness to be admired. 

O, this was living! There was a pulse and a rush in this! MarionKent _was_ living, with all her nature that had yet waked up, atthat bewildering and superficial moment. 

But she has got to live deeper. The Lord, who gave her life, willnot let her off so. It will come. It is coming. 

We know not the day nor the hour; though we go on as if we knew allthings and were sure. 

At this very instant, there is close upon you, Marion Kent, one ofthose lightning shafts that run continually quivering to and froabout the earth, with their net-work of fire, in this storm of lifeunder which we of to-day are born. All the air is tremulous withquick, converging nerves; concentrating events, bringing each soul, as it were, into a possible focus continually, under the forces thatare forging to bear down upon it. There are no delays, --no respitesof ignorance. Right into the midst of our most careless or mostselfish doing, comes the summons that arrests us in the Name of theKing. 

 "She rose to her feet with a spring. _That_ was a Piedmontese! And this is the Court of the King!"

She was upon her feet, as if the impulse of the words had liftedher; she had learned by rote and practice when and how to do it; shehad been poised for the action through the reading of all those laststanzas. 

She did it well. One hand rested by the finger-tips upon the openvolume before her; her glistening robes fell back as she gained herfull height, --she swayed forward toward the assembly that leaneditself toward her; the left hand threw itself back with a noblegesture of generous declaring; the fingers curving from the openpalm as it might have been toward the pallet of the dead soldier ather side. She was utterly motionless for an instant; then, as theapplause broke down the silence, she turned, and grandly passed outalong the stage, and disappeared. 

Within the door of the anteroom stood a messenger from the hotel. Hehad a telegraph envelope in his hand; he put it into hers. 

She tore it open, --not thinking, scarcely noticing; the excitementof the instant just past moved her nerves, --no apprehension of whatthis might be. 

Then the lightning reached her: struck her through and through. 

"Your ma's dying: come back: no money. "

Those last words were a mistake; the whole dispatch, in its absurdhomeliness and its pitiless directness, was the work of old Mrs. Knoxwell, the blacksmith's wife, used to hammers and nails, andbelieving in good, forceful, honest ways of doing things; feelingalso a righteous and neighborly indignation against this child, negligent of her worn and lonely mother; "skitin' about the country, makin' believe big and famous. She would let her know the truth, right out plain; it would be good for her. "

What she had meant to write at the end was "Pneumonia;" but spellingit "Numoney, " it had got transmitted as we have seen. 

It struck Marion through and through; but she did not feel it atfirst. It met the tide of her triumph and elation full in herthrobbing veins; and the two keen currents turned to a merestillness for a moment. 

Then she dropped down where she was, all into the golden mass andshine of her bright raiment, with her hands before her eyes, thepaper crumpled in the clinch of one of them. 

The President of the People's Lyceum Club made a little speech, anddismissed the audience. "Miss Kent had received by telegraph mostpainful intelligence from her family; was utterly unable to appearagain. "

The audience behaved as an American People's Club knows so well howto behave; dispersed quietly, without a grumble, or a recollectionof the half value of the tickets lost. Miss Kent's carriage droverapidly from a side door. In two hours, she was on board the nighttrain down from Vermont. 

That was on Friday night. 

On Sunday morning Frank Sunderline came in on the service train, andwent up to Pilgrim Street. 

"Mrs. Kent is dead, " he told Kay. "Marion is in awful trouble. Can'tyou come out to her?"

Ray was just leaving the house to go to church. Instead, she wentwith Frank to the horse-railroad station, catching the eleveno'clock car. She had been expecting him in the afternoon, to takeher to drink tea with his mother, who was not able to come in to seeher. 

In an hour, she went in at Mrs. Kent's white gate, --Frank leavingher there. They both felt, without saying, that it would not be kindto appear together. Marion had that news, though, as she had had theother; from her Job's comforter, Mrs. Knoxwell, who was persistently"sitting with her. "

"There's Frank Sunderline and Ray Ingraham at the gate. She'scoming in. They're engaged. It's just out. "

"What _do_ I care?" cried Marion, fiercely, turning upon her, andastounding Mrs. Knoxwell by the sudden burst of angry words; for shehad not spoken for more than an hour, in which the blacksmith's wifehad administered occasional appropriate sentences of stingingcondolence and well-meant retrospection. "I wish you would go home!"

Every monosyllable was uttered with a desperate, wrathfuldeliberateness and flinging away of all pretense and politeness. 

"Well--'f I _never_!" gasped Mrs. Knoxwell, with a sound in hervoice as if she had received a blow in the pit of her stomach. 

"Jest as you please, Marion--'f I ain't no more use!" And theaggrieved matron, who had, as she said afterward in recounting it, "done _everything_, " left the scene of her labors and heranimadversions, with a face perfectly emptied of all expression byher inability to "realize what she _did_ feel. "

Ray Ingraham came in, went straight up to Marion, and took her intoher arms without a word. And Marion put her head down on Ray'sshoulder, and cried her very heart out. 

"You needn't try to comfort me. I can't be comforted like anybodyelse. It's the day of judgment come down into my life. I've sold mybirthright: I've nobody belonging to me any more. I wanted theworld--to be free in it; and I'm turned out into it now; and home'sgone--and mother. 

"I never thought of her dying. I expected one of these days to dofor her, and not let her work any more. I meant to, Ray--I did, truly! But she's dead--and I let her die!"

With sentences like these, Marion broke out now and again, puttingaside all Ray's consolations; going back continually to herself-upbraidings, after every pause in which Ray had let her rest orcry quietly; after every word with which she tried to prevailagainst her despair and soothe her with some hope or promise. 

"They are none of them for me!" she cried. "It would have beenbetter if I had never been born. Ray!" she said suddenly, in astrained, hollow voice, grasping Rachel's arm and looking with wild, swollen eyes into hers, --"I was just as bad by little Sue. I wasonly fourteen then, but it was the same evil, unsuitable vanity andselfishness. I was busy, while she was sick, making a white muslinburnouse to wear to a fair. I had teased mother for it. It was asilly thing for a girl like me to wear; it had a blue ribbon run inthe hem of the hood, and a bow and long blue ends behind. Poorlittle Sue was just down with the fever. Mother had to go out, andleft me to tend her. She wanted some water--Oh!"

Marion broke down, and sobbed, with her head bowed to her knees asshe sat. 

Ray sat perfectly still. She longed to beg her not to think aboutit, not to say any more; but she knew she would feel better if shedid. 

"I told her I'd go presently; and she waited--the patient littlething! And I was making my blue bow, and fixing it on, and fussingwith the running, and I forgot! And she couldn't bear to bother me, and didn't say a word, but waited till she dropped to sleep withoutit; and her lips were so red and dry. It was a whole hour that Ilet her lie so. She never knew anything after that. 

"She waked up all in a rave of light-headedness!

"I thought I should never get over it, Ray. And I never did, waydown in my heart; but I got back into the same wretched nonsense, and now--here's _mother_!

"It's no use to tell me. I've done it. I've lost my right. It'll_never_ be given back to me. "

"Marion--I wish you could have Mr. Vireo to talk to you; orLuclarion Grapp. Won't you come home with me, and let them come tosee you? They _know_ about these things, dear. "

"Would you take me home?" asked Marion, slowly, looking her in theface. 

"Yes, indeed. Will you come?"

"O, do take me and hide me away, and let me cry!"

She dropped herself, as it were passively, into Rachel Ingraham'shands. She could not stay among the neighbors, she said. She couldnot stay in that house alone, one day. 

Ray stayed with her, until after the funeral. 

Marion would not go to the church. She had let them decideeverything just as they pleased, thinking only that she could notthink about any of it. Mrs. Kent had been a faithful, humblechurch-member for forty years, and the minister and herfellow-members wanted her to be brought there. There was no room inthe little half-house, where she had lived, for neighbors andfriends to gather, and for the services properly to take place. 

So it was decided. 

But when the time came, and it was too late to change, Marionsaid, --"She belonged to them, and they have done by her. They canall go, but I can't. To sit up in the front pew as a mourner, and belooked at, and prayed for, as if I had been a real child, and hadonly _lost_ my mother! You know I can't, Ray. I will stay here, andbear my punishment. May be if I bear it _all_ now--do you believe itmight make any difference?"

Ray stayed with her through the whole. 

While all was still in the church, not ten rods off, a carriage camefor them to the little white gate. With the silken blinds down, andthe windows open behind them, it was driven to the cemetery, and inbeneath the sheltering trees, to a stopping place just upon a littleside turn, near the newly opened grave. No one, of those whoalighted from the vehicles of the short procession, knew exactlywhen or how it had come. 

The words of the prayer beside the grave, --most tenderly framed bythe good old minister, for the ear he knew they would reach--came insoft and clear upon the pleasant air. 

"And we know, Lord, as we lay these friends away, one after another, that we give them into Thy hands, --into Thy heart; that we give intoThy heart, also, all our love and our sorrow, and our penitence forwhatever more we might have been or done toward them; that throughThee, our thought of them can reach them forever. We pray Thee toforgive us, as we know we do forgive each other; to keep alive andtrue in us the love by which we hold each other; and finally tobring us face to face in Thy glory, which is Thy loving presenceamong us all. We ask Thee to do this, by the pity and grace that arein Thy Christ, our Saviour. "

After that, they were driven straight in, over the long Avenue, tothe city, and to the quiet house in Pilgrim Street. 

Ray herself, only, led Marion to the little room up-stairs whichhad been made ready for her; Ray brought her up some tea, and madeher drink it; she saw her in bed for the night, and sat by her tillshe fell asleep. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

ERRANDS OF HOPE. 

"It is a very small world, after all. "

Mr. Dickens, who touched the springs of the whole world's life, andmoved all its hearts with tears and laughter, said so; and we findit out, each in our own story, or in any story that we know of ortry to tell. How things come round and join each other again, --howthis that we do, brings us face to face with that which we havedone, and with its work and consequence; how people find each otherafter years and years, and find that they have not been very farapart after all; how the old combinations return, and almost repeatthemselves, when we had thought that they were done with. 

"As the doves fly to their windows, " where the crumbs are waitingfor them, we find ourselves borne by we know not what instinct ofevents, --yet we do know; for it is just the purpose of God, as allinstinct is, --toward these conjunctions and recurrences. We can seeat the end of weeks, or months, or years, how in some Hand the linesmust have all been gathered, and made to lead and draw to thecoincidence. We call it fate, sometimes; stopping short, eitherblindly inapprehensive of the larger and surer blessedness, or tooshyly reverent of what we believe to say it easily out. Yet when weread it in a written story, we call it the contrivance of thewriter, --the trick of the trade. Dearly beloved, the writer onlycatches, in such poor fashion as he may, the trick of the Finger, whose scripture is upon the stars. 

Marion Kent is received into the Ingraham home. Hilary Vireo andLuclarion Grapp preach the gospel to her. 

"Christ died. "

The minister uttered his evangel of mercy in those two eternalwords. 

"Yes, --Christ, " murmured the girl, who had never questioned aboutsuch things before, and to whose lips the holy name had beenstrange, unsuitable, impossible; but whose soul, smitten with itssin and need, broke through the wretched outward hinderance now, andhad to cry up after the only Hope. 

"But He could not forgive my letting _them_ die. I have been readingthe New Testament, Mr. Vireo, 'Whosoever shall offend one of theselittle ones, it were better for him that a millstone"--

She could not finish the quotation. 

"Yes, --'_offend_;' turn aside out of the right--away from Him;mislead. Hurt their _souls_, Marion. "

Marion gave a grasping look into his face. Her eyes seized thecomfort, --snatched it with a starving madness out of his. 

"Do you think it means _that?_" she said. 

"I do. I know the word 'offend' means simply to 'turn away. ' We maysin against each other's outward good, grievously; we may lay uplives full of regrets to bear; we may hurt, we may kill; and then wemust repent according to our sin; but we _may_ repent, and they andHe will pity. It is the soul-killers--the corrupters--Christ soterribly condemns. "

"But listen to me, Marion, " he began again. "God let his Christdie--suffer--for the whole world. Christ lets them whom he countsworthy, die--suffer--for _their_ world. The Lamb is forever slain;the sacrifice of the holy is forever making. It is so that they cometo walk in white with Him; because they have washed their robes inhis blood--have partaken of his sacrifice. Do you not think they areglad now, with his joy, to have given themselves for you; if itbrings you back? 'If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. 'He who knew how to lay hold of the one great heart of humanity by adivine act, knows how to give his own work to those who can draw thesingle cords, and save with love the single souls. They must suffer, that they may also reign with Him. It is his gift to them and toyou. Will you take your part of it, and make theirs perfect? 'Letnot your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. Ye believe in me, believe also in these. '"

"But I want to come where they are. I want to love and do for them;do something for them in heaven, Mr. Vireo, that I did not do here!Can I _ever_ have my chances given back again?"

"You have them now. Go and do something for 'the least of these. 'That is how we work for our Christs who have been lifted up. Dotheir errands; enter into the sacrifice with them; be a linkyourself in the divine chain, and feel the joy and the life of it. The moment you give yourself, you shall feel that. You shall knowthat you are joined to them. You need not wait to go to heaven. Youcan be in heaven. "

He left her with that to think of; left her with a new peace in hereyes. She looked round that hour for something to do. 

She went up into old Mrs. Rhynde's room. She knew Ray and Dot werebusy. She found the old lady's knitting work all in a snarl;stitches dropped and twisted. 

Some coals had rolled out upon the hearth, and the sun had gotround so as to strike across her where she sat. 

The grandmother was waiting patiently, closing her eyes, and restingthem, letting the warm sun lie upon her folded hands like a friend'stouch. One of the girls would be up soon. 

Marion came in softly, brushed up the hearth, laid the sticks andembers together, made the fire-place bright. She changed the blinds;lowered one, raised another; kept the sunshine in the room, butshielded away the dazzle that shot between face and fingers. Sheleft the shade with careful note, just where it let the warm beam inupon those quiet hands. Some instinct told her not to come betweenthem and that heavenly enfolding. 

She took the knitting-work and straightened it; raveled down, andpicked up, and with nimble stitches restored the lost rows. 

Mrs. Rhynde looked up at her and smiled. 

Then she offered to read. She had not read a word aloud from aprinted page since that night in Loweburg. 

The old lady wanted a hymn. Marion read "He leadeth me. " The bookopened of itself to that place. She read it as one whose soul wentsearching into the words to find what was in them, and bring itforth. Of Marion Kent, sitting in the chair with the book in herhand, she thought--she remembered--nothing. Her spirit went from outof her, into spiritual places. So she followed the words with hervoice, as one really _reading_; interpreting as she went. All herelocution had taught her nothing like this before. It had nottouched the secret of the instant receiving and giving again; it hadonly been the trick of _saying out_, which is no giving at all. 

"Thank you, dear, " said the soft toothless voice. "That's verypretty reading. "

Dot came in, and she went away. 

She had done a little "errand for her mother. " A very little one;she did not deserve, yet, that more should be given her to do; buther heart went up saying tenderly, remorsefully, --"For your sake. "

And back into her heart came the fulfillment of the promise, --"Hethat doeth it in the name of a disciple, shall receive a disciple'sreward. "

These comforts, these reprievals, came to her; then again, shewent down into the blackness of the old memories, the oldself-accusations. 

After she had found her way to Luclarion Grapp's, she usedsometimes, when these things seized her, to tie on her bonnet, pulldown her thick veil, and crying and whispering behind it as shewent, --"Mother! Susie! do you know how I love you now? how sorry Iam?" would hurry down, through the busy streets, to the Neighbors. 

"Give me something to do, " she would say, when she got there. 

And Luclarion would give her something to do; would keep her to tea, or to dinner; and in the quietness, when they were left bythemselves, would say words that were given her to say in her owncharacter and fashion. It is so blessed that the word is given andrepeated in so many characters and fashions! That each one receivesit and passes it on, "in that language into which he was born. "

"I wish you could hear Luclarion Grapp's way of talking, " RayIngraham had said to her just after she had brought her home. "Thekind of comfort she finds for the most wicked and miserable, --peoplewho have done such shocking things as you never dreamed of. "

"I want to hear somebody talk to the very wickedest. If there's anychance for me, there's where I must find it. I can't listen with thepretty-good people, any longer. It doesn't belong to me, or do meany good. "

"Come and hear the gospel then. " And so Ray had taken her down toNeighbor Street, to Luclarion Grapp. 

"But the sin stays. You can't wipe the fact out; and you've got totake the consequences, " said Marion Kent to the strong, simple womanto whom she came as to a second-seer, to have her spiritualdestinies revealed to her. 

"Yes, " said Luclarion, gravely, but very sweetly, "you have. But theconsequences wear out. Everything wears out but the Lord's love. Andthese old worn-out consequences--why, He can turn them intoblessings; and He means to, as they go along, and fade, and change;until, by and by, we may be safer and stronger, and fuller ofeverlasting life, than if we hadn't had them. I was vaccinated awhile ago this summer; everybody was down here; and I had a prettysick time. It took--ferocious! Well, I got over it, and then Ithought about it. I'd got something out of my system forever, thatmight have come upon me, to destruction, all of a sudden; but nownever will! It appears to me almost as if we were sent into thisworld, like a kind of hospital, to be vaccinated against the awfulevil--in our souls; to suffer a little for it; to take it theeasiest way we can take it, and so be safe. I don't know--and if youhadn't repented, I wouldn't put it into your head; but it's been putinto my head, after I've repented, and I guess it's mainly true. Seehere!"

And she took down a big leather-bound Bible, and opened it to thefortieth chapter of Isaiah. 

"Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith the Lord. Speak yecomfortably to Jerusalem, and say unto her that her warfare isaccomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath receivedof the Lord's hand double for all her sins. "

"The Old Testament is full of the New; men's wickedness, --it tookwicked men to show the way of the Lord in the earth, --and God'sforgiveness, and his leading it all round right, in spite of themall! Only He didn't turn the right side out all at once; it wasn'tsafe to let them see both sides then. But He _trusts_ us now; Hegave his whole heart in Jesus Christ; He tells us, without anykeeping back, what He means our very sins shall do for us, and Heleaves it to us, after that, to take hold and help Him!"

"If it weren't for them! If I hadn't let them suffer and die!"

"Do you think He takes all this care of you, --lets them die for youeven, --and don't take as much for them? Do you think they ain't gladand happy now? Do you think you could have hurt them, if you hadtried, --and you didn't try, you only let them alone a little, forgetting? It says, 'If any man sin, we have an advocate with theFather, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation. ' Ifwe have somebody to take part with us against our sins, how muchmore against our mistakes, --our forgettings! and _they_ are thepropitiation, too; their angels--the Christ of them--do alwaysbehold the face of the Father. Their interceding is a part of theLord's interceding. "

"If I could once more be let to do something for them--their veryselves!"

"You can. You can pray, 'Lord give them some beautiful heavenly joythis day that thou knowest of, for my asking; because I cannot anymore do for them on the earth. ' And then you can turn round to theirerrands again. "

Marion stood up on her feet. 

"I will say that prayer for them every day! I shall believe in it, because you told me. If I had thought of it myself, I should nothave dared. But He wouldn't send such a message by you if He didn'tmean it; would He?"

She believed in the God of Luclarion Grapp, as the children ofIsrael believed in the God of Abraham. 

"He never sends any message that He doesn't mean. He means thecomfort, just as much as He does the blaming. "

Another day, a while after, Marion came down to Neighbor Street withsomething very much on her mind to say, and to ask about. They hadall waited for her own plans to suggest themselves, or rather forher work to be given her to do. No one had mentioned, or urged, oreven asked anything as to what she should do next. 

But now it came of itself. 

"Couldn't I get a place in some asylum, or hospital, do you think, Miss Grapp? To be anything--an under nurse, or housemaid, or a cookto make gruels? So that I could do for poor women and littlechildren? That would seem to come the very nearest. I'd come here, if you wanted me; but I think I should like best to take care ofpoor, good women, whose children had died, or gone away; who haven'tany one to look after them except asylum people. I like to treatthem as if they were all my mothers; and especially to wait on anylittle girls that might be sick. "

Was this the same Marion Kent who had given her whole soul, alittle while ago, to fine dressing and public appearing, and havingher name on placards? Had all that life dropped off from her soeasily?

Ah, you call it easily! _She_ knew, how, passing through thefurnace, it had been burned away; shriveled and annihilated with thefierce, hot sweep of a spiritual flame before which all old, unworthy desire vanishes:--the living, awful breath of remorse. 

"I've no doubt you can, " said Luclarion. "I'll make inquiries. Mrs. Sheldon comes here pretty often; and she is one of the managers ofthe Women and Children's Hospital. They've just got into a great, new building, and there'll be people wanted. "

"I'll begin with anything, remember; only to get in, and learn how. I'll do so they'll want to keep me, and give me more; more work, Imean. If I could come to nursing, and being depended on!"

"They train nurses, regular, there. Learn them, so that they can goanywhere. Then you might some time have a chance to go to somebodythat needed great care; some sick woman or child, or a sick mother, with little children round her"--

"And every day send up some good turn by them to mother and littleSue!"

So they bound up her wounds for her, and poured in the oil and wine;so they put her on their own beast of service, and set her in theirown way, and brought her to a place of abiding. 

Three weeks afterward, she went in as housemaid for the children'sward to the Hospital; the beautiful charity which stands, a token ofthe real best growth of Boston, in that new quarter of her fastenlarging borders, where the tide of her wealth and her life isreaching out southward, toward the pure country pleasantness. 

We must leave her there, now; at rest from her ambitions; reachinginto a peace they could never have given her; doing daily work thatcomes to her as a sign and pledge of acceptance and forgiveness. 

She sat by a child's bed one Sunday; the bed of a little girl tenyears old, whom she had singled out to do by for Susie's sake. Shehad taken the place of a nurse, to-day, who was ill with an ague. 

She read to Maggie the Bible story of Joseph, out of a little bookfor children that had been Sue's. 

After the child had fallen asleep, Marion fetched her Bible, to lookback after something in the Scripture words. 

It had come home to her, --that betrayal and desertion of the boy byhis brethren; it stood with her now for a type of her own selfishunfaithfulness; it thrust a rebuke and a pain upon her, though sheknew she had repented. 

She wanted to see exactly how it was, when, in the Land beyond theDesert, his brethren came face to face again with Joseph. 

"Now, therefore, be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that yesold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life.... To save your lives with a great deliverance. So it was not you thatsent me hither, but God.... And thou shalt dwell in the land ofGoshen, and thou shalt be near unto me. "

A great throb of thankfulness, of gladness, came rushing up in her;it filled her eyes with light; it flushed her cheeks with tendercolor. The tears sprung shining; but they did not fall. Peace stayedthem. It was such an answer!

"How pretty you are!" said Maggie, awakening. "Please, give me adrink of water. "

It was as if Susie thought of it, and gave her the chance! She readsecret, loving meanings now, in things that had their meanings onlyfor her. She believed in spirit-communication, --for she knew itcame; but in its own beautiful, soul-to-soul ways; not by anyoutward spells. 

She went for the water; she found a piece of ice and put in it. Shecame and raised the little head tenderly, --the child was hurt in theback, and could not be lifted up, --and held the goblet to the gentlelips; lips patient, like Sue's!

"O, you move me so nice! You give me the drink so handy!"

The beauty was in Marion's face still, warm with an inward joy; thechild's eyes followed her as she rose from bending over her. 

"Real pretty, " she said again, softly, liking to look at her. And"real" was beginning to be the word, at last, for Marion Kent. 

The glory of that poem she had read, thinking only of her own pettytriumph, came suddenly over her thought by some association, --shecould not trace out how. Its grand meaning was a meaning, all atonce, for her. With a changed phrasing, like a heavenly inspiration, the last line sprang up in her mind, as if somebody stood by andspoke it:--

 "These are the lambs of the sacrifice: _this_ is the court of the King!"

CHAPTER XVIII. 

BRICKFIELD FARMS. 

It was a rainy, desolate day. 

It had rained the day before yesterday, and yesterday, and halfcleared up last night; then this morning it had sullenly andtiresomely begun again. 

All the forenoon it grew worse; in the afternoon, heavy, pelting, streaming showers came down, filling the Kiln Hollow with mist, andhiding the tops of the hills about it with low, rolling, ever-gathering and resolving clouds. 

It seemed as if all the autumn joy were over; as if the pleasantdays were done with till another year. After this, the cold wouldset in. 

Mrs. Jeffords had a bright fire built in Mrs. Argenter's room, another in the family sitting-room. It looked cosy; but it remindedthe sojourners that they had not simply to draw themselves intowinter-quarters, and be comfortable; their winter-quarters were yetto seek. 

Sylvie had been cracking a plateful of butternuts; picking outmeats, I mean, from the cracked nuts, to make a plateful; and that, if you know butternuts, you know is no small task. She brought themto her mother, with some grated maple sugar sprinkled among and overthem. 

"This is what you liked so much at the Shakers' in Lebanon, " shesaid. "See if it isn't as nice as theirs, I think it is fresher. Here is a tiny little pickle-fork, to eat with. "

Mrs. Argenter took the offered dainty. 

"You are a dear child, " she said. "Come and eat some too. "

"O, I ate as I went along. Now, I'll read to you. " And she took up"Blindpits, " which her mother had laid down. 

"If it only wouldn't storm so, " said Mrs. Argenter. "Mrs. Jeffordssays there will be a freshet. The roads will be all torn up. Weshall never be able to get home. "

"O yes, we shall, " said Sylvie, cheerily; putting down the wonderthat arose obtrusively in her own mind as to where the home would bethat they should go to. 

"Did Mrs. Jeffords tell you about last year's freshet? And theapples?"

"She said they had an awful flood. The brooks turned into rivers, and the rivers swallowed up everything. "

"O, she didn't get to the funny part, then?" said Sylvie. "Shedidn't tell you about the apples?"

"No. I think she keeps the funny parts for you, Sylvie. "

"May be she does. She isn't sure that you feel up to them, always. But I guess she means them to come round, when she tells them to me. You see they had just been gathering their apples, in that greatlower orchard, --five acres of trees, and such a splendid crop! Therethey were, all piled up, --can't you imagine? A perfect picture! Redheaps, and yellow heaps; and greenings, and purple pearmains, andstreaked seek-no-furthers. Like great piles of autumn leaves! Well, the flood came, and rose up over the flats, into the lower end ofthe orchard. They went down over night, and moved all the pilesfurther up, The next day, they had to move them again. And the nextmorning after that, when they woke up, the whole orchard was underwater, and every apple gone. Mr. Jeffords said he got down just intime to see the last one swim round the corner. And when the floodhad fallen, --there, half a mile below, spread out over the meadow, was three hundred barrels of apple sauce!"

Mrs. Argenter laughed a feeble little _expected_ laugh; her heartwas not free to be amused with an apple-story. No wonder Mrs. Jeffords kept the funny parts for Sylvie. Mrs. Argenter quenched herbefore she could possibly get to them. But was Sylvie's heart freefor amusement? What was the difference? The years between them? Mrs. Jeffords was a far older woman than Mrs. Argenter, and had had hercares and troubles; yet she and Sylvie laughed like two girlstogether, over their work and their stories. That was it, --the work!Sylvie was doing _all she could_. The cheerfulness of doing followedirresistibly after, into the loops and intervals of time, and keptout the fear and the repining. 

"There was nothing that chippered you up so, as being real drivingbusy, " Mrs. Jeffords said. 

Mrs. Argenter sat in her low easy-chair, watched away the time, andworried about the time to come. It left no leisure for a laugh. 

Perhaps the hardest thing that Sylvie did through the day, was thesetting to work to "chipper" her mother up. It was lifting up aweight that continually dropped back again. 

"Do they think this rain will ever be over?" asked Mrs. Argenter, turning her face toward the dripping panes again. 

"Why, yes, mother; rains always _have_ been over sometime. Theynever knew one that wasn't, and they go by experience. "

There was nothing more to be said upon the rain topic, after thatsimple piece of logic. 

"If there doesn't come Badgett up the hill in all the pour!"

Badgett drove the daily stage from Tillington up through Pemunk andSandon. He came round by Brickfields when there was anybody tobring. 

Badgett drove up over the turf door-yard, close to the porch. Hejumped off, unbuttoned the dripping canvas door, and flung it up. 

Mrs. Jeffords was in the entry on the instant; surprised, puzzled, but all ready to be hospitable, to she didn't know whom. Relationsfrom Indiana, as likely as not. That is the way people arrive in thecountry; and a whole houseful to stay over night does not startlethe hostess as an unexpected guest to dinner may a city one. 

But the persons who alighted from the clumsy stage-wagon were Mr. Christopher Kirkbright, Miss Euphrasia, and Desire Ledwith. 

"Didn't you get our letter?" said Miss Euphrasia, as Sylvie, fromher mother's door-way, saw who she was, and sprang forward. 

"Why, no, we didn't get no letter, " said Mrs. Jeffords. "Fatherhasn't been to the office for two days, it's stormed so continual. But you're just as welcome, exactly. Step right in here. " And sheflung open the door of her best parlor, where the new boughtencarpet was, for the damp feet and the dripping waterproof. 

"No, indeed; not there; we couldn't have the conscience. "

"'Tain't very comfortable either, after all, " said Mrs. Jeffords, changing her own mind in a bustle. "It's been kinder shut up. Comeright out to the sittin'-room-fire finally. "

Mr. Kirkbright and Miss Ledwith followed her; Miss Euphrasia wentright into Mrs. Argenter's room, after she had taken off herwaterproof in the hall. 

As she came in at the door, a great flash of sunshine streamed fromunder the western clouds, in at the parlor window, followed heracross the hall and enveloped her in light as she entered. 

"Why, the storm's over!" cried Sylvie, joyfully. "You come in on asunbeam, like the Angel Gabriel. But you always do. How came you tocome?"

"I came to answer your letter. You know I don't like to write verywell. And I've brought my brother, and a dear friend of mine whom Iwant you to know. It did not rain in Boston when we started, but itcame on again before noon, and all the afternoon it has been asplendid down-pour. Something really worth while to be out in, youknow; not a little exasperating drizzle. That's the kind of rain onecan't bear, and catches cold in. How the showers swept round thehills, and the cascades thundered and flashed as we came by! What alovely region you have discovered!"

"It's so beautiful that you're here! We'll go down to the cascadesto-morrow. Won't you just come and introduce me to the others, andthen come back to mother?"

The others were in the family-room, which was also dining-room. Inthe kitchen beyond, Mrs. Jeffords' stove was roaring up for an earlytea, and she was whipping griddle-cakes together. 

"My brother, Mr. Kirkbright--Miss Argenter. Miss DesireLedwith--Sylvie. "

The two girls shook hands, and looked in each others faces. 

"How clear, and strong, and trusty!" Sylvie thought. 

"You dear little spirit!" thought Desire, seeing the delicate face, and the brave sweetness through it. 

This was the second real introduction Miss Euphrasia had made withinten days. It was a great deal, of that sort, to happen in such spaceof time. 

"If it hadn't been for the storm, we might have hurried down andmissed you. Mother was beginning to dread the coming on of thecold, " said Sylvie. "But the rain came and settled it, for just now. That rested me. A real good 'can't help' is such a comfort. "

"The Father's No. Shutting us in with its grand, gentle forbiddance. Many a rain-storm is that. I always feel so safe when I am shut upby really impossible weather. "

After the tea, they were still in time for the whole sunset, wonderful after the storm. 

Desire had gone from the table to the half-glazed door which openedfrom the room into a broad porch, looking out directly across thehollow, along a valley-line of side-hills, to the distant bluepeaks. 

"O, come!" she cried back to the others, as she hastened out uponthe platform. "It is marvelous!"

Heavy lines of clouds lay banked together in the west, black withthe remnant and recoil of tempest; between these, through rifts andbreaks, poured down the sunlight across bright spaces into thebosoms of the hills lighting them up with revelations. The slopingoutlines shone golden green with lingering summer color, anddiscovered each separate wave and swell of upland. The searchingshafts fell upon every tree and bush and spire, moving slowly overthem and illuminating point after point, making each suddenly seemdistinct and near. What had been a mere margin of distant woods, stood eliminated and relieved in bough and stem and leafage, with asingular pre-Raphaelitic individuality. It was the standing-out ofall things in the last radiance; called up, one by one under theflash of judgment--beautiful, clear, terrible. 

Then the clouds themselves, as the sun dropped down, drank in thesplendor. They turned to rose and crimson; they floated, and spread, and broke, and drifted up the valley, against the hills on right andleft. Rags and shreds of them, trailing gorgeous with color, clungwhere the ridges caught them, and streamed like fragments ofheavenly banners. The sky repeated the October woods, --the woods thesky, --in vivid numberless hues. 

The sunset rolled up and around the watchers as they gazed. Theywere _in_ it; it lay at their very feet, and beside them at eitherhand. Below, the sheet of water in the "Clay-Pits, " gleamed likeburnished gold. Here and there, from among the tree-tops, came upthe smoke of little cascades, reaching for baptism into thepervading glory. 

It was chilly, and they had to go in; but they kept coming back towindow and door, looking out through the closed sashes, and calling, "Now! now! O, was there ever anything like that?"

At last it turned into a heavenly vision of still, far, shiningwaters; the earth and the pools upon it darkened, and the skygathered up into itself the glory, and disclosed its own wider anddiviner beauty. 

A great rampart of gray, blue, violet clouds lay jagged, grand, likerocks along a shore. Up over them rushed light, crimson surf, foaming, tossing. Beyond, a rosy sea. In it, little golden boatsfloated. The flamy light flung itself up into the calm zenith; thereit met the still heaven-color, and the sky was tender withsaffron-touched blue. 

So the tempest of trouble met the tempest of love in the end of theday, and the world rolled on into the night under the glory andpeace of their rushing and melting together. 

After all that, they came back by a step and a word--these mortalobservers, --to practical consultation such as mortals must have, andespecially if they be upon their travels; to questions aboutbestowal, and the homely, kindly, funny little details of Mrs. Jeffords' hospitality. 

"Where should she put them? Why, she was _always_ ready. To be sure, the _front_ upper room had had the carpets taken up since the summercompany went, and the beds were down; but, la, there was roomenough!"

"There's the east down-stairs bedroom, and the little west-room overthe sittin'-room, and there's _my_ room! I ain't never put out!"

"But you are; out of your room; and you ought not to be. "

"Don't _care_!" said Mrs. Jeffords, triumphantly. "There's thekitchen bedroom, that I keep apurpose to camp down in. It's allright. Don't you worry. "

"You never care; that's the reason I do worry, " said Sylvie. 

"I've learnt not to care, " said Mrs. Jeffords. "'Tain't no use. Youmust take things as they are. They will be so, and you can't helpit. If they fall right side up, well and good; if they're wrong sideup, let 'em lay. And they ain't wrong side up yet, I can tell you. You just go and sit down and enjoy yourselves. "

Mrs. Argenter was brighter this evening than she had been for along while. "It was nice to be among people again, " she said, whenthe evening was over. 

"So it is, " said Sylvie. "But somehow I didn't feel the differencethe other way. I think I always _am_ among people. At least it neverseems to me as if they were very far off. Next door mayn't beexactly alongside, but it is next door for all that, and it is inthe world. And the world wakes up all together every morning, --thatis, as fast as the morning gets round. "

With her "mayn't be's" and her "is'es, " Sylvie was unconsciouslymaking a habit of the trick of Susan Nipper, but with a kindliertouch to her antitheses than pertained to those of that acerbdamsel. 

Mrs. Argenter wanted tangible presences. She had not reached so faras her child into that inner living where all feel each other, knowing that "these same tribulations"--and joys also--areaccomplished among the brotherhood that is in all the earth;knowing, too, --ah! that is the blessedness when we come to it, --thatwe may walk, already, in the heavenly places with all them that arealive unto each other in the Lord. 

The next morning after deep rains in a hill-country is a morning ofwonders; if you can go out among them, and know where to find them. Down the ravines, from the far back, greater heights, rush andplunge the streams whitened with ecstasy, turned to sweet wildharmonies as they go. It is a day of glory for the water-drops thatare born to make a part of it. 

Sylvie knew the way down through the glen, from fall to fall, half amile apart. She and Bob Jeffords had come down to them, time andagain; after nearly every little summer shower; for with all theheat, the night rains had been plentiful and frequent, and thewater-courses had been kept full. The brick-fields, that looked sonear from the farms, were really more than two miles away; and itwas a constant descent, from brow to brow, over the range of uplandsbetween the Jeffords' place and the Basin. 

"The First Cataracts are in here, " said Sylvie, gleefully, leadingthe way in by a bar-place upon a very wet path, the wetness of whichnobody minded, all having come defended with rubbers andwaterproofs, and tucked up their petticoats boot-high. Great bosksof ferns grew beside, and here and there a bush burning with autumncolor. Everything shone and dripped; the very stones glittered. 

They climbed up rocky slopes, on which the short gray moss grew, cushiony. They followed the line of maples and alders and evergreensthat sentineled and hid away the shouting stream, spreading theirskirts and intertwining their arms to shelter it, like the privacyof some royal child at play, and to keep back from the pilgrims thebeautiful surprise. Upon a rough table-ledge, they came to it atlast; the place where they could lean in between the trees, andoverlook and underlook the shining tumult, --the shifting, yetenduring apparition of delight. 

It came in two leaps, down a winding channel, through which itseemed to turn and spring, like some light, graceful, impetuousliving creature. You _felt_ it reach the first rock-landing; youwere conscious of the impetus which forced it on to take the secondspring which brought it down beneath your feet. And it keptcoming--coming. It was an eternal moment; a swift, vanishing, yetnever over-and-done movement of grace and splendor. That is themagic of a waterfall. Something exquisite by very suggestion ofevanescence, caught _in transitu_, and held for the eye and mind todwell on. 

They were never tired of looking. The chance would not come, --thatought to be a pause, --for them to turn and go away. 

"But there are more, " Sylvie said at length, admonishing them. "Andthe Second Cataract is grander than this. "

"You number them going down, " said Mr. Kirkbright. 

"Yes. People always number things as they come to them, don't they?Our first is somebody's else last, I suppose, always. "

"What a little spirit that is!" said Christopher Kirkbright to MissEuphrasia, dropping back to help his sister down a rocky plunge. 

"A little spirit waked up by touch of misfortune, " said MissEuphrasia. "She would have gone through life blindfolded by purpleand fine linen, if things had been left as they were with her. "

Desire and Sylvie walked on together. 

"Leave them alone, " said Miss Kirkbright to her brother. And shestopped, and began to gather handfuls of the late ferns. 

Now she had the chance given her, Desire said it straight out, asshe said everything. 

"I came up here after you, Miss Argenter. Did you know it?"

"No. After me? How?" asked Sylvie. 

"To see if you and your mother would come and make your home with usthis winter, --pretty much as you do with Mrs. Jeffords. I can say_us_, because Hazel Ripwinkley, my cousin, is with me nearly allthe time; but for the rest of it, I am all the family there reallyis, now that Rachel Froke has gone away; unless you came to call mydear old Frendely 'family, ' as I do; seeing that next to Rachel, sheis root and spring of it. You could help me; you could help her; andI think you would like my work. I should be glad of you; and yourmother could have Rachel Froke's gray parlor. It is a one-sidedproposition, because, you see, I know all about you already, fromMiss Euphrasia. You will have to take me at hazard, and find out bytrying. "

"Do you think the old proverb isn't as true of good words as ofmischief, --that a dog who will fetch a bone will carry a bone?" saidSylvie, laughing with the same impulse by which clear drops stoodsuddenly in her eyes, and a quick rosiness came into her face. "Doyou suppose Miss Euphrasia hasn't told me of you?"

"I never thought I was one of the people to be told about, " saidDesire, simply. "Do you think you could come? Miss Euphrasiabelieved it would be what you wanted. There is plenty of room, andplenty of work. I want you to know that I mean to keep you honestlybusy, because then you will understand that things come out honestlyeven. "

"Even! Dear Miss Ledwith!"

"Then you'll try it?"

"I don't know how to thank Miss Euphrasia or you. "

"There are no thanks in the bargain, " said Desire, smiling. "I wantyou; if you want me, it is a Q. E. D. If we _do_ dispute aboutanything, we'll leave it out to Miss Euphrasia. She knows how tomake everything right. She shall be our broker. It is a good thingto have one, in some kinds of trade. "

They had come around the curve in the road now, that brought themalongside the shady gorge at the foot of Cone Hill. Here was thelittle group of brick-makers' houses; empty, weather-beaten, theirdoor-yards overgrown with brakes and mulleins. Beyond, up the ledge, to which a rough drive-way, long disused, led off, was the quaint, rambling edifice that with its feet of stone and brick went "walkingup" the mountain. 

"You must go in and see it, " Sylvie said. "But first, --this is theway to the cascade. "

Another bar-place let them in again to another narrow, wild, bush-grown path around the edge of the cliff, the lower spur of thegreat hill; and down over shelving rocks, a long, gradual descent, to the foot of the fall. 

The water foamed and rippled to their feet, as they walked along itsvarying edge-line on the smooth, sloping stone that stretched backagainst the perpendicular rampart of the cliff. The fall itself washidden in the turn around which, above, they had followed thetangled pathway. 

At the farthest projection of the platform they were now treading, they came upon it; beneath it, rather, they looked back and up atits showery silver sheet, falling in sweet, continual thunder intothe dark, hollow, rock-encircled pool, thence to tumble awayheadlong, from point to point, lower and lower yet, by a thousandlittle breaks and plunges, till it came out into a broad meadowstretch miles and miles away. 

"What a hurry it is in, to get down where it is wanted, " saidDesire. 

She had seated herself beside the curling edge of the swift stream, where it seemed to trace and keep by its own will its boundary uponthe nearly level rock, and was gazing up where the white radiancepoured itself as if direct from out the blue above. 

Mr. Kirkbright stood behind her. 

"Most things come to us at last so quietly, " he said. "It is good tofeel and see what a rush it starts with, --out of that heart ofheaven. "

Desire had not said that; but it was just what she had been feeling. Eager to get to us; coming in a hurry. Was that God's impulse towardus?

"Making haste to help and satisfy the world, " Mr. Kirkbright saidagain. 

"A river of clear water of life, coming down out of the throne, "said Miss Euphrasia. "What a sign it is!"

Mr. Kirkbright walked along the margin of the ledge, farther andfarther down. He tried with his stick some stones that lay acrossthe current at a narrow point where beneath the opposite cliff itbent and turned away, losing itself from their sight as they stoodhere. Then he sprang across; crept, stooping, along the narrowfoothold under the projecting rock, until he could follow with hiseye the course of the rapid water, falling continually to its lowerlevel as it sped on and on, all its volume gathered in one deep, rocky, unchangeable bed. 

"What a waiting power!" he exclaimed, springing safely back, andcoming up toward them. "What a stream for mills! And it turnsnothing but the farmers' grists, till it gets to Tillington. "

Desire was a very little disappointed at this utilitarianism. Shehad been so glad and satisfied with the reading of its type; thetype of its far-back impulse. 

"If there had been mills here, we should not have seen that, " shesaid; forgetting to explain what. 

But Christopher Kirkbright knew. 

"What was it that we did see?" he asked, coming beside her. 

"The gracious hurry, " she answered, with a half-vexed surprise inher eyes. 

"And what is the next thing to seeing that? Isn't it to partake? Tobe in a gracious hurry also, if we can?"

A smile came up now in Desire's face, and effaced gently thevexation and the surprise. 

"Do you know what a legible face you have?" asked Mr. Kirkbright, seating himself near her on a step of rock. 

Desire was a little disturbed again by this movement. The others hadbegun to walk on, up the ledge, toward the old brick house;gathering as they went, ferns that had escaped the frost, othersthat had delicately whitened in it, and gorgeous maple-leaves, sweptfrom topmost, inaccessible branches, --where the most glorious coloralways hangs, --by last night's rain and wind. 

It was so foolish of her to have sat there until he came and didthis. Now she could not get right up and go away. This feeling, coming simultaneously with his question about her legible face, wasdoubly uncomfortable. But she had to answer. She did it briefly. 

"Yes. It is a great bother. I don't like coarse print. "

"Nor I. But my eyes are good; and the fine print is clear. I shouldlike very much to tell you of something that I have to do, MissLedwith. I should like your thoughts upon it. For, you see, I havehardly yet got acquainted with my ground. From what my sister tellsme, I think your work leads naturally up to mine. I should like tofind out whether it is quite ready for the join. "

"I haven't much work, " said Desire. "Luclarion Grapp has; and MissKirkbright, and Mr. Vireo. I only help, --with some money thatbelongs to it. "

"And I have more money that belongs to it, " said Mr. Kirkbright. 

It was a curious way for a rich man and a rich woman to talk to eachother, about their money. But I do not believe it ought to becurious. 

"Don't you often come across people who cannot be helped much justwhere they are? Don't you feel, sometimes, that there ought to be aplace to send them to, away, out of their old tracks, where theycould begin again; or even hide a while, in shame and repentance, before they _dare_ to begin again?"

"I _know_ Luclarion does, " said Desire, earnestly. 

She would have it, still, that there was no work in her own name forhim to ask about. 

"I must see this Luclarion of yours, " said Mr. Kirkbright. "Meanwhile, since I have got you to talk to, pray tell me all youcan, whoever found it out. Isn't there a need for a City of Refuge?And suppose a place like this, away from the towns, where God'sbeautiful water is coming down in a hurry, with a cry of power inevery leap, --where there is a great lake-basin full of material forwork, just stored away against men's need for their earning andtheir building, --suppose this place taken and used for the giving ofa new chance of life to those who have failed and gone wrong, orhave perhaps hardly ever had any right chances. Do you think wecould manage it so as to _keep_ it a place of refuge and newbeginning, and not let it spoil itself?"

"With the right people at each end, why not?" said Desire. "But O, Mr. Kirkbright! how can I tell you! It is such a great idea; and Idon't know anything. "

These words, that she happened to say, brought back to her--by oneof those little lightning threads that hold things together, andflash and thrill our recollections through us--the rainy morningwhen she went round in the storm to her Aunt Ripwinkley's, becauseshe could not sit in the bay-window at home, and wonder whether "itwas all finished, " or whether anybody had got to contrive anythingmore, "before they could sit behind plate-glass and let it rain. "She remembered it all by those same words that she had spoken thento Rachel Froke, --"Behold, we know not anything, --Tennyson and I!"

Nonsense stays by us, often, in stickier fashion than sense does;that is the good of nonsense, perhaps; it sticks, and draws thesense along after it. 

"I think one thing is certain, " said Mr. Kirkbright. "Humancreatures are made for 'moving on. ' I believe the Swedenborgians areright in this, --that the places above, or below, are filled from thehuman race, or races; and that the Lord Himself couldn't do muchwith beings made as He has made us, without places to _move usinto_. New beginnings, --evenings and mornings; the very planetcannot go on its way without making them for itself. Life bound downto poor conditions, --and all conditions are poor in the sense ofbeing limited while the life is resistlessly expanding, --festers;fevers; breaks out in violence and disease. I believe we want newplaces more than anything. I came up here on purpose to see if Icould not begin one. "

"How happened you to come just here?" questioned Desire. "What couldyou know of this, beforehand?"

"My sister had Miss Argenter's letter; and at once she rememberedthe name of the place and its story. That is the way things cometogether, you know. My brother-in-law, Mr. Sherrett, owns, or didown, this whole property. A 'dead stick, ' he thought it. Well, Aaron's rod was another dead stick. But he laid it up before theLord, and it blossomed. "

Desire sat silent, looking at the white water in its gracious hurry. Pouring itself away, unused, --unheeded; yet waiting there, pouringalways. The tireless impulse of the divine help; vehement; eager, with a human eagerness; yet so patient, till men's hands shouldreach out and lay hold of it!

She dreamed out a whole dream of life that might grow up beside thishelp; of work that might be done there. She forgot that she waslingering, and keeping Mr. Kirkbright lingering, behind the others. 

"You would have to live here yourself, I should think, " she said atlength, speaking out of her vision of the things that might be, andso--would have to be. She had got drawn in to the contemplation ofthe scheme, and had begun to weigh and arrange, involuntarily, itsdetails, forgetting that she "knew not anything. "

Mr. Kirkbright smiled. 

"Yes, I see where you are, " he said, "I had arrived at precisely thesame point myself. But the 'right people at the other end?' Whoshould they be? Who shall send me my villagers, --my workers? Whoshall discriminate for me, and keep things true and unconfused atthe source?"

"Your sister, Mr. Vireo, Luclarion Grapp, " Desire repeated, promptly. 

"And yourself?"

"Yes; I and Hazel, all we can. We help them. And now there will beMiss Argenter. As Hazel said, --'We all of us know the Muffin-man. 'How queer that that ridiculous play should come to mean so much withus! Luclarion Grapp is actually a muffin-woman, you know?"

"I'm afraid I don't know the Muffin-_man_ literally, except what Ican guess of him by your application, " said Mr. Kirkbright, laughing. "I've no doubt I ought to, and that it would do me good. "

"You will have to come to Greenley Street, and find him out. Hazeland Miss Craydocke manage all the introductions, as having a kind ofproprietorship; 'and quite proper, I'm sure'--Why, where are MissKirkbright and Miss Argenter?"

Coming back to light common speech, she came back also to thepresent circumstance; reminded also, perhaps, by her "quite proper"quotation. 

"If I may come to Greenley Street, I may learn a good deal besidethe Muffin-man, " said Mr. Kirkbright, giving her his hand to helpher up a steep, slippery place. 

Desire foolishly blushed. She knew it, and knew that her hat did notdefend her in the least. She could not take it back now; she hadinvited him. But what would he think of her blushing about it?

"You can learn what we all learn. I am only a scholar, " she said, shortly. And then she stood accused before her own truthfulness ofhaving covered up her blush by a disclaimer that had nothing to dowith it. She was conscious that she had colored like any silly girl, at she hardly knew what. She was provoked with herself, for lettingthe shadow of such things touch her. She hurried on, up the roughbank, before Mr. Kirkbright. When she reached the top, she turnedround and faced him; this time with a determinedly cool cheek. 

"I don't know why I said that. I did not suppose you thought youcould learn anything of me, " she said. "I was confused to think Ihad asked you in that offhand way to my house. I have not been verylong used to being the head of a house. "

She smiled one of those bits of smiles of hers; a mere relaxation ofthe lips that showed the white tips of her front teeth and justindicated the peculiar, pretty curve with which the others were setbehind them; feeling reassured and reinstated in her ownself-respect by her explanation. Then, without letting him answer, she turned swiftly round again, and sprang up the rugged stairway ofthe shelving rock. 

But she had not uninvited him, after all. 

They found Miss Kirkbright and Sylvie waiting for them at the redhouse. It was a quaint structure, with a kind of old, foreign lookabout it. It made you think either of an ancient family mansion insome provincial French town, or of a convent for nuns. 

It was of dark red brick, --the quality of which Mr. Kirkbrightremarked with satisfaction, --with high walls at the gable endscarried above the slope of the roof. These were met and overclaspedat the corners by wide, massive eaves. A high, narrow door with afan-light occupied the middle of the end before which the partystood. Windows above, with little balconies, were hung with old redwoolen damask, fading out in stripes; perishing, doubtless, withmoth and decay; in one was suspended a rusty bird-cage which hadonce been gilt. 

What an honest neighborhood this was, in which these things hadremained for years, and not even the panes of the windows had beenbroken by little boys! But then the villages full of little boyswere miles away, and the single families at the nearer farms werewell ordered Puritan folk, fathered and mothered in careful, oldfashioned sort. There was some indefinite awe, also, of the lonelyplace, and of the rich, far-off owner who might come any day to lookafter his rights, and make a reckoning with them. 

Up, from platform to platform of the terraced rock, as Sylvie hadsaid, climbed the successive sections of the dwelling. The front wastwo and a half stories high; the last outlying projection was asingle square apartment with its own low roof; towards the back, within, you went up flight after flight of short stairs from room toroom, from passage to passage. Once or twice, the few broad stepsbetween two apartments ran the whole width of the same. 

"What a place for plays!"

"Or for a little children's school, ranged in rows, one aboveanother. "

"The man who built it must have dreamt it first!"

These were the exclamations that they made to each other as theypassed through, exploring. 

There was a great number of bedrooms, divided off here and there;the upper front was one row of them with a gallery running acrossthe house, in whose windows toward the south hung the old red woolendraperies and the bird-cage. 

Below, at the back, the last room opened by a door upon a high, flattable of the rock, around whose overhanging edge a light railing hadbeen run. Standing here, they looked up and down the beautifulgorge, into the heart of the hill and the depth of its secret shadedplaces on the one hand, and on the other into the rush and whirl ofthe rapidly descending and broken torrent to where it flung itselfoff the sudden brink, and changed into white mist and an everlastingsong. 

"This last room ought to be a chapel, " said Mr. Kirkbright. "Outhere could be open-air service in the beautiful weather, to thesound of that continual organ. "

"You have thought of it, too, " exclaimed Desire. 

"Of what?" asked Mr. Kirkbright, turning toward her. 

"Of what you might make this place. "

"What would you make of it?"

They were a little apart, by themselves, again. It kept happeningso. Miss Kirkbright and Sylvie had a great deal to say to eachother. 

"I would make it a moral sanatorium. I would take people in here, and nurse them up by beautiful living, till they were ready to beginthe world again; and then I would have the little new world, of workand business, waiting just outside. I would have rooms for themhere, that they should feel the _own-ness_ of; flowers to tend;ferneries in the windows; they could make them from these beautifulwoods, and send them away to the cities; that would be a business atthe very first! I would have all the lovely, natural ways of livingto win them back by, --to teach them pure things; yes, --and I wouldhave the chapel to teach them the real gospel in! That bird-cage inthe gallery window made me think of it all, I believe, " she ended, bringing herself back out of her enthusiasm with a recollection. 

"I knew you could tell me how, " said Mr. Kirkbright, quietly. 

"How Hazel would rejoice in this place! It is a place to set any onedreaming, I think; because, perhaps, as Miss Kirkbright said, theman was in a dream when he planned it. "

"I mean to try if one dream cannot be lived, " said ChristopherKirkbright. "At any rate, let us have the _vision_ out, while we areabout it! What do you think of brickmaking for the hard, roughworking men, with families, with those cottages and more like themto live in; and paper-making, in mills down there, for others; forthe women and children, especially. Paper for hangings, say; then, some time or other, the printing works, and the designing? Might itnot all grow? And then wouldn't we have a ladder all the way up, forthem to climb by, --out of the clay and common toil to art andbeauty?"

"You can dream delightfully, Mr. Kirkbright. "

"I will see if I cannot begin to turn it into fact, and make itpay, " he answered. "Pay itself, and keep itself going. I do not needto look for my fortune from it. The fortune is to be put into it. But I have no right to lose, --to throw away, --the fortune. It mustcome by degrees, like all things. You know some people say that Goddreamed the heavens and the earth in those six wonderful days, andthen took his millions of years for the everlasting making, with theSabbath of his divine satisfaction between the two. If I cannot dothe whole, there may be others, --and if there are, we shall findthem, --who would help to build the city. "

"I know who, " said Desire, instantly. "Dakie Thayne, and Ruth! It isjust what they want. "

"Will 'Dakie Thayne' build a railroad, --seven miles, --across toTillington, --for our transportation? We'll say he will. I have noquestion it is Dakie Thayne, or somebody, who is waiting, and thatthe right people are all linked together, ready to draw each otherin, " said Mr. Kirkbright, giving rein to the very lightness ofgladness in the joy of the thought he was pursuing. "We don't knowhow we stand leashed and looped, all over the world, until the Lordbegins to take us in hand, and bring us together toward his grandintents. We shall want another Hilary Vireo to preach that gospelhere; and I don't doubt he is somewhere, though it would hardly seempossible. "

"Why don't we preach it ourselves?" said Desire, with inimitableunwittingness. She was so utterly and wholly in the vision, that sheleft her present self standing there on the rock with ChristopherKirkbright, and never even thought of a reason why to blush beforehim. 

"I don't know why we shouldn't. In fact, we could not help it. Itwould be _all_ gospel, wouldn't it? I know, at least, what I shouldmean the whole thing to preach. "

Saying this, he fell silent all at once. 

"There is a great deal of wrong gospel preached in the world. If wecould only stop that, and begin again, --I think!" said Desire. "Between the old, hopeless terrors and the modern smoothing away andletting go, the real living help seems to have failed men. Theydon't know where it is, or whether they need it, even. "

"Yes, that is it, " said Christopher Kirkbright, letting his silencebe broken through with the whole tide of his earnest, life-long, pondered thought. "Men have put aside the old idea of the avengingand punishing God, until they think they have no longer any need ofChrist. God is Love, they tell us; not recognizing that the Christ_is_ that very Love of God. He will not cast us into hell, they say;there _is_ no pit of burning torment. But they know there issomething that follows after sin; they know that God is not weak, but abides by his own truth. Therefore, when they have made out Godto be Love, and blotted away the old, literal hell, they turn backand declare pitilessly, --'There is _Law_. Law punishes; and Law isinexorable. God Himself does not suspend or contradict his Law. Youhave sinned; you must take the consequences. ' Are you better off inthe clutch of that Law, than you were in the old hell? Isn't therethe same need as ever crying up from hearts of suffering men for aSaviour? Of a side of God to be shown to them, --the forgiving side, the restoring right hand? The power to grasp and curb his own law?You must have Jesus again! You must have the Christ of God to helpyou against the Law of God that you have put in the place of thehell you will not believe in. Without a counteracting force, lawwill run on forever. The impetus that sin started will bear ondownward, through the eternities! This is what threatens the sinner;and you have sinned. Beyond and above and through the necessitiesthat He seems to have made, God reveals himself supreme in love, inthe Face of Jesus Christ. He comes in the very midst of the clouds, with power and great glory! 'I have _provided_ a way, ' He says, 'from the foundations, --for you to repent and for Me to take youback. It was a part of my _plan_ to forgive. You have seen but halfthe revolution of my wheel of Law. Fling yourself upon it; believe;you shall be broken; but you shall _not_ be ground into powder. Youshall find yourselves lifted up into the eternal peace and safety;you shall feel yourself folded in the arms of my tender compassion. The bones that I have broken shall rejoice. Your life shall be setright for you, notwithstanding the Law: yea, _by_ the law. _I haveprovided_. Only believe. '

"This is the word, --the Christ, --on God's part This is repentanceand saving faith, on our part. It is the Gospel. And it came by themouth, and the interpreting and confirming acts, of Jesus. The_power_ of the acts was little matter; the _expression_ of the actswas everything. He proclaimed forgiveness, --He healed disease; Hereversed evil and turned it back. He changed death intolife, --taking away the sting--the implantation--of it, which is sin. For evermore the might of the Redemption stands above the might ofthe Law that was transgressed. "

"You have dedicated your chapel, Mr. Kirkbright. "

Desire Ledwith said it, with that emotion which makes the voicesound restrained and deep; and as she said it, she turned to go backinto the house. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

BLOSSOMING FERNS. 

The minister's covered carryall was borrowed from two miles off, totake Mrs. Argenter down to Tillington. 

All she knew about the winter plan was that Miss Ledwith was afriend of Miss Kirkbright's, had a large, old-fashioned house, andscarcely any household, and would be glad to have herself and Sylvietake rooms with her for several months. She had a vague idea thatMiss Ledwith might be somewhat restricted in her means, and that toreceive lodgers in a friendly way would be an "object" to her. Shetalked, indeed, with a gentle complaisance to Miss Kirkbright, aboutits not being exactly what they had intended, --they had thought ofrooms at Hotel Pelham or Boylston, so central and so near theLibraries; but after all, what she needed most was quiet and nostairs; and she had a horror of elevators, and a dread of fire; sothat this was really better, perhaps; and Miss Ledwith was a verysweet person. 

Miss Euphrasia smiled; "sweet, " especially in the silvery tone inwhich Mrs. Argenter uttered it, was the last monosyllabic epithetshe would have selected as applying to grave, earnest, downrightDesire. 

At East Keaton, the train stopped for five minutes. 

Sylvie had begged Mr. Kirkbright beforehand to get her mother'sfoot-warmer filled with hot water at the station, and he had justreturned with it. She was busily arranging it under Mrs. Argenter'sfeet again, and wrapping the rug about her, kneeling beside herchair to do so, when some one entered the drawing-room car in whichthe party was, and came up behind her. 

She thought she was in the way of some stranger, and hastily arose. 

"I beg your pardon, " she said, instinctively, and turned as shespoke. 

"What for?" asked Rodney Sherrett, holding out both hands, andgrasping hers before she was well aware. 

There were morning stars in her eyes, and a beautiful sunrisecrimsoned her cheek. These two had not seen each other all summer. 

Aunt Euphrasia looked from one face to the other. 

"Not to say anything for two years!" she thought, recalling inwardlyher brother's wise injunction. "It says itself, though; and it wasmade to!"

"How do you do, Mrs. Argenter? I hope you are feeling better foryour country summer? Aunt Effie! _You're_ not surprised to see me?Did you think I would let you go down without?"

No; Aunt Effie, when she had written him that regular little Sundayafternoon note from Brickfield, telling him that they were all tocome down on Tuesday, had thought no such thing. And she was at thismoment, with wise forethought, packed in behind all the others, inthe most inaccessible corner of the car. 

"You're not going down to the city?"

But he was. Rodney's eyes sparkled as he told her. 

"Your own doctrine exemplified. Things always happen, you say. One of the mills is stopped for just this very day of allothers, --repairing machinery. I'm off work, for the first time infour months. There has been no low water all summer. Regular header, straight through. Don't you see I'm perfectly emaciated with theconfinement? I've breathed in wool-stuffing till I feel like apincushion. "

"An emaciated wool-stuffed pincushion! Yes, I think you do look alittle like it!" Aunt Euphrasia talked nonsense just as he did, because she was so pleased she could not help it. 

They paired, naturally. Miss Kirkbright and Mrs. Argenter, facingeach other in the corner, were eating tongue sandwiches out of thesame basket; and Sylvie had poured out for her mother the sugaredclaret and water with which her little travelling flask had beenfilled. Mr. Kirkbright had monopolized Desire, sitting upon theopposite side of the car, with another long talk, about brick andtile making, and the compatibility of a paper manufactory and aHouse of Refuge. 

"I will not have it called that, though. It shall not be stampedwith any stereotyped name. It shall not even be a Home, --except _my_home; and I'll just take them in: I and Euphrasia. "

There was nothing for Rodney to do, but to sit down beside Sylvie, with three hours before him, which he had earned by four monthsamong the wheels and cranks and wool-fluff. 

Of all these four months there has been no chance to tell youanything before as concerning him. 

He had been at Arlesbury; learning to be a manufacturer; beginningat the beginning with the belts and rollers, spindles, shuttles, andharnesses; finding out the secrets of satinets and doeskins andkerseys; _driving_, as he had wanted to do; taking hold of somethingand making it go. 

"It isn't exactly like trotting tandem, " he told Sylvie, "butthere's a something living in it, too; a creature to bit and manage;that's what I like about it. But I hate the oil, and the noise, andthe dust. Why, _this_ is pin-drop silence to it! I hope it won'tmake me deaf, --and dumb! Father will feel bad if it does, " he said, with an indescribably pathetic demureness. 

"Was it your father's plan?" asked Sylvie, laughing merrily. 

"Well, --yes! At least I told him to take me and set me to work; or Ishould pretty soon be good for nothing; and so he looked round in agreat fright and hurry, as you may imagine, and put me into thefirst thing he could think of, and that was this. I'm to stay at itfor two years, before I--ask him for anything else. I think I shallhave a good right then, don't you? I'm thinking all the time aboutmy Three Wishes. I suppose I may wish three times when I begin? Theyalways do. "

What could he talk but nonsense? Earnestness had been forbidden him;he had to cover it up with the absurdity of a boy. 

But what a blessing that it made no manner of difference! That inall things of light and speech, the gracious law is that the flashshould go so much farther, as well as faster than the sound!

Something between them unspoken told the story that words, thoughthey be waited for, never tell half so well. She knew that she hadto do with his being in earnest. She knew that she had to do withhis being at play, this moment, laughing and joking the time awaybeside her on this railroad trip. He had come to join AuntEuphrasia? Yes, indeed, and there sat Aunt Euphrasia in her corner, reading the "Vicar's Daughter, " and between times talking a littlewith Mrs. Argenter. Not ten sentences did aunt and nephew exchange, all the way from East Keaton down to Cambridge. When Mrs. Argentergrew tired as the day wore on, and a sofa was vacated, Rodney helpedSylvie to move the shawls and the foot-warmer, and the rug, andimprovise cushions, and make her mother comfortable; then, as Mrs. Argenter fell asleep, they sat near her and chatted on. 

And Aunt Euphrasia read her book, and considered herself escortedand attended to, which is just such a convenience as a judicious andamiably disposed female relative appreciates the opportunity formaking of herself. 

Down somewhere in Middlesex, boys began to come into the cars withgreat bunches of trailing ferns to sell; exquisite things thatpeople have just begun to find out and clamor for, and that so aboy-supply has vigorously arisen to meet. 

"O, how lovely!" cried Sylvie, at one stopping-place, where anurchin stood with his arms full; the glossy, delicate leaveswreathed round and round in long loops, and the feathery blossomsdropping like mist-tips from among them. "And we're too exclusivehere, for him to be let in. "

Of course the window would not open; drawing-room car windows neverdo. Rodney rushed to the door; held up a dollar greenback. 

"Boy! Here! toss up your load!"

The long train gave its first spasm and creak at starting; up camethe tangle of beauty; down fluttered the bit of paper to theplatform; and Rodney came in with the rare garlands and tasselsdrooping all about him. 

Everybody was delighted; Aunt Euphrasia dropped her book, and madeher way out of her corner; Desire and Mr. Kirkbright handled andexclaimed; Mrs. Argenter opened her eyes, and held out her fingerstoward them with a smile. 

"Such a quantity--for everybody!" said Sylvie, as he put them intoher lap, and she began to shake out the bunches. "How kind you were, Mr. Sherrett! We've longed so to find some of these, haven't weAmata? Has anybody got a newspaper, or two? We'd better keep themall together till we get home. " And she coiled the sprays carefullyround and round into a heap. 

No matter if they should be all given away to the very last leaf;she could thank innocently "for everybody"; but she knew very wellwhat the last leaf, falling to her to keep, would stand for. 

In years and years to come, Sylvie will never see climbing fernsagain, without a feeling as of all the delicate beauty andsignificance of the world gathered together in a heap and laid intoher lap. 

She had seen the dollar that Rodney paid for them, flutter downbeside the window as the car moved on, and the boy spring forward tocatch it. Rodney Sherrett earned his dollars now. It was one of hisvery, very own that he spent for her that day. A girl feels astrange thrill when she sees for the first time, a fragment of thelife she cares for given, representatively, thus, for her. 

It is useless to analyze and explain. Sylvie did not stop to do it, neither did Rodney; but that ride, that little giving and taking, were full of parable and heart-telegraphy between them. That Octoberafternoon was a long, beautiful dream; a dream that must come true, some time. Yet Rodney said to his aunt, as he bade her good-by thatevening, at her own door (he had to go back to the station to takethe night train up), --"Why shouldn't we have _this_ piece of ourlives as well as the rest, Auntie? Why should two years be cribbedoff? There won't be any too much of it, and there won't be any of itjust like this. "

Aunt Euphrasia only stooped down from the doorstep, and kissed himon his cheek, saying nothing. 

But to herself she said, after he had gone, --

"I don't see why, either. They would be so happy, waiting it outtogether. And there never _is_ any time like this time. How isanybody sure of the rest of it?"

Aunt Euphrasia knew. She had not been sure of the rest of hers. 

CHAPTER XX. 

"WANTED. "

The half of course and half critical way in which Mrs. Argenter tookpossession of the gray parlor would have been funny, if it had notbeen painful, to Sylvie, feeling almost wrong and wickedly deceitfulin betraying her mother, through ignorance of the real arrangements, into a false and unsuitable attitude; and to Desire, for Sylvie'ssake. 

She thought it would do nicely if the windows weren't too low, andif the little stove-grate could be replaced by an open wood fire. Couldn't she have a Franklin, or couldn't the fire-place beunbricked?

"I don't think you'll mind, with cannel coal, " said Sylvie. "That isso cheerful; and there won't be any smoke, for Miss Ledwith says thedraught is excellent. "

"But it stands out, and takes up room; and people never keep thecarpet clean behind it!" said Mrs. Argenter. 

"I'll take care of that, " said Sylvie. "It is my business. Wecouldn't have these rooms, you see, except just as I have agreed forthem; and you know I like making things nice myself in the morning. "

Desire had delicately withdrawn by this time; and presently comingback with a cup of tea upon a little tray, which refreshment she wassure Mrs. Argenter would need at once after her journey, she foundthe lady sitting quite serenely in the low cushioned chair beforethe obnoxious grate, in which Sylvie had kindled the lump of cannelthat lay all ready for the match, in a folded newspaper, with threelittle pitch-pine sticks. 

There was something so dainty and compact about it, and the brightblaze answered so speedily to the communicating touch, the blacklayers falling away from each other in rich, bituminous flakiness, and letting the fire-tongues through, that she looked on in thehappy complacence with which idle or disabled persons always enjoysomething that does itself, yet can be followed in the doing with acertain passive sense of participancy. 

In the same manner she watched Sylvie putting away wraps, unlockingtrunks, laying forth dressing-gowns and night-clothes, and settingout toilet cases upon table and stand. 

For the gray parlor contained now, for Mrs. Argenter's use, apretty, low, curtained French bed, and the other appliances of asleeping-room. A bedroom adjoining, which had been Mrs. Froke's, wasto be Sylvie's; and this had a further communication directly withthe kitchen, which would be just the thing for Sylvie's quietflittings to and fro in the fulfillment of her gladly undertakenduties. All Mrs. Argenter knew about it was that she should be ableto have her hot water promptly in the mornings, without beingintruded upon. 

Sylvie had insisted upon Desire's receiving the seven dollars a weekwhich she was still able to pay for her mother's board. Nobody hadtold her of Miss Ledwith's very large wealth, and it would have madeno difference if she had known it, except the exciting in her of aquick question why they had been taken in at all, and whether shewere not indeed being in her turn benevolently practised upon, asshe with much compunction practised upon her mother. 

"I know very well that I could not earn, beyond my own board, morethan the difference between that and the ten dollars she would haveto pay anywhere else, " she said, simply. And Miss Kirkbright assimply told Desire, privately, to let it be so. 

"If you don't need the pay, she needs the payment, " she said. 

Desire quietly put it all aside, as she received it. "Sometime orother I shall be able to tell her all about it, and make her take itback, " she said. "When she has come to understand, she will knowthat it is no more mine than hers; and if I do not keep it I can seevery well it will all go after the rest, for whatever whims she canpossibly gratify her mother in. "

There began to be happy times for Sylvie now, in Frendely's kitchen, in Desire's library; all over the house, wherever there was anylittle care to take, any service to render. Mrs. Argenter did notmiss her; she read a great deal, and slept a great deal, and Sylviewas rarely gone long at a time. She was always ready at twilight toplay backgammon, or a game of what she called "skin-deep chess, " forher mother was not able to bear the exertion or excitement of chessin real, deep earnest. Sylvie brought her sewing, also, --work forNeighbor Street it was, mostly, --into the gray parlor, and "sewedfor two, " on the principle of the fire-watching, that something busymight be going on in the room, and Mrs. Argenter might have thecontent of seeing it. 

On the Wednesday evenings recurred the delightful "Read-and-Talk, "when the Ingrahams came, and Bel Bree, and a dozen or so more of the"other girls"; when on the big table treasures of picture, map, stereoscope and story were brought forth; when they traversed farcountries, studied in art-galleries and frescoed churches, tracedback old historic associations; did not hurry or rush, but stayed inplace after place, at point after point, looking it all thoroughlyup, enjoying it like people who could take the world in the leisureof years. And as they did not have the actual miles to go over, thestanding about to do, and the fatigues to sleep between, they could"work in the ground fast, " like Hamlet, or any other spirit. Theirhours stood for months; their two months had given them alreadywinters and summers of enchantment. 

Hazel Ripwinkley, and very often Ada Geoffrey, was here at thesetravelling parties. Ada had all her mother's resources of books, engravings, models, specimens, at her command; she would come with acarriage-full. Sometimes the library was Rome for an evening, withits Sistine Raphaels, its curious relics and ornaments, its Coliseumand St. Peter's in alabaster, its views of tombs, and baths, andtemples. Sometimes it was Venice; again it was transformed into adream of Switzerland, and again, there were the pyramids, theobelisks, the sphinxes, the giant walls and gateways of Egypt, witha Nile boat, and lotus flowers, and papyrus reeds, in reality orfac-simile, --even a mummied finger and a scaraboeus ring. 

They were not restricted, even, to a regular route, when theirsubject took them out of it. They could have a glimpse of Memphis, or Babylon, or Alexandria, or Athens, by way of following out anallusion or synchronism. 

Hazel and Ada almost came to the conclusion that this was theperfection of travelling, and the supersedure of all literal andlaborious sightseeing; and Sylvie Argenter ventured the Nipperismthat "tea and coffee and spices might or might not be a littledifferent right off the bush, but if shiploads were coming in to youall the time, you might combine things with as much comfort on thewhole, perhaps, as you would have in sailing round for everyseparate pinch to Ceylon, and Java, and Canton. "

The leaf had got turned between Leicester Place and Pilgrim Street. I suppose you knew it would as well as I. 

Bel Bree had met Dorothy first in silk-and-button errands for herAunt Blin's "finishings, " at the thread-store where Dot tended. (Such machine-sewing as they could obtain, Ray had done at home, since they came into the city; and Dot had taken this place at Bradeand Matchett's. ) Then they came across each other in their waitingsat the Public Library, and so found out their near neighborhood. Atlast, growing intimate, Dorothy had introduced Bel to the ChapelBible class, and thence brought her into Desire's especial littleclub at her own house. 

After the travel-talk was over, --and they began with it early, sothat all might reach home at a safe hour in the evening, --very oftensome one or two would linger a few moments for some little talk ofconfidence or advice with Desire. These girls brought their plans toher; their disappointments, their difficulties, their suggestions;not one would make a change, or take any new action, without tellingher. They knew she cared for them. It was the beginning of allreligion that she taught them in this faith, this friendliness. Every soul wants some one to come to; it is easy to pass from theexperience of human sympathy to the thought of the Divine; withoutit the Divine has never been revealed. 

One bright night in this October, Dot Ingraham waited, letting hersister walk on with Frank Sunderline, who had called for them, andasking Bel Bree to stop a minute and go with her. "We'll take thecar, presently, " she said to Ray. "We shall be at home almost assoon as you will. "

"It is about the shop work, " she said to Desire, who stepped backinto the library with her. 

"I do not think I can do it much longer. I am pretty strong for somethings, but this terrible _standing_! I could _walk_ all day; butcramped up behind those counters, and then reaching up and down theboxes and things, --I feel sometimes when I get through at night, asif my bones had all been racked. I haven't told them at home, forfear they would worry about me; they think now I've lost flesh, andI suppose I have; and I don't have much appetite; it seems draggedout of me. And then, --I can't say it before the others, for they'rein shops, some of 'em, and places may be different; but it's such awindow and counter parade, besides; and they do look out for it. People stare in at the store as they go by; Margaret Shoey has theglove counter at that end, and she knows Mr. Matchett keeps herthere on purpose to attract; she sets herself up and takes airs uponit; and Sarah Cilley does everything she sees her do, and comes infor the second-hand attention. Mr. Matchett asked me the other dayif I couldn't wear a panier, and do up my hair a little morestylish! I can't stay there; it isn't fit for girls!"

Dot's cheeks flamed, and there were tears in her eyes. DesireLedwith stood with a thoughtful, troubled expression in her own. 

"There ought to be other ways, " she said. "There ought to be more_sheltered_ work for girls!"

"There is, " said little Bel Bree from the doorway "in houses. If Ihadn't Aunt Blin, I'd go right into a family as seamstress oranything. I don't believe in out-doors and shops. I've only lived inthe city a little while, but I've seen it. And just think of thestreets and streets of nice houses, where people live, and girlshave to live with 'em, to do real woman's home work! And it's allgiven up to foreign servants, and _our_ girls go adrift, and liveanyhow. 'Tain't right!"

"There is a good deal that isn't right about it, " said Desire, gravely; knowing better than Bel the difficulties in the way of newdomestic ideas. "And a part of it is that the houses aren't built, or the ways of living planned, for 'our girls, ' exactly. Our girlsaren't happy in underground kitchens and sky bedrooms. "

"I don't know. They might as well be underground as in some of thoseclose, crowded shops. And their bedrooms can't be much to compare, certain. I'm afraid they like the crowds best. If they wanted to, and would work in, and try, they might contrive. Things fixthemselves accordingly, after a while. Somebody's got to begin. Ican't help thinking about it. "

Desire smiled. 

"Your thinking may be a first sign of good times, little Bel, " shesaid. "Think on. That is the way everything begins; with arestlessness in some one or two heads about it. Perhaps that is justwhat you have come down from New Hampshire for. "

"I don't know, " said Bel again. She began a good many of herreflective, suggestive little speeches with that hesitating feelerinto the fog of social perplexity she essayed. "They're just as badup there, now. They all get away to the towns, and the trades, andthe stores They won't go into the houses; and they might have suchgood places!"

"You came yourself, you see?"

"Yes. I wasn't contented. And things were particular with me. And Ihad Aunt Blin. I don't want to go back, either. But I can see how itis. "

"Things are particular with each one, in some sort or another. Thatis what settles it, I suppose, and ought to. The only thing is to besure that it is a _right_ particular that does it; that we don't letin any wrong particular, anywhere. For you, Dorothy, I don't believeshop-life is the thing. You have found it out. Why not change atonce? There is the machine at home, and Ray is going to be busy inNeighbor Street. Won't her work naturally come to you?"

"There isn't much of it, and it is so uncertain. The shops take upall the bulk of work nowadays; everything is wholesale; and I don'twant to go into the rooms, if I can help it. I don't like days'work, either. The fact is, I want a quiet place, and the samethings. I like my own machine. I would go with it into a family, ifI could have my own room, and be nice, and not have to eat withcareless, common servants in a dirty kitchen. Mother would spareme, --to a real good situation; and I would come home Sundays. "

"I see. What you want is somewhere, of course. Wouldn't youadvertise?"

"Would _you_?"

"Yes, I think I would. Say exactly what you want, wages and all. Andput it into some family Sunday paper, --the 'Christian Register, ' forinstance. Those things get read over and over; and the same paperlies about a week. In the dailies, one thing crowds out another; anew list every night and morning. See here, I'll write one now. Perhaps it wouldn't be too late for this week. Would you go out oftown?"

"_Wouldn't_ I? I think sometimes that's just what ails me; wantingto see soft roads and green grass and door-yards and sun between thehouses! But I couldn't go far, of course. "

Desire's pencil was flying over the paper. 

"'Wanted; a permanent situation in a pleasant family, as seamstress, by a young girl used to all kinds of sewing, who will bring her ownmachine. Would like a room to herself, and to have her mealsorderly and comfortable, whether with the family or otherwise. Wages'--What?"

"By the day, I could get a dollar and a quarter, at least; but for areal good home-place, I'd go for four dollars a week. "

"'Wages, $4. 00 per week. A little way out of town preferred. ' There!There are such places, and why shouldn't one come to you? Take thatdown to the 'Register' office to-morrow morning, and have it put intwice, unless stopped. "

"Thank you. It's all easy enough, Miss Ledwith. Why didn't I work itout myself?"

"It isn't quite worked out, yet. But things always look clearer, somehow, through two pairs of eyes. Good-night. Let me know what youhear about it. "

"She'll surprise some family with such a seamstress as they readabout, " said Bel Bree, on the door-step. "I should like to astonishpeople, sometime, with a heavenly kind of general housework. "

"That was a good idea of yours about the Sunday paper, " said Sylvie, as she and Hazel and Desire went back into the library to put awaythe books. "But what when the common sort pick up the dodge, andthe weeklies get full of 'Wanteds'? Nothing holds out fresh, verylong. "

"There _ought_ to be, " said Desire, "some filtered process for thesethings; some way of sifting and certifying. A bureau of mutualunderstanding between the 'real folks, '--employers and employed. Ibelieve it might be. There ought to be for this, and for manythings, a fellowship organized, between women of different outwarddegree. And something will happen, sooner or later, to bring itabout. A money crisis, perhaps, to throw these girls out ofshop-employment, and to make heads of households look into ways ofmore careful managing. A mutual need, --or the seeing of it. The needis now; these girls--half of them--want homes, more than anything;and the homes are suffering for the help of just such girls. "

"Why don't you edit a paper, Desire? The 'Fellowship Register, ' orthe 'Domestic Intelligencer, ' or something! And keep lists of allthe nice, real housekeepers, and the nice, real, willing girls?"

"That isn't a bad notion, Hazie. Your notions never are. May be thatis what is waiting for you. Just cover up that 'raised Switzerland, 'will you, and bring it over here? And roll up the 'Course of theRhine, ' and set it in the corner. There; now we may put out the gas. Sylvie, has your mother had her fresh camomile tea?"

The three girls bade each other good-night at the stairs; just whereDesire had stood once, and put her arms about Uncle Titus's neck forthe first time. She often thought of it now, when they went up afterthe pleasant evenings, and came down in the bright mornings to theircheery breakfasts. She liked to stop on just that step. Nobody knewall it meant to her, when she did. There are places in everydwelling that keep such secrets for one heart and memory alone. 

Yes, indeed. Sylvie was very happy now. All her pretty pictures, andlittle brackets, and her mother's stands and vases in the grayparlor, were hung with the lovely, wreathing, fairy stems ofstar-leaved, blossomy fern; and the sweet, dry scent was a perpetualsubtle message. That day in the train from East Keaton was a day topervade the winter, as this woodland breath pervaded the old cityhouse. Sylvie could wait with what she had, sure that, sometime, more was coming. She could wait better than Rodney. Because, --sheknew she was waiting, and satisfied to wait. How did Rodney knowthat?

It was what he kept asking his Aunt Euphrasia in his frequent, boyish, yet most manly, letters. And she kept answering, "You neednot fear. I think I understand Sylvie. I can see. If there wereanything in the way, I would tell you. "

But at last she had to say, --not, "I think I understandSylvie, "--but, "I understand girls, Rodney. I am a woman, remember. I have been a girl, and I have waited. I have waited all my life. The right girls can. "

And Rodney said, tossing up the letter with a shout, and catching itwith a loving grasp between his hands again, --

"Good for you, you dear, brave, blessed ace of hearts in a worldwhere hearts are trumps! If you ain't one of the right old girls, then they don't make 'em, and never did!"

CHAPTER XXI. 

VOICES AND VISIONS. 

Madame Bylles herself walked into the great work-room of MesdamesFillmer & Bylles, one Saturday morning. 

Madame Bylles was a lady of great girth and presence. If Miss Tonkerwere sub-aristocratic, Madame Bylles was almost super-aristocratic, so cumulative had been the effect upon her style and manner ofconstant professional contact with the élite. Carriages had rolledup to her door, until she had got the roll of them into her veryvoice. Airs and graces had swept in and out of her privateaudience-room, that had not been able to take all of themselves awayagain. As the very dust grows golden and precious where certainworkmanship is carried on, the touch and step and speech of thosewho had come ordering, consulting, coaxing, beseeching, to herapartments, had filled them with infinitesimal particles of asublime efflorescence, by which the air itself in which they floatedbecame--not the air of shop or business or down-town street--but theair of drawing-room, and bon-ton, and Beacon Hill or the New Land. 

And Madame Bylles breathed it all the time; she dwelt in the courtlycontagion. When she came in among her work-people, it was an adventof awe. It was as if all the elegance that had ever been made upthere came floating and spreading and shining in, on one portly andmagnificent person. 

But when Madame Bylles came in, in one of her majestic hurries!Then it was as if the globe itself had orders to move on a littlefaster, and make out the year in two hundred and eighty days or so, and she was appointed to see it done. 

She was in one of these grand and grave accelerations this morning. Miss Pashaw's marriage was fixed for a fortnight earlier than hadbeen intended, business calling Mr. Soldane abroad. There weredresses to be hurried; work for over-hours was to be given out. MissTonker was to use every exertion; temporary hands, if reliable, might be employed. All must be ready by Thursday next; Madame Bylleshad given her word for it. 

The manner in which she loftily transmitted this grand intelligence, warm from the high-born lips that had favored her with theconfidence, --the air of intending it for Miss Tonker's secondarilydistinguished ear alone, while the carriage-roll in her accents boreit to the farthest corner in the room, where the meekest littlewoman sat basting, --these things are indescribable. But they are inhuman nature: you can call them up and scrutinize them for yourself. 

Madame Bylles receded like a tidal wave, having heaved up, andchanged, and overwhelmed all things. 

A great buzz succeeded her departure; Miss Tonker followed her outupon the landing. 

"I'll speak for that cashmere peignoir that is just cut out. I'llmake it nights, and earn me an ostrich band for my hat, " said EliseMokey. 

One spoke for one thing; one another; they were claimed beforehand, in this fashion, by a kind of work-women's code; as publishersadvertise foreign books in press, and keep the first right bycourtesy. 

Miss Proddle stopped her machine at last, and caught the news in herslow fashion hind side before. 

"We might some of us have overwork, I should think; shouldn't you?"she asked, blandly, of Miss Bree. 

Aunt Blin smiled. "They've been squabbling over it these fiveminutes, " she replied. 

Aunt Blin was sure of some particular finishing, that none could dolike her precise old self. 

Kate Sencerbox jumped up impatiently, reaching over for some fringe. 

"I shall have to give it up, " she whispered emphatically into BelBree's ear. "It's no use your asking me to go to Chapel any more. Iain't sanctified a grain. I did begin to think there was a kind ofwork of grace begun in me, --but I _can't_ stand Miss Proddle! What_are_ people made to strike ten for, always, when it's eleven?"

"I think _we_ are all striking _twelve_" said Bel Bree. "One's toofast, and another's too slow, but the sun goes round exactly thesame. "

Miss Tonker came back, and the talk hushed. 

"Clock struck one, and down they run, hickory, dickory, dock, " saidMiss Proddle, deliberately, so that her voice brought up thesubsiding rear of sound and was heard alone. 

"What _under_ the sun?" exclaimed Miss Tonker, with a gaze ofmingled amazement, mystification, and contempt, at the poor oldmaiden making such unwonted noise. 

"Yes'm, " said Kate Sencerbox. "It is 'under the sun, ' that we'retalking about; the way things turn round, and clocks strike; sometoo fast, and some too slow; and--whether there's anything new underthe sun. I think there is; Miss Proddle made a bright speech, that'sall. "

Miss Tonker, utterly bewildered, took refuge in solemn andsupercilious disregard; as if she saw the joke, and considered itquite beneath remark. 

"You will please resume your work, and remember the rules, " shesaid, and sailed down upon the cutters' table. 

There was a certain silk evening dress, of singular andindescribably lovely tint, --a tea-rose pink; just the color of theblush and creaminess that mingle themselves into such deliciousanonymousness in the exquisite flower. It was all puffed and flutedtill it looked as if it had really blossomed with uncounted curvingpetals, that showed in their tender convolutions each possibledeepening and brightening of its wonderful hue. 

It _looked_ fragrant. It conveyed a subtle sense of flavor. It fedand provoked every perceptive sense. 

It was not a dress to be hurried with; every quill and gather of itstrimming must be "set just so;" and there was still one flounce tobe made, and these others were only basted, as also the corsage. 

After the hours were up that afternoon, Miss Tonker called Aunt Blinaside. She uncovered the large white box in which it lay, unfinished. 

"You have a nice room, Miss Bree. Can you take this home and finishit, --by Wednesday? In over-hours, I mean; I shall want you heredaytimes, as usual. It has been tried on; all but for the hanging ofthe skirt; you can take the measures from the white one. _That_ Ishall finish myself. "

Aunt Blin's voice trembled with humble ecstasy as she answered. Shethanked Miss Tonker in a tone timid with an apprehension of somepossible unacceptableness which should disturb or change thefavoring grace. 

"Certainly, ma'am. I'll spread a sheet on the floor, and put awhite cloth on the table. Thank you, ma'am. Yes; I have a nice room, and nothing gets meddled with. It'll be quite safe there. I'm sureI'm no less than happy to be allowed. You're very kind, ma'am. "

Miss Tonker said nothing at all to the meekly nervous outpouring. She did not snub her, however; that was something. 

Miss Bree and her niece, between them, carried home the large box. 

On the way, a dream ran through the head of Bel. She could not helpit. 

To have this beautiful dress in the house, --perhaps to have to standup and be tried to, for the fall of its delicate, rosy trail; withthe white cloth on the floor, and the bright light all through theroom, --why it would be almost like a minute of a ball; and what ifthe door should be open, and somebody should happen to go by, up-stairs? If she could be so, and be seen so, just one minute, inthat blush-colored silk! She should like to look like that, justonce, to somebody!

Ah, little Bel! behind all her cosy, practical living--all her busywork and contentedness--all her bright notions of what might bepossible, for the better, in things that concerned her class, --shehad her little, vague, bewildering flashes of vision, in which shesaw impossible things; things that might happen in a book, thingsthat must be so beautiful if they ever did really happen!

A step went up and down the stairs and along the passage by heraunt's room, day by day, that she had learned to notice every timeit came. A face had glanced in upon her now and then, when the doorstood open for coolness in the warm September weather, when theyhad been obliged to have a fire to make the tea, or to heat an ironto press out seams in work that they were doing. One or two days ofeach week, they had taken work home. On those days, they did, perhaps, their own little washing or ironing, besides; sewingbetween whiles, and taking turns, and continuing at their needlesfar on into the night. Once Mr. Hewland had come in, to help AuntBlin with a blind that was swinging by a single hinge, and which shewas trying, against a boisterous wind, to reset with the other. After that, he had always spoken to them when he met them. He hadopened and shut the street-door for them, standing back, courteously, with his hat in his hand, to let them pass. 

Aunt Blin, --dear old simple, kindly-hearted Aunt Blin, who believedcats and birds, --_her_ cat and bird, at least, --might be throwntrustfully into each other's company, if only she impressed itsufficiently upon the quadruped's mind from the beginning, that thebird was "very, _very_ precious, "--thought Mr. Hewland was "such anice young man. "

And so he was. A nice, genial, well-meaning, well-bred gentleman;above anything ignoble, or consciously culpable, or common. Hisdanger lay in his higher tendencies. He had artistic tastes; he wasa lover of all grace and natural sweetness; no line of beauty couldescape him. More than that, he drew toward all that was mostgenuine; he cared nothing for the elegant artificialities amongwhich his social position placed him. He had been singularlyattracted by this little New Hampshire girl, fresh and pretty as awild rose, and full of bright, quaint ways and speech, of which hehad caught glimpses and fragments in their near neighborhood. Nowand then, from her open window up to his had come her gay, sweetlaugh; or her raised, gleeful tone, as she said some funny, quick, shrewd thing in her original fashion to her aunt. 

Through the month of August, while work was slack, and the Hewlandfamily was away travelling, and other lodgers' rooms were vacated, the Brees had been more at home, and Morris Hewland had been more inhis rooms above, than had been usual at most times. The musicmistress had taken a vacation, and gone into the country; only oldMr. Sparrow, lame with one weak ankle, hopped up and down; and thespare, odd-faced landlady glided about the passages with her primprofile always in the same pose, reminding one of a badly-maderag-doll, of which the nose, chin, and chest are in one invincibleflat line, interrupted feebly by an unsuccessful hint of drawing inat the throat. 

Mr. Hewland liked June for his travels; and July and August, wheneverybody was out of the way, for his quiet summer work. 

The Hewlands called him odd, and let him go; he stayed at homesometimes, and he happened in and out, they knew where to find him, and there was "no harm in Morris but his artistic peculiarities. "

He had secured in these out-of-the way-lodgings in Leicester Place, one of the best north lights that could be had in the city; he wouldnot take a room among a lot of others in a Studio Building. So heworked up his studies, painted his pictures, let nobody come nearhim except as he chose to bring them, and when he wanted anything ofthe world, went out into the world and got it. 

Now, something had come right in here close to him, which broughthim a certain sense of such a world as he could not go out into atwill, to get what he wanted. A world of simplicities, of blessedcontents, of unworn, joyous impulses, of little new, unceasingspontaneities; a world that he looked into, as we used to do atSattler's Cosmoramas, through the merest peepholes, and comprehendedby the merest hints; but which the presence of this girl under theroof with himself as surely revealed to him as the wind-flowerreveals the spring. 

On her part, Bel Bree got a glimpse, she knew not how, of a worldabove and beyond her own; a world of beauty, of power, of reach andelevation, in which people like Morris Hewland dwelt. His step, hisvoice, his words now and then to the friend or two whom he had thehabit of bringing in with him, --the mere knowledge that he "madepictures, " such pictures as she looked at in the windows and inart-dealers' rooms, where any shop-girl, as freely as the mostelegant connoisseur, can go in and delight her eyes, and inform herperceptions, --these, without the face even, which had turned itsmagnetism straight upon hers only once or twice, and whoserevelation was that of a life related to things wide and full andmanifold, --gave her the stimulating sense of a something to whichshe had not come, but to which she felt a strange belonging. 

Beside, --alongside--in each mind, was the undeveloped mystery; thespell under which a man receives such intuitions through a woman'spresence, --a woman through a man's. Yet these two individuals werenot, therefore, going to be necessary to each other, in the plan ofGod. Other things might show that they were not meant, in rightness, for each other; they represented mutually, something that each lifemissed; but the something was in no special companionship; it was agreat deal wider and higher than that. They might have to learn thatit was so, nevertheless, by some briefly painful process ofexperience. If in this process they should fall into mistake andwrong, --ah, there would come the experience beyond the experience, the depth they were not meant to sound, yet which, if they let theirgame of life run that way, they could not get back from but throughthe uttermost. They must play it out; the move could not be takenback, --yet awhile. The possible better combinations are in God'sknowledge; how He may ever reset the pieces and give his goodchances again, remains the hidden hope, resting upon the Christ thatis in the heart of Him. 

One morning Morris Hewland had come up the stairs with a handful oftuberoses; he was living at home, then, through the pleasantSeptember, at his father's country place, whence the household wouldsoon remove to the city for the winter. 

Miss Bree's door was open. She was just replacing her door-mat, which she had been shaking out of the entry window. She had an oldgreen veil tied down over her head to keep the dust off; nobodycould suspect any harm of a wish or a willingness to have a wordwith her; Morris Hewland could not have suspected it of himself, ifhe had indeed got so far as to investigate his passing impulses. There was something pitiful in the contrast, perhaps, of the pure, fresh, exquisite blossoms, and the breath of sweet air he and theybrought with them in their swift transit from the places where itblessed all things to the places where so much languished in theneed of it, not knowing, even, the privation. The old, trodden, half-cleansed door-mat in her hands, --the just-created beauty inhis. He stopped, and divided his handful. 

"Here, Miss Bree, --you would like a piece of the country, I imagine, this morning! I couldn't have come in without it. "

The voice rang blithe and bright into the room where Bel sat, basting machine work; the eyes went after the voice. 

The light from the east window was full upon the shining hair, theyoung, unworn outlines, the fresh, pure color of the skin. Few citybeauties could bear such morning light as that. Nothing but themorning in the face can meet it. 

Morris Hewland lifted his hat, and bowed toward the young girl, silently. Then he passed on, up to his room. Bel heard his step, back and forth, overhead. 

The tuberoses were put into a clear, plain tumbler. Bel would nothave them in the broken vase; she would not have them in a _blue_vase, at all. She laid a white napkin over the red of thetablecloth, and set them on it. The perfume rose from them andspread all through the room. 

"I am so glad we have work at home to-day, " said Bel. 

There had been nothing but little things like these; out into Bel'shead, as she and Aunt Blin carried home the tea-blush silk, and laidit by with care in its white box upon the sofa-end, came that littlewish, with a spring and a heart-beat, --"If she might have it on fora minute, and if in that minute he might happen to come by!"

She did not think she was planning for it; but when on the Tuesdayevening the step went down the stairs at eight o'clock, while theysat busily working, each at a sleeve, by the drop-light over thewhite-covered table, a little involuntary calculation ran throughher thoughts. 

"He always comes back by eleven. We shall have two hours' work--ormore, --on this, if we don't hurry; and it's miserable to hurry!"

They stitched on, comfortably enough; yet the sleeves were finishedsooner than she expected. Before nine o'clock, Aunt Blin was sewingthem in. Then Bel wanted a drink of water; then they could not bothget at the waist together; there was no need. 

"I'll do it, " said Bel, out of her conscience, with a jump of frightas she said it, lest Aunt Blin should take her at her word, andbegin gauging and plaiting the skirt. 

"No, you rest. I shall want you by and by, for a figure. "

"May I have it _all_ on?" says Bel eagerly. "Do, Auntie! I shouldjust like to be in such a dress once--a minute!"

"I don't see any reason why not. _You_ couldn't do any hurt to it, if 'twas made for a queen, " responded Aunt Blin. 

"I'll do up my hair on the top of my head, " said Bel. 

And forthwith, at the far end of the room, away from the delicaterobe and its scattered material, she got out her combs and brushes, and let down her gleaming brown hair. 

It took different shades, from umber to almost golden, this "funnyhair" of hers, as she called it. She thought it was because she hadfaded it, playing out in the sun when she was a child; but it wasmore like having got the shine into it. It did not curl, or wave;but it grew in lovely arches, with roots even set, around hertemple and in the curves of her neck; and now, as she combed it upin a long, beautiful mass, over her grasping hand, raising it witheach sweep higher toward the crown of her pretty head, all thisvigorous, beautiful growth showed itself, and marked with itsshadowy outline the dainty shapings. One twist at the top for thecomb to go in, and then she parted it in two, and coiled it like agolden-bronze cable; and laid it round and round till the foremostturn rested like a wreath midway about her head. She pulled threefresh geranium leaves and a pink-white umbel of blossom from theplant in the window, and tucked the cluster among the soft frontlocks against the coil above the temple. 

Then she took off the loose wrapping-sack she had thrown over hershoulders, washed her fingers at the basin, and came back to herseat under the lamp. 

Aunt Blin looked up at her and smiled. It was like having it allherself, --this youth and beauty, --to have it belonging to her, andshowing its charming ways and phases, in little Bel. Why shouldn'tthe child, with her fair, sweet freshness, and the deep-green, velvety leaves making her look already like a rose against whichthey leaned themselves, have on this delicate rose dress? If thingsstayed, or came, where they belonged, to whom should it morefittingly fall to wear it than to her?

Bel watched the clock and Aunt Blin's fingers. 

It was ten when the plaits and gathers were laid, and the skirtbasted to its band for the trying. Bel was dilatory one minute, andin a hurry the next. 

"It would be done too soon; but he might come in early; and, O dear, they hadn't thought, --there was that puffing to put round thecorsage, bertha-wise, with the blonde edging. 'It was all ready;give it to her. '"

"Now!"

The wonderful, glistening, aurora-like robe goes over her head; shestands in the midst, with the tender glowing color sweeping out fromher upon the white sheet pinned down above the carpet. 

Was that anybody coming?

Aunt Blin left her for an instant to put up the window-top that hadbeen open to cool the lighted and heated room. Bel might catch cold, standing like this. 

"O, it is _so_ warm, Auntie! We can't have everything shut up!" Andwith this swift excuse instantly suggesting itself and makingjustification to her deceitful little heart that lay in wait for it, Bel sprang to the opposite corner where the doorway opened fulltoward her, diagonally commanding the room. She set it hastily justa hand's length ajar. "There is no wind in the entry, and nobodywill come, " she said. 

When she was only excitedly afraid there wouldn't! I cannot justifylittle Bel. I do not try to. 

"Now, see! isn't it beautiful?"

"It sags just a crumb, here at the left, " said Aunt Blin, poking andstooping under Bel's elbow. "No; it is only a baste give way. Youshouldn't have sprung so, child. "

The bare neck and the dimpled arms showed from among the cream-pinktints like the high white lights upon the rose. Bel had not lookedin the glass yet: Aunt Blin was busy, and she really had not thoughtof it; she was happy just in being in that beautiful raiment--in theheart of its color and shine; feeling its softly rustling lengthfloat away from her, and reach out radiantly behind. What is thereabout that sweeping and trailing that all women like, and thatbecomes them so? That even the little child pins a shawl about herwaist and walks to and fro, looking over her shoulder, to get asensation of?

The door _did_ shut, below. A step did come up the stairs, with afew light springs. 

Suddenly Bel was ashamed!

She did not want it, now that it had come! She had set a dreadfultrap for herself!

"O, Aunt Blin, let me go! Put something over me!" she whispered. 

But Aunt Blin was down on the floor, far behind her, drawing out andarranging the slope of the train, measuring from hem to band withher professional eye. 

The footstep suddenly checked; then, as if with an as swiftbethinking, it went by. But through that door ajar, in that brightlight that revealed the room, Morris Hewland had been smitten withthe vision; had seen little Bel Bree in all the possible flush offair array, and marvelous blossom of consummate, adorned loveliness. 

Somehow, it broke down the safeguard he had had. 

In what was Bel Bree different, really, from women who wore suchrobes as that, with whom he had danced and chatted in drawing-rooms?Only in being a thousand times fresher and prettier. 

After that, he began to make reasons for speaking to them. Hebrought Aunt Blin a lot of illustrated papers; he lent them astereoscope, with Alpine and Italian views; he brought down apicture of his own, one day, to show them; before October was out, he had spent an evening in Aunt Blin's room, reading aloud to them"Mirèio. "

Among the strange metaphysical doublings which human naturediscovers in itself, there is such a fact, not seldom experienced, as the dreaming of a dream. 

It is one thing to dream utterly, so that one believes one isawake; it is another to sleep in one's dream, and in a vision giveway to vision. It is done in sleep, it is done also in life. 

This was what Bel Bree--and it is with her side of the experiencethat I have business--was in danger now of doing. 

It is done in life, as to many forms of living--as to religion, asto art. People are religious, not infrequently because they are inlove with the idea of being so, not because they are simply anddirectly devoted to God. They are æsthetic, because "The Beautiful"is so beautiful, to see and to talk of, and they choose to affectartistic having and doing; but they have not come even into thatsheepfold by the door, by the honest, inevitable pathway that theirnature took because it must, --by the entrance that it found througha force of celestial urging and guidance that was behind them allthe while, though they but half knew it or understood. 

Women fall in love that way, so often! It is a lovely thing to beloved; there is new living, which seems to them rare and grand, intowhich it offers to lift them up. They fall into a dream about adream; they do not lay them down to sleep and give the Lord theirsouls to keep, till He shall touch their trustful rest with a divinefire, and waken them into his apocalypse. 

It was this atmosphere in which Morris Hewland lived, and which hebrought about him to transfuse the heavier air of her lowly living, that bewildered Bel. And she knew that she was bewildered. She knewthat it was the poetic side of her nature that was stirred, excited;not the real deep, woman's heart of her that found, suddenly, itssatisfying. If women will look, they can see this. 

She knew--she had found out--that she was a fair picture in theartist's eyes; that the perception keen to discover and test andanalyze all harmonies of form and tint, --holding a hallowed, mysterious kinship in this power to the Power that had made andspoken by them, --turned its search upon her, and found her lovely inthe study. It was as if a daisy bearing the pure message and meaningof the heavenly, could thrill with the consciousness of itstransmission; could feel the exaltation of fulfilling to a humansoul, grand in its far up mystery and waiting upon God, --one of hisdear ideas. 

There was something holy in the spirit with which she thus realizedher possession of maidenly beauty; her gift of mental charm andfitness even; it was the countersign by which she entered into thisrealm of which Morris Hewland had the freedom; it belonged to heralso, --she to it; she had received her first recognition. It was alook back into Paradise for this Eve's daughter, born to labor, butwith a reminiscence in her nature out of which she had built all hersweetest notions of being, doing, abiding; from which camethe-home-picture, so simple in its outlines, but so rich and gentlein all its significance, that she had drawn to herself as "herwish"; the thing she would give most, and do most, to have cometrue. 

But all this was not necessarily love, even in its beginning, --thoughshe might come for a while to fancy it so, --for this oneman. It was a thing between her own life and the Maker of it; anunfolding of herself toward that which waited for her in Him, andwhich she should surely come to, whatever she might grasp atmistakenly and miss upon the way. 

Morris Hewland--young, honest-hearted, but full of a young man'sfire and impulse, of an artist's susceptibility to outward beauty, of the ready delight of educated taste in fresh, natural, responsivecleverness--was treading dangerous ground. 

He, too, knew that he was bewildered; and that if he opened his eyeshe should see no way out of it. Therefore he shut his eyes anddrifted on. 

Aunt Blin, with her simplicity, --her incapacity of believing, thoughthere might be wrong and mischief in the world, that anybody sheknew could ever do it, sat there between them, the most bewildered, the most inwardly and utterly befooled of the three. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

BOX FIFTY-TWO. 

In the midst of it all, she went and caught a horrible cold. 

Aunt Blin, I mean. 

It was all by wearing her india-rubbers a week too long, a weekafter she had found the heels were split; and in that week therecame a heavy rain-storm. 

She had to stay at home now. Bel went to the rooms and brought backbutton-holes for her to make. She could not do much; she wasfeverish and languid, and her eyes suffered. But she liked to seesomething in the basket; she was always going to be "well enoughto-morrow. " When the work had to be returned, Bel hurried, and didthe button-holes of an evening. 

Mr. Hewland brought grapes and oranges and flowers to Miss Bree. Belfetched home little presents of her own to her aunt, making a pet ofher: ice-cream in a paper cone, horehound candy, once, a tumbler ofblack currant jelly. But that last was very dear. If Aunt Blin hadeaten much of other things, they could not have afforded it, forthere were only half earnings now. 

To-morrow kept coming, but Miss Bree kept on not getting any better. "She didn't see the reason, " she said; "she never had a cold hang onso. She believed she'd better go out and shake it off. If she couldhave rode down-town she would, but somehow she didn't seem to havethe strength to walk. "

The reason she "couldn't have rode, " was because all the horseswere sick. It was the singular epidemic of 1872. There were no cars, no teams; the queer sight was presented in a great city, of thedriveways as clear as the sidewalks; of nobody needed to guard thecrossings or unsnarl the "blocks;" of stillness like Sunday, dayafter day; of men harnessed into wagons, --eight human beingsdrawing, slowly and heavily, what any poor old prickle-ribs of ahorse, that had life left in him at all, would have trottedcheerfully off with. A lady's trunk was a cartload; and a lady'strunk passing through the streets was a curiosity; you couldscarcely get one carried for love or money. 

Aunt Blin was a good deal excited; she always was by everything thatbefell "her Boston. " She would sit by the window in her blanketshawl, and peer down the Place to see the mail-carts and expresswagons creep slowly by, along Tremont Street, to and from therailways. She was proud for the men who turned to and did quadrupedwork with a will in the emergency, and so took hold of itssublimity; she was proud of the poor horses, standing in sufferingbut royal seclusion in their stables, with hostlers sitting upnights for them, and the world and all its business "seeing how itcould get along without them;" she was proud of all this crowd ofbusiness that had, by hook or by crook (literally, now), to be done. 

She wanted the evening paper the minute it came. She and the musicmistress took the "Transcript" between them, and had the firstreading weeks about. This was her week; she held herself lucky. 

The epizootic was like the war: we should have to subside intocommon items that would not seem like news at all when that wasover. 

We all know, now, what the news was after the epizootic. 

Meanwhile Aunt Blin believed, "on her conscience, " she had got theepidemic herself. 

Bel had worked hard at the rooms this week, and late at home in theevenings. Some of the girls lived out at the Highlands, and some inSouth Boston; there were days when they could not get in from thesedistricts; for such as were on the spot there was double press andhurry. And it was right in the midst of fall and winter work. Belearned twelve dollars in six days, and got her pay. 

On Saturday night she brought home four Chater's crumpets, and apint of oysters. She stewed the oysters in a porringer out of whicheverything came nicer than out of any other utensil. While they werestewing, she made a bit of butter up into a "pat, " and stamped itwith the star in the middle of the pressed glass saltcellar; she setthe table near the fire, and laid it out in a specially dainty way;then she toasted the muffins, and it was past seven o'clock beforeall was done. 

Aunt Blin sat by, and watched and smelled. She was in no hurry; twosenses at a time were enough to have filled. She had finished thepaper, --it was getting to be an old and much rehashed story, now, --and had sent it down to Miss Smalley. It would be hers first, now, for a week. Very well, the excitement was over. That was allshe knew about it. 

In the privacy and security of her own room, and with muffins andoysters for tea, Aunt Blin took out her upper teeth, that she mighteat comfortably. Poor Aunt Blin! she showed her age and her thinnessso. She had fallen away a good deal since she had been sick. Butshe was getting better. On Monday morning, she thought she wouldcertainly be able to go out. All she had to do now was to be carefulof her cough; and Bel had just bought her a new pair of rubbers. 

Bartholomew had done his watching and smelling, likewise; he hadmade all he could be expected to of that limited enjoyment. Now hewalked round the table with an air of consciousness that supper wasserved. He sat by his mistress's chair, lifted one paw withwell-bred expressiveness, stretching out the digits of it as adainty lady extends her lesser fingers when she lifts her cup, orbreaks a bit of bread. It was a delicate suggestion of exquisiteappreciation, and of most excellent manners. Once he began a whine, but recollected himself and suppressed it, as the dainty lady mighta yawn. 

Aunt Blin gave him two oysters, and three spoonfuls of broth in hisown saucer, before she helped herself. After all, she ate in herturn very little more. It was hardly worth while to have made abusiness of being comfortable. 

"I don't think they have such good oysters as they used to, " sheremarked, stepping over her s'es in a very carpeted andstocking-footed way. 

"Perhaps I didn't put enough seasoning"--Bel began, but wasinterrupted in the middle of her reply. 

The big bell two squares off clanged a heavy stroke caught up on theecho by others that sounded smaller farther and farther away, makingtheir irregular, yet familiar phrase and cadence on the air. 

It was the fire alarm. 

"H--zh! Hark!" Aunt Blin changed the muffled but eager monosyllableto a sharper one; and being reminded, felt in her lap, under hernapkin, for her "ornaments, " as Bel called them. 

But she counted the strokes before she put them in, nodding herhead, and holding up her finger to Bel and Bartholomew for silence. Everything stopped where it was with Miss Bree when the fire alarmsounded. 

One--two--three--four--five. 

"In the city, " said Aunt Blin, with a certain weird unconscioussatisfaction; and whipped the porcelains into their places beforethe second tolling should begin. They were like Pleasant Riderhood'sback hair: she was all twisted up, now, and ready. 

One--two. 

"That ain't fur off. Down Bedford Street way. Give me the fire-book, and my glasses. "

She turned the folds of the card with one hand, and adjusted herspectacles with the other. 

"Bedford and Lincoln. Why, that's close by where Miss Proddleboards!"

"That's the _box_, Auntie. You always forget the fire isn't in thebox. "

"Well, it will be if they don't get along with their steamers. Iain't heard one go by yet. "

"They haven't any horses, you know. "

"Hark! there's one now! O, _do_ hush! There's the bell again!"

Bel was picking up the tea-things for washing. She set down thelittle pile which she had gathered, went to the window, and drew upthe blind. 

"My gracious! And there's the fire!"

It shone up, red, into the sky, from over the tall roofs. 

Ten strokes from the deep, deliberate bells. 

"There comes Miss Smalley, todillating up to see, " said Bel, excitedly. 

"And the people are just _rushing_ along Tremont Street!"

"_Can_ you see? asked Miss Smalley, bustling in like the lastlittle belated hen at feeding-time, with a look on all sides at onceto discover where the corn might be. 

"_Isn't_ it big, O?" And she stood up, tiptoe, by the window, as ifthat would make any comparative difference between her height andthat of Hotel Devereux, across the square; or as if she could reachup farther with her eyes after the great flashes that streamed intothe heavens. 

Again the smiting clang, --repeated, solemn, exact. No flurry inthose measured sounds, although their continuance tolled out acity's doom. 

Twice twelve. 

"There goes Mr. Sparrow, " said the music mistress, as thewatchmaker's light, unequal hop came over the stairs. "I suppose hecan see from his window pretty near where it is. "

A slight, dull color came up into the angles of the little lady'sface, as she alluded to the upper lodger's room, for there was atacit impression in the house--and she knew it--that if Miss Smalleyand Mr. Sparrow had been thrown together earlier in life, it wouldhave been very suitable; and that even now it might not bealtogether too late. 

Another step went springing down. Bel knew that, but she saidnothing. 

"Don't you think we might go out to the end of the street and see?"suggested Miss Smalley. 

Bel had on hat and waterproof in a moment. 

"Don't you stir, Auntie, to catch cold, now! We'll be backdirectly. "

Miss Smalley was already in her room below, snatching up hood andshawl. 

Down the Place they went, and on, out into the broad street. Everybody was running one way, --northward. They followed, hurryingtoward the great light, glowing and flashing before them. 

From every westward avenue came more men, speeding in everthickening lines verging to one centre. Like streams into a riverchannel, they poured around the corners into Essex Street, at last, filling it from wall to wall, --a human torrent. 

"This is as far as we can go, " Miss Smalley said, stopping in one ofthe doorways of Boylston Market. A man in a blouse stood there, ordering the driver of a cart. 

"Where is the fire, sir?" asked Miss Smalley, with a ladylike air ofnot being used to speak to men in the street, but of this being anemergency. 

"Corner of Kingston and Summer; great granite warehouse, fivestories high, " said the man in the blouse, civilly, and proceedingto finish his order, which was his own business at the moment, though Boston was burning. 

The two women turned round and went back. The heavy bells werestriking three times twelve. 

A boy rushed past them at the corner by the great florist's shop. Hewas going the other way from the fire, and was impatient to do hiserrand and get back. He had a basket of roses to carry; ordered forsome one to whom it would come, --the last commission of that sortdone that night perhaps, --as out of the very smoke and terror of thehour; a singular lovely message of peace, of the blessed thoughtsthat live between human hearts though a world were in ashes. Allthrough the wild night, those exquisite buds would be silentlyunfolding their gracious petals. How strange the bloomed-out roseswould look to-morrow!

All the house in Leicester Place was astir, and recklessly mixedup, when Miss Smalley and Bel Bree came back. The landlady and herservant were up in Mr. Sparrow's room, calling to Miss Bree below. The whole place was full of red fierce light. 

Aunt Blin, faithful to Bel's parting order, stood in the spirit ofan unrelieved sentinel, though the whole army had broken camp, keeping herself steadfastly safe, in her own doorway. To be sure, there was a draught there, but it was not her fault. 

"I _must_ go up and see it, " she said eagerly, when Bel appeared. Bel drew her into the room, put her first into a gray hospitaldressing-gown, then into a waterproof, and after all covered her upwith a striped blue and white bed comforter. She knew she would keepdodging in and out, and she might as well go where she would stayquiet. 

And so these three women went up-stairs, where they had never beenbefore. The door of Mr. Hewland's room was open. A pair of slipperslay in the middle of the floor; a newspaper had fluttered into alight heap, like a broken roof, beside them; a dressing-gown wasthrown over the back of a chair. 

Bel came last, and shut that door softly as she passed, not lettingher eyes intrude beyond the first involuntary glimpse. She wasmaidenly shy of the place she had never seen, --where she had heardthe footsteps go in and out, over her head. 

The five women crowded about and into Mr. Sparrow's little dormerwindow. Miss Smalley lingered to notice the little black teapot onthe grate-bar, where a low fire was sinking lower, --the faded clothon the table, and the empty cup upon it, --the pipe laid downhastily, with ashes falling out of it. She thought how lonesome Mr. Sparrow was living, --doing for himself. 

All the square open space down through which the blue heavens lookedbetween those great towering buildings, was filled with brightnessas with a flood. The air was lurid crimson. Every stone and chip andfragment, lay revealed in the strange, transfiguring light. Awayacross the stable-roofs, they could read far-off signs painted inblack letters upon brick walls. Church spires stood up, bathed in awild glory, pointing as out of some day of doom, into theeverlasting rest. The stars showed like points of clear, green, unearthly radiance, against that contrast of fierce red. 

It surged up and up, as if it would over-boil the very starsthemselves. It swayed to right, --to left; growing in an awful bulkand intensity, without changing much its place, to their eyes, wherethey stood. On the tops of the high Apartment Hotel, and all theflat-roofed houses in Hero and Pilgrim streets, were men and womengazing. Their faces, which could not have been discerned in thedaylight, shone distinct in this preternatural illumination. Theirvoices sounded now and then, against the yet distant hum and crackleof the conflagration, upon the otherwise still air. The rush had, for a while, gone by. The streets in this quarter were empty. 

Grand and terrible as the sight was to them in Leicester Place, theycould know or imagine little of what the fire was really doing. 

"It backs against the wind, " they heard one man say upon thestable-roof. 

They could not resist opening the window, just a little, now andthen, to listen; though Bel would instantly pull Aunt Blin away, andthen they would put it down. Poor Aunt Blin's nose grew very cold, though she did not know it. Her nose was little and sensitive. It isnot the big noses that feel the cold the most. Aunt Blin took coldthrough her face and her feet; and these the dressing-gown, and thewaterproof, and the comforter, did not protect. 

"It must have spread among those crowded houses in Kingston andSouth streets, " Aunt Blin said; and as she spoke, her poor old"ornaments" chattered. 

"Aunt Blin, you _shall_ come down, and take something hot, and go tobed!" exclaimed Bel, peremptorily. "We can't stay here all night. Mr. Sparrow will be back, --and everybody. I think the fire is goingdown. It's pretty still now. We've seen it all. Come!"

They had never a thought, any of them, of more than a block or so, burning. Of course the firemen would put it out. They always did. 

"See! See!" cried the landlady. "O my sakes and sorrows!"

A huge, volcanic column of glittering sparks--of great flamingfragments--shot up and soared broad and terrible into the deep sky. A long, magnificent, shimmering, scintillant train--fire spangledwith fire--swept southward like the tail of a comet, that had atlast swooped down and wrapped the earth. 

"The roofs have fallen in, " said innocent old Miss Smalley. 

"That will be the last. Now they will stop it, " said Bel. "Come, Auntie!"

And after midnight, for an hour or more, the house, with the fivewomen in it, hushed. Aunt Blin took some hot Jamaica ginger, and Belfilled a jug with boiling water, wrapped it in flannel, and tuckedit into the bed at her feet. Then she gave her a spoonful of hercough-mixture, took off her own clothes, and lay down. 

Still the great fire roared, and put out the stars. Still the roomwas red with the light of it. Aunt Blin fell asleep. 

Bel lay and listened, and wondered. She would not move to get up andlook again, lest she should rouse her aunt. Suddenly, she heard theboom of a great explosion. She started up. 

Miss Smalley's voice sounded at the door. 

"It's awful!" she whispered, through the keyhole, in a ghostly way. "I thought you ought to know. The cinders are flying everywhere. Iheard an engine come up from the railroad. People are running alongthe streets, and teams are going, and everything, --_the other way_!They're blowing up houses! There, don't you hear that?"

It was another sullen, heavy roar. 

Bel sprang out of bed; hurried into her garments; opened the door toMiss Smalley. They went and stood together in the entry-window. 

"All Kingman's carriages are out; sick horses and all; they'vetrundled wheelbarrow loads of things down to the stable. There's aheap of furniture dumped down in the middle of the place. Women aregoing up Tremont Street with bundles and little children. Where _do_you s'pose it's got to?"

"See there!" said Bel, pointing across the square to the great, dark, public building. High up, in one of the windows, a gas-lightglimmered. Two men were visible in the otherwise deserted place. They were putting up a step-ladder. 

"Do you suppose they are there nights, --other nights?" Bel askedMiss Smalley. 

"No. They're after books and things. They're going to pack up. "

"The fire _can't_ be coming here!"

Bel opened the window carefully, as she spoke. A man was standing inthe livery-stable door. A hack came rapidly down, and the drivercalled out something as he jumped off. 

"Where?" they heard the hostler ask. 

"Most up to Temple Place. "

"Do they mean the fire? They can't!"

They did; but they were, as we know, somewhat mistaken. Yet thatgreat, surf-like flame, rushing up and on, was rioting at the veryhead of Summer Street, and plunging down Washington. Trinity Churchwas already a blazing wreck. 

"Has it come up Summer Street, or how?" asked Bel, helplessly, ofhelpless Miss Smalley. "Do you suppose Fillmer & Bylles is burnt?"

"I _must_ ask somebody!"

These women, with no man belonging to them to come and give themnews, --restrained by force of habit from what would have been atanother time strange to do, and not knowing even yet the utterexceptionality of this time, --while down among the hissing enginesand before the face of the conflagration stood girls in delicatedress under evening wraps, come from gay visits with brothers andfriends, and drawn irresistibly by the grand, awful magnetism of thespectacle, --while up on the aristocratic avenues, along ArlingtonStreet, whose windows flashed like jewels in the far-shining flames, where the wonderful bronze Washington sat majestic and still againstthat sky of stormy fire as he sits in every change and beautifulsurprise of whatever sky of cloud or color may stretch abouthim, --on Commonwealth Avenue, where splendid mansions stood withdoors wide open, and drays unloading merchandise saved from thefalling warehouses into their freely offered shelter, --ladies werewalking to and fro, as if in their own halls and parlors, watching, and questioning whomsoever came, and saying to each other hushed andsolemn or excited words, --when the whole city was but one great homeupon which had fallen a mighty agony and wonder that drove itshearts to each other as the hearts of a household, --these two, BelBree and little Miss Smalley, knew scarcely anything that wasdefinite, and had been waiting and wondering all night, thinking itwould be improper to talk into the street!

A young lad came up the court at last; he lived next door; he was anerrand-boy in some great store on Franklin Street. His mother spoketo him from her window. 

"Bennie! how is it?"

"Mother! All Boston is gone up! Summer Street, High Street, FederalStreet, Pearl Street, Franklin Street, Milk Street, DevonshireStreet, --everything, clear through to the New Post Office. I've beenon the Common all night, guarding goods. There's another fellowthere now, and I've come home to get warm. I'm almost frozen. "

His mother was at the door as he finished speaking, and took him in;and they heard no more. 

The boy's words were heavy with heavy meaning. He said them withoutany boy-excitement; they carried their own excitement in the heartof them. In those eight hours he had lived like a man; in anexperience that until of late few men have known. 

They did not know how long they stood there after that, withscarcely a word to each other, --only now and then some utterance ofsudden recollection of this and that which must have vanished awaywithin that stricken territory, --taking in, slowly, the reality, thetremendousness of what had happened, --was happening. 

It was five o'clock when Mr. Hewland came in, and up the stairs, andfound them there. Aunt Blin had not awaked. There was a trace ofmorphine in her cough-drops, and Bel knew now, since she had sleptso long, that she would doubtless sleep late into the morning. Thatwas well. It would be time enough to tell her by and by. There wouldbe all day, --all winter, --to tell it in. 

Mr. Hewland told them, hastily, the main history of the fire. 

"Is Trinity Church?"--asked poor Miss Smalley tremblingly. 

She had not said anything about it to Bel Bree; she could not thinkof that great stone tower as having let the fire in, --as not havingstood, cool and strong, against any flame. And Trinity Church was_her_ tower. She had sat in one seat in its free gallery forfourteen years. If that were gone, she would hardly know where togo, to get near to heaven. Only nine days ago, --All Saints'Day, --she had sat there listening to beautiful words that laid holdupon the faith of all believers, back through the church, backbefore Christ to the prophets and patriarchs, and told how God was_her_ God because He had been theirs. The old faith, --and the OldChurch! "Was Trinity?"--She could not say, --"burned. "

But Mr. Hewland answered in one word, --"Gone. "

That word answered so many questions on which life and love hung, that fearful night!

Mr. Hewland was wet and cold. He went up to his room and changedhis clothing. When the daylight, pale and scared, was creeping in, he came down again. 

"Would you not like to go down and see?" he said to Bel. 

"Can I?"

"Yes. There is no danger. The streets are comparatively clear. Iwill go with you. "

Bel asked Miss Smalley. 

"Will you come? Auntie will be sure to sleep, I think. "

Miss Smalley had scarcely heart either to go or stay. Of the two, itwas easier to go. To do--to see--something. 

Mr. Sparrow came in. He met them at the door, and turned directlyback with them. 

He, too, was a free-seat worshipper at Old Trinity. He and themusic-mistress--they were both of English birth, hence of the samenational faith--had been used to go from the same dwelling, separately, to the same house of worship, and sit in oppositegalleries. But their hearts had gone up together in the holy oldwords that their lips breathed in the murmur of the congregation. These links between them, of country and religion, which they hadnever spoken of, were the real links. 

As they went forth this Sunday morning, in company for the firsttime, toward the church in which they should never kneel again, theyfelt another, --the link that Eve and Adam felt when the sword offlame swept Paradise. 

Plain old souls!--Plain old bodies, I mean, hopping and"todillating"--as Bel expressed the little spinster's gait--alongtogether; their souls walked in a sweet and gracious reality beforethe sight of God. 

Bel and Mr. Hewland were beside each other. They had never walkedtogether before, of course; but they hardly thought of theunusualness. The time broke down distinctions; nothing lookedstrange, when everything was so. 

They went along by the Common fence. In the street, a continuousline of wagons passed them, moving southward. Gentlemen sat oncart-fronts beside the teamsters, accompanying their fragments ofproperty to places of bestowal. Inside the inclosure, in the malls, along under the trees, upon the grass, away back to the pond, wereheaps of merchandise. Boxes, bales, hastily collected and unpackedgoods of all kinds, from carpets to cotton-spools, were thrown inpiles, which men and boys were guarding, the police passing to andfro among them all. People were wrapped against the keen Novembercold, in whatsoever they could lay their hands on. A group of menpacing back and forth before a pyramid of cases, had thrown greatsoft white blankets about their shoulders, whose bright stripedborders hung fantastically about them, and whose corners fell anddragged upon the muddy ground. 

Down by Park Street corner, and at Winter Street, black columns ofcoal smoke went up from the steamers; the hose, like monstrousserpents, twisted and trailed along the pavements; water stood inpools and flowed in runnels, everywhere. 

They went down Winter Street, stepping over the hose-coils, andacross the leaking streams; they came to the crossing of Washington, where yesterday throngs of women passed, shopping from stately storeto store. 

Beyond, were smoke and ruin; swaying walls, heaps of fallen masonry, chevaux-de-frises of bristling gas and water-pipes, broken andprotruding. A little way down, to the left, sheets of flame, goldenin the gray daylight, were pouring from the face of the beautiful"Transcript" building. 

They stood, fearful and watchful, under the broken granite wallsopposite Trinity Church. 

Windows and doors were gone from the grand old edifice; inside, thefire was shining; devouring at its dreadful ease, the sacredarchitecture and furnishings that it had swept down to the ground. 

"See! There he is!" whispered Miss Smalley to Mr. Sparrow, as shegazed with unconscious tears falling fast down her pale old cheeks. 

It was the Rector of Trinity, who thought to have stood this morningin the holy place to speak to his people. Down the middle of thestreet he came, and went up to the cumbered threshold and the openarch, within which a terrible angel was speaking in his stead. 

"Do you think he remembers now, what he said about the God ofDaniel, as he looks into the blazing fiery furnace?"

"I dare say he doesn't ever remember what he _said_; but heremembers always what _is_, " answered the watch-maker. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

EVENING AND MORNING: THE SECOND DAY. 

The strange, sad Sunday wore along. 

The teams rolled on, incessantly, through the streets; the blaze andsmoke went up from the sixty acres of destruction; friends gatheredtogether and talked of the one thing, that talk as they might, wouldnot be put into any words. Men whose wealth had turned to ashes in anight went to and fro in the same coats they had worn yesterday, andhardly knew yet whether they themselves were the same or not. Itseemed, so strangely, as if the clock might be set back somehow, andyesterday be again; it was so little way off!

Women who had received, perhaps, their last wages for the winter onSaturday night, sat in their rooms and wondered what would be onMonday. 

Aunt Blin was excited; strong with excitement. She went down-stairsto see Miss Smalley, who was too tired to sit up. 

Out of the fire, Bel Bree and Paulina Smalley had each broughtsomething that remained by them secretly all this day. 

When they had stopped there under those smoked and shattered walls, and Morris Hewland had drawn Bel's hand within his arm to keep herfrom any movement into danger, he had gently laid his own fingers, in care and caution, upon hers. A feeling had come to them both withthe act, and for a moment, as if the world, with all its greatbuilt-up barriers of stone, had broken down around them, and lay attheir feet in fragments, among which they two stood free together. 

The music-mistress and the watchmaker, looking in upon their placeof prayer, seeing it empty and eaten out by the yet lingeringtongues of fire, had exchanged those words about the things that_are_. For a minute, through the emptiness, they reached into theeternal deep; for a minute their simple souls felt themselves, overthe threshold of earthly ruin, in the spaces where there is no needof a temple any more; they forgot their worn and far-spentlives, --each other's old and year-marked faces; they were as twospirits, met without hindrance or incongruity, looking into eachother's spiritual eyes. 

Poor old Miss Smalley, when she came home and took off her hoodbefore her little glass, and saw how pale she was with her night'swatching and excitement, and how the thin gray hairs had straggledover her forehead, came back with a pang into the flesh, and wasafraid she had been ridiculous; but lying tired upon her bed, in thelong after hours of the day, she forgot once more what manner ofoutside woman she was, and remembered only, with a pervading peace, how the watchmaker had spoken. 

Night came. The pillar of smoke that had gone up all day, turnedagain into a pillar of fire, and stood in the eastern heavens. 

The time of safety, when there had been no flaming terror, wasalready so far off, that people, fearing this night to surrenderthemselves to sleep, wondered that in any nights they had everdared, --wondered that there had ever been anything but fear andburning, in this great, crowded city. 

The guards paced the streets; the roll of wagons quieted. Thestricken town was like a fever patient seized yesterday with asudden, devouring rage of agony, --to-day, calmed, put under care, arule established, watchers set. 

Miss Smalley went from window to window as the darkness--and theapparition of flame--came on. Rested by the day's surrender toexhaustion, she was alert and apprehensive and excited now. 

"It will be sure to burst out again, " she said; "it always does. "

"Don't say so to Aunt Blin, " whispered Bel. "Look at her cheeks, andher eyes. She is sick-abed this minute, and she _will_ keep up!"

At nine o'clock, the very last thing, she spoke with themusic-mistress again, at the door. Miss Smalley kept coming up intothe passage to look out at that end window. 

"I don't mean to get up if it does burn, " Bel said, resolutely. "Itwon't come here. We ought to sleep. That's our business. There'll beenough to do, maybe, afterwards. "

But for all that, in the dead of the night, she was roused again. 

A sound of bells; a long alarm of which she lost the count; a greatexplosion. Then that horrible cataract of flame and sparksoverhanging the stars as it did before, and paling them out. 

It seemed as if it had always been so; as if there had never been astill, dark heaven under which to lie down tranquilly and sleep. 

"The wind has changed, and the fire is awful, and I can't help it, "sounded Miss Smalley's voice, meek and deprecating, through thekeyhole, at which she had listened till she had heard Bel moving. 

Bel lit the gas, and then went out into the passage. 

Flakes of fire were coming down over the roofs into the Placeitself. 

The great rush and blaze were all this way, now. They were rightunder the storm of it. 

Aunt Blin woke up. 

"What is it?" she asked, excitedly. "Is it begun again? Is itcoming?" And before Bel could stop her, she was out on the entryfloor with her bare feet. 

A floating cinder fell and struck the sash. 

"We must be dressed! We must pack up! Make haste, Bel! Where'sBartholomew?"

Making a movement, hurriedly, to go back across her own room, MissBree turned faint and giddy, and fell headlong. 

They got her into bed again, and brought her to. But withcirculation and consciousness, came the rush of fever. In half anhour she was in a burning heat, wandering and crying outdeliriously. 

"O what shall we do? We must have a doctor. She'll die!" cried Bel. 

"If I dared to go up and call Mr. Sparrow?" said the spinster, timidly. 

Her thought reverted as instantly to Mr. Sparrow, and yet with thesame conscious shyness, as if she had been eighteen, and the poorold watchmaker twenty-one. Because, you see, she was a woman; andshe had but been a woman the longer, and her woman's heart growntenderer and shyer, in its unlived life, that she was four andfifty, and not eighteen. There are three times eighteen in four andfifty. 

"O, Mr. Sparrow isn't any good!" cried Bel, impetuously. "If youwouldn't mind seeing whether Mr. Hewland is up-stairs?"

Miss Smalley did not mind that at all; and though numbly aggrievedat the reflection upon Mr. Sparrow, went up and knocked. 

Bel heard Morris Hewland's spring upon the floor, and his voice, ashe asked the matter. Heavy with fatigue, he had not roused till now. 

As he came down, five minutes later, and Bel Bree met him at thedoor, the gas suddenly went out, and they stood, except for theflame outside, in darkness. 

In house and street it was the same. Miss Smalley called out that itwas so. "The stable light is gone, " she said. "Yes, --and the lightsdown Tremont Street. "

Then that fearful robe of fire, thick sown with spangling cinders, seemed sweeping against the window panes. 

Only that terrible light over all the town. 

"O, what does it mean?" said Bel. 

"It is Chicago over again, " the young man answered her, with a gravedismay in his voice. 

"See there, --and there!" said Miss Smalley, at the window. "Peopleare up, lighting candles. "

"But Aunt Blin is sick!" said Bel. "We must take care of her. Whatshall we do?"

"I'll go and send a doctor; and I'll bring you news. Have you acandle? Stop; I'll fetch you something. "

He sprang up-stairs, and returned with a box of small wax tapers. They were only a couple of inches long, and the size of her littlefinger. 

"I'll get you something better if I can; and don't be frightened. "

The great glare, though it shed its light luridly upon all outside, was not enough to find things by within. Bel took courage at this, thinking the heart of it must still be far off. She gave one lookinto the depth of the street, shadowed by its buildings, and havinga strange look of eerie gloom, even so little way beneath that upperglow. Then she drew down the painted shades, and shut the skyphantom out. 

"Mr. Hewland will come and tell us, " she said. "We must work. "

She heated water and got a bath for Aunt Blin's feet. She put acool, wet bandage on her head. She mixed some mustard and spread acloth and laid it to her chest. Miss Bree breathed easier; but thebandage upon her head dried as though the flame had touched it. 

"I'll tell you what, " said good, inopportune Miss Smalley; "she'sgoing to be dreadful sick, I'm afraid. It'll be head and lungs both. That's what my sister had. "

"_Don't_ tell me what!" cried Bel, irritatedly. 

But the doctor told her what, when he came. 

Not in words; doctors don't do that. But she read it in his gravecarefulness; she detected it in the orders which he gave. Peoplebrought up in the country, --where neighbors take care of each other, and where every symptom is talked over, and the history of everyfatal disorder turns into a tradition, --learn about sickness and themeanings of it; on its ghastly and ominous side, at any rate. 

Mr. Hewland came back and brought two candles, which he had withdifficulty procured from a hotel. He brought word, also, that thefire was under control; that they need feel no more alarm. 

And so this second night of peril and disaster passed painfully andslowly by. 

But on the Monday, the day in which Boston was like a city givenover into the hands of a host, --when its streets were likeslow-moving human glaciers, down the midst of which in a narrowchannel the heavier flow of burdened teams passed scarcely fasterforward than the hindered side streams, --Aunt Blin lay in the graspand scorch of a fire that feeds on life; wasting under that whichuplifts and frenzies, only to prostrate and destroy. 

I shall not dwell upon it. It had to be told; the fire also had tobe told; for it happened, and could not be ignored. It happened, intermingling with all these very things of which I write;precipitating, changing, determining much. 

Before the end of that first week, in which the stun and shock werereacting in prompt, cheerful, benevolent organizing andproviding, --in which, through wonderful, dreamlike ruins, like theruins of the far-off past, people were wandering, amazed, seeing asudden torch laid right upon the heart and centre of a livingmetropolis and turning it to a shadow and a decay, --in which humaninterests and experiences came to mingle that had never consciouslyapproached each other before, --in which the little household ofindependent existences in Leicester Place was fused into analmost family relation all at once, after years of merejuxtaposition, --before the end of that week, Aunt Blin died. 

It was as though the fiery thrust that had transpierced the heart of"her Boston, " had smitten the centre of her own vitality in theself-same hour. 

All her clothes hung in the closet; the very bend of her arm was inthe sleeve of the well worn alpaca dress, the work-basket, with acloth jacket-front upon it, in which was a half-made button-hole, left just at the stitch where all her labor ended, was on the roundtable; Cheeps was singing in the window; Bartholomew was winking onthe hearth-rug; and little Bel, among these belongings that she knewnot what to do with any more, was all alone. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

TEMPTATION. 

The Relief Committee was organizing in Park Street Vestry. 

Women with help in their hands and sympathy in their hearts, camethere to meet women who wanted both; came, many of them, straightfrom the first knowledge of the loss of almost all their own money, with word and act of fellowship ready for those upon whose very lifethe blow fell yet closer and harder. Over the separating lines ofclass and occupation a divine impulse reached, at least for themoment, both ways. 

"Boffin's Bower" was all alert with aggressive, independentmovement. Here, they did not believe in the divine impulse of thehour. They would stay on their own side of the line. They would helpthemselves and each other. They would stand by their own class, andcry "hands off!" to the rich women. 

What was to be done, for lasting understanding and true relation, between these conflicting, yet mutually dependent elements?

In their own separate places sat solitary girls and women who soughtneither yet. 

Bel Bree was one. 

The little room which had been home while Aunt Blin lived there withher, was suddenly become only a dreary, lonely lodging-room. Cheepsand Bartholomew were there, chirping and purring, the sun wasshining in; the things were all hers, for Aunt Blin had written onebroad, straggling, unsteady line upon a sheet of paper the last dayshe lived, when the fever and confusion had ebbed away out of herbrain as life ebbed slowly back, beaten from its outworks bydisease, toward her heart, and she lay feebly, but clearly, conscious. 

"I give all I leave in the world to my niece Belinda Bree. "

"Kellup" came down and buried his sister, and "looked into things;"concluded that "Bel was pretty comfortable, and with goodfolks, --Mrs. Pimminy and Miss Smalley; 'sposed she calc'lated tokeep on, now; she could come back if she wanted to, though. "

Bel did not want to. She would stay here a little while, at anyrate, and think. So Kellup went back into New Hampshire. 

There was a little money laid up since Miss Bree and Bel had beentogether; Bel could get along, she thought, till work began again. But it was no longer living; it would not be living then; it wouldbe only work and solitude. She was like a great many others of themnow; girls without tie or belonging, --holding on where they could. Elise Mokey had said to her, --"See if you could help yourself if youhadn't Aunt Blin!" and now she began to look forward against thatgreat, dark "If. "

Everything had come together. If work had kept on, there would havebeen these little savings to fall back upon when earnings did notquite meet outlay. But now she should use them up before work came. And what did it signify, anyhow? All the comfort--all the meaning ofit--was gone. 

They were all kind to her; Miss Smalley sat with her evenings, tillBel wished she would have the wiser kindness to go away and let herbe miserable, just a little while. 

Morris Hewland knocked at the door one afternoon when themusic-mistress was out, giving her lessons. 

Bel did not ask him in to sit down; she stood just within thedoorway, and talked with him. 

He made some friendly inquiries that led to conversation; he drewher to say something of her plans. He had not come on purpose; hehardly knew what he had come for. He had only knocked to say a wordof kindness; to look in the poor, pretty little face that he feltsuch a tenderness for. 

"I can't bear to give things up, --because they _were_ pleasant, " Belsaid. "But I suppose I shall have to go away. It isn't home; thereisn't anybody to make home _with_ any more. I know what I _had_thought of, a while ago; I believe I know what there is that I mightdo; I am just waiting until the thoughts come back, and begin tolook as they did. Nothing looks as it did yet. "

"Nothing?" asked Morris Hewland, his eyes questioning of hers. 

"Yes, --friends. But the friends are all outside, after all. "

Hewland stood silent. 

How beautiful it might be to make home for such a little heart asthis! To surround her with comfort and prettiness, such as she lovedand knew how to contrive out of so little! To say, --"Let us belongtogether. Make home with _me_!"

Satan, as an angel of light, entered into him. He knew he could notsay this to her as he ought to say it; as he would say it to a girlof his own class whom father and mother would welcome. There was nogirl of his own class he had ever cared to say it to. This was thefirst woman he had found, with whom the home thought joined itself. And this could not rightly be. If he took her, he would no longerhave the things to give her. They would be cast out together. Andall he could do was to make pictures, of which he had never soldone, or thought to sell one, in all his life. He would be just aspoor as she was; and he felt that he did not know how to be poor. Besides, he wanted to be rich for her. He wanted to give her, --now, right off, --everything. 

Why shouldn't he give? Why shouldn't she take? He had plenty ofmoney; he was his father's only son. He meant right; so he said tohimself; and what had the world to do with it?

"I wish I could take care of you, Bel! Would you let me? Would yougo with me?"

The words seemed to have said themselves. The devil, whom he had lethave his heart for a minute, had got his lips and spoken throughthem before he knew. 

"Where?" asked Bel. "Home?"

"Yes, --home, " said the young man, hesitating. 

"Where your mother lives?"

Bel Bree's simplicity went nigh to being a stronger battery ofdefense than any bristling of alarmed knowledge. 

"No, " said Morris Hewland. "Not there. It would not do for you, orher either. But I could give you a little home. I could take care ofyou all your life; all _my_ life. And I would. I will never make ahome for anybody else. I will be true to you, if you will trustme, --always. So help me God!"

He meant it; there was no dark, deliberate sin in his heart, anymore than in hers; he was tempted on the tenderest, truest side ofhis nature, as he was tempting her. He did not see why he shouldnot choose the woman he would live with all his life, though he knewhe could not choose her in the face of all the world, though hecould not be married to her in the Church of the Holy Commandments, with bridesmaids and ushers, and music and flowers, and point laceand white satin, and fifty private carriages waiting at the door, and half a ton of gold and silver plate and verd antique piled upfor them in his father's house. 

His father was a hard, proud, unflinching man, who loved andindulged his son, after his fashion and possibility; but who wouldnever love or indulge him again if he offended in such a thing asthis. His mother was a woman who simply could not understand that agirl like Bel Bree was a creature made by God at all, as herdaughters were, and her son's wife should be. 

"Do you care enough for me?"

Bel stood utterly still. She had never been asked any such questionsbefore, but she felt in some way, that this was not all; ought notto be all; that there was more he was to say, before she couldanswer him. 

He came toward her. He put his hands on hers. He looked eagerly inher eyes. He did not hesitate now; the man's nature was roused inhim. He must make her speak, --say that she cared. 

"_Don't_ you care? Bel--you do! You are my little wife; and theworld has not anything to do with it!"

She broke away from him; she shrunk back. 

"Don't do that, " he said, imploringly. "I'm not bad, Bel. The worldis bad. Let us be as good and loving as we can be in it. Don't thinkme bad. "

There was not anything bad in his eyes; in his young, loving, handsome face. Bel was not sure enough, --strong enough, --todenounce the evil that was using the love; to say to that which wastempting him, and her by him, as Peter's passionate remonstrancetempted the Christ, --"Thou art Satan. Get thee behind me. "

Yet she shrunk, bewildered. 

"I don't know; I can't understand. Let me go now Mr. Hewland. "

She turned away from him, into the chamber, and reached her hand tothe door as she turned, putting her fingers on its edge to close itafter him. She stood with her back to him; listening, not looking, for him to go. 

He retreated, then, lingeringly, across the threshold, his eyes uponher still. She shut the door slowly, walking backward as she pushedit to. She had _left_, if not driven the devil behind her. Yet shedid not know what she had done. She was still bewildered. I believethe worst she thought of what had happened was that he wanted tomarry her secretly, and hide her away. 

"Aunt Blin!" she cried, when she felt herself all alone. "AuntBlin!--She _can't_ have gone so very far away, quite yet!"

She went over to the closet, with her arms stretched out. 

She went in, where Aunt Blin's clothes were hanging. She grasped theold, worn dress, that was almost warm with the wearing. She hid herface against the sleeve, curved with the shape of the arm that hadbent to its tasks in it. 

"Tell me, Aunt Blin! You can see clear, where you are. Is there anygood--any right in it? Ought I to tell him that I care?"

She cried, and she waited; but she got no answer there. She cameaway, and sat down. 

She was left all to herself in the hard, dreary world, with thisdoubt, this temptation to deal with. It was her wilderness; and shedid not remember, yet, the Son of God who had been there before her. 

"Why do they go off so far away in that new life, out of which theymight help us?"

She did not know how close the angels were. She listened outside forthem, when they were whispering already at her heart. We need to go_in_; not to reach painfully up, and away, --after that world inwhich we also, though blindly, dwell. 

On the table lay Aunt Blin's great Bible; beside it her glasses. 

Something that Miss Euphrasia had told them one day at the chapel, came suddenly into her mind. 

"The angels are always near us when we are reading the Word, becausethey read, always, the living Word in heaven. "

Was that the way? Might she enter so, and find them?

She moved slowly to the table. 

It was growing dark. She struck a match and lit the gas, turning itlow. She laid back the leaves of the large volume, to the latterportion. She opened it in Matthew, --to the nineteenth chapter. 

When she had read that, she knew what she was to do. 

She heard nothing more from Morris Hewland that night. 

In the morning, early, she had her room bright and ready for theday. The light was calm and clear about her. The shadows were allgone. 

She opened her door, and sat down, waiting, before the fire. Didshe think of that night when she had had on the rose-colored silk, and had set the door ajar? Something in her had made her ashamed ofthat. She was not ashamed--she had no misgiving--of this that shewas going to do now. 

She was all alone; she had no other place to wait in she had no oneto tell her anything. She was going to do a plain, right thing, whether it was just what anybody else would do, or not. She nevereven asked herself that question. 

She heard Mr. Sparrow, with his hop and step, come down over thestairs. He always came down first of all. Then for another halfhour, she sat still. At the end of that time, Morris Hewland's doorunlatched and closed again. 

Her heart beat quick. She stood up, with her face toward the opendoor. At the foot of that upper flight, she heard him pause. Shecould not see him till he passed; and he might pass without turning. Unless he turned, she would be out of his sight; for the door swunginward from the far corner. No matter. 

He went by with a slow step. He could not help seeing the open door. But he did not stop or turn, until he reached the stairhead of thesecond flight; then he had to face this way again. And as he passedaround the railing, he looked up; for Bel was standing where she hadstood last night. 

She had put herself in his way; but she had not done it lightly, with any half intent, to give _him_ new opportunity for words. Therewas a pure, gentle quiet in her face; she had something herself tosay. He saw it, and went back. 

He colored, as he gave her his hand. Her face was pale. 

"Come in a moment, Mr. Hewland, " said the simple, girlish, voice. 

He followed her in. 

"You asked me questions last night, and I did not know how to answerthem. I want to ask you one question, now. "

She had brought him to the side of the round table, upon whose redcloth the large Bible lay. It was open at the place where she hadread it. 

She put her finger on the page, and made him look. She drew thefinger slowly down from line to line, as if she were pointing for alittle child to read; and his eye followed it. 

"For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shallcleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh. 

"Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What thereforeGod hath joined together, let not man put asunder. "

"Is that the way you will make a home and give it to me, --beforethem all?" she said. 

He forgot the sophistries he might have used; he forgot to say thatit _was_ to leave father and mother and join himself to her, that hehad purposed; he forgot to tell her again that he would be true toher all his life, and that nothing should put them asunder. He didnot take up those words, as men have done, and say that God hadjoined their hearts together and made them in his sight one. Theangels were beside him, in his turn, as he read. Those sentences ofthe Christ, shining up at him from the page, were like the lookturned back upon Peter, showing him his sin. 

"One flesh:" to be seen and known as one. To have one body ofliving; to be outwardly joined before the face of men. None to setthem asunder, or hold them separate by thought, or accident, ormisunderstanding. This was the sacred acknowledgment of man andwife, and he knew that he had not meant to make it. 

As he stood there, silent, she knew it too. She knew that she shouldnot have been his wife before anybody. 

Her young face grew paler, and turned stern. 

His flushed: a slow, burning, relentless flush, that betrayed him, marking him like Cain. He lowered his eyes in the heat of it, andstood so before the child. 

She looked steadfastly at him for one instant; then she shut thebook, and turned away, delivering him from the condemning light ofher presence. 

"No: I will not go to that little home with you, " she said with agrief and scorn mingled in her voice, as they might have been in thevoice of an angel. 

When she looked round again, he was gone. Their ways had parted. 

An hour later, Bel Bree turned the key outside her door, and with alittle leather bag in her hand, saying not a word to any one, wentdown into the street. 

Across the Common, and over the great hill, she walked straight toGreenley Street, and to Miss Desire. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE PREACHING. 

Desire Ledwith had a great many secrets to keep. Everybody came andtold her one. 

All these girls whom she knew, had histories; troubles, perplexities, wrongs, temptations, --greater or less. Gradually, theyall confessed to her. The wrong side of the world's patchwork lookedugly to her, sometimes. 

Now, here came Bel Bree; with her story, and her little leather bag;her homelessness, her friendlessness. No, not that; for DesireLedwith herself contradicted it; even Mrs. Pimminy and Miss Smalleywere a great deal better than nothing. Not friendlessness, then, exactly; but _belonglessness_. 

Desire sent down to Leicester Place for Bel's box; for Cheeps also. Bel wrote a note to Miss Smalley, asking her to take in Bartholomew. What came of that, I may as well tell here as anywhere; it will nottake long. It is not really an integral part of our story, but Ithink you will like to know. 

Miss Smalley herself answered the note. It was easy enough to evadeany close questions on her part; she thought it was "a good dealmore suitable for Bel not to stay at Mrs. Pimminy's alone, and shewasn't an atom surprised to know she had concluded so;" besides, Miss Smalley was very much preoccupied with her own concerns. 

"There was the room, " she said; "and there was the furniture. Now, would Bel Bree let the things to her, just as they stood, ifshe, --well, if Mr. Sparrow, --for she didn't mind telling Bel thatshe and Mr. Sparrow had made up their minds to look after eachother's comfort as well as they could the rest of their lives, seeing how liable we all were to need comfort and company, at firesand things;--if Mr. Sparrow hired the room of Mrs. Pimminy? And asto Bartholomew, Mr. Sparrow wouldn't mind him, and she didn't thinkBartholomew would object to Mr. Sparrow. Cats rather took to him, hethought. They would make the creature welcome, and make much of him;and not expect it to be considered at all. "

Bel concluded the arrangement. She thought it would be a comfort toknow that Aunt Blin's little place was not all broken up, but thatsomebody was happy there; that Bartholomew had his old corner of therug, and his airings on the sunny window-sill; and MissSmalley--Mrs. Sparrow that was to be--would pay her fifteen dollarsa year for the things, and make them last. 

"That carpet?" she had said; "why, it hadn't begun to pocket yet;and there hadn't been any breadths changed; and the mats saved thehearth-front and the doorway, and she could lay down more. And itwould turn, when it came to that, and last on--as long as ever. There was six years in that carpet, without darning, if there was asingle day; and Mr. Sparrow always took off his boots and put on hisslippers, the minute ever he got in. "

Desire's library was full on Wednesday evenings, now. The girls camefor instruction, for social companionship, for comfort. On the tablein the dining-room were almost always little parcels waiting, readydone up for one and another; little things Desire and Hazel "thoughtof" beforehand, as what they "might like and find convenient; andwhat they"--Desire and Hazel--"happened to have. " Sometimes it was apaper of nice prunes for a delicate appetite that was kept too muchto dry, economical food. Perhaps it was a jar of "Liebig's Extract"for Emma Hollen, that she might make beef-tea for herself; or aremnant of flannel that "would just do for a couple of undervests. "It was sure to be something just right; something with a realthought in it. 

And out here in the dining-room, as they took their littleparcels, --or lingering in the hall aside from the others, orstopping in a corner of the library, --they would have their "words"with Desire and Hazel and Sylvie; always some confidence, or somequestion, or some telling of how this or that had gone on or turnedout. 

In these days after the Great Fire, no wonder that the dozen orfifteen became twenty, or even thirty; the very pigeons and sparrowstell each other where the people are who love and feed them; nowonder that all the chairs had to be brought in, and that the roomwas full; that the room in heart and brain, for sympathy and planand counsel, was crowded also, or would have been, if heart andbrain were not made to grow as fast as they take in tendernesses andthoughts. If, too, one need did not fit right in and help another;and if being "right in the midst of the work" did not continuallygive light and suggestion and opportunity. 

Bel Bree came among them now, with her heart full. 

"I know it better than ever, " she said to Miss Desire. "I _know_that what ever so many of these girls want, most of all, is _home_. A place to work in where they can rest between whiles, if it is onlyfor snatches; not to be out, and on their feet, and just _driving_, with the minutes at their heels, all day long. Girls want to workunder cover; they can favor themselves then, and not slight the workeither. And especially, they want to _belong_ somewhere. They can'tfling themselves about, separate, anywhere, without a great manygetting spoiled, or lost. They want some signs of care over them;and I believe there are places where they could have it. If they canput twenty tucks into a white petticoat for a cent a piece, and workhalf a day at it, and find their own fire and bread and tea, whycan't they do it for half a cent a tuck, even, in people's houses, where they can have fire and lodging and meals, and a name, at anyrate, of being seen to?"

"Say so to them, Bel. Tell them yourself, what you mean to do, andfind out who will do it with you. If this movement could come fromthe girls themselves, --if two or three would join together andbegin, --I believe the leaven would work. I believe it is the nextthing, and that somebody is to lead the way. Why not you?"

That night, the Read-and-Talk left off the reading. Miss Ledwithtold them that there was so much to say, --so much she wanted a wordfrom them about, --that they would give up the books for one evening. They would think about home, instead of far-off places; aboutthemselves, --each other, --and things that were laid out for them todo, instead of people who had taken their turn at the world's workhundreds of years ago. They would try and talk it out, --this hardquestion of work, and place, and living; and see, if they could, what way was provided, --as in the nature of things there must besome way, --for everybody to be busy, and everybody to be bettersatisfied. She thought Bel Bree had got a notion of one way, thatwas open, or might be, to a good many, a way that it remained, perhaps, for themselves to open rightly. 

"Now, Bel, just tell us all how you feel about it. There isn't anyof us whom you wouldn't say it to alone; and every one of us is onlylistening separately. When you have finished, somebody else may havea word to answer. "

"I don't know as I _could_ finish, " said Bel Bree, "except by goingand living it out. And that is just what I think we have got to do. I've said it before; the girls know I have; but I'm surer than everof it now. Why, where does all the work come from, but out of thehomes? I know some kinds may always have to be done in the lump; butthere's ever so much that might be done where it is wanted, andeverybody be better off. We want homes; and we want real people towork for; those two things. I _know_ we do. A lot of _stuff_, andmiles of stitches, ain't _work_; it don't make real human beings, Ithink. It makes business, I suppose, and money; I don't know what itall comes round to, though, for anybody; more spending, perhaps, andmore having, but not half so much being. At any rate, it don't comeround in that to us; and we've got to look out for ourselves. If weget right, who knows but other folks may get righter in consequence?What I think is, that wherever there's a family, --a father and amother and little children, --there's work to do, and a home to do itin; and we girls who haven't homes and little children, and perhapssha'n't ever have, --ain't much likely to have as things arenow, --could be happier and safer, and more used to what we ought tobe used to in case we should, "--(Bel's sentences were getting to bevery rambling and involved, but her thoughts urged her on, andeverybody's in the room followed her), --"if we went right in wherethe things were wanted, and did them. The sewing, --and thecooking, --and the sweeping, too; everything; I mean, whatever wecould; any of it. You call it 'living out, ' and say you won't do it, but what you do _now_ is the living out! We could _afford_ to go andsay to people who are worrying about poor help and awfulwages, --'We'll come and do well by you for half the money. We knowwhat homes are worth. ' And wouldn't some of them think themillennium was come? _I_ am going to try it. "

Bel stopped. She did not think of such a thing as having made aspeech; she had only said a little--just as it came--of what she wasfull of. 

"You'll get packed in with a lot of dirty servants. You won't havethe home. You'll only have the work of it. "

"No, Kate Sencerbox. I sha'n't do that; because I'm going topersuade you to go with me. And we'll make the home, if they give usever so little a corner of it. And as soon as they find out what weare, they'll treat us accordingly. "

Kate Sencerbox shrugged her shoulders. 

"The world isn't going to be made all over in a day, --nor Bostoneither; not if it _is_ all burnt up to begin with. "

"That is true, Kate, " said Desire Ledwith. "You will havedifficulties. But you have difficulties now. And wouldn't it beworth while to change these that are growing worse, for such asmight grow better? Wouldn't it be grand to begin to make even alittle piece of the world over?"

"We could start with new people, " said Bel. "Young people. They arethe very ones that have the hardest time with the old sort ofservants. We could go out of town, where the old sort won't stay. You see it's _homes_ we're after; real ones; and to help make them;and it's homes they hate!"

"Where did you find it all out, Bel?"

"I don't know. Talk; and newspapers. And it's in the air. "

Bel was her old, quick, bright, earnest self, taking hold of thisthing that she so truly meant. She turned round to it eagerly, escaping from the thoughts which she resolutely flung out of hermind. There was perhaps a slight impetus of this hurry of escape inher eagerness. But Bel was strong; strong in her purity; in her realpoet-nature, that reached for and demanded the real soul of living;in her incapacity to care for the shadow or pretense, --far more the_sullied_ sham, --of anything. Contempt of the evil had come swiftlyto cure the sting of the evil. Satan would fain have had her, tosift her like wheat; but she had been prayed for; and now that shewas saved, she was inspired to strengthen her sisters. 

"I don't think I could do anything but sewing, " said Emma Hollen, plaintively. "I'm not strong enough. And ladies won't see to theirown sewing, now, in their houses. It's so much easier to go rightinto Feede & Treddle's, and buy ready-made, that we've done thestitching for at forty cents a day, hard work, and find ourselves!"

"I don't say that every girl in Boston can walk right into a nicegood home, and be given something to do there. But I say there's nodanger of too many trying it yet awhile; and by the time they do, maybe we'll have changed things a little for them. I'm willing to bethe thin edge of the wedge, " said Bel Bree. 

"Right things have the power. God sees to that, " said Desire. "Theright cannot stop working. The life is in it. "

"The thing I think of, " said Elise Mokey, decidedly, "is sullerkitchens. I ain't ready to be put underground, --not yet awhile. Noteven by way of going to heaven, every night; or as near as fourflights can carry me. "

"In the country they don't have cellar kitchens. And anyway, there'salways a window, and a fire; and with things clean and cheerful, andsome green thing growing for Cheeps to sing to, I'll do, " said Bel. "You've got to begin with what there is, as the Pilgrim Fathersdid. "

Ray Ingraham could have told them, if she had been there thisWednesday evening, how Dot had begun. Miss Ledwith said nothingabout it, because she felt that it was an exceptional case. Shewould not put a falsely flattering precedent before these girls, towin them to an experiment which with them might prove a hard anddisappointing one. Desire Ledwith was absolutely fair-minded ineverything she did. The feeling on their part that she was so, waswhat gave them their trust in her. To bring a subject to herconsideration and judgment, was to bring it into clear sunlight. 

Dot had gone up to Z----, to live with the Kincaids, at the HorseShoe. 

Drops of quicksilver, if they are put anywise near together, willrun into each other. And that is the law of the kingdom of good. Circumstances are far more fluid to the blessed magnetism than wethink. The whole tendency of the right, neighborly life is to reachforth and draw together; to bring into one circle of communicationpeople and plans of one spirit and purpose. Then, before we know howit is, we find them linking and fitting here and there, helpingwonderfully to make a beautiful organism of result that we could nothave planned or foreseen beforehand, any more than we could haveplanned our own bodies. It is the growing up into one body inChrist. 

Hazel Ripwinkley said it all came of "knowing the Muffin Man:" andso it did. The Bread-Giver; the Provider. It is queer they shouldhave made such an unconscious parable in that nonsense-play. But youcan't help making parables, do what you will. 

Rosamond Kincaid had her hands full now, she had her little Stephen. 

He came like a little angel of delight, in one way; the real, heartway; but another, --the practical way of day's doing andordering, --he came like a little Hun, overrunning and devastatingeverything. 

While Rosamond had been up-stairs, and Mrs. Waters had been nursingher, and Miss Arabel coming in and out to see that all was straightbelow, it had been lovely; it was the peace of heaven. 

But when Mrs. Waters--who was one of those born nurses whomeverybody who has any sort of claim sends for in all emergency ofsickness--had to pack up her valise and go to Portland, where herniece's son was taken with rheumatic fever, and her niece hadanother bleeding at the lungs; when the days grew short, and thenights long, and the baby _would_ not settle his relations with thesolar system, but having begun his earthly career in the night-time, kept a dead reckoning accordingly, and continued to make themidnight hours his hours of demand and enterprise, --the nice littlesystematic calculations by which the household had been regulatedfell into hopeless uncertainties. 

Dorris had so many music scholars now, that she was obliged toleave home at nine in the morning; and at night she was very tired. It was indispensable for her and for Kenneth that dinner should bepunctual. Rosamond could not let Miss Arabel's labors of love growinto matter-of-course service. 

And then there were all the sewing and mending to do; which had notbeen anything to think of when there had been plenty of time; butwhich, now that the baby devoured all the minutes, and made ahouseful of work beside, began to grow threatening with inevitableprocrastinations. 

[Barbara Goldthwaite, who was at home at West Hill with _her_ baby, averred that _these_ were the angels who came to declare that timeshould be no longer. ]

Rosamond would not have a nursery maid; she "would not give up herbaby to anybody;" neither would she let a "kitchen girl" into herparadisiacal realm of shining tins, and top-over cups, and white, hemmed dishcloths. 

"Let's have a companion!" said Dorris. "Let's afford her together. "

When their "Christian Register" came, that very week, there was DotIngraham's advertisement. 

Mr. Kincaid went into the city, and round to Pilgrim Street, andfound her; and now, in this November when every machine girl inBoston was thrown back upon her savings, or her friends, or thepublic contribution, she was tucking up little short dresses forStephen, whom Rosamond, according to the family tradition, calledresolutely by his name, and whom she would, at five months old, putinto the freedom of frocks, "in which he could begin to feel himselfa little human being, and not a tadpole. "

Dot helped in the kitchen, too; but this was a home kitchen. Shebecame one of themselves, for whatever there was to be done. Especially she took triumphant care of Rosamond's stand of plants, which, under her quickly recognized touch and tending, rushedtumultuously into a green splendor, and even at this early wintertime, showed eager little buds of bloom, of all that could bloom. 

They had books and loud reading over their work. Everything gotdone, and there were leisure hours again. Dot earned four dollars aweek, and once a fortnight went home and spent a Sunday with hermother. 

All went blessedly at the Horse Shoe; but there is not a Horse Shoeeverywhere. It is always a piece of luck to find one. 

Desire Ledwith knew that; so she held her peace about it for awhile, among these girls to whom Bel Bree was preaching her crusade. All they knew was that Dot Ingraham and her machine were gone awayinto a family eighteen miles from Boston. 

"If _you_ find anything for me to do, Miss Ledwith, I'll do it, "said Kate Sencerbox. "But I won't go into one of those offices, noroff into the country for the winter. I want to keep something tohold on to, --not run out to sea without a rope. "

Desire did not propose advertising, as she had done to Dot; shewould let Kate wait a week. A week in the new condition of thingsmight teach her a good deal. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

TROUBLE AT THE SCHERMANS'. 

There was trouble in Mrs. Frank Scherman's pretty little household. 

The trouble was, it did not stay little. Baby Karen was only sixweeks old, and Marmaduke was only three years; great, splendidfellow though he was at that, and "galumphing round, "--as his mothersaid, who read nonsense to Sinsie out of "Wonderland, " and the"Looking Glass, "--upon a stick. 

Of course she read nonsense, and talked nonsense, --the very happiestand most reckless kind, --in her nursery; this bright Sin Scherman, who "had lived on nonsense, " she declared, "herself, until she wastwenty years old; and it did her good. " Therefore, on physiologicalprinciples, she fed it to her little ones. It agreed with the Saxonconstitution. There was nothing like understanding your own familyidiosyncrasies. 

Everything quaint and odd came naturally to them; even their names. 

Asenath: Marmaduke: Kerenhappuch. 

"I didn't go about to seek or invent them, " said Mrs. Scherman, withgrave, innocent eyes and lifted brows. "I didn't name myself, in thefirst place; did I? Sinsie had to be Sinsie; and then--how _am_ Iaccountable for the blessed luck that gave me for best friends dearold Marmaduke Wharne and Kerenhappuch Craydocke?"

But down in the kitchen, and up in the nursery, there wasdisapproval. 

"It was bad enough, " they said, --these orderers of householdadministration, --"when there was two. And no second nurse-girl, andno laundress!"

"If Mrs. Scherman thinks I'm going to put up with baby-clothesslopping about all days of the week, whenever a nurse can get timefrom tending, and the parlor girl havin' to accommodate and hold thechild when she gets her meals, and nobody to fetch out the dishesand give me a chance to clear up, I can just tell her it's toothin!"

"Ye'r a fool to stay, " was the expostulation of an outside friend, calling one day to see and condole with and exasperate the aforesaidnurse. "When ther's places yer might have three an' a half a week, an' a nurse for the baby separate, an' not a stitch to wash, noteven yer own things! If they was any account at all, they'd keep alaundress!"

"I know there's places, " said the aggrieved, but wary Agnes. "Butthe thing is to be sure an' git 'em. And what would I do, waitin'round?"

"Ad_ver_tiss, " returned the friend. "Yer'd have heaps of 'em afteryer. It's fun to see the carriages rollin' along, one after theother, in a hurry, and the coachmen lookin' out for the number withther noses turned up. An' then yer take it quite calm, yer see, an'send 'em off agin till yer find out how many more comes; an' yer_consider_. That's the time yer'll know yer value! I've got anad_ver_tiss out now; an' I've had twenty-three of 'em, beggin' andprayin', down on ther bare knees all but, since yesterday mornin'. I've been down to Pinyon's to-day, with my croshy-work, for achange. Norah Moyle's there, with the rest of 'em; doin' ther littlesewin' work, an' hearin' the news, an' aggravatin' the ladies. Yer'll see 'em come in, --betune ten an' eleven's the time, when thecars arrives, --hot and flustered, an' not knowin' for their liveswhich way to turn; an' yer talks 'em all up and down, deliberate;an' makes 'em answer all the questions yer like, and then yer tells'em, quite perlite, at the end, that yer don't think 'twould suityer expectash'ns; it's not precisely what yer was lookin' for. Yertoss 'em over for all the world as they tosses goods on the counter. Ah, yer can see a deal of life, that way, of a mornin'!"

Agnes feels, naturally, after this, that she makes a very paltry andsmall appearance in the eyes of her friend, and betrays herself tobe very much behindhand in the ways of the world, putting up meekly, as she is, with a new baby and no second nurse or laundress; andforgetting the day when she thought her fortune was made and she wasa lady forever, coming from general housework in Aberdeen Street tobe nursery-maid in Harrisburg Square, she begins the usualpreliminaries of neglect, and sauciness, and staying out beyondhours, and general defiance, --takes sides in the kitchen against thefamily regime, and so helps on the evolution of things all andparticular, that at the end of another fortnight the house is emptyof servants, Mr. And Mrs. Scherman are gracefully removing theirbreakfast dishes from the dining-room to the kitchen, and Marmaduke, left to the sugar-bowl and his own further devices, comes tumblingdown the stairs just in time to meet Mrs. M'Cormick, thewasherwoman, arrived for the day. She, used to her own half dozen, picks him up as if she had expected him, shuts him up like anumbrella, hustles him under her big, strong arm, and bears himsummarily to the cold-water faucet, which, without uttering asyllable, she turns upon his small, bewildered, and pitifully bumpedhead. 

It will be always a confused and mysterious riddle to his childishrecollection, --what strange gulf he fell into that day, and how thekitchen sink and those great, grabbing arms came to be at the end ofit. 

"How happened Dukie to tumble down-stairs?" asked Mrs. Scherman, inthe way mothers do, when she had released him from Mrs. M'Cormick, carried him to the nursery, got him on her knee in a speechfulcondition, and was tenderly sopping the blue lump on his foreheadwith arnica water. 

"I dicher tumber, " said the little Saxon, stoutly, replacing all theconsonant combinations that he couldn't skip, with the aspirated'ch;' "I dicher tumber. I f'ied. "

"You _what_?"

"F'ied. I icher pa'yow. On'y die tare too big!"

"Yes, indeed, " said Sin, laughing. "The stairs are a great deal toobig. And little sparrows don't fly--down-stairs. They hop round, andpick up crumbs. "

"Ho I did, " said Marmaduke, showing his white little front teeth inthe midst of a surrounding shine of stickiness. 

"Yes. I see. Sugar. But you didn't manage that much better, either. The trouble is, you haven't _quite_ turned into a little bird, yet. You haven't any little beak to pick up clean with, nor any wings tofly with. You'll have to wait till you grow. "

"I _ta'h_ wa'he. I icher pa'yow now!"

"What shall I do with this child, Frank?" asked Sin, with her grave, funny lifting of her brows, as her husband came into the room. "He'sgot hypochondriasis. He thinks he's a sparrow, and he's determinedto fly. We shall have him trying it off every possible--I meanimpossible--place in the house. "

"Put him in a cage, " said Mr. Scherman, with equal gravity. 

"Yes, of course. That's where little house-birds belong. Duke, seehere! Little birds that live in houses _never_ fly. And they neverpick up crumbs, either, except what are put for them into their ownlittle dishes. They live in tiny wire rooms, fixed so that theycan't fly out. Like your nursery, with the bars across the windows, and the gate at the door. You and Sinsie are two little birds;mamma's sparrows. And you mustn't try to get out of your cage unlessshe takes you. "

"Then you're the great sparrow, " put in Sinsie, coming up besideher, laughing. "Whose sparrow are you?"

Asenath looked up at her husband. 

"Yes; it's a true story, after all. You can't make up anything. Ithas been all told before. We're all sparrows, Sinsie, --God'ssparrows. "

"In cages?"

"Yes. Only we can't always see the wires. They are very fine. There!That's as far as you or I can understand. Now be good littlebirdies, and hop round here together till mamma comes back. "

She went into her own room, to the tiniest little birdie of all, that was just waking. 

Sinsie and Marmaduke had got a new play, now. They were quitecontented to be sparrows, and chirp at each other, springing andlighting about, from one green spot to another in the pattern of thenursery carpet. 

"I'll tell you what, " said Sinsie, confidentially; "sparrows don'thave girls to interfere, do they? They live in the cages and helpthemselves. I like it. I'm glad Agnes is gone. "

Sinsie was four and a half; she had "talked plain" ever since shewas one; and the nonsense that her mother had talked to her beingalways bright nonsense, such as she would talk to anybody on thesame subject, there was something quaint in the child's fashion ofspeech and her unexpected use of words. Asenath Scherman did notkeep two dictionaries, nor pare off an idea, as she would a bit ofapple before she gave it to a child. It was noticeable how shesharpened their little wits continually against her own withoutstraining them. 

And there was a reflex action to this sharpening. She was fuller ofgraceful little whims, of quick and keen illustrations, than ever. Her friends who were admitted to nursery intimacies and nurserytalk, said it was ever so much better than any grown-updinner-tables and drawing-rooms. 

"Well, " she would answer, "I'm not much in the way of dinner-tablesand drawing-rooms. I just have to live right along, and what thereis of me comes out here. I rather think we'll save time and comfortby it in the end, --Sinsie and I. She won't want so much specialtaking into society by and by, before she can learn to tell onething from another. Frank and I, with such friends as come here inour own fashion, will make a society for her from the beginning, aswell as we can. She will get more from us in twenty years than shewould from 'society' in two. And if I 'kept up' outside, now, forthe sake of her future, that would be the alternative? I believemore in growing up than in coming out. "

If there was a reflex action in the mental influence, how much morein the tender and spiritual! How many a word came back into her ownheart like a dove, that she first thought of in giving it to herchild!

She sat now in her chamber bathing and dressing baby Karen; and allthe perplexities of the day, --the days or weeks, perhaps, --that hadstretched out before her, melted into a sweetness, remembering thatshe herself was but one of God's sparrows, fed out of his hand; andthat all her limitations, as well as her unsuspected safeties, werethe fine wires with which He surrounded and held her in. 

"He knows my cage, " she thought. "He has put me here Himself, and Hewill not forget me. "

Frank dined down town; Asenath had her lunch of bread and butter, and beef tea; and an egg beaten in a tumbler, with sugar and cream, for her dessert. The children, with their biscuit and milk and bakedapple, were easily cared for. They played "sparrow" all day; Asenathput their little bowls and spoons on the low nursery table, and leftthem to "help themselves. "

Honest, rough Mrs. M'Cormick fetched and carried for her, and"cleaned up" down-stairs. Then Asenath wrote a few lines to DesireLedwith, told her strait, and asked if she could take a littletrouble for her, and send her some one. 

Mrs. M'Cormick went round to Greenley Street, and delivered thenote. 

"There!" said Desire, when she had read it, to Bel Bree who was inthe room. "The Providence mail is in, early; and this is for you. "

When Bel had seen what it was, she realized suddenly that Providencehad taken her at her word. She was in for it now; here was thisthing for her to do. Her breath shortened with the thought of it, aswith a sudden plunge into water. Who could tell how it would turnout? She had been so brave in counseling and urging others; what ifshe should make a mistake of it, herself?

"She hasn't anybody; she would take Kate, maybe Kate must just go. It won't be half a chance to try it, if I can't try it my way. "

"It is a clear stage, " said Desire Ledwith. "If you can act out yourlittle programme anywhere, you can act it at the Schermans'. "

"Is it a cellar kitchen?"

Bel laughed as soon as she had asked the question. She caughtherself turning catechetical at once, after the servant-girlfashion. 

"I was thinking about Kate. But I don't wonder they inquire aboutthings. It's a question of home. "

"Of course it is. There ought to be questions, --on both parts. Everyfair person knows _that_ is fair. Neither side ought to assume thepure bestowal of a favor. But the one who has the home already maybe supposed to consider at least as carefully whom she will take in, as she who comes to offer service as an equivalent. I believe it isa cellar kitchen; at least, a basement. The house is on the lowerside; there must be good windows. "

"I'll go right round for Kate, and we'll just call and see. I don'tknow in the least how to begin about it when I get there. I could dothe _thing_, if I can make out the first understanding. I hope Katewon't be very Kate-y!"

She said so to Miss Sencerbox when she found her. 

"You needn't be afraid. I'm bound to astonish somebody. Impertinencewouldn't do that. I shall strike out a new line. I'm the cook, --orthe chambermaid, --which is it? that they haven't had any of before. I shall keep my sharp relishes for our own private table. Youmight discriminate, Bel! I know I've got a kind of a pert, snappy-sounding name, --just like the outside of me; but if you stopto look at it, it isn't _Saucebox_, but _Sensebox_! They're related, sometimes, and they ain't bad together; but yet, apart, they'redifferent. "

CHAPTER XXVII. 

BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM. 

Mrs. Frank Scherman's front door-bell rang. Of course she had to godown and open it herself. When she did so, she let in two girlswhose pretty faces, bright with a sort of curious expectation, methers in a way by which she could hardly guess their station orerrand. 

She did not know them; they might be anybody's daughters, yet theyhardly looked like _technical_ "young ladies. "

They stepped directly in without asking; they moved aside till shehad closed the door against the keen November wind; then Bel said, --

"We came to see what help you wanted, Mrs. Scherman. Miss Ledwithtold us. "

How did Bel know so quickly that it was Mrs. Scherman? There wassomething in her instant conclusion and her bright directness thatamused Asenath, while it bore its own letter of recommendation sofar. 

"Do you mean you wished to inquire for yourselves, --or for either ofyou?" she asked, as she led the way up-stairs. 

"I must bring you up where the children are, " she said. "I cannotleave them. "

They were all in the large back room, with western windows, over theparlor. The doors through a closet passage stood open into Mrs. Scherman's own. There were blocks, and linen picture-books, and ared tin wagon full of small rag-dolls, about on the floor. BabyKaren was rolled up in a blanket on the middle of a bed. 

"You see, this is the family, --except Mr. Scherman. I want two good, experienced girls for general work, and another to help me here inthe nursery. I say two for general work, because I want some thingsequally divided, and others exchanged willingly upon occasion. Doyou want places for yourselves?"

She paused to repeat the question, hardly sure of the possibility. These girls did not look much like it. There was no half-suspicious, half-aggressive expression on their faces even yet. It was time forit; time for her own cross-examination to begin, according to allprecedent, if they were really looking out for themselves. Whydidn't they sit up straight and firm, with their hands in theirmuffs and their eyes on hers, and say with a rising inflection andlips that moved as little as possible, --"What wages, mum?" or"What's the conveniences--or the privileges--mum?"

Bel Bree had got her arm round little Sinsie, who had crept up toher side inquisitively; and Kate was making a funny face over hershoulder at Marmaduke, alternately with the pleased attentive glanceshe gave to his pretty young mother and her speaking. 

"Yes'm, " Bel answered. "We want places. We are sewing-girls. We havelost our work by the fire, and we were getting tired of it before. We have made up our minds to try families. We want a real place tolive, you see. And we want to go together, so as to make our ownplace. We mightn't like things just as they happened, where therewas others. "

Mrs. Scherman's own face lighted up afresh. This was something thatdid not happen every day. She grew cordial with a pleased surprise. "Do you think you could? Do you know about housework, aboutcooking?"

"It's very good of you to put it in that way, " said Kate Sencerbox. "We just do know _about_ it, and perhaps that's all, at present. Butwe're Yankees, and we _mean_ to know. "

"And you would like to experiment with me?"

"Well, it wouldn't be altogether experiment, from the verybeginning, " said Bel. "I'm sure I can make good bread, and tea, andtoast, and broil chickens or steaks; I can stew up sauces, I can dooysters. I can make a _splendid_ huckleberry pudding! We had oneevery Sunday all last August. "

"Where?" asked Asenath, gravely. 

"In our room; Aunt Blin and I. Aunt Blin died just after the fire, "said Bel, simply. 

Asenath's gravity grew sweeter and more real; the tremulous twinklequieted in her eyes. 

"I don't know what to answer you, exactly, " she said, presently. "This is just what we housekeepers have been saying ought to happen:and now that it does happen, I feel afraid of taking you in. It isvery odd; but the difficulties on your side begin to come to me. Ihave no doubt that on my side it would be lovely. But have youthought about this 'real place to live' that you want? what it wouldhave to be? Do you think you would be contented in a kitchen? Andthe washing? Our washings are so large, with all these littlechildren!"

Yes, it was odd. Without waiting to be catechised, or resentingbeforehand the spirit of jealous inquiry, Asenath Scherman wasfrankly putting it in the heads of these unused applicants thatthere might be doubts as to her service suiting them. 

"I suppose we could do anything reasonable, " said Kate Sencerbox. 

"I wonder if it is reasonable!" said Mrs. Scherman. "Mr. Schermanhas six shirts a week, and the children's things count up fearfully, and the ironing is nice work. I'm afraid you wouldn't think you hadany time left for living. The clothes hardly ever all come up beforeThursday morning. "

"And the cooking and all are just the same those days?" asked Kate. 

"Why yes, pretty nearly, except just Mondays. Monday always has tobe rather awful. But after that, we _do_ expect to live. We couldn'thold our breaths till Thursday. "

"I guess there's something that isn't quite reasonable, somewhere, "said Kate. "But I don't think it's you, Mrs. Scherman, notmeaningly. I wonder if two or three sensible people couldn'tstraighten it out? There ought to be a way. The nursery girl helps, doesn't she?"

"Yes. She does the baby's things. But while baby is so little, Ican't spare her for much more. With doing them, and her own clothes, I don't seem to have her more than half the time, now. "

Kate Sencerbox sat still, considering. 

Bel Bree was afraid that was the last of it. In that one stillminute she could almost feel her beautiful plan crumbling, by littlebits, like a heap of sand in a minute-glass, away into the oppositeend where things had been before, with nobody to turn them upsidedown again. Which _was_ upside down, or right side up?

She had not thought a word about big, impossible washings. 

Kate spoke out at last. 

"Every one brings the work of one, you see, " she said. 

"What do you mean?"

"I wish there needn't be any nursery girl. "

Mrs. Scherman lifted her eyebrows in utter amaze. The suggestion tothe ordinary Irish mind would have been, as she had alreadyexperienced, another nurse; certainly not the dispensing with thatofficial altogether. 

"What wages do you pay, Mrs. Scherman?" was Kate's next question. Itcame, evidently in the process of a reasoning calculation; not, asusual, with the grasping of demand. 

"Four dollars to the cook. Which _is_ the cook?"

"I don't believe we know yet, " answered Bel Bree, laughing in theglee of her recovering spirits. "But I think it would probably beme. Kate can make molasses candy, but she hasn't had the chance formuch else. And I should like to have the kitchen in my charge. Ifeel responsible for the home-iness of it, for I started the plan. "

With that covert suggestion and encouragement, she stopped, leavingthe lead to Kate again. 

Kate Sencerbox was as earnest as a judge. 

"How much to the others?" said she. 

"Three dollars each. "

"That's ten dollars a week. Now, if you only had Bel and me, andpaid us three or three and a half a piece, couldn't you putout--say, five dollars' worth of fine washing? Wouldn't the nurse'sboard and wages come to that? And I'd engage to help with the babyas much as you say you get helped now. "

"But you would want some time to yourself?"

"Babies can't be awake all the time. I guess I should get it. I'venever had anything but evenings, so far. The thing is, Mrs. Scherman, if I can try this anywhere, I can try it here. I don'tsuppose people have got things fixed just as they would have been ifthere'd always been a home all over the house. If we go to live withanybody, we mean to make it living _in_, not living _out_. And weshall find out ways as we go along, --all round. If you're willing, we are. It's Bel's idea, not mine; though she's let me take it tomyself, and do the talking. I suppose because she thought I shouldbe the hardest of the two to be suited. And so I am. I didn'tbelieve in it at first. But I begin to see into it; and I've gotinterested. I'd like to work it out on this line, now. Then I shallknow. "

There were not many more words after that; there did not need to be. Mrs. Scherman engaged them to come, at once, for three dollars and ahalf a week each. 

"It's a kind of a kitchen gospel, " said Bel Bree, as they walked upSummit Street. "And it's got to come from the _girls_. What can thepoor ladies do, up in their nurseries, with their big houses, fullof everything, on their hands, and the servants dictating andclearing out? They can't say their souls are their own. They can'tplan their work, or say how many they'll have to do it. The morethey have, the more they'll have to have. It ain't Mr. And Mrs. Scherman, and those two little children, --or two and a half, --thatmakes all the to-do. Every girl they get makes the dinners more, andthe Mondays heavier. Why, the family grows faster down-stairs thanup, with a nurse for every baby! Think of the tracking andtravelling, the wear and tear. Every one makes work for one, anddirt for two. It's taking in a regiment down below, and laying thetrouble all off on to the poor little last baby up-stairs! And theladies don't see through it. They just keep getting another parlorgirl, or door girl, or nursery girl, and wondering that the thingsdon't grow easier. It's like that queer rule in arithmetic aboutfractions, --where dividing and multiplying get all mixed up, and youcan't hold on to the reason why, in your mind, long enough to lookat it. "

"Why didn't you go down and see the kitchen?"

"Because, how could she leave those tots to take care of themselveswhile she showed us? Our minds were made up. You said just thetruth; if we can try it anywhere, we can try it there. And whateverthe kitchen is, it's only our place to begin on. We'll have it allright, or something near it, before we've been there a fortnight. It's only a room we take, where the work is given in to do. If wehad one anywhere else, we should expect to fix up and settle in itaccording to our own notions, and why not there? We're rent free, and paid for our work. I'm going to have things of my own; personalproperty. If I want a chandelier, I'll save up and get one; only Isha'n't want it. There's ways to contrive, Kate; and real fun doingit. "

An hour afterward, they were on their way back, with their leatherbags. 

Baby Karen was asleep, and Mrs. Scherman came down-stairs to letthem in again, with Marmaduke holding to her hand, and Sinsiehopping along behind. They all went into the kitchen together. 

Mrs. McCormick had "cleared it up, " so that there was at least asurface tidiness and cheerfulness. The floor was freshly scrubbed, the table-tops scoured down, the fire made, and the gas lighted. Mrs. McCormick had gone home, to be ready for her own husband andher two "boys" when they should come in from their work to theirsuppers. 

The kitchen was in an L; there were two windows looking out upon abricked yard. Bel Bree kept the points of the compass in her head. 

"Those are south windows, " said she. "We can have plants in them. And it's real nice their opening out on a level. "

Forward, the house ran underground. They used the front basement fora store-room. Above the kitchen, in the L, was the dining-room. Ashort, separate flight of stairs led to it; also a dumb waiter ranup and down between china closet and kitchen pantry. Both kitchenand dining-room were small; the L had only the width of the hall andthe additional space to where the first window opened in the westernwall. 

In one corner of the kitchen were set tubs; a long cover slid overthem, and formed a sideboard. Opposite, beside the fire-place, weresink and boiler; between the windows, a white-topped table. Therewere four dark painted wooden chairs. A clock over the table, and arolling-towel beside the sink; green Holland window-shades; thesewere the only adornments and drapery. There was a closet at each endof the room. 

"Will you go up to your room now, or wait till after tea?" askedMrs. Scherman. 

"We might take up our things, now, " said Bel, looking round at thefour chairs. "They would be in the way here, perhaps. "

Kate took up her bag from the table. 

"We can find the room, " she said, "if you will direct us. "

"Up three flights; two from the dining-room; the back chamber. Youcan stop at my room as you come down, and we will think about tea. Mr. Scherman will soon be home; and I should like to surprise himwith something very comfortable. "

The girls found their way up-stairs. 

The room, when they reached it, looked pleasant, though bare. Thesun had gone below the horizon, beyond the river which they couldnot see; but the western light still shone in across the roofs. There were window-seats in the two windows, uncushioned. A square ofclean, but faded carpet was laid down before the bed and reached tothe table, --simple maple-stained pine, uncovered, --that stoodbeneath a looking-glass in a maple frame, between the windows. Therewere three maple-stained chairs in the room. A door into a good, deep closet stood open; there was a low grate in the chimney, unusedof course, with no fire-irons about it, and some scraps of refusethrown into it and left there; this was the only actual untidinessabout the room, where there was not the first touch of cosiness orcomfort. The only depth of color was in a heavy woven dark-blue andwhite counterpane upon the bed. 

"Now, Kate Sencerbox, shut up!" said Bel Bree, turning round uponher, after the first comprehensive glance, as Kate came in last, andclosed the door. 

Kate put her muff down on the bed, folded her hands meekly, andlooked at Bel with a mischievous air that said plainly enough "Ain'tI?" and which she would not falsify by speech. 

"Yes, I know you are; but--_stay_ shut up! All this isn't as it is agoing to be, --though it's _not_ bad even now!"

Kate resolutely stayed shut up. 

"You see that carpet is just put there; within this last hour, Idare say. Look at the clean ravel in the end. They've taken away theold, tramped one. That's a piece out of saved-up spare ends ofbreadths, left after some turn-round or make-over, I know! It'sfaded, and it's homely; but it's spandy clean! I sha'n't let it stayraveled long. And I've got things. Just wait till my trunk comes. Myottoman, I mean. That's what it turns into. Have you got a stuffedcover to your trunk, Katie?"

Kate lifted up her eyebrows for permission to break silence. 

"Of course you can, when you're asked a question. You've had timenow for second thoughts. I wasn't going to let you fly right outwith discouragements. "

"It is you that flies out with taking for granteds, " said KateSencerbox, in a subdued monotone of quietness. "I was only going toremark that we had got neither cellar windows, nor attic skylightsafter all. I'm favorably surprised with the accommodations. I'vepaid four dollars a week for a great deal worse. And I wouldn't castreflections by arguing objections that haven't been made, if I werethe leader of this enterprise, Miss Bree. "

"Kate! That's what I call real double lock-stitch pluck! That goesback of everything. You needn't shut up any more. Now let's comedown and see about supper. "

They had pinned on linen aprons, with three-cornered bibs; such asthey wore at their machines. When they came down into Mrs. Scherman's room, that young matron said within herself, --"I wonderif it's real or if we're in a charade! At any rate, we'll have areal tea in the play. They do sometimes. "

"What is the nicest, and quickest, and easiest thing to get, Iwonder?" she asked of her waiting ministers. "Don't say toast. We'reso tired of toast!"

"Do you like muffins and stewed oysters?" asked Bel Bree, drawingupon her best experience. 

"Very much, " Mrs. Scherman answered. 

And Kate, looking sharply on, delighted herself with the guardedastonishment that widened the lady's beautiful eyes. 

"Only we have neither muffins nor oysters in the house; and thegrocery and the fish-market are down round the corner, in SelcharStreet. "

"I could go for them right off. What time do you have tea?"

Really, Asenath Scherman had never acted in a charade where her cueswere so unexpected. 

"I wonder if I'm getting mixed up again, " she thought. "Which _is_the cook?"

Of course a cook never would have offered to go out and ordermuffins and oysters. Mrs. Scherman could not have _asked_ it of theparlor-maid. 

Kate Sencerbox relieved her. 

"I'll go, Bel, " she interposed. "I guess it's my place. That is, ifyou like, Mrs. Scherman. "

"I like it exceedingly, " said Asenath, congratulating herself uponthe happy inspiration of her answer, which was not surprise northanks, but cordial and pleased enough for either. "The shops arenext each other, just beyond Filbert Street. Have the things chargedto Mrs. Francis Scherman. A quart of oysters, --and how many muffins?A dozen I think; then if there are two or three left, they'll benice for breakfast. They will send them up. Say that we want themdirectly. "

"I can bring the muffins. I suppose they'll want the oyster-canback. "

It may be a little doubtful whether Kate's spirit of supererogatorydoing would have gone so far, if it had not been for thedeliciousness of piling up the wonder. She retreated, upon the word, magnanimously, remitting further reply; and Bel directly afterdescended to her kitchen, to make the needful investigations amongsaucepans and toasters. 

"Don't be frightened at anything you may find, " Mrs. Scherman saidto her as she went. "I won't answer for the insides of cupboards andpans. But we will make it all right as fast as possible. You shallhave help if you need it; and at the worst, we can throw away andget new, you know. Suppose, Bel, " she added, with enchantingconfidence and accustomedness, "we were to have a cup of coffee withthe oysters? There is some real Mocha in the japanned canister inthe china closet, and there are eggs in the pantry, to clear with;you know how? Mr. Scherman is so fond of coffee. "

Bel knew how; and Bel assented. As the door closed after her, belowstairs, Mrs. Scherman caught up Sinsie into her lap, and gave her agreat congratulatory hug. 

"Do you suppose it will last, little womanie? If it isn't all gonein the morning, what comfort we'll have in keeping house and takingcare of baby!"

The daughter is so soon the "little womanie" to the mother's lovinganticipation!

Marmaduke was lustily struggling with and shouting to a tin horsesix inches long, and tipping up a cart filled with small pebbles onthe carpet. He was outside already; the housekeeping was nothing tohim, except as it had to do with the getting in of coals. 

When Mr. Scherman opened the front door, the delicious aroma ofoysters and coffee saluted his chilled and hungry senses. Hewondered if there were unexpected company, and what Asenath couldhave done about it. He passed the parlor door cautiously, but therewas no sound of voices. Up-stairs, all was still; the children werein crib and cradle, and Asenath was shaking and folding littlegarments, --shapes out of which the busy spirits had slidden. 

He came up behind her, where she stood before the fire. 

"All well, little mother?" he questioned. "Or tired to death? Thereare festive odors in the house. Has anybody repented and come backagain?"

"Not a bit of it!" Sin exclaimed triumphantly, turning round andfacing him, all rosy with the loving romp she had been having just alittle while before with her babies. "Frank! I've got a pair ofAbraham's angels down-stairs! Or Mrs. Abraham's, --if she ever hadany. I don't remember that they used to send them to women much, nowI think of it, after Eve demeaned herself to entertain the oldserpent. Ah! the _babies_ came instead; that was it! Well; there isa couple in the kitchen now, at any rate; and they're toasting andstewing in the most E--_lys_ian manner! That's what you smell. "

"Angels? Babies? What terrible ambiguity! What, or who, is stewing, if you please, dear?"

"Muffins. No! oysters. There! you sha'n't know anything about ittill you go down to tea. But the millennium's come, and it's begunin our house. "

"I knew that, six years ago, " said Frank Scherman. "There areexactly nine hundred and ninety-four left of it. I can wait tilltea-time with the patience of the saints. "

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

"LIVING IN. "

Desire Ledwith went over to Leicester Place with Bel Bree, when shereturned there for the first needful sorting and packing andremoving. Bel could not go alone, to risk any meeting; to putherself, voluntarily and unprotected in the way again. Miss Ledwithtook a carriage and called for her. In that manner they could bringaway nearly all. What remained could be sent for. 

Miss Smalley possessed some movables of her own, though thefurnishings in her room had been mostly Mrs. Pimminy's. There weresome things of her aunt's that Bel would like, and which she hadasked leave to bring to Mrs. Scherman's. 

The light, round table, with its old fashioned slender legs and clawfeet, its red cloth, and the books and little ornaments, Bel wantedin her sleeping-room. "Because they were Aunt Blin's, " she said, "and nothing else would seem so pleasant. She should like to takethem with her wherever she went. "

The two trunks--hers and Katy's--(Bel had Aunt Blin's greatflat-topped one now, with its cushion and flounce of Turkey red; andKate had speedily stitched up a cover for hers to match, of cloththat Mrs. Scherman gave her) stood one each side the chimney, --inthe recesses. A red and white patchwork quilt, done in stars, Bel'sown work before she ever came to Boston, lay folded across the footof the bed, in patriotic contrast with the blue, --reversing thecolors in stars and stripes. Bel had found in the attic a discardedstairway drugget, scarlet and black, of which, the centre was wornto threads, but the bright border still remained; and this she hadasked for and sewed around the square of neutral tinted carpet, uponwhose middle the round table stood, covering its dullness with redagain, the color of the cloth. There was plenty of bordering left, of which she pieced a foot-mat for the floor before thedressing-glass, and in the open grate now lay a little unlightedpile of kindlings and coals, as carefully placed behind wellblackened bars and a facing of paper, as that in the parlor below. 

"It looks nice, " Bel said to Mrs. Scherman, "and we don't expect tolight it, unless one of us is sick, or something. "

"Light it whenever you wish for it, " Mrs. Scherman had replied. "Iam perfectly willing to trust your reasonableness for that. "

So on Sunday afternoons, or of a bitter cold morning, they had theirown little blaze to sit or dress by; and it made the difference of acontinual feeling of cheeriness and comfort to them, always possiblewhen not immediately actual; and of a bushel or two of coal, perhaps, in the winter's supply of fuel. 

"Where were the babies of a Sunday afternoon, --and how about theoffered tending?"

This was one more place for them also; a treat and a change toSinsie and Marmaduke, or a perfectly safe and sweet and comfortableresource in tending Baby Karen, who would lie content on the softquilts by the half hour, feeling in the blind, ignorant way thatlittle babies certainly do, the novelty and rest. 

The household, you see, was melting into one; the spirit of homewas above and below. It was home as much as wages, that these girlshad come for; and they expected to help make it. Not that theyparted with their own individual lives and interests, either; everyone must have things that are separate; it is the way human soulsand lives are made. It would have been so with daughters, orsisters. But in a true living, it is the individual interests thatat once aggregate and specialize, it is a putting into the commonstock that which must be distinct and real that it may be put in atall. It was not money and goods alone, that the early Christians hadin common. 

Instead of a part of their house being foreign anddistasteful, --tolerated through necessity only, that the rest mightbe ministered to, --there was a region in it, now, of new, extendedfamily pleasure. "It was as good as building out a conservatory, ora billiard-room, " Asenath said. "It was just so much more to enjoy. "

There was a little old rocking-chair, railed round till it wasalmost like a basket, with just a break in the front palings to sitinto. It had a soft down cushion, covered with a damask patternedpatch of wild and divaricating device; and its rockers were short, giving a jerk and thud if you leaned to and fro in it, like the trotan old nurse gives a child in an ordinary, four-legged, impracticable seat. All the better for that; the rockers were not inthe way; and all Aunt Blin had wanted of it as a sewing chair, wasto tip conveniently, as she might wish to bend and reach, to pick upscissors or spool, or draw to herself any of those surroundings ofpart, pattern, or material, which are sure, at the moment one wantsthem to be on the opposite side of the table. 

Bel brought this away from Leicester Place, and had it in thekitchen. Mrs. Scherman, then seeing that there remained for Kateonly the choice of the four wooden chairs, and pleased with the cosyexpression they were causing to pervade their precincts, suggestedtheir making space for a short, broad lounge that she would spare tothem from an upper room which was hardly ever used. It was an oldone that she had had sent from home among some other things thatwere reminiscences, when her father and mother, the second yearafter her marriage, had broken up their household in New York, andresolved on a holiday, late in life, in Europe. It was acomfortable, shabby old thing, that she had used to curl up on tolearn her German, with the black kitten in her lap, and the tip ofits tail for a pointer. She had always meant to cover it new, buthad never had time. There was a large gray travelling shawl foldedover it now, making extra padding for back and seat, and the thickfringe fell below, a garnishing along the front. 

"Let it be, " said Asenath. "I don't think you'll set the soup-kettleor the roasting-pan down on it; and you can always shake it outfresh and make it comfortable. It was only getting full of dustup-stairs. There's a square pillow in the trunk-room that you canhave too, and cover with something. A five minutes' level rest isnice, between times, I know. I wonder I never thought of it before. "

How would Bel or Kate have ever got a "five minutes' level rest, "over their machine-driving at Fillmer & Bylles? Bel had said well, that girls and women need to work under cover; in a _home_, wherethey can "rest by snatches. " A mere roof is not a cover; there maybe driving afield in a great warehouse, as well as out upon aplantation. 

The last touch and achievement was more of the dun-gray carpet, like that in their bedroom, and more of the scarlet and blackstair-border, made into a rug, which was spread down when work wasover, and rolled up under the table when dinner was to dish, or awash was going on. They had been with Mrs. Scherman a month beforethey ventured upon that asking. 

When it was finished, Sin brought her husband down after tea onenight, to look at it. 

"It is the most fascinating room in the house, " she said. 

There was a side gas-light over the white-topped table, burningbrightly. Upon the table were work-baskets, and a volume from thePublic Library. The lounge was just turned out from the wall alittle, towards it, and opposite stood the round rocking-chair. Cheeps, in his cage at the farther window, was asleep in a yellowball, his head under his wing. Bel was hanging the last dish-towelupon a little folding-horse in the chimney corner, and they couldhear Kate singing up-stairs to a gentle clatter of the dishes thatshe was putting away from the dining-room use. 

"It looks as a kitchen ought to, " said Mr. Scherman. "As mygrandmother's used to look; as if all the house-comfort came fromit. "

"It isn't a place to forbid children out of, is it?" asked Asenath. 

"I should think the only condition would be their own bestbehavior, " returned her husband. 

"They're almost always good down here, " said Bel. "Children like tobe where things are doing. They always feel put away, out of thegood times, I think, in a nursery. "

"My housekeeping is all turning round on a new pivot, " said Sin toFrank, after they were seated again up-stairs. "Don't take up the'Skelligs' yet; I want to tell you. If I thought the pivot wouldreally _stay_, there are two or three more things I should do. Andone of them is, --I'd have the nursery--a day-nursery--down-stairs;that is, if I could coax you into it. "

"It seems the new pivot is two very large 'ifs, '" said Frank, laughing. "And not much space to turn in, either. Would you take thecellar, or build out? And if so, where?"

"I'd take the dining-room, Frank; and eat in the back parlor. "

"I wish you would. I don't like dining-rooms. I was brought up to aback parlor. "

"You do? You don't? You were? Why, Frank, I thought you'd hate it, "cried Asenath, pouring forth her exclamations all in a heap, andcoming round to lean upon his shoulder. "I wish I'd told you before!Just think of those south dining-room windows that they'll have thegood of all the forenoon, and that all we do with is to shade themdown at dinner-time! And the horse-chestnut tree, and thegrape-vines, making it green and pleasant, by and by! And the savingof going over the stairs, and the times one of the girls might helpme when I _couldn't_ ring her away up to my room; and the tending oftable, with baby only to be looked after in here. Why, I should sithere, myself, mornings, always; and everything would be all togetherand the up-stairs work, --it would be better than two nurse-girls tohave it so!"

"Then why not have it so right off? The more you turn on your pivot, the smoother it gets, you know. And the more nicely you balance andconcentrate, the longer your machine will last. "

Asenath lay awake late, and woke early, that night and the nextmorning, "planning. "

When Frank saw a certain wide, intent, shining, "don't-speak-to-me"look in her eyes, he always knew that she was "planning. " And he hadfound that out of her plans almost always resulted some charmingnovelty, at least, that gave one the feeling of beginning life overagain; if it were only the putting of his bureau on the other sideof the room, so that he started the wrong way for a few days, whenever he wanted to get a clean collar; or the setting thebedstead with side instead of head to the wall; issuing indelightful bewilderments of mind, when wakened suddenly and asked tofind a match or turn up the dressing-room gas in the night, to meetsome emergency of the baby's. 

This time the development was a very busy Friday forenoon; in whichthe silver rubbing was omitted, and the dinner preparations putoff, --the man who came for "chores" detained for heavy lifting, --thelarge dining-table turned up on edge and rolled into the backparlor, the sideboard brought in and put in the place of a sofa, which was wheeled to an obtuse angle with the fire-place, --ninesquare yards of gray drugget, with a black Etruscan border, sent upby Mr. Scherman from Lovejoy's, and tacked carefully down by seamand stripe, under Asenath's personal direction; cradle, rocking-horse, baby-house, tin carts and picture-books removed fromthe nursery and arranged in the new quarters, --the childrenthemselves following back and forth untiringly with theirone-foot-foremost hop over the stairs, and their hands clasping therods of the balusters, --some little shabby treasure always huggedin the spare arm, chairs and crickets, and the low table suited totheir baby-chairs, at which they played and ate, transferred also;until Asenath stood with a sudden sadness in the deserted chamber, reduced to the regular bedroom furnishings, and looking dead andbleak with the little life gone out of it. 

But the warm south sun was beaming full into the pretty room below, where the small possessors of a whole new, beautiful world werechattering and dancing with delight; and up here, by and by, thewestern shine would come to meet them at their bedtime, and the newmoon and the star-twinkle would peep in upon their sleep. 

With her own hands, Asenath made the room as fresh and nice as couldbe; put little frilled covers over the pillows of the low bed, andon the half-high bureau top; brought in and set upon the middle ofthis last a slender vase from her own table, with a tea-rose in it, and said to herself when all was done, --

"How sweet and still it will be for them to come up to, after all!It _isn't_ nice for children to be put to sleep in the midst of thewhole day's muss!"

The final thing was done the next morning. The carpenter came andput a little gate across the head of the short stairway which wouldnow only be used as required between play-room and kitchen; the backstairway of the main house giving equal access on the other side tothe parlor dining-room. China closet and dumb waiter were luckily inthat angle, also. 

A second little railed gate barred baby trespass into the halls. Thesparrows were caged again. 

"What would you have done if they hadn't been?" asked HazelRipwinkley, speaking of the china closet and dumb waiter happeningto be just as they were. She had come over one morning with MissCraydocke, for a nursery visit and to see the new arrangements. 

"What should we have done if anything hadn't been?" asked Asenath, in return. "Everything always has been, somehow, in my life. I don'tbelieve we have anything to do with the 'ifs' way back, do you, MissHapsie? We couldn't stop short of the 'if' out of which we came intothe world, --or the world came out of darkness! I think that's thevery beauty of living. "

"The very everlasting livingness, " said Miss Hapsie. "We don't wantto see the strings by which the earths and moons are hung up; nor, any more, the threads that hold our little daily possibilities. "

Asenath had other visitors, sometimes, with whom it was not so easyto strike the key-note of things. 

Glossy Megilp and her mother had come home from Europe. They and theLedwiths were in apartments in one of the great "Babulous" hotels, as Sin called them, with a mingling of idea and etymology. 

"Good places enough, " she said, "for the prologue and the epilogueof life; but not for the blessed meanwhile; for the acting of allthe dear heart and home parts. "

The two families had managed very well by taking two small "suites"and making a common parlor; thus bestowing themselves in one roomless than they could possibly have done apart. They were verycomfortable and content, made economical breakfasts and teastogether, dined at the café, and had long forenoons in which to runabout and look in upon their friends. 

Glossy had always "cultivated" Asenath Scherman for though thatyoung dame lived at present a very retired and domestic life, MissMegilp was quite aware that she _might_ come out, and in preciselythe right place, at any minute she chose; and meanwhile it wasexceedingly suitable to know her well in this same intimateprivilege of domesticity. 

Glossy Megilp was very polite; but she did not believe in the neworder of things; and her eyelids and the corners of her mouth showedit. Mrs. Megilp admired; thought it lovely for Asenath _just now_;but of course not a thing to count upon, or to expect generally. Inshort, they treated it all as a whim; a coincidence of whims. Asenath, although she would not trouble herself about the "ifs awayback, " had a spirit of looking forward which impelled her to argueagainst and clear away prospective ones. 

"Bad things have lasted long enough, " she said; "I don't see why thegood ones should not, when once they have begun. "

"They won't begin; one swallow never makes a summer. This hashappened to you, but it is absolutely exceptional; it will never bepandemic, " said Mrs. Megilp, who was fond of picking up littleknowing terms of speech, and delivering herself of them at herearliest subsequent convenience. 

"'Never' is the only really imposing word in the language, " saidAsenath, innocently. "I don't believe either you or I quiteunderstand it. But I fancy everything begins with exceptions, andhappens in spots, --from the settling of a continent to the doing upof back-hair in new fashions. I shouldn't wonder if it were anexcellent way to take life, to make it as exceptional as you can, inall unexceptionable directions. To help to thicken up the goodspots till the world gets confluent with them. I suppose that iswhat is meant by making one's mark in it, don't you?"

Mrs. Megilp headed about, as if in the turn the talk had taken shesuddenly found no thoroughfare; and asked Asenath if she had been tohear Rubinstein. 

Of course it was not in talk only, that--up-stairs ordown-stairs--the exceptional household found its difficulties. Itwas not all pleasant arranging and contriving for an undeviating"living happy ever after. "

There were days now and then when the baby fretted, or lost her nap, and somebody had to hold her nearly all the time; when the door-bellrang as if with a continuous and concerted intent of malice. StormyMondays happened when clothes would not dry, entailing Tuesdays andWednesdays and Thursdays of interrupted and irregular serviceelsewhere. 

If Asenath Scherman's real life had been anywhere but in her homeand with her children, --if it had consisted in being dressed intrain-skirt and panier, lace sleeves and bracelets, with hair in aresult of hour-long elaboration, at twelve o'clock; or of being outmaking calls in high street toilet from that time until two; or ifher strength had had to be reserved for and repaired after eveningparties; if family care had been merely the constantly increasingfriction which the whole study of the art of living must be toreduce and evade, that the real purpose and desire might sweep onunimpeded, --she would soon have given up her experiment in despair. 

Or if, on the other part, there had been a household below, struggling continually to escape the necessity it was paid tomeet, that it might get to its own separate interests and"privileges, "--if it had been utterly foreign and unsympathetic inidea and perception, only watchful that no "hand's turn" should berequired of it beyond those set down in the bond, --resenting everyoccurrence, however unavoidable, which changed or modified the day'sordering, --there would speedily have come the old story of worry, discontent, unreliance, disruption. 

But Asenath's heart was with her little ones; she went back into herown childhood with and for them, bringing out of it and living overagain all its bright, blessed little ways. 

"She would be grown up again, " she said, "by and by, when theywere. "

She was keeping herself winsomely gay and fresh against thetime, --laying up treasure in the kingdom of all sweet harmoniesand divine intents, that need not be banished beyond thegrave, --although of that she never thought. It would come byand by, for her reward. 

She played with Sinsie in her baby-house; she did over again, withher, in little, the things she was doing on not so very much largerscale, for actual every day. She invented plays for Marmaduke whichkept the little man in him busy and satisfied. She collected, eagerly, all treasures of small song and story and picture, to helpbuild the world of imagination into which all child-life must openout. 

As for Baby Karen, she was, for the most part, only manifest as oneof those little embodiments that are but given and grown out of suchloyal and happy motherhood. She was a real baby, --not a littleinterloping animal. She was never nursed or tended in a hurry. Babies blossom, as plants do, under the tender touch. 

Kate Sencerbox, or Bel Bree, was glad to come into this nest-warmpleasantness, when the mother must leave it for a while. It was notan irksomeness flung by, like a tangled skein, for somebody else totug at and unravel; it was a joy in running order. 

When the hard Monday came, or the baby had her little tribulations, or it took a good tithe of the time to run and tell callers thatMrs. Scherman was "very much engaged"--(why can't it be the fashionto put those messages out upon the door-knob, or to tie it upwith--a silk duster, or a knot of tape?)--Kate or Bel would look oneat another and say, as they began with saying, --"Now, shut up!" Itwas an understood thing that they were not to "fly out withdiscouragements. "

And nobody knows how many things would straighten themselves if thatcould only be made the law of the land. 

On Wednesday evenings, Mrs. Scherman always managed it that theyshould both go to Desire Ledwith's, for the Read-and-Talk. 

You may say Jerusalem is not taken yet, after all; there are plentyof "hard places, " where girls like Kate Sencerbox and Bel Bree wouldnot stay a week; there are hundreds of women, heads of houses, whowould not be bothered with so much superfluous intelligence, --withrefinements so nearly on a level with their own. 

Granted: but it is the first steps that cost. Do you not think--doyou not _know_--that a real good, planted in the world, --in socialliving, --_must_ spread, from point to point where the circumstanceis ready, where it is the "next thing?" If you do not believe this, you do not practically believe in the kingdom ever coming at all. 

There is a rotation of crops in living and in communities, as wellas in the order of vegetation of secret seeds that lie in theearth's bosom. 

We shall not always be rank with noisome weeds and thistles; hereand there, the better thought is swelling toward the germination;the cotyledons of a fairer hope are rising through the mould. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

WINTERGREEN. 

To tell of what has been happening with Sylvie Argenter's thread ofour story, we must go back some weeks and pages to the time justafter the great fire. 

As it was with the spread of the conflagration itself, so it provedalso with the results, --of loss, and deprivation, and change. Manyseemed at first to stand safely away out on the margin, merelookers-on, to whom presently, with more or less direct advance, thegreat red wave of ruin reached, touching, scorching, consuming. 

It was a week afterward that Sylvie Argenter learned that theManufacturers' Insurance Company, in which her mother had, at herpersuasion, invested the little actual, tangible remnant of herproperty, had found itself swallowed up in its enormous debt; mustreorganize, begin again, with fresh capital and new stockholders. 

They had nothing to reinvest. The money in the Continental Bankwould just about last through the winter, paying the seven dollars aweek for Mrs. Argenter, and spending as nearly nothing for otherthings as possible. Unless something came from Mr. Farron Saftleighbefore the spring, that would be the end. 

Thus far they had heard nothing from these zealous friends sincethey had parted from them at Sharon, except one sentimental letterfrom Mrs. Farron Saftleigh to Mrs. Argenter, written from Newport inSeptember. 

Early in December, another just such missive came this time fromDenver City. Not a word of business; a pure woman's letter, as Mrs. Farron Saftleigh chose to rank a woman's thought and sympathy;nothing practical, nothing that had to do with coarse topics of bondand scrip; taking the common essentials of life for granted, referring to the inignorable catastrophe of the fire as a grandelemental phenomenon and spectacle, and soaring easily away andbeyond all fact and literalness, into the tender vague, the rareempyrean. 

Mrs. Argenter read it over and over, and wished plaintively that shecould go out to Denver, and be near her friend. She should like anew place; and such appreciation and affection were not be met witheverywhere, or often in a lifetime. 

Sylvie read the letter once, and had great necessity ofself-restraint not to toss it contemptuously and indignantly intothe fire. 

She made up her mind to one thing, at least; that if, at the end ofthe six months, nothing were heard from Mr. Saftleigh himself, shewould write to him upon her own responsibility, and demand someintelligence as to her mother's investments in the Latterend andDonnowhair road, the reason why a dividend was not forthcoming, anda statement in regard to actual or probable sales of land, which hehad given them reason to expect would before that time have beenmade. 

One afternoon she had gone down with Desire and Hazel among theshops; Desire and the Ripwinkleys were very busy about Christmas;they had ever so many "notches to fill in" in their rather mixed upand mutable memoranda. Sylvie only accompanied them as far as WinterStreet corner, where she had to buy some peach-colored double-zephyrfor her mother; then she bade them good-by, saying that two were badenough dragging each other about with their two shopping lists, butthat a third would extinguish fatally both time and space and takingher little parcel in her hand, and wondering how many more such shecould ever buy, she returned home over the long hill alone. So ithappened that on reaching Greenley Street, she had quite to herselfa surprise and pleasure which she found there. 

She went straight to the gray room first of all. 

Mrs. Argenter was asleep on the low sofa near the fire, her crochetstripe-work fallen by her side upon the carpet, her book laid facedown with open leaves upon the cushion. 

Sylvie passed softly into her own chamber, took off her outsidethings, and returned with careful steps through her mother's room tothe hall, and into the library, to find a book which she wanted. 

On the table, at the side which had come of late to be consideredhers, lay an express parcel directed to herself. She knew thewriting, --the capital "S" made with a quick, upward, slanting line, and finished with a swell and curl upon itself like a portly figure"5" with the top-pennant left off; the round sweep after finalletters, --the "t's" crossed backward from their roots, and thestroke stopped short like a little rocket just in poise of bursting. She knew it all by heart, though she had never received but onescrap of it before, --the card that had been tied to the ivy-plant, with Rodney Sherrett's name and compliments. 

She had heard nothing now of Rodney for two months. She was glad tobe alone to wonder at this, to open it with fingers that trembled, to see what he could possibly have put into it for her. 

Within the brown wrapper was a square white box. Up in the cornerof its cover was a line of writing in the same hand; the lettersvery small, and a delicate dash drawn under them. How neatly specialit looked!

"A message from the woods for 'Sylvia. '"

She lifted it off, as if she were lifting it from over a thoughtthat it concealed, a something within all, that waited for her tosee, to know. 

Inside, --well, the thought was lovely!

It was a mid-winter wreath; a wreath of things that wait in theheart of the woodland for the spring; over which the snows slowlygather, keeping them like a secret which must not yet be told, butwhich peeps green and fresh and full of life at every melting, insoft sunny weather, such as comes by spells beforehand; that musthave been gathered by somebody who knew the hidden places and hadmarked them long ago. 

It was made of clusters, here and there, of the glossy daphne-likewintergreen, and most delicate, tiny, feathery plumes ofprincess-pine; of stout, brave, constant little shield-ferns andspires of slender, fine-notched spleenwort, such as thrustthemselves up from rough rock-crevices and tell what life is, thatthough the great stones are rolled against the doors of itssepulchre, yet finds its way from the heart of things, somehow, tothe light. Mitchella vines, with thread-like, wandering stems, andhere and there a gleaming scarlet berry among small, round, close-lying waxy leaves; breaths of silvery moss, like a frostyvapor; these flung a grace of lightness over the closer garlanding, and the whole lay upon a bed of exquisitely curled and laminatedsoft gray lichen. 

A message. Yes, it was a simple thing, an unostentatiousremembrance; no breaking, surely, of his father's conditions. Rodneyloyally kept away and manfully stuck to his business, but everyspire and frond and leaf of green in this winter wreath shed off thesecret, magnetic meaning with which it was charged. Heart-lightflowed from them, and touching the responsive sensitivity, madephotographs that pictured the whole story. It was a fuller tellingof what the star-leaved ferns had told before. 

Rodney was not to "offer himself" to Sylvie Argenter till the twoyears were over; he was to let her have her life and its chances; hewas to prove himself, and show that he could earn and keep a littlemoney; he was to lay by two thousand dollars. This was what he hadundertaken to do. His father thought he had a right to demand thesetwo years, even extending beyond the term of legal freedom, tooffset the half-dozen of boyish, heedless extravagance, before heshould put money into his son's hands to begin responsible workwith, or consent approvingly to his making of what might be only ayouthful attraction, a tie to bind him solemnly and unalterably forlife. 

But the very stones cry out. The meaning that is repressed fromspeech intensifies in all that is permitted. You may keep twopersons from being nominally "engaged, " but you cannot keep twohearts, by any mere silence, from finding each other out; and theinward betrothal in which they trust and wait, --that is the mostbeautiful time of all. The blessedness of acknowledgment, when itcomes, is the blessedness of owning and looking back together uponwhat has already been. 

Sylvie made a space for the white box upon a broad old bureau-top inher room. She put its cover on again over the message in greencipher; she would only care to look at it on purpose, and once in awhile; she would not keep it out to the fading light and soilingtouch of every day. She spread across the cover itself and itswritten sentence her last remaining broidered and lacedhandkerchief. The wreath would dry, she knew; it must lose its firstglossy freshness with which it had come from under the snows; but itshould dry there where Rodney put it, and not a leaf should fall outof it and be lost. 

She was happier in these subtle signs that revealed inward relationthan she would have been just now in an outspokenness that demandedpresent, definite answer and acceptance of outward tie. It mightcome to be: who could tell? But if she had been asked now to let itbe, there would have been her troubles to give, with her affection. How could she burden anybody doubly? How could she fling all herneeds and anxieties into the life of one she cared for?

There was a great deal for Sylvie to do between now and anymarriage. Her worry soon came back upon her with a dim fear, as thedays passed on, touching the very secret hope and consciousness thatshe was happy in. What might come to be her plain duty, now, veryshortly? Something, perhaps, that would change it all; that wouldmake it seem strange and unsuitable for Rodney Sherrett ever tointerpret that fair message into words. Something that would putsocial distance between them. 

Her mother, above all, must be cared for; and her mother's money wasso nearly gone!

Desire Ledwith was kind, but she must not live on anybody'skindness. As soon as she possibly could, she must find something todo. There must be no delay, no lingering, after the little needthere was of her here now, should cease. Every day of willingwaiting would be a day of dishonorable dependence. 

It was now three months since Mrs. Froke had gone away; and lettersfrom her brought the good tidings of successful surgical treatmentand a rapid gaining of strength. She might soon be able to comeback. Sylvie knew that Desire could either continue to contrive workfor her a while longer, or spare her to other and more fullemployment, could such be found. She watched the "Transcript" listof "Wants, " and wished there might be a "Want" made expressly forher. 

How many anxious eyes scan those columns through with a likelonging, every night!

If she could get copying to do, --if she could obtain a situationin the State House, that paradise of well paid female scribes!If she could even learn to set up type, and be employed in aprinting-office? If there were any chance in a library? Even work ofthis sort would take her away from her mother in the daytime; shewould have to provide some attendance for her. She must furnish herroom nicely, wherever it was; that she could do from the remnants oftheir household possessions stored at Dorbury; and her mother musthave a delicate little dinner every day. For breakfast and tea--shecould see to those before and after work; and her own dinners couldbe anything, --anywhere. She must get a cheap rooms where some tidylodging woman would do what was needful; and that would take, --oh, dear! she _couldn't_ say less than six or seven dollars a week, andwhere were food and clothes to come from? At any rate, she mustbegin before their present resources were utterly exhausted, or whatwould become of her mother's cream, and fruit, and beef-tea?

Mingled with all her troubled and often-reviewed calculations, wouldintrude now and then the thought, --shouldn't she have to be willingto wear out and grow ugly, with hard work and insufficientnourishing? And she would have so liked to keep fresh and pretty forthe time that might have come!

In the days when these things were keeping her anxious, the winterwreath was also slowly turning dry. 

She found herself hemmed in and headed at every turn by the pitilesshedge and ditch of circumstance, at which girls and women in ourtime have to chafe and wait; and from which there seems to be no wayout. Yet there are ways out from this, as from all things. Oneway--the way of thorough womanly home-helpfulness--was not clear toher; there are many to whom it is not clear. Yet if those to whom itis, or might be, would take it, --if those who might give it, in manyforms, _would give_, --who knows what relief and loosening would cometo others in the hard jostle and press?

There is another way out of all puzzle and perplexity and hardness;it is the Lord's special way for each one, that we cannot foresee, and that we never know until it comes. Then we discern that therehas never been impossibility; that all things are open before hiseyes; and that there is no temptation, --no trying of us, --to whichHe will not provide some end or escape. 

In the first week of January, Sylvie acted upon her resolve ofwriting to Mr. Farron Saftleigh. She asked brief and directquestions; told him that she was obliged to request an answerwithout the least delay; and begged that he would render them aclear statement of all their affairs. She reminded him that he had_told_ them that he would be responsible for their receiving adividend of at least four per cent, at the end of the six months. 

Mr. Farron Saftleigh "told" people a great many things in hisgenial, exhilarating business talks, which he was a great deal toowise ever to put down on paper. 

Sylvie waited ten days; a fortnight; three weeks; no answer came. Mr. Farron Saftleigh had simply destroyed the letter, of noconsequence at all as coming from a person not primarily concernedor authorized, and set off from Denver City the same day for abusiness visit to San Francisco. 

Sylvie saw the plain fact; that they were penniless. And this couldnot be told to her mother. 

She went to Desire Ledwith, and asked her what she could do. 

"I would go into a household anywhere, as Dot Ingraham and Bel Breehave done, to earn board and wages, and spend my money for mymother; but I can't leave her. And there's no sewing work to get, even if I could do it at night and in honest spare time. I know, asit is, that my service isn't worth what you give me in return, andof course I cannot stay here any longer now. "

"Of course you can stay where God puts you, dear, " answered DesireLedwith. "Let your side of it alone for a minute, and think of mine. If you were in my place, --trying to live as one of the _largehousehold_, remember, and looking for your opportunities, --whatwould you say, --what would you plainly hear said to you, --aboutthis?"

Sylvie was silent. 

"Tell me truly, Sylvie. Put it into words. What would it be? Whatwould you hear?"

"Just what you do, I suppose, " said Sylvie, slowly "But I _don't_hear it on my side. My part doesn't seem to chord. "

"Your part just pauses. There are no notes written just here, inyour score. Your part is to wait. Think, and see if it isn't. TheDakie Thaynes are going out West again. Mr. Thayne knows aboutlands, and such things. He would do something, and let you know. Areal business man would make this Saftleigh fellow afraid. "

The Thaynes--Mrs. Dakie Thayne is our dear little old friend RuthHolabird, you know--had been visiting in Boston; staying partlyhere, and partly at Mrs. Frank Scherman's. At Asenath's they werereal "comfort-friends;" Asenath had the faculty of gathering onlysuch about her. She felt no necessity, with them, for grand, latedinners, or any show; there was no trouble or complication in herhousehold because of them. Ruth insisted upon the care of her ownroom; it was like the "coöperative times" at Westover. Mrs. Schermansaid it was wonderful, when your links were with the right people, how simple you could make your art of living, you could actually be"quite Holabird-y, " even in Boston! But this digresses. 

"I shall speak to Mr. Thayne about it, " said Desire. "And now, dear, if you could just mark these towels this morning?"

Sylvie sat marking the towels, and Desire passed to and fro, gathering things which were to go to Neighbor Street in theafternoon. 

"Do you see, " she said, stopping behind Sylvie a while after, andputting her fingers upon her hair with a caressing littletouch, --"the sun has got round from the east to the south. It shinesinto this window now. And you have been keeping quiet, just doingyour own little work of the moment. The world is all alive, andchanging. Things are working--away up in the heavens--for us all. When people don't know which way to turn, it is very often good notto turn at all; if they are _driven_, they do know. Wait till youare driven, or see; you will be shown, one way or the other. It isalmost always when things are all blocked up and impossible, that ahappening comes. It has to. A dead block can't last, any more than avacuum. If you are sure you are looking and ready, that is all youneed. God is turning the world round all the time. "

Desire did not say one word about the ninety-eight dollars which layin one of the locked drawers of her writing desk, in precisely theshape in which every two or three weeks she had let Sylvie put themoney into her hands. There would be a right time for that. Shewould force nothing. Sylvie would come near enough, yet, for thatperfect understanding in which those bits of stamped paper wouldcease to be terrible between their hands, _either_ way. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

NEIGHBOR STREET AND GRAVES ALLEY. 

Rodney Sherrett had heard of the Argenters' losses by the fire; whatwould have been the good of his correspondence with Aunt Euphrasia, and how would she have expected to keep him pacified up inArlesbury, if he could not get, regularly, all she knew? Of coursehe ferreted out of her, likewise, the rest of the business, as fastas she heard it. 

"It's really a dreadful thing to be so confided in, all round!" shesaid to Desire Ledwith, when they had been talking one morning. "People don't know half the ways in which everything that getspoured into my mind concerns everything else. As an intelligenthuman being, to say nothing of sympathies, I _can't_ act as if theyweren't there. I feel like a kind of Judas with a bag of secrets tokeep, and playing the traitor with every one of them!"

"What a nice world it would be if there were only plenty more justsuch Judases to carry the bags!" Desire answered, buttoning on herAstrachan collar, and picking up her muff to go. 

Whereupon five minutes after, the amiable traitress was seated ather writing-desk replying to Rodney's last imperative inquiry, andtelling him, under protest, as something he could not possibly help, or have to do with, the further misfortune of Sylvie and her mother. 

Mr. Dakie Thayne had honestly expressed his conviction to MissKirkbright and Desire Ledwith, that the Donnowhair business was anirresponsible, loose speculation. He said that he had heard of thisFarron Saftleigh and his schemes; that he might frighten him intosome sort of small restitution, and that he would look into thetitle of the lands for Mrs. Argenter; but that the value of thesefell of course, with the railroad shares; and the railroad was, atpresent, at any rate, mere moonshine; stopped short, probably, inthe woods somewhere, waiting for the country to be settled up beyondLatterend. 

"Am I bound by my promise against such a time as this?" Rodney wroteback to Aunt Euphrasia. "Can't I let Sylvie know, at least, that Iam working for her, and that if she will say so, I will be hermother's son? I could get a little house here in Arlesbury, for ahundred dollars a year. I am earning fifteen hundred now, and Ishall save my this year's thousand. I shall not need any largerputting into business. I don't care for it. I shall work my way uphere. I believe I am better off with an income that I can clearlysee through, than with one which sits loose enough around myimagination to let me take notions. Can't you stretch yourdiscretionary power? Don't you see my father couldn't but consent?"

The motive had touched Rodney Sherrett's love and manliness, just asthis fine manoeuvrer, --pulling wires whose ends laid hold ofcharacter, not circumstance, --believed and meant. It had only addedto the strength and loyalty of his purpose. She had looked deeperthan a mere word-faithfulness in communicating to him what anothermight have deemed it wiser not to let him know. She thought he had aright to the motives that were made for him. But when a month wouldtake this question of his abroad and bring back an answer, MissEuphrasia would not force beyond the letter any interpretation ofprovisional authority which her brother-in-law had deputed. Shewould only draw herself closer to Sylvie in all possible confidenceand friendliness. She would only move her to acquiescence yet alittle longer in what her friends offered and urged. She representedto her that they must at least wait to hear from Mr. Thayne; theremight be something coming from the West; and it would be cruel tohurry her mother into a life which could not but afflict her, untilan absolute necessity should be upon them. 

She bade Rodney be patient yet a few weeks more, and to leave it toher to write to his father. She did write: but she also put Rodney'sletter in. 

"Things which _are_ might as well, and more truly, be taken intoaccount, and put in their proper tense, " she urged, to Mr. Sherrett. "There is a bond between these two lives which neither you nor Ihave the making or the timing of. It will assert itself; it willmodify everything. This is just what the Lord has given Rodney todo. It is not your plan, or authority, but this in his heart, whichhas set him to work, and made him save his money. Why not let thembegin to live the life while it is yet alive? It wears by waiting;it cannot help it. You must not expect a miracle of your boy; youmust take the motive while it is fresh, and let it work in God'sway. The power is there; but you must let the wheels be put in gear. Simply, I advise you to permit the engagement, and the marriage. Ifyou do not, I think you will rob them of a part of their realhistory which they have a right to. Marriage is a making of lifetogether; not a taking of it after it is made. "

It was February when this letter was sent out. 

One day in the middle of the month, Desire Ledwith, HazelRipwinkley, and Sylvie had business with Luclarion in NeighborStreet. There was work to carry; a little basket of things for thefine laundry; some bakery orders to give. There was always Luclarionherself to see. Just now, besides and especially, they were allinterested in Ray Ingraham's rooms that were preparing in the nexthouse to the Neighbors; a house which Mr. Geoffrey and others hadbought, enlarged, and built up; fitting it in comfortable suites forhousekeeping, at rents of from twenty-five to thirty dollars amonth, each. They were as complete and substantial in all theirappointments as apartments as the Commonwealth or the Berkeley;there was only no magnificence, and there was no "locality" to payfor. The locality was to be ministered to and redeemed, by the verypresence of this growth of pure and pleasant and honorable living inits midst. For the most part, those who took up an abiding here hadenough of the generous human sense in them to account it asatisfaction so to contribute themselves; for the rest, there was asprinkling of decent people, who were glad to get good homes cheapin the heart of a dear city; and the public, Christian intent of themovement sheltered and countenanced them with its chivalrousrespectability. 

Frank Sunderline and Ray were to live here for a year; they were tobe married the first of March. Frank had said that Ray would have tomanage him and the Bakery too, and Ray was prepared to fulfill bothobligations. 

She was going to carry out here, with Luclarion Grapp, her idea ofpublic supply for the chief staple of food. They were going to try amanufacture of breadstuffs and cakestuffs, on real home principles, by real domestic receipts. They were going to have sale shops indifferent quarters, --at the South and West ends. Already theirlaundry sustained itself by doing excellent work at moderate prices;why should they not, in still another way meet and play into themovement of the time for simplifying it, and making householdroutine more independent?

"Why shouldn't there be, " Ray said, with appetizing emphasis, "aplace to buy _cup_ cake, and _composition_ cake, and _sponge_ cake, tender and rich, made with eggs instead of ammonia? Why shouldn'tthere be pies with sweet butter-crust crisp and good like mother's, and nice wholesome little puddings? Everybody knew that since thewar, when the confectioners began to economize in their materialsand double their prices at the same time, there was nothing fit tobuy and call cake in the city. Why shouldn't somebody begin again, honest? And here, where they didn't count upon outrageous profits, why couldn't it be as well as not? When there was a good thing to behad in one place, other places would have to keep up. It would makea difference everywhere, sooner or later. "

"And all these girls to be learning a business that they could setup anywhere!" said Hazel Ripwinkley. "Everybody eats! Just a newthing, if it's only new trash, sells for a while; and these new, old-fashioned, grandmother's cupboard things, --why, people wouldjust _swarm_ after them! Cooks never knew how, and ladiesdidn't have time. Don't forget, Luclarion, the bright yellow gingerpound-cake that we used to have up at Homesworth! Everythingwas so good at Homesworth--the place was named out of comforts!Why don't you call it the Homesworth Bakery? That would bedouble-an-tender, --eh, Lukey!"

Marion Kent made a beautiful silk quilt for Ray Ingraham, out of hersea-green and buff dresses, and had given it to her for awedding-present. For the one only time as she did so, she spoke herheart out upon that which they had both perfectly understood, buthad never alluded to. 

"You know, Ray, just as I do, what might have been, and I want youto know that I'm contented, and there isn't a grudge in my heart. You and Frank have both been too much to me for that. I can see howit was, though. It was a hand's turn once. But I went my way and youkept quietly on. It was the real woman, not the sham one, that hewanted for a wife. It doesn't trouble me now; it's all right; andwhen it might have troubled me, it didn't add a straw's weight. Itfell right off from me. You can't suffer _all through_ with morethan one thing; when you were engaged, I had my load to bear. I knewI had forfeited everything; what difference did one part make morethan another? It was what I had let go _out of the world_, Ray, thatmade the whole world a prison and a punishment. I couldn't havetaken a happiness, if it had come to me. All I wanted was work andforgiveness. "

"Dear Marion, how certainly you must know you are forgiven, by thespirit that is in you! And for happiness, dear, there is a Foreverthat is full of it! I _don't_ think it is any one thing, --not evenany one marrying. "

So the two kissed each other, and went down into the otherhouse--Luclarion's. 

That had been only a few days ago, and Ray had shown the quilt, sorich and lustrous, and delicate with beautiful shellworkstitchery, --to the young girls this afternoon. 

She showed the quilt with loving pride and praise, but the story ofit she kept in her heart, among her prayers. Frank Sunderline neverknew more than the fair fabric and color, and the name of the giver, told him. Frank Sunderline scarcely knew so much as these two womendid, of the unanalyzed secrets of his own life. 

Luclarion waited till all this was over, and Desire Ledwith hadcome back from Ray Ingraham's rooms to hers, leaving Hazel andSylvie among the fascinations of new crockery and bridal tin pans, before she said anything about a very sad and important thing shehad to tell her and consult about. She took her into her own littlesitting-room to hear the story, and then up-stairs, to see the womanof whom the story had to be told. 

"It was Mr. Tipps, the milkman, came to me yesterday with it all, "said Luclarion. "He's a good soul, Tipps; as clever as ever was. Hewas just in on his early rounds, at four o'clock in the morning, --anawful blustering, cold night, night before last was, --and he wascoming by Graves Alley, when he heard a queer kind of crazy howlingdown there out of sight. He wouldn't have minded it, I suppose, forthere's always drunken noise enough about in those places, but itwas a woman's voice, and a baby's crying was mixed up with it. So hejust flung his reins down over his horse's back, and jumped off hiswagon, and ran down. It was this girl, --Mary Moxall her name is, andMocks-all it ought to be, sure enough, to finish up after that pure, blessed name so many of these miserables have got christened with;and she was holding the child by the heels, head down, swinging itback and for'ard, as you'd let a gold ring swing on a hair in atumbler, to try your fortune by, waiting till it would hit and ring. 

"It was all but striking the brick walls each side, and she wasmuttering and howling like a young she-devil over it, her eyes allcrazy and wild, and her hair hanging down her shoulders. Tipps flewand grabbed the baby, and then she turned and clawed him like atiger-cat. But he's a strong man, and cool; he held the child backwith one hand, and with the other he got hold of one of her wristsand gave it a grip, --just twist enough to make the other hand comeafter his; and then he caught them both. She spit and kicked; it wasall she could do; she was just a mad thing. She lost her balance, ofcourse, and went down; he put his foot on her chest, just enough toshow her he could master her; and then she went from howling tocrying. 'Finish me, and I wouldn't care!' she said; and then laystill, all in a heap, moaning. 'I won't hurt ye, ' says Tipps. 'Inever hurt a woman yet, soul nor body. What was ye goin' to do withthis 'ere little baby?' 'I was goin' to send it out of the hell it'sborn into, ' she said, with an awful hate in the sound of her voice. 'Goin' to _kill_ it! You wouldn't ha' done that?' 'Yes, I would. I'd'a done it, if I was hanged for it the next minute. Isn't it mybusiness that ever it was here?'

"'Now look here!' says Tipps. 'You're calmed down a little. Ifyou'll stay calm, and come with me, I'll take you to a safe place. If you don't, I'll call a policeman, and you'll go to the lock-up. Which'll ye have?' 'You've got me, ' she said, in a kind of a sulk. 'I s'pose you'll do what you like with me. That's the way of it. Anybody can be as bad and as miserable as they please, but theywon't be let out of it. It's hell, I tell you, --this very world. Andfolks don't know they've got there. '

"Tipps says there's hopes of her from just that word bad. Shewouldn't have put that in, otherways. Well, he brought her here, andthe baby. And they're both up-stairs. She's as weak as water, nowthe drink is out of her. But it wasn't all drink. The desperation isin her eyes, though it's give way, and helpless. And what to do with'em next, I _don't_ know. "

"I do, " said Desire, with her eyes full. "She must be comforted up. And then, Mr. Vireo must know, the first thing. Afterwards, he willsee. "

Luclarion took Desire up-stairs. 

The girl was lying, in a clean night-dress, in a clean, white bed. Her hair, dark and beautiful, was combed and braided away from herface, and lay back, in two long, heavy plaits, across the pillow. Her features were sharp, but delicate, and were meant to have beenpretty. But her eyes! Out of them a suffering demon seemed to look, with a still, hopeless rage. 

Desire came up to the bedside. 

"What do you want?" the girl said, slowly, with a deep, hard, resentful scorn in her voice. "Have you come to see what it is alllike? Do you want to feel how clean you are beside me? That's a partof it; the way they torment. "

It was like the cry of the devil out of the man against the Son ofGod. 

"No, " said Desire, just as slowly, in her turn. "I can only feel thecleanness in you that is making you suffer against the sin. Thebadness doesn't belong to you. Let it go, and begin again. "

It was the word of the Lord, --"Hold thy peace, and come out of him. "Desire Ledwith spoke as she was that minute moved of the Spirit. Thetouch of power went down through all the misery and badness, to thewoman's soul, that knew itself to be just clean enough for agony. She turned her eyes, with the fiery gloom in them, away, pressingher forehead down against the pillow. 

"God sees it better than I do, " said Desire, gently. 

An arm flung itself out from under the bedclothes, thrusting themoff. The head rolled itself over, with the face away. 

"God! Pf!"

So far from Him; and yet so close, in the awful hold of hisunrelaxing love!

Desire kept silence; she could not force upon her the thought, theName: the Name for whose hallowing to pray, is to pray for theholiness in ourselves that alone can make it tender. 

"What do you know about God?" the voice asked defiantly, the facestill turned away. 

"I know that his Living Spirit touches your thought and mine, thismoment, and moves them to each other. As you and I are alive, He isalive beside us and between us. Your pain is his pain for you. Youfeel it just where you are joined to Him; in the quick of your soul. If it were not for that, you would be dead; you could not feel atall. "

Was this the Desire Ledwith of the old time, with deep thoughts buthalf understood, and shrinking always from any recognizing word? Sheshrunk now, just as much, from any needless expression of herself;from any parade or talking over of sacred perception and experience;but the real life was all the stronger in her; all the surer to useher when its hour came. She had escaped out of all shams andcontradictions. Unconsent to the divine impulse comes ofincongruity. There was no incongruity now, to shame or to deter; noseparate or double consciousness to stand apart in her soul, rebukedor repugnant. She gave herself quietly, simply, freely, to God'sthought for this other child of his; the Thought that she knew wastouching and stirring her own. 

"I shall send somebody to you who can tell you more than I can, Mary, " she said, presently. "You will find there is heart and helpin the world that can only be God's own. Believe in that, and youwill come to believe in Him. You have seen only the wrong, bad side, I am afraid. The _under_ side; the side turned down toward"--

"Hell-fire, " said Mary Moxall, filling Desire's hesitation with anutterance of hard, unrecking distinctness. 

But Desire Ledwith knew that the hard unreckingness was only thereflex of a tenderness quick, not dead, which the Lord would not letgo of to perish. 

Sylvie and Hazel came in below, and she left Mary Moxall and wentdown to them. The three took leave, for it was after five o'clock. 

When they got out from the street-car at Borden Square, Desire leftthem, to go round by Savin Street, and see Mr. Vireo. Hazel wenthome; Mrs. Ripwinkley expected her to-night; Miss Craydocke and someof the Beehive people were to come to tea. Sylvie hastened on toGreenley Street, anxious to return to her mother. She had rarelyleft her, lately, so long as this. 

How would it be when they had heard from Mr. Thayne what she feltsure they must hear, --when they had to leave Greenley Street and gointo that cheap little lodging-room, and she had to stay away fromher mother all day long?

She remembered the time when she had thought it would be nice tohave a "few things;" nice to earn her own living; to be one of the"Other Girls. "

CHAPTER XXXI. 

CHOSEN: AND CALLED. 

Desire Ledwith found nobody at home at Mr. Vireo's. The maid-servantsaid that she could not tell when they would return. Mrs. Vireo wasat her mother's, and she believed they would not come back to tea. 

Desire knew that it was one of the minister's chapel nights. Shewent away, up Savin Street, disappointed; wishing that she couldhave sent instant help to Mary Moxall, who, she thought, could notwithstand the evangel of Hilary Vireo's presence. It is so sure thatnothing so instantly brings the heavenly power to bear upon a soulas contact with a humanity in which it already abides and rules. Shewanted this girl to touch the hem of a garment of earthly living, with which it had clothed itself to do a work in the world. For theChrist still finds and puts such garments on to walk the earth; theseamless robes of undivided consecration to Himself. 

As Desire crossed to Borden Street, and went on up the hill, therecame suddenly to her mind recollection of the Sunday noon, yearssince, when she had walked over that same sidewalk with KennethKincaid; when he had urged her to take up Mission work, and she hadanswered him with her girlish bluffness, that "she thought he didnot approve of brokering business; it was all there, why should theynot take it for themselves? Why should she set up to go between?"She thought how she had learned, since, the beautiful links ofendless ministry; the prismatic law of mediation, --that there is notint or shade of spiritual being, no angle at which any soul catchesthe Divine beam, that does not join and melt into the next above andthe next below; that the farther apart in the spectrum of humanitythe red of passion and the violet of peace, the more place and needfor every subdivided ray, to help translate the whole story of thepure, whole whiteness. 

She remembered what she had said another time about "seeing blue, and living red. " She was thinking out by the type the mystery ofdifference, --the broken refractions that God lets his Spirit fallinto, --when, looking up as she was about to pass some person, shemet the face of Christopher Kirkbright. 

He had not been at home of late; he had been busy up at BrickfieldFarms. 

For nearly four months past, Cone Hill and the Clay Pits had beenhis by purchase and legal transfer. He had lost no time in makinghis offer to his brother-in-law. Ten words by the Atlantic cable haddone it, and the instructions had come back by the first mailsteamer. Repairing and building had been at once begun; an odd, rambling wing, thrown out eastward, slanting off at a whollyunarchitectural angle from the main house, and climbing the terracedrock where it found best space and foothold, already made the quaintstructure look more like a great two-story Chinese puzzle than ever, and covered in space for an ample, airy, sunny work-saloon above arange of smaller rooms calculated for individual and home occupancy. 

But the details of the plan at Brickfields would make a long storywithin a story; we may have further glimpses of it, on beyond; wemust not leave our friends now standing in the street. 

Mr. Kirkbright held out his hand to Desire, as he stopped to speakwith her. 

"I am going down to Vireo's, " he said. "I have come to a place in mywork where I want him. "

"So have I, " said Desire. "But he is not at home. I was going nextto Miss Euphrasia. "

"And you and I are sent to stop each other. My sister is away, atMilton, for two days. "

Desire turned round. "Then I must go home again, " she said. 

Mr. Kirkbright moved on, down the hill beside her. 

"Can I do anything for you?" he inquired. 

"Yes, " returned Desire, pausing, and looking gravely up at him. "Ifyou could go down to Luclarion Grapp's, --the Neighbors, youknow, --and carry some kind of a promise to a poor thing who has justbeen brought there, and who thinks there is no promise in the world;a woman who tried to kill her baby to get him out of it, and whosays that the world is hell, and people don't know they've got intoit. Go and tell her some of the things you told me, that morning upat Brickfields. "

"You have been to her? What have you told her yourself, already?"

"I told her that it was not all badness when one could feel themisery of the badness. That her pain at it was God's pain for her. That if He had done with her, she would be dead. "

"Would she believe you? Did she seem to begin to believe?"

"I do not think she believes anything. She can't until the things tobelieve in come to her. Mr. Vireo--or you--would make her see. Itold her I would send somebody who had more for her than I. "

"You have told her the first message, --that the kingdom is at hand. The Christ-errand must be done next. The full errand of _help_. Thatwas what was sent to the world, after the voice had cried in thewilderness. It isn't Mr. Vireo or I, --but the helping hand; therighting of condition; the giving of the new chance. We must notleave all that to death and the angels. Miss Desire, this woman mustgo to our mountain-refuge; to our sanatorium of souls. I have a gooddeal to tell you about that. "

They had walked on again, as they talked; they had come to the footof Borden Street. They must now turn two different ways. 

They were standing a moment at the corner, as Mr. Kirkbright spoke. When he said "our refuge, --our sanatorium, "--Desire blushed again asshe had blushed at Brickfields. 

She was provoked at herself; why need personal pronouns come in atall? Why, if they did, need they remind her of herself and him, instead of merely the thoughts that they had had together, theintent of which was high above them both? Why need she be pleasedand shy in her selfhood, --ashamed lest he should detect the thoughtof pleasure in her at his sharing with her his grand purpose, recognizing in her the echo of his inspiration? What made it sodifferent that Christopher Kirkbright should discover andacknowledge such a sympathy between them, from her meeting it, asshe had long done, in Miss Euphrasia?

She would not let it be different; she would not be such a fool. 

It was twilight, and her little lace veil was down. She tookcourage behind it, and in her resolve, --for she knew that to be verydetermined would make her pale, not red; and the next time she wouldbe on her guard, and very determined. 

She gave him the hand he held out his own for, and bade him goodevening, with her head lifted just imperceptibly higher than was itswont, and her face turned full toward him. Her eyes met his with anhonest calmness; she had summoned herself back. 

He saw strength and earnestness; a flush of feeling; the face of awoman made to look nobleness and enthusiasm into the soul of a man. 

 * * * * *

She sat in the library that evening at nine o'clock. 

She had drawn up her large chair to the open fire; her feet wereresting on the low fender; her eyes were watching shapes in thecoals. 

Mrs. Lewes's "Middlemarch" lay on her lap; she had just begun toread it. Her hands, crossed upon each other, had fallen upon thepage; she had found something of herself in those first chapters. Something that reminded of her old longings and hindrances; of theshallowness and half-living that had been about her, and the chafeof her discontent in it. 

She did not wonder that Dorothea was going to marry Mr. Casaubon. Into some dream-trap just such as that she might have fallen, had aMr. Casaubon come in her way. 

Instead, had come pain and mistake; a keen self-searching; alearning to bear with all her might, to work, and to wait. 

She had not been waiting for any making good in God Providence ofthat special happiness which had passed her by. If she had, shewould not have been doing the sort of work she had taken into herhands. When we wait for one particular hope, and will not besatisfied with any other, the whole force of ourselves bends towardit; we dictate to life, and wrest its tendencies at every turn. 

The thing comes. Ask, --with the real might of whatever asking thereis in you, --and it shall be given you. But when you have got it, itmay not be the thing you thought it would be. Whosoever will havehis life shall lose it. 

No; Desire Ledwith had rather turned away from all special hope, thinking it was over for her. But she came to believe that all thegood in God's long years was not over; that she had not beenhindered from one thing, save to be kept for some other that He sawbetter. She was willing to wait for his better, --his best. When shepaused to look at her life objectively, she rejoiced in it as theone thread--a thread of changing colors--in God's manifold work, that He was letting her follow alone with Him, and showing her thesecret beauty of. Up and down, in and out, backward and forward, shewrought it after his pattern, and discerned continually where itfell into combinations that she had never planned, --made surprisesfor her of effects that were not her own. There is much ridicule ofmere tapestry and broidery work, as a business for women's fingers;but I think the secret, uninterpreted charm of it, to the silliestsorters of colors and counters of stitches, is beyond the fact, asthe beauty of children's plays is the parable they cannot helphaving in them. Patient and careful doing, after a law andrule, --and the gradual apparition of result, foreseen by the deviserof the law and rule; it is life measured out upon a canvas. Whoknows how, --in this spiritual Kindergarten of a world, --therudiments of all small human devices were set in human faculty andaptness for its own object-teaching toward a perfect heavenlyenlightenment?

Desire was thinking to-night, how impossible it is, as the patternof life grows, to help seeing a little of the shapes it may betaking; to refrain from a looking forward that becomes eager with ahint of possible unfolding. 

Once, a while ago, she had thought that she discerned a green beautyspringing out from the dull, half-filled background; tender leavesforming about a bare and awkward shoot; but suddenly there were nomore stitches in that direction that she could set; the leavesstopped short in half-developed curves that never were completed. The pattern set before her--given but one bit at a time, as lifepatterns are, like part etchings of a picture in which you know nothow the spaces are to be filled up and related--changed; the place, and the tint of the thread, changed also; she had to work on in anew part, and in a different way. She could not discover then, thatthese abortive leaves were the slender claspings of a calyx, inwhose midst might sometime fit the rose-bloom of a wonderful joy. Was she discovering it now? For browns and grays, --generous andstrong, tender and restful, --was a flush of blossom hues that shehad not looked for, coming to be woven in? Was the empty calyxshowing the first shadowy petal-shapes of a most perfect flower?

It might be the flower of a gracious friendship only a joining ofhands in work for the kingdom-building; she did not let herself gofarther than this. But it was a friendship across which there layno bar and somehow, while she put from herself the thought that itmight ever be so promised to her as to be hers of all the world andto the world's exclusion, --while she resented in herself thatfoolish girl's blush, and resolved that it should never comeagain, --she sat here to-night thinking how grand and perfect a thingfor a woman a grand man's friendship is; how it is different fromany, the most pure and sweet, of woman-tenderness; how the crossingof her path with such a path as Christopher Kirkbright's, if it wereonly once a day, or once a week, or once a month, would be a thingto reckon joy and courage from; to live on from, as she lived onfrom her prayers. 

An hour had come in her life which gathered about her realities ofheaven, whether the earthly correspondence should concur, or no. Anoble influence which had met and moved her, seemed to come andabide about her, --a thought-presence. 

And a thought-presence was precisely what it was. A thousandcircumstances may stretch that hyphen which at once linksand separates the sign-syllables of the wonderful fact; animpossibility, of physical conditions, may be between; but the factsubsists--and in rare moments we know it--when that which belongs tous comes invisibly and takes us to itself; when we feel thefootsteps afar off which may or may not be feet of the flesh turnedtoward us. Yet even this conjunction does happen, now and again; thewill--the blessed purpose--is accomplished at once on earth and inheaven. 

When many minutes after the city bells had ceased to sound for nineo'clock, the bell of her own door rang with a clear, strong stroke, Desire Ledwith thought instantly of Mr. Kirkbright with a singularrecall, --that was less a change than a transfer of the sameperception, --from the inward to the actual. She had no reason tosuppose it, --no ordinary reason why, --but she was suddenly persuadedthat the friend who in the last hour had stood spiritually besideher, stood now, in reality, upon her door-stone. 

She did not even wonder for what he could have come. She did notmove from her chair; she did not lift her crossed hands from off heropen book. She did not break the external conditions in which unseenforces had been acting. If she had moved, --pushed back herchair, --put by her book, --it would have begun to seem strange, shewould have been back in a bond of circumstance which would haveembarrassed her; she would have been receiving an evening call at anunusual hour. But to have the verity come in and fill thedream, --this was not strange. And yet Christopher Kirkbright hadscarcely been in that house ten times before. 

She heard him ask if Miss Ledwith were still below; if he might seeher. She heard Frendely close the outer door, and precede him towardthe door of the library. He entered, and she lifted her eyes. 

"Don't move, " he said quickly. "I have been seeing you sitting likethat, all the evening. It is a reverie come true. Only I have walkedout of my end of it, and into yours. May I stay a little while?"

Her face answered him in a very natural way. There was a wonder inher eyes, and in the smile that crept over her lips; there werewonder and waiting in the silence which she kept, answering in herface only, at the first, that peculiar greeting. Perhaps any woman, who had had no dream, would have found other response as difficult. 

"I am going back to Brickfields to-morrow. I am more eager thanever to get the home finished there, for those who are waiting forits shelter. I have had a busy day, --a busy evening; it has not beena _still_ reverie in which I have seen you. In this last half hour, I have been with Vireo. He has found a woman for me who can be adirectress of work; can manage the sewing-room. A good woman, too, who will _mother_--not 'matron'--the girls. I have bought fivemachines. They will make their own garments first; then they willwork for pay, some hours each day, or a day or two every week, --inturn. That money will be their own. The rest of the time will be dueto the commonwealth. There will be a farm-kitchen, where they willcook--and learn to cook well--for the farm hands; they will wash andiron; they will take care of fruit and poultry. As they learn thevarious employments, they will take their place as teachers tonew-comers; we shall keep them busy, and shall make a life aroundthem, that will be worth their laboring for; as God makes all thebeauty of the world for us to live in, in compensation for thelittle that He leaves it needful for us to do. There is where Ithink our privilege comes in, after the similitude of his; tosupplement broadly that which shall not hinder honest andconditional exertion. I have been longing to tell you about it; Ihave had a vision of you in the midst of my work and talk; I havehad a feeling of you this evening, waiting just so and there; I hadto come. I went to see your Mary Moxall, Miss Desire. "

"In the midst of all you had to do!"

"Was it not a part? 'All in the day's work' is a good proverb. "

"What did you say to her?"

"I asked her if she would come up into the country with my sister, to a home among great, still, beautiful hills, and take care of herbaby, and some flowers. "

"It was like asking her to come home--to God!"

"Yes, --I think it was asking her God's way. How can we, standingamong all the helps and harmonies of our lives, ask them to comestraight up to Him, --His invisible unapproachable Self, --out of theterrible darkness and chaos of theirs? There are no steps. "

"Tell me more about the steps you have been making--in the hills. You said 'flowers. '"

"Yes; there will be a conservatory. I must have them all the yearthrough; the short summer gardening would not be ministry enough. Beyond the Chapel Rock runs back a large new wing, with sewing andliving rooms; they only wait good weather for finishing. A dozenwomen can live and work there. As they grow fit and willing, andnumerous enough to colonize off, there are little houses to be builtthat they can move into, set up homes, earn their machines, and atlast, in cases where it proves safe and wise, their homesthemselves. I shall provide a depot for their needlework in thecity; and as the village grows it will create a little demand of itsown. Mr. Thayne is going to build the cottages, and he and I havecontracted for the seven miles of railroad to Tillington, as aprivate enterprise. The brickmaking is to begin at once; we shall dosomething for the building of the new, fire-proof Boston. Yourthought is growing into a fact, Miss Desire; and I think I have notforgotten any particular of it. Now, I have come back to you formore, --a great deal more, if I can get it. First, a name. We can't_call_ it a City of Refuge, beautiful as such a city is--to _be_. Neither will I call it a Home, or an Asylum. The first thing MaryMoxall said to me was, --'I won't go to no Refuges nor Sile'ums. Idon't want to be raked up, mud an' all, into a heap that everybodyknows the name of. If the world was big enough for me to beginagain, --in a clean place; but there ain't no clean places!' And thenI asked her to come home with me and my sister. "

"You mean, of course, a neighborhood name, for the settlement, as itgrows?"

"Exactly. 'Brickfield Farms' belongs to the outlying husbandry andhomesteads. And 'Clay Pits!' It is _out_ of the pit and the miryclay that we want to bring them. The suggestion of that is too muchlike Mary Moxall's 'heap that everybody knows the name of. '"

"Why not call it 'Hill-hope'? 'The hills, whence cometh ourstrength;' 'the mountain of the height of Israel where the Lord willplant it, and the dry tree shall flourish'?"

"Thank you, " said Mr. Kirkbright, heartily. "That is the right word. It is named. "

Desire said nothing. She looked quietly into the fire with a flushof deep pleasure on her face. Mr. Kirkbright remained silent alsofor a few minutes. 

He looked at her as she sat there, in this room that was her own;that was filled with home-feeling and association for her; where asolemnly tender commission and opportunity had been given her, andhad centred, and he almost doubted whether the thing that was urgingitself with him to be asked for last and greatest of all, were rightto ask; whether it existed for him, and a way could be made for itto be given him. Yet the question was in him, strong and earnest; aquestion that had never been in him before to ask of any woman. Whyhad it been put there if it might not at least be spoken? If therewere not possibly, in this woman's keeping, the ordained and perfectanswer?

While he sat and scrupled about it, it sprang, with an impulse thathe did not stop to scruple at, to his lips. 

"I shall want to ask you questions every day, dear friend! What arewe to do about it?"

Desire's eyes flashed up at him with a happiness in them that waitednot to weigh anything; that he could not mistake. The color wasbright upon her cheek; her lips were soft and tremulous. Then theeyes dropped gently away again; she answered nothing, --with words. 

So far as he had spoken, she had answered. 

"I want you there, by my side, to help me make a real human homearound which other homes may grow. There ought to be a heart in it, and I cannot do it alone. Could you--_will_ you--come? Will you beto me the one woman of the world, and out of your purity andstrength help me to help your sisters?"

He had risen and walked the few steps across the distance that wasbetween them. He stopped before her, and bending toward her, heldout his hands. 

Desire stood up and laid hers in them. 

"It must be right. You have come for me. I cannot possibly dootherwise than this. "

The deep, gracious, divine fact had asserted itself. A house here, or a house there could not change or bind it. They belongedtogether. There was a new love in the world, and the world wouldhave to arrange itself around it. Around it and the Will that it wasto be wedded to do. 

They stood together, hands in hands. Christopher Kirkbright leanedover and laid his lips against her forehead. 

He whispered her name, set in other syllables that were only forhim to say to her. I shall not say them over on this page to you. 

But there is a line in the blessed Scripture that we all know, andGod had fulfilled it to his heart. 

Strangely--more strangely than any story can contrive--are thehappenings of life put side by side. 

As they sat there a little longer in the quiet library, forgettingthe late evening hour, because it was morning all at once to them;forgetting Sylvie Argenter and her mother as they were at just thismoment in the next room; only remembering them among those whom thisnew relation and joining of purpose must make surer and safer, notless carefully provided for in the changes that would occur, --thedoor of the gray parlor opened; a quick step fell along the passage, and Sylvie unlatched the library door, and stood in the entrancewide-eyed and pale. 

"Desire! Come!"

"Sylvie! _What_, dear?" cried Desire, quickly, as she sprang to meether, her voice chording responsive to Sylvie's own, catching in itthe indescribable tone that tells so much more than words. She didnot need the further revelation of her face to know that somethingdeep and strange had happened. 

Sylvie said not a syllable more, but turned and hurried back alongthe hall. 

Desire and Mr. Kirkbright followed her. 

Mrs. Argenter was sitting in the deep corner of her broad, low sofa, against the two large pillows. 

"A minute ago, " said Sylvie, in the same changed voice, that spokeout of a different world from the world of five minutes before, "shewas _here_! She gave me her plate to put away on the sideboard, and_now_, --when I turned round, "--

She was _There_. 

The plate, with its bits of orange-rind, and an untasted section ofthe fruit, stood upon the sideboard. The book she had been readingfifteen minutes since lay, with her eye-glasses inside it, at thepage where she had stopped, upon the couch; her left hand hadfallen, palm upward, upon the cushioned seat; her life had goneinstantly and without a sign, out from her mortal body. 

Mrs. Argenter had died of that disease which lets the spirit freelike the uncaging of a bird. 

Hypertrophy of the heart. The gradual thickening and hardening ofthose mysterious little gates of life and the walls in which theyare set; the slower moving of them on their palpitating hinges, tilla moment comes when they open or close for the last time, and inthat pause ajar the soul flits out, like some curious, unwary thing, over a threshold it may pass no more again, forever. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

EASTER LILIES. 

Bright, soft days began to come; days in which windows stood open, and pots of plants were set out on the window-sills; daysalternating as in the long, New England spring they always do, withbleak intervals of sharp winds and cold sea-storms; yet giving sweetanticipation tenderly, as a mother gives beforehand that which shecannot find in her heart to keep back till the birthday. That is thecharm of Nature with us; the motherliness in her that offsets, andbreaks through with loving impulse, her rule of rigidness. The yearcomes slowly to its growth, but she relaxes toward it with a kind ofpity, and says, "There, take this! It isn't time for it, but youneedn't wait for everything till you're grown up!"

People feel happy, in advance of all their hopes and realizations, on such days; the ripeness of the year, in whatever good it may bemaking for them, touches them like the soft air that blows up fromthe south. There is a new look on men's and women's faces as youmeet them in the street; a New Jerusalem sort of look; the heavensare opened upon them, and the divineness of sunshine flows inthrough sense and spirit. 

Sylvie Argenter was very peaceful. She told Desire that she neverwould be afraid again in all her life; she _knew_ how things weremeasured, now. She was "so glad the money had almost all been spentwhile mother lived; that not a dollar that could buy her a comforthad been kept back. "

She was quite content to stay now; at least till Rachel Frokeshould come; she was busily helping Desire with her wedding outfit. She was willing to receive from her the fair wages of a seamstress, now that she could freely give her time, and there was no one toaccept and use an invalid's expensive luxuries. 

Desire would not have thought it needful that hundreds of extrayards of cambric and linen should be made up for her, simply becauseshe was going to be married, if it had not been that her marriagewas to be so especially a beginning of new life and work, in whichshe did not wish to be crippled by any present care for self. 

"I see the sense of it now, so far as concerns quantity; as forquality, I will have nothing different from what I have always had. "

There was no trousseau to exhibit; there were only trunks-full ofgood plenishing that would last for years. 

Sylvie cut out, and parceled. Elise Mokey, and one or two othergirls who had had only precarious employment and Committee "relief"since the fire, had the stitching given them to do; and every tuckand hem was justly paid for. When the work came back from theirhands, Sylvie finished and marked delicately. 

She had the sunny little room, now, over the gray parlor, adjoiningDesire's own. The white box lay upon a round, damask-covered-standin the corner, under her mother's picture painted in the gracefuldays of the gray silks and llama laces; and around this, droopingand trailing till they touched the little table and veiled the boxthat held the beautiful secret, --seeming to say, "We know it too, for we are a part, "--wreathed the shining sprays of blossomy fern. 

In these sunny days of early spring, Sylvie could not help beinghappy. The snows were gone now, except in deep, dark places, out ofthe woods; the ferns and vines and grasses were alive and eager fora new summer's grace and fullness; their far-off presence made theair different, already, from the airs of winter. 

Yet Rodney Sherrett had kept silence. 

All these weeks had gone by, and Miss Euphrasia had had no answerfrom over the water. Of all the letters that went safely into mailbags, and of all the mail bags that went as they were bound, and ofall the white messages that were scattered like doves when thosebags were opened, --somehow--it can never be told how, --thatparticular little white, folded sheet got mishandled, mislaid, ormissent, and failed of its errand; and at the time when MissEuphrasia began to be convinced that it must be so, there came aletter from Mr. Sherrett to herself, written from London, where hehad just arrived after a visit to Berlin. 

"I have had no family news, " he wrote, "of later date than January20th. Trust all is well. Shall sail from Liverpool on the 9th. "

The date of that was March 20th. 

The fourteenth of April, Easter Monday, was fixed for DesireLedwith's marriage. 

Rachel Froke came back on the Friday previous. Desire would have herin time, but not for any fatigues. 

The gray parlor was all ready; everything just as it had been beforeshe left it. The ivies had been carefully tended, and the golden andbrown canary was singing in his cage. There was nothing to remind ofthe different life to which, the place had been lent, making itslast hours restful and pleasant, or of the death that had stepped sonoiselessly and solemnly in. 

Desire had formally made over this house to her cousin andco-heiress, Hazel Ripwinkley. 

"It must never be left waiting, a mere possible convenience, foranybody, " she said. "There must be a real life in it, as long as wecan order it so. "

The Ripwinkleys were to leave Aspen Street, and come here withHazel. Miss Craydocke, who never had half room enough in OrchardStreet, was to "spill over" from the Bee-hive into the Mile-hillhouse. "She knew just whom to put there; people who would take careand comfort. Them shouldn't be any hurt, and there would be lots ofhelp. "

There was a widow with three daughters, to begin with; "just as neatas a row of pins;" but who had had less and less to be neat with forseven years past; one of the daughters had just got a situation ascompositor, and another as a book-keeper; between them, they couldearn twelve hundred dollars a year. The youngest had to stay at homeand help her mother do the work, that they might all keep together. They could pay three hundred dollars for four rooms; but of coursethey could not get decent ones, in a decent neighborhood, for that. That was what Bee-hives were for; houses that other people could dowithout. 

Hazel had her wish; it came to pass that they also should make abee-hive. 

"And whenever I marry, " Hazel said, "I hope he won't be building atown of his own to take me to; for I shall _have_ to bring him here. I'm the last of the line. "

"That will all be taken care of as the rest has been. There isn'thalf as much left for us to manage as we think, " said Desire, putting back into the desk the copy of Uncle Titus's will which theyhad been reading over together. "He knew the executorship intowhich he gave it. "

Shall I stop here with them until the Easter tide, and finishtelling you how it all was?

There is a little bit about Bel Bree and Kate Sencerbox and theSchermans, which belongs somewhat earlier than that, --in those fewpleasant days when March was beguiling us to believe in the moreengaging of his double moods, and in the possibility of his behavingsweetly at the end, and going out after all like a lamb. 

We can turn back afterwards for that. I think you would like to hearabout the wedding. 

Does it never occur to you that this "going back and living up" in astory-book is a sign of a possibility that may be laid by in thedivine story-telling, for the things we have to hurry away from, andmiss of, now? It does to me. I know that _That_ can manage at leastas well as mine can. 

 * * * * *

Christopher Kirkbright and Desire Ledwith were married in thelibrary, where they had betrothed themselves; where Desire had feltall the sacredness of her life laid upon her; where she took up nowanother trust, that was only an outgrowth and expansion of thefirst, and for which she laid down nothing of its spirit and intent. 

Mrs. Ledwith and the sisters--Mrs. Megilp and Glossy--were there, ofcourse. 

Mrs. Megilp had said over to herself little imaginary speeches aboutthe homestead and old associations, and "Daisy's great love andreverence for all that touched the memory of her uncle, to whom shecertainly owed everything;" about the journey to New York, and thefew days they had to give there to Mr. Oldway's life-long friendand Desire's adviser, Mr. Marmaduke Wharne ("_Sir_ Marmaduke hewould be, everybody knew, if he had chosen to claim the Englishtitle that belonged to him"), --who was too infirm to come on to thewedding; and the necessity there was for them to go as fast aspossible to their estate in the country, --Hill-hope, --where Mr. Kirkbright was building "mills and a village and a perfect castle ofa house, and a private railroad and heaven knows what, "--all this toaccount, indirectly, for the quiet little ordinary ceremony, whichof course would otherwise have been at the Church of the HolyCommandments; or at least up-stairs in the long, stately olddrawing-room which was hardly ever used. 

But none of the people were there to whom any such little speecheshad to be made; nobody who needed any accounting to for its odditywas present at Desire Ledwith's wedding. 

Mr. Vireo officiated; there was something in his method and mannerwhich Mrs. Megilp decidedly objected to. 

It was "everyday, " she thought. "It didn't give you a feeling ofsanctity. It was just as if he was used to the Almighty, and didn'tmind! It seemed as if he were just mentioning things, in a quietway, to somebody who was right at his elbow. For her part, she likeda little lifting up. "

Hazel Ripwinkley heard her, and told Sylvie and Diana that "thatcame of having all your ideas of home in the seventh story; ofcourse you wanted an elevator to go up in. "

Desire Ledwith looked what she was, to-day; a grand, pure woman; afit woman to stand up beside a man like Christopher Kirkbright, infair white garments, and say the words that made her his wife. There was a beautiful, sweet majesty in her giving of herself. 

She did not disdain rich robes to-day, --she would give herself ather very best, with all generous and gracious outward sign. 

She wore a dress of heavy silk, long-trained; the cream-white folds, unspoiled by any frippery of lace, took, as they dropped around her, the shade and convolutions of a lily. Upon her bosom, and fasteningher veil, were deep green leaves that gave the contrast againstwhich a lily rests itself. Around her throat were links of frostedsilver, from which hung a pure plain silver cross; these were thegift of Hazel. The veil, of point, and rarely beautiful, fell backfrom her head, --lovely in its shape, and the simple wreathing of thedark, soft hair, --like a drift of water spray; not covering ormisting her all over, --only lending a touch of delicate suggestionto the pure, cool, graceful, flower-like unity of her whole air andapparel. 

"Desire is beautiful!" said Hazel Ripwinkley to her mother. "Shenever _stopped_ to be _pretty_!"

White calla-lilies, with their tall stems and great shadowy leaves, were in the Pompeiian vases on the mantel; in the India jars in thecorners below; in a large Oriental china bowl that was set upon theclosed desk on the library table, wheeled back for the first timethat anybody there had seen it so, against the wall. 

Hazel had hung a lily-wreath upon the carved back of Uncle Titus'schair, that no one might sit down in it, and placed it in the recessat Desire's left hand, as she should stand up to be married. 

"Will you two take each other, to love and dwell together, and to doGod's work, as He shall show and help you, so long as He keeps youboth in this his world? Will you, Desire Ledwith, take ChristopherKirkbright to be your wedded husband; will you, ChristopherKirkbright, take Desire Ledwith to be your wedded wife; and do youthereto mutually make your vows in the sight of God and before thiscompany?"

And they answered together, "We do. "

It was a promise for more than each other; it was alife-consecration. It was a gathering up and renewal of all that hadbeen holy in the resolves of either while they had lived apart; ajoining of two souls in the Lord. 

Hilary Vireo would not have dared to lead to perjury, by such words, a common man and woman. It was enough for such to ask if they wouldtake, and keep to, each other. 

Mrs. Megilp thought it was "so jumbled!" "If it was _her_ daughter, she should not think she was half married. "

Mrs. Megilp put it more shrewdly than she had intended. 

Desire and Christopher Kirkbright were very sure they had _not_ been"half married. " It was not the world's half marriage that they hadstood up there together for. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

KITCHEN CRAMBO. 

Elise Mokey and Mary Pinfall came in one evening to see Bel Bree andKate. 

There had been company to tea up-stairs, and the dishes were morethan usual, and the hour was a little later. 

Kate was putting up the last of the cooking utensils, and scaldingdown the big tin dish-pan and the sink. Bel was up-stairs. 

A table with a fresh brown linen cloth upon it, two white plates andcups, and two white _napkins_, stood out on the kitchen floor underthe gas-light. The dumb-waiter came rumbling down, with toast dish, tea and coffee pots, oyster dish and muffin plate. Several slices ofcream toast were left, and there was a generous remnant of nicelybrowned scalloped oysters. The half muffins, buttered hot, lookedtender and tempting still. 

Kate removed the dishes, sent up the waiter, and producing some nicelittle stone-ware nappies hot from the hot closet, transferred thefood from the china to these, laying it neatly together, andreplaced them in the closet, to wait till Bel should come. The teaand coffee she poured into small white pitchers, also hot inreadiness, and set them on the range corner. Then she washed theporcelain and silver in fresh-drawn scalding water, wiped and setthem safely on the long, white sideboard. There they gleamed in thegas-light, and lent their beauty to the brightness of the room, justas much as they would have done in actual using. 

"But what a lot of trouble!" said Elise Mokey. 

"Half a dozen dishes?" returned Kate. "Just three minutes' work; anda warm, fresh supper to make it worth while. Besides rubbing thesilver once in four weeks, instead of every Friday. A Yankee kitchenis a labor-saving institution, Mrs. Scherman says. "

Down came the waiter again, and down the stairs came Bel. Katebrought two more cups and plates and napkins. 

"Now, girls, come and take some tea, " she said, drawing up thechairs. 

Mrs. Scherman was not strict about "kitchen company. " She gave thegirls freely to understand that a friend or two happening in now andthen to see them, were as welcome to their down-stairs table as herown happeners in were to hers. "I know it is just the cosiness andthe worth-while of home and living, " she said. "And I'll trust the'now and then' of it to you. "

The hint of reasonable limit, and the word of trust, were betterthan lock and law. 

"How nice this is!" said Mary Pinfall, as Bel put a hot muffin, mellow with sweet butter, upon her plate. 

"If Matilda Meane only knew which side--and where--bread _was_buttered! She's living on 'relief, ' yet; and she buys cream-cakesfor dinner, and peanuts for tea! But, Bel, what were you up-stairsfor? I thought you was queen o' the kitchen!"

"Kate gives me her chance, sometimes. We change about, to makethings even. The best of it is in the up-stairs work, and waiting attable is the first-best chance of all. You see, you 'take it in atthe pores, ' as the man says in the play. "

"Tea and oysters?" said Elise, with an exclamatory interrogation. 

"You know better. See here, Elise. You don't half believe in thisexperiment, though you appreciate the muffins. But it isn't justloaves and fishes. There's a _living_ in the world, and a way toearn it, besides clothes, and bread and butter. If you want it, youcan choose your work nearest to where the living is. And whereverelse it may or mayn't be, it _is_ in houses, and round tea-tableslike this. "

"Other people's living, --for you to look at and wait on, " saidElise. "I like to be independent. "

"They can't keep it back from us, if they wanted to, " said Bel. "Andyou _can't_ be independent; there's no such thing in the world. It'sall give and take. "

"How about 'other folks' dust, ' Kate? Do you remember?"

"There's only one place, I guess, after all, " said Kate, "where youcan be shut up with nothing but your own dust!"

"Sharper than ever, Kate Sencerbox! I guess you _do_ get rubbed up!"

"Mr. Stalworth is there to-night, " said Bel. "He tells as goodstories as he writes. And they've been talking about Tyndall'sEssays, and the spectroscope. Mrs. Scherman asked questions that Idon't believe she'd any particular need of answers to, herself; andshe stopped me once when I was going out of the room for something. I knew by her look that she wanted me to hear. "

"If they want you to hear, why don't they ask you to sit down andhear comfortably?" said Elise Mokey, who had got her socialscience--with a _little_ warp in it--from Boffin's Bower. 

"Because it's my place to stand, at that time, " said Bel, stoutly;"and I shouldn't be comfortable out of my place. I haven't earned aplace like Mrs. Scherman's yet, or married a man that has earned itfor me. There are proper things for everybody. It isn't alwaysproper for Mrs. Scherman to sit down herself; or for Mr. Scherman tokeep his hat on. It's the knowing what's proper that sets peoplereally up; it _never_ puts them down!"

"There's one thing, " said Kate Sencerbox. "You might be parlorpeople all your days, and not get into everybody's parlor, either. There's an up-side and a down-side, all the way through, from top tobottom. The very best chance, for some people, if they only knew it, into some houses, would be up through the kitchen. "

"Never mind, " said Bel, putting sugar into Mary Pinfall's second cupof coffee. "I've got the notion of those lines, Kate, --I was goingto tell you, --into my head at last, I do believe. Red-hot iron makesa rainbow through a prism, like any light; but iron-_steam_ stops astripe of the color; and every burning thing does the sameway, --stops its own color when it shines through its own vapor;there! Let's hold on to that, and we'll go all over it another time. There's a piece about it in last month's Scribner. "

"What _are_ you talking about?" said Elise Mokey. 

"The way they've been finding out what the sun is made of. By theblack lines across the rainbow colors. It's a telegraph; they'vejust learned to read it. "

"But what do _you_ care?"

"I guess it's put there as much, for me as anybody, " said Bel. "Idon't think we should ever pick up such things, though, among thebasting threads at Fillmer & Bylles'. They're lying round here, loose; in books and talk, and everything. They're going to haveCrambo this evening, Kate. After these dishes are washed, I mean totry my hand at it. They were laughing about one Mrs. Scherman madelast time; they couldn't quite remember it. I've got it. I picked itup among the sweepings. I shall take it in to her by and by. "

Bel went to her work-basket as she spoke, and lifting up some calicopieces that lay upon it, drew from underneath two or three foldedbits of paper. 

"This is it, " she said, selecting one, and coming back and reading. 

(Do you see, let me ask in a hurried parenthesis, --how the tone ofthis household might easily have been a different one, and pervadeddifferently its auxiliary department? How, in that case, it mighthave been nothing better than a surreptitious scrap of silk orvelvet, that would have lain in Bel Bree's work-basket, with a storyabout it of how, and for what gayety, it had been made; a scrap outof a life that these girls could only gossip and wonder about, --notparticipate, and with self-same human privilege and faculty delightin; and yet the only scrap that--"out of the sweepings"--they couldhave picked up? _There_ is where, if you know it, dear parlorpeople, the up-side, by just living, can so graciously andgenerously be always helping the down. )

Bel read:--

"'What of that second great fire that was prophesied to come beforeChristmas?'--'Peaches. '"

"You've got to get that word into the answer, you see and it hasn'tthe very least thing to do with it! Now see:--

 'A prophet, after the event, No startling wisdom teaches; A second fire would scarce be sent To gratify the morbid bent That for fresh horror reaches. But, friend, do tell me why you went And mixed it up with _peaches_!'

It's great fun! And sometimes it's lovely, real poetry. Kate, you've got to give me some words and questions, I'm going to take toCrambo. "

"You'll have to mix it up with dish-washing, " said Elise. "Dish-washing and dust, --you can't get rid of them!"

"We do, though!" said Kate, alertly, jumping up and beginning tofetch the plates and cups from the dumb-waiter. "Here, Bel!" And shetossed three or four long, soft, clean towels over to her from theshelf beside the china. 

"And about that dusting, " she went on, after the noise of the hotwater rushing from the faucet was over, and she began dropping thethings carefully down through the cloud of steam into the great panfull of suds, and fishing them up again with a fork and a littlemop, --"about the dusting, I didn't finish. It's a work of art todust Mrs. Scherman's parlor. Don't you think there's a pleasure inhandling and touching up and setting out all those pretty things?Don't they get to be a part of our having, too? Don't I take as muchcomfort in her fernery as she does? I know every little green andwoolly loop that comes up in it. It's the only sense there is inthings. There's a picture there, of cows coming home, down a greenlane, and the sun striking through, and lighting up the gravel, anda patch of green grass, and the red hair on the cows' necks. Youthink you just catch it _coming_, suddenly, through the trees, whenyou first look up at it. And you go right into a little piece of thecountry, and stand there. Mr. Scherman doesn't own that lane, orthose cows, though he bought the picture. All he owns is what hegets by the signs; and I get that, every day, for the dusting! Thereare things to be earned and shared where people _live_, that youcan't earn in the sewing-shops. "

"That's what Bel said. Well, I'm glad you like it. Sha'n't I wipe upsome of those cups?"

"They're all done now, " said Bel, piling them together. 

In fifteen minutes after their own tea was ended, the kitchen was inorder again; the dumb-waiter, with its freight, sent up to the chinacloset; the brown linen cloth and the napkins folded away in thedrawer, and the white-topped table ready for evening use. Bel Breehad not been brought up in a New England farm-house, and seen hercapable stepmother "whew round, " to be hard put to it, now, overhalf a dozen cups and tumblers more or less. 

"We must go, " said Elise Mokey. "I've got the buttons to sew on tothose last night-gowns of Miss Ledwith's. I want to carry them backto-morrow. "

"You're lucky to sew for her, " said Bel. "But you see we all have todo for somebody, and I'd as lief it would be teacups, for my part, as buttons. "

Bel Bree's old tricks of rhyming were running in her head. This gameof Crambo--a favorite one with the Schermans and their bright littleintimate circle--stirred up her wits with a challenge. And underthe wits, --under the quick mechanic action of the servingbrain, --thoughts had been daily crowding and growing, for whichthese mere mental facilities were waiting, the ready instruments. 

I have said that Bel Bree was a born reformer and a born poet; andthat the two things go together. To see freshly and clearly, --todiscern new meaning in old living, --living as old as the world is;to find by instinct new and better ways of doing, the finding ofwhich is often only returning to the heart and simplicity of theold living before it _was_ old with social circumventions and neededto be fresh interpreted; these are the very heavenly gift and officeof illumination and leadership. Just as she had been made, and justwhere she had been put, --a girl with the questions of woman-lifebefore her in these days of restless asking and uncertainreply, --with her lot cast here, in this very crowding, fermenting, aspiring, great New England metropolis, in the hour of its mostchangeful and involved experience, --she brought the divine talismanof her nature to bear upon the nearest, most practical point of thewide tangle with which it came in contact. And around her in thisright place that she had found and taken, gathered and wroughtalready, by effluence and influence, forces and results that gatherand work about any nucleus of life, however deep hidden it may be ina surrounding deadness. All things, --creation itself, --as Asenathhad said, must begin in spots; and she and Bel Bree had begun a fairnew spot, in which was a vitality that tends to organiccompleteness, to full establishment, and triumphant growth. 

Upon Bel herself reflected quickly and surely the beneficent actionof this life. She was taking in truly, at every pore. How long wouldit have been before, out of the hard coarse limits in which her oneline of labor and association had first placed her, she would havecome up into such an atmosphere as was here, ready made for her tobreathe and abide in? To help make also; to stand at its practicalmainspring, and keep it possible that it should move on. 

The talk, the ideas of the day, were in her ears; the books, theperiodicals of the day were at hand, and free for her to availherself of. The very fun at Mrs, Scherman's tea-table was the sortof fun that can only sparkle out of culture. There was a grace thather aptness caught, and that was making a lady of her. 

"I'll give in, " said Elise Mokey, "that you're getting _style_;though I can't tell how it is either. It ain't in your calicodresses, nor the doing up of your hair. "

Perhaps it was a good deal in the very simplifying of these from theexaggerated imitations of the shop and street, as well as in thetone of all the rest with which these inevitably fell into harmony. 

But I want to tell you about Bel's kitchen Crambo. I want to showyou how what is in a woman, in heart and mind, springs up and showsitself, and may grow to whatever is meant for it, out of thequietest background of homely use. 

She brought out pencil and paper, and made Kate write question slipsand detached words. 

"I feel just tingling to try, " she said. "There's a kind of dancingin my head, of things that have been there ever so long. I believe Ishall make a poem to-night. It's catching, when you're predisposed;and it's partly the spring weather, and the sap coming up. 'Put aname to it, ' Katie! Almost anything will set me off. "

Kate wrote, on half a dozen scraps; then tossed them up, and pushedthem over for Bel to draw. 

"How do you like the city in the spring?" was the question; and theword, suggested by Kate's work at the moment, was, --"Hem. "

Bel put her elbows on the table, and her hands up against her ears. Her eyes shone, as they rested intent upon the two penciled bits. The link between them suggested itself quickly and faintly; she wasgrasping at an elusive something with all the fine little quiveringbrain-tentacles that lay hold of spiritual apprehension. 

Just at that moment the parlor bell rang. 

"I'll go, " she said. "You keep to your sewing. It's for the nursery, I guess, and I'll do my poem up there. "

She caught up pencil and paper, and the other fragment also, --Mrs. Scherman's own rhyme about the "peaches. "

Mrs. Scherman met her at the parlor door. 

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, " she said; "but the baby is stirring. Could you, or Kate, go up and try to hush her off again? If I go, she'll keep me. "

"I will, " said Bel. "Here is that 'Crambo' you were talking of attea, Mrs. Scherman. I kept it. Kate picked it up with the scraps. "

"O, thank you! Why, Bel, how your face shines!"

Bel hurried off, for Baby Karen "stirred" more emphatically at thismoment. Asenath went back into the parlor. 

"Here is that rhyme of mine, Frank, that you were asking for. Belfound it in the dust-pan. I believe she's writing rhymes herself. She tries out every idea she picks up among us. She had a pencil inher hand, and her face was brimful of something. Mr. Stalworth, if_I_ find anything in the dust-pan, I shall turn it over to you. 'First and Last' is bound to act up to its title, and transposeitself freely, according to Scripture. "

"'First and Last' will receive, under either head, whatever you willindorse, Mrs. Scherman, --and the last not least, "--returned thebenign and brilliant editor. 

Bel had a knack with a baby. She knew enough to understand thatsmall human beings have a good many feelings and experiencesprecisely like those of large ones. She knew that if _she_ woke upin the night, she should not be likely to fall asleep again ifpulled up out of her bed into the cold; nor if she were very muchpatted and talked to. So she just took gently hold of the upperedge of the small, fine blanket in which Baby Karen was wrapped, andby it drew her quietly over upon her other side. The little limbsfell into a new place and sensation of rest, as larger limbs do;little Karen put off waking up and crying for one delicious instant, as anybody would; and in that instant sleep laid hold of her again. She was safe, now, for another hour or two, at least. 

Mrs. Scherman said she had really never had so little trouble with ababy as with this one, who had nobody especially appointed to makeout her own necessity by constant "tending. "

Bel did not go down-stairs again. She could do better here than withKate sitting opposite, aware of all her scratches and poeticalpredicaments. 

An hour went by. Bel was hardly equal yet to five-minute Crambo; andbesides, she was doing her best; trying to put something clearlyinto syllables that said itself, unsyllabled, to her. 

She did not hear Mrs. Scherman when she came up the stairs. She hadjust read over to herself the five completed stanzas of her poem. 

It had really come. It was as if a violet had been born to actualbloom from the thought, the intangible vision of one. She wonderedat the phrasing, marveling how those particular words had come andranged themselves at her call. She did not know how she had done it, or whether she herself had done it at all. She began almost to thinkshe must have read it before somewhere. Had she just picked it upout of her memory? Was it a borrowing, a mimicry, a patchwork?

But it was very pretty, very sweet! It told her own feelings over toher, with more that she had not known she had felt or perceived. She read it again from beginning to end in a whisper. Her mouth wasbright with a smile and her eyes with tears when she had ended. 

Asenath Scherman with her light step came in and stood beside her. 

"Won't you tell _me_?" the sweet, gracious voice demanded. 

Bel Bree looked up. 

"I thought I'd try, in fun, " she said, "and it came in realearnest. "

Asenath forgot that the face turned up to hers, with the smile andthe tears and the color in it, was the face of her hired servant. Alovely soul, all alight with thought and gladness, met her throughit. 

She bent down and touched Bel's forehead with her lady-lips. 

Bel put the little scribbled paper in her hand, and ran away, up-stairs. 

"Will you give it to me, Bel, and let me do what I please withit?"--Mrs. Scherman went to Bel and asked next day. 

Bel blushed. She had been a little frightened in the morning tothink of what had happened over night. She could not quite recollectall the words of her verses, and she wondered if they were really aspretty as she had fancied in the moment of making them. 

All she could answer was that Mrs. Scherman was "very kind. "

"Then you'll trust me?"

And Bel, wondering very much, but too shy to question, said shewould. 

A few days after that, Asenath called her up-stairs. The postman hadrung five minutes before, and Kate had carried up a note. 

"We were just in time with our little spring song, " she said. "_Blue_birds have to sing early; at least a month beforehand. Seehere! Is this all right?" and she put into Bel's hand a littleroughish slip of paper, upon which was printed:--

 "THE CITY IN SPRING. 

 "It is not much that makes me glad: I hold more than I ever had. The empty hand may farther reach, And small, sweet signs all beauty teach. 

 "I like the city in the spring, It has a hint of everything. Down in the yard I like to see The budding of that single tree. 

 "The little sparrows on the shed; The scrap of soft sky overhead; The cat upon the sunny wall; There's so much _meant_ among them all. 

 "The dandelion in the cleft A broken pavement may have left, Is like the star that, still and sweet, Shines where the house-tops almost meet. 

 "I like a little; all the rest Is somewhere; and our Lord knows best How the whole robe hath grace for them Who only touch the garment's hem. "

At the bottom, in small capitals, was the signature, --BELBREE. 

"I don't understand, " said Bel, bewildered. "What is it? Who didit?"

"It is a proof, " said Mrs. Scherman. "A proof-sheet. And here isanother kind of proof that came with it. Your spring song is goinginto the May number of 'First and Last. '"

Mrs. Scherman reached out a slip of paper, printed and filled in. 

It was a publisher's check for fifteen dollars. 

"You see I'm very unselfish, Bel, " she said. "I'm going to work thevery way to lose you. "

Bel's eyes flashed up wide at her. 

The way to lose her! Why, nobody had ever got such a hold upon herbefore! The printed verses and the money were wonderful surprises, but they were not the surprise that had gone straight into herheart, and dropped a grapple there. Mrs. Scherman had believed inher; and she had _kissed_ her. Bel Bree would never forget that, though she should live to sing songs of all the years. 

"When you can earn money like this, of course I cannot expect tokeep you in my kitchen, " said Mrs. Scherman, answering her look. 

"I might never do it again in all my life, " sensible Bel replied. "And I hope you'll keep me somewhere. It wouldn't be any reason, Ithink, because one little green leaf has budded out, for a plant tosay that it would not be kept growing in the ground any longer. Icouldn't go and set up a poem-factory, without a home and a livingfor the poems to grow up out of. I'm pleased I can write!" sheexclaimed, brimming up suddenly with the pleasure she had but halfstopped to realize. "I _thought_ I could. But I know very well thatthe best and brightest things I've ever thought have come into myhead over the ironing-board or the bread-making. Even at home. And_here_, --why, Mrs. Scherman, it's _living_ in a poem here! And ifyou can be in the very foundation part of such living, you're in therealest place of all, I think. I don't believe poetry can be skimmedoff the top, till it has risen up from the bottom!"

"But you _ought_ to come into my parlor, among my friends! Peoplewould be glad to get you into their parlors, by and by, when youhave made the name you can make. I've no business to keep you down. And you don't know yourself. You won't stay. "

"Just please wait and see, " said Bel. "I haven't a great deal ofexperience in going about in parlors; but I don't think I shouldmuch like it, --_that_ way. I'd rather keep on being the woman thatmade the name, than to run round airing it. I guess it would keepbetter. "

"I see I can't advise you. I shouldn't dare to meddle withinspirations. But I'm proud, and glad, Bel; and you're my friend!The rest will all work out right, somehow. "

"Thank you, dear Mrs. Scherman, " said Bel, her voice full offeeling. "And--if you please--will you have the grouse broiledto-day, or roasted with bread-sauce?"

At that, the two young women laughed out, in each other's faces. 

Bel stopped first. 

"It isn't half so funny as it sounds, " she said. "It's part of thepoetry; the rhyme's inside; it is to everything. We're human people:that's the way we get it. "

And Bel went away, and stuffed the grouse, and grated herbread-crumbs, and sang over her work, --not out loud with her lips, but over and over to a merry measure in her mind, --

 "Everything comes to its luck some day: I've got chickens! What will folks say?"

"I'm solving more than I set out to do, " Sin Scherman said to herhusband. "Westover was nothing to it. I know one thing, though, thatI'll do next. "

"_One_ thing is reasonable, " said Frank. "What is it?"

"Take her to York with us, this summer. Row out on the river withher. Sit on the rocks, and read and sew, and play with the children. Show her the ocean. She never saw it in all her life. "

"How wonderful is 'one thing' in the mind of a woman! It is agerm-cell, that holds all things. "

"Thank you, my dear. If I weren't helping you to soup, I'd get upand make you a courtesy. But what a grand privilege it is for a manto live with a woman, after he has found that out! And how cosmicala woman feels herself when her capacity is recognized!"

Mrs. Scherman has told her plan to Bel. Kate also has a plan for thetwo summer months in which the household must be broken up. 

"I mean to see the mountains myself, " she said, boldly. "I don't seewhy I shouldn't go to the country. There are homes there that wanthelp, as well as here. I can get my living where the living goes. That's just where it fays in, different from other work. Bel knowsplaces where I could get two dollars a week just for a littlehelping round; or I could even afford to pay board, and buy a littletime for resting. I shall have clothes to make, and fix over. Italways took all I could earn, before, to keep me from hand to mouth. I never saw six months' wages all together, in my life. I feel realrich. "

"I will pay you half wages for the two months, " said Mrs. Scherman, "if you will come back to me in September. And next year, if we allkeep together, it will be your turn, if you like, to go with me. "

Kate feels the spring in her heart, knowing that she is to have apiece of the summer. The horse-chestnut tree in the yard is not amockery to her. She has a property in every promise that its greatbrown buds are making. 

"The pleasant weather used to be like the spring-suits, " she said. "Something making up for other people. Nothing to me, except morework, with a little difference. Now, somewhere, the hills aregetting green for me! I'm one of the meek, that inherit the earth!"

"You are earning a _whole_ living, " Bel said, reverting to herfavorite and comprehensive conclusion. 

"And yet, --_somebody_ has got to run machines, " said Kate. 

"But _all_ the bodies haven't. That is the mistake we have beenmaking. That keeps the pay low, and makes it horrid. There's a_little_ more room now, where you and I were. Anyhow, we Yankeegirls have a right to our turn at the home-wheels. If we had been ascute as we thought we were, we should have found it out before. "

Bel Bree has written half a dozen little poems at odd times, sincethe rhyme that began her fortune. Mr. Stalworth says they arestamped with her own name, every one; breezy, and freshly delicious. For that very reason, of course, people will not believe, when theysee the name in print, that it is a real name. It is so much easierto believe in little tricks of invention, than in things that simplycome to pass by a wonderful, beautiful determination, because theybelong so. They think the poem is a trick of invention, too. Theythink that of almost everything that they see in print. Theirincredulity is marvelously credulous! There is no end to that whichmortals may contrive; but the limit is such a measurable one to thatwhich can really be! We slip our human leash so easily, and getoutside of all creation, and the "Divinity that shapes our ends, " toshape and to create, ourselves!

For my part, the more stories I write out, the more I learn how, even in fiction, things happen and take relation according to somehidden reality; that we have only to stand by, and see the shiftingsand combinings, and with what care and honesty we may, to put themdown. 

If there is anything in this story that you cannot credit, --if youcannot believe in such a relation, and such a friendship, and such amutual service, as Asenath Scherman's and Bel Bree's, --if you cannotbelieve that Bel Bree may at this moment be ironing Mrs. Scherman'sdamask table-cloths, and as the ivy leaf or morning-glory patterncomes out under the polish, some beautiful thought in her takes lineand shade under the very rub of labor, and shows itself as it wouldhave done no other way, and that by and by it will shine on aprinted page, made substantive in words, --then, perhaps, you haveonly not lived quite long--or deep--enough. There is a more real andperfect architecture than any that has ever got worked out in stone, or even sketched on paper. 

Neither Boston, nor the world, is "finished" yet. There may be manya burning and rebuilding, first. Meanwhile, we will tell what we cansee. 

And that word sends me back to Bel herself, of whom this presentseeing and telling can read and recite no further. 

Are you dissatisfied to leave her here? Is it a pity, you think, that the little glimmer of romance in Leicester Place meant nothing, after all? There are blind turns in the labyrinth of life. Would youhave our Bel lost in a blind turn?

The _right and the wrong_ settled it, as they settle all things. The right and the wrong are the reins with which we are guided intothe very best, sooner or later; yes, --sooner _and_ later. If we willgo God's way, we shall have manifold more in this present world, andin the world to come life everlasting. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

WHAT NOBODY COULD HELP. 

Mr. And Mrs. Kirkbright went away to New York on the afternoon oftheir marriage. 

Miss Euphrasia went up to Brickfields. Sylvie Argenter was to followher on Thursday. It had been settled that she should remain withDesire, who, with her husband, would reach home on Saturday. 

It was a sweet, pleasant spring day, when Sylvie Argenter, with somelast boxes and packages, took the northward train for Tillington. 

She was going to a life of use and service. She was going into ahome; a home that not only made a fitting place for her in it, andwas perfect in itself, but that, with noble plan and enlargement, found way to reach its safety and benediction, and the contagion ofits spirit, over souls that would turn toward it, come under itsrule, and receive from it, as their only shelter and salvation; overa neighborhood that was to be a planting of Hope, --a heavenlyfeudality. 

Sylvie's own dreams of a possible future for herself were onlypurple lights upon a far horizon. 

It seemed a very great way off, any bringing to speech and resultthe mute, infrequent signs of what was yet the very real, secretstrength and joy and hope of her girl's heart. 

She had a thought of Rodney Sherrett that she was sure she had aright to. That was all she wanted, yet. Of course, Rodney was notready to marry; he was too young; he was not much older than shewas, and that was very young for a man. She did not even think aboutit; she recognized the whole position without thinking. 

She remembered vividly the little way-station in Middlesex, where hehad bought the ferns, that day in last October; she thought of himas the train ran slowly alongside the platform at East Keaton. Shewondered if he would not sometimes come up for a Sunday; to spend itwith his uncle and his Aunt Euphrasia. It was a secret gladness toher that she was to be where he partly, and very affectionately, belonged. She was sure she should see him, now and then. Her lifelooked pleasant to her, its current setting alongside one current, certainly, of his. 

She sat thinking how he had come up behind her that day in thedrawing-room car, and of all the happy nonsense they had begun totalk, in such a hurry, together. She was lost in the imagination ofthat old surprise, living it over again, remembering how it hadseemed when she suddenly knew that it was he who touched hershoulder. Her thought of him was a backward thought, with a sense init of his presence just behind her again, perhaps, if she shouldturn her head, --which she would not do, for all the world, to breakthe spell, --when suddenly, --face to face, --through the car-window, she awoke to his eyes and smile. 

"How did you know?" she asked, as he came in and took the seatbeside her. Then she blushed to think what she had taken forgranted. 

"I didn't, " he answered; "except as a Yankee always knows things, and a cat comes down upon her feet. I am taking a week's holiday, and I began it two days sooner, that I might run up to see AuntEffie before I go down to Boston to meet my father. The steamerwill be due by Saturday. It is my first holiday since I went toArlesbury. I'm turning into a regular old Gradgrind, Miss Sylvie. "

Sylvie smiled at him, as if a regular old Gradgrind were just themost beautiful and praiseworthy creature a bright, hearty youngfellow could turn into. 

"You'd better not encourage me, " he said, shaking his head. "Itwould be a dreadful thing if I should get sordid, you know. I'm notapt to stop half way in anything; and I'm awfully in earnest nowabout saving up money. "

He had to stop there. He was coming close to motives, and these hecould say nothing about. 

But a sudden stop, in speech as in music, is sometimes moresignificant than any stricken note. 

Sylvie did not speak at once, either. She was thinking whatdifferent reasons there might be, for spending or saving; how theremight be hardest self-denial in most uncalculating extravagance. 

When she found that they were growing awkwardly quiet, she said, --"Isuppose the right thing is to remember that there is neither virtuenor blame in just saving or not saving. "

"My father lost a good deal by the fire, " said Rodney. "More than hethought, at first. He is coming home sooner, in consequence. I'mvery glad I did not go abroad. I should have been just whirled outof everything, if I had. As it is, I'm in a place; I've got a leverplanted. It's no time now for a fellow to look round for afoothold. "

"You like Arlesbury?" asked Sylvie. "I think it must be a lovelyplace. "

"Why?" said Rodney, taken by surprise. 

"From the piece of it you sent me in the winter. "

"Oh! those ferns? I'm glad you liked them. There's something niceand plucky about those little things, isn't there?"

It was every word he could think of to reply. He had a provokedperception that was not altogether nice and plucky, of himself, justthen. But that was because the snow was still unlifted from him. Hewas under a burden of coldness and constraint. Somebody ought tocome and take it away. It was time. The spring, that would not bekept back, was here. 

He had not said a word to Sylvie about her mother. How could hespeak of what had left her alone in the world, and not say that hewanted to make a new world for her? That he had longed for itthrough all her troubles, and that this, and nothing else, was whathe was keeping his probation for?

So they came to Tillington at last, and there had been between themonly little drifting talk of the moment, that told nothing. 

After all, do we not, for a great part, drift through life so, giving each other crumbs off the loaf that will only seem to breakin that paltry way? And by and by, when the journey is over, do wenot wonder that we could not have given better and more at a time?Yet the crumbs have the leaven and the sweetness of the loaf inthem; the commonest little wayside things are charged full ofwhatever is really within us. God's own love is broken small for us. "This is my Body, broken for you. "

If life were nothing but what gets phrased and substanced, the worldmight as well be rolled up and laid away again in darkness. 

Sylvie had a handful of checks; Rodney took them from her, and wentout to the end of the platform to find the boxes. Two vehicles hadbeen driven over from Hill-hope to meet her; an open spring-wagonfor the luggage, and a chaise-top buggy to convey herself. 

Trunks, boxes, and the great padlocked basket were speedily piledupon the wagon; then the two men who had come jumped up together tothe front seat of the same, and Sylvie saw that it was left for herand Rodney to proceed together for the seven-mile drive. 

Rodney came back to her with an alert and felicitous air. How couldhe help the falling out of this? Of course he could not ride uponthe wagon and leave a farm-boy to charioteer Sylvie. 

"Shall you be afraid of me?" he asked, as he tossed in his valisefor a footstool, and carefully bestowed Sylvie's shawl against theback, to cushion her more comfortably. "Do you suppose we can manageto get over there without running down a bake-shop?"

"Or a cider-mill, " said Sylvie, laughing. "You will have to adaptyour exploits to circumstances. "

Up and down, through that beautiful, wild hill-country, the browncountry roadway wound; now going straight up a pitch that looked asperpendicular as you approached it as the side of a barn; thenflinging itself down such a steep as seemed at every turn to come toa blank end, and to lead off with a plunge, into air; thewater-bars, ridged across at rough intervals, girding it to thebosom of the mountain, and breaking the accelerated velocity of thedescending wheels. Sylvie caught her breath, more than once; but shedid it behind shut lips, with only a dilatation of her nostrils. Shewas so afraid that Rodney might think she doubted his driving. 

The woods were growing tender with fretwork of swelling buds, andbeautiful with bright, young hemlock-tips; there was a twitteringand calling of birds all through the air; the first little breathsand ripples of spring music before the whole gay, summer burst ofsong gushed forth. 

The fields lay rich in brown seams, where the plough had newlyfurrowed them. Farmers were throwing in seed of barley and springwheat. The cattle were standing in the low sunshine, in barn-doorsand milking-yards. Sheep were browsing the little buds on thepasture bushes. 

The April day would soon be over. To-morrow might bring a cold wind, perhaps; but the winter had been long and hard; and after such, webelieve in the spring pleasantness when it comes. 

"What a little way brings us into a different world!" said Sylvie asthey rode along. "Just back there in the city, you can hardlybelieve in these hills. "

Her own words reminded her. 

"I suppose we shall find, sometime, " she said gently, "that theother world is only a little way out. "

"I've been very sorry for you, Sylvie, " said Rodney. "I hope youknow that. "

His slight abruptness told her how the thought had been ready andpressing for speech, underneath all their casual talk. 

And he had dropped the prefix from her name. 

He had not meant to, but he could not go back and put it on. It wasanother little falling out that he could not help. The things hecould not help were the most comfortable. 

"Mother would have had a very hard time if she had lived, " saidSylvie. "I am glad for her. It was a great deal better. And it cameso tenderly! I had dreaded sickness and pain for her. "

"It has been all hard for you. I hope it will be easier now. I hopeit will always be easier. "

"I am going to live with Mrs. Kirkbright, " said Sylvie. 

"Tell me about my new aunt, " said Rodney. 

Sylvie was glad to go on about Desire, about the wedding, aboutHill-hope, and the plans for living there. 

"I think it will be almost like heaven, " she said. "It will be homeand happiness; all that people look forward to for themselves. Andyet, right alongside, there will be the work and the help. It willopen right out into it, as heaven does into earth. Mr. Kirkbright isa grand man. "

"Yes. He's one of the ten-talent people. But I suppose we can all dosomething. It is good to have some little one-horse teams for thelight jobs. "

"I never could _be_ Desire, " said Sylvie. "But I am glad, to workwith her. I am glad to live one of the little lives. "

There would always be a boy and girl simpleness between these two, and in their taking of the world together. And that is good for theworld, as well. It cannot be all made of mountains. If all were highand grand, it would be as if nothing were. Heaven itself is notbuilt like that. 

"There goes some of Uncle Christopher's stuff, I suppose, " saidRodney, a while afterward, as they came to the top of a long ascent. He pointed to a great loaded wain that stood with its three powerfulhorses on the crest of a forward hill. It was piled high up withtiling and drain-pipe, packed with straw. The long cylinders showedtheir round mouths behind, like the mouths of cannon. 

"A nice cargo for these hills, I should think. "

"They have brakes on the wheels, of course, " said Sylvie. "And thehorses are strong. That must be for the new houses. They will soonmake all those things here. Mr. Kirkbright has large contracts forbrick, already. He has been sending down specimens. They say theclay is of remarkably fine quality. "

"We shall have to get by that thing, presently, " said Rodney. "Ihope the horse will take it well. "

"Are you trying to frighten me?" asked Sylvie, smiling. "I'm used tothese roads. I have spent half a summer here, you know. "

But Rodney knew that it was the "being used" that would be thequestion with the horse. He doubted if the little country beast hadever seen drain-pipe before. He had once driven Red Squirrel past asteam boiler that was being transported on a truck. He rememberedthe writhe with which the animal had doubled himself, and the sidespring he had made. It was growing dusk, now, also. They were notmore than a mile from Brickfield Basin, and the sun was droppingbehind the hills. 

"I shall take you out, and lead him by, " he said. "I've no wish togive you another spill. We won't go on through life in that way. "

It was quite as well that they had only another mile to go. Rodneywas keeping his promise, but the thread of it was wearing very thin. 

They rode slowly up the opposite slope, then waited, in their turn, on the top, to give the team time to reach the next level. 

They heard it creak and grind as it wore heavily down, taking upthe whole track with careful zigzag tackings; they could see, as itturned, how the pole stood sharp up between the shoulders of thestraining wheel horses, as their haunches pressed out either way, and their backs hollowed, and their noses came together, and thedriver touched them dexterously right and left upon their flanks tobring them in again. 

"Uncle Kit has a good teamster there, " said Rodney. 

Just against the foot of the next rise, they overtook him. The graynag that Rodney drove pricked his ears and stretched his head up, and began to take short, cringing steps, as they drew near theformidable, moving mass. 

Rodney jumped out, and keeping eye and hand upon him, helped downSylvie also. Then he threw the long reins over his arm, and took thehorse by the bridle. 

The animal made a half parenthesis of himself, curving skittishly, and watching jealously, as he went by the frightsome pile. 

"You see it was as well not to risk it, " Rodney said, as Sylvie cameup with him beyond. "He would have had us down there among theblackberry vines. He's all right now. Will you get in?"

"Let us walk on to the top, " said Sylvie. "It is so pleasant to feelone's feet upon the ground. "

They kept on, accordingly; the slow team rumbling behind them. Atthe top, was a wide, beautiful level; oak-trees and maples grewalong the roadside, and fields stretched out along a table land toright and left. Before them, lying in the golden mist of twilight, was a sea of distant hill-tops, --purple and shadow-black and gray. The sky bent down its tender, mellow sphere, and touched themsoftly. 

Sylvie stood still, with folded hands, and Rodney stopped thehorse. A rod or two back, just at the edge of the level, the loadedwagon had stopped also. 

"Hills, --and the sunset, --and stillness, " said Sylvie. "They alwaysseem like heaven. "

Rodney stood with his right hand, from which fell the looped reins, reached up and resting on the saddle. 

"I never saw a sight like that before, " he said. 

While they looked, the evening star trembled out through the clearsaffron, above the floating mist that hung among the hills. 

"O, they never can help it!" exclaimed Sylvie, suddenly. 

"Help it? Who?" asked Rodney, wondering. 

"Beginning again. Growing good. Those people who are coming up toHill-hope. There's a man coming, with his wife; a young man, who gotinto bad ways, and took to drinking. Mr. Vireo has been watching andadvising him so long! He married them, five years ago, and they havetwo little children. The wife is delicate; she has worried througheverything. She has taken in working-men's washing, to earn therent; and he had a good trade, too; he was a plasterer. He hasreally tried; but it was no use in the city; it was all around him. And he lost character and chances; the bosses wouldn't have him, hesaid. When he was trying most, sometimes, they wouldn't believe inhim; and then there would come idle days, and he would meet oldcompanions, and get led off, and then there would be weeks ofmisery. Now he is coming away from it all. There is a little cottageready, with a garden; the little wife is so happy! He _can't_ get ithere; and he will have work at his trade, and will learnbrickmaking. Do you know, I think a place like this, where suchwork is doing, is almost better than heaven, where it is all done, Rodney!"

She spoke his name, as he had hers a little while ago, withoutthinking. He turned his face toward her with a look which kindledinto sudden light at that last word, but which had warmed allthrough before with the generous pathos of what she told him, andthe earnest, simple way of it. 

"I've found out that even in our own affairs, _making_ is betterthan ready-made, " he said. "This last year has been the best year ofmy life. If my father had given me fifty thousand dollars, and toldme I might--have all my own way with it, --I shouldn't have thankedhim as much to-day, as I do. But I wish that steamer were in, and hewere here! He has got something which belongs to me, and I want himto give it back. "

After enunciating this little riddle, Rodney changed hands with hisreins, and faced about toward the vehicle, reaching his other toSylvie. 

"You had better jump in, " he said; and there was a tone and aninflection at the pause, as if another word, that would have beentenderly spoken, hung refrained upon it. "We must get well ahead ofthat old catapult. "

They drove on rapidly along the level; then they came to the long, gradual slope that brought them down into Brickfields. 

To the right, just before reaching the Basin, a turn struck off thatskirted round, partly ascending again until it fell into the ConeHill road and so led direct to Hill-hope. 

They could see the buildings, grouped picturesquely against rocksand pines and down against the root of the green hill. They had allbeen painted of a light gray or slate color, with red roofs. 

They passed on, down into the shadows, where trees were thick anddark. A damp, rich smell of the woods was about them, --a differentatmosphere from the breath of the hill-top. They heard the tinkle oflittle unseen streams, and the far-off, foaming plunge of thecascades. 

Suddenly, there came a sound behind them like the rush of anavalanche; a noise that seemed to fill up all the space of the air, and to gather itself down toward them on every side alike. 

"O, Rodney, turn!" cried Sylvie. 

But there was a horrible second in which he could not know how toturn. 

He did not stop to look, even. He sprang, with one leap, he knew nothow, --over step or dasher, --to the horse's head. He seized him bythe bridle, and pulled him off the road, into a thicket ofbush-branches, in a hollow rough with stones. 

The wheels caught fast; Rodney clung to the horse, who tried torear; Sylvie sat still on the seat sloped with the sharp cant of thehalf-overturned vehicle. 

There was only a single instant. Down, with the awful roar of anearthquake, came crashing swift and headlong, passing within ahand's breadth of their wheel, the enormous, toppling, loaded team;its three strong horses in a wild, plunging gallop; heels, heads, haunches, one dark, frantic, struggling tumble and rush. An instantmore, of paralyzed breathlessness, and then a thundering fall, thatmade the ground quiver under their feet; then a stillness moresuddenly dreadful than the noise. A great cloud of dust rose slowlyup into the air, and showed dimly in the dusky light. 

The gray horse quieted, cowed by the very terror and the hush. Sylvie slipped down from the tilting buggy, and found her feet upona stone. 

Rodney reached out one hand, and she came to his side. He put hisarm around her, and drew her close. 

"My darling little Sylvie!" he said. 

She turned her face, and leaned it down upon his shoulder. 

"O, Rodney, the poor man is killed!"

But as they stood so, a figure came toward them, over the highwater-bar below which they had stopped. 

"For God's sake, is anybody hurt?" asked a strange, hoarse voicewith a tremble in it. 

"Nobody!"

"O, are you the driver? I thought you must be killed! Howthankful!"--And Sylvie sobbed on Rodney's shoulder. 

"Can I help you?" asked the man. 

"No, look after your horses. " And the man went on, down into thedust, where the wreck was. 

"We'll go, and send help to you, " shouted Rodney. 

Then he backed the gray horse carefully out upon the road again. 

"Will you dare get in?" he asked of Sylvie. 

"I do not think we had better. How can we tell how it is down there?We may not be able to pass. "

"It is below the turn, I think. But come, --we'll walk. "

He took the bridle again, and gave his other hand to Sylvie. Holdingeach other so, they went along. 

When they came to the turn, they could see, just beyond the mass ofruin; the great wagon, three wheels in the air, --one rolled awayinto the ditch; the broken freight, flung all across the road, andlying piled about the wagon. One horse was dead, --buried underneath. Another lay motionless, making horrid moans. The teamster wasfreeing the third--the leader, which stood safe--from chains andharness. 

Leading him, the man came up with Rodney and Sylvie, as they turnedinto the side road. 

"I knew you were just ahead, when it happened. I thought you weregone for certain. "

"There was a Mercy over us all!" said Sylvie, with sweet, tremulousintenseness. 

The rough man lifted his hand to his bare head. Rodney claspedtighter the little fingers that lay within his own. 

"What did happen?" he asked. 

"The brake-rod broke; the pole-strap gave way; it was all in a heapin a minute. I saw it was no use; I had to jump. And then I thoughtof you. I'm glad you saw me, sir. You know I was sober. "

"I know you were sober, and managing most skillfully. I had beensaying that. "

"Thank you, sir. It's an awful job. "

"Hark!" said Sylvie. "There's the man with the trunks. "

"I forgot all about him, " said Rodney. 

"That's a fact, " said the teamster. "Turn down here, to let him by. Hallo!"

"Hallo! Come to grief?"

"We just have, then. Go ahead, will you, and bring back--_somethingto shoot with_, " he added, in a lower tone, and comingclose, --remembering Sylvie. "I had a crow-bar, but it's lost in thejumble. I'll stay here, now. "

The wagon drove by, rapidly. The man led his horse down by the wall, to wait there. Sylvie and Rodney, hand in hand, walked on. 

Sylvie shivered with the horrible excitement; her teeth chattered; anervous trembling was taking hold of her. 

Rodney put his arm round her again. "Don't tremble, dear, " he said. 

"O, Rodney! What were we kept alive for?"

"For each other, " whispered Rodney. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

HILL-HOPE. 

They were sitting together, the next day, on the rock below thecascade, in the warm sunshine. 

Aunt Euphrasia knew all about it; Aunt Euphrasia had let them godown there together. She was as content as Rodney in the thing thatcould not now be helped. 

"I've broken my promise, " said Rodney to Sylvie. "I agreed with myfather that I wouldn't be engaged for two years. "

"Why, we aren't engaged, --yet, --are we?" asked Sylvie, withbewitching surprise. 

"I don't know, " said Rodney, his old, merry, mischievous twinklecoming in the corners of his eyes, as he flashed them up at her. "Ithink we've got the refusal of each other!"

"Well. We'll keep it so. We'll wait. You shall not break any promisefor me, " said Sylvie, still sweetly obtuse. 

"I'm satisfied with that way of looking at it, " said Rodney, laughing out. "Unless--you mean to be as cunning about everythingelse, Sylvie. In that case, I don't know; I'm afraid you'd bedangerous. "

"I wonder if I'm always going to be dangerous to you, " said Sylvie, gravely, taking up the word. "I always get you into an accident. "

"When we take matters quietly, the way they were meant to go, weshall leave off being hustled, I suppose, " said Rodney, just asgravely. "There has certainly been intent in the way we havebeen--thrown together!"

"I don't believe you ought to say such things, Rodney, --yet! You aretalking just as if"--

"We weren't waiting. O, yes! I'm glad you invented that littletemporary arrangement. But it's a difficult one to carry out. Ishall be gladder when my father comes. I'm tired of beingCasabianca. I don't see how we can talk at all. Mayn't I tell youabout a little house there is at Arlesbury, with a square porch anda three-windowed room over it, where anybody could sit andsew--among plants and things--and see all up and down the road, toand from the mills? A little brown house, with turf up to thedoor-stone, and only a hundred dollars a year? Mayn't I tell you howmuch I've saved up, and how I like being a real working man with asalary, just as you liked being one of the Other Girls?"

"Yes; you may tell me that; that last, " said Sylvie, softly. "Youmay tell me anything you like about yourself. "

"Then I must tell you that I never should have been good foranything if it hadn't been for you. "

"O, dear!" said Sylvie. "I don't see how we _can_ talk. It keepscoming back again. I've had all those plants kept safe that you sentme, Rodney, " she began, briskly, upon a fresh tack. 

"Those very ivies? Ah, the little three-windowed room!"

"Rodney! I didn't think you were so unprincipled!" said Sylvie, getting up. "I wouldn't have come down here, if I had known therewas a promise! I shall certainly help you keep it. I shall go away. "

She turned round, and met a gentleman coming down along the slope ofthe smooth, broad rock. 

"Mr. Sherrett!--Rodney!"

Rodney sprang to his feet. 

"My boy! How are you?"

"Father! When--how--did you come?"

"I came to Tillington by the late train last night, and have justdriven over. I went to Arlesbury yesterday. "

"But the steamer! She wasn't due till Sunday. You sailed the_ninth_?"

"No. I exchanged passages with a friend who was detained in London. I came by the Palmyra. But you don't let me speak to Sylvie. "

He pronounced her name with a kind emphasis; he had turned and takenher hand, after the first grasp of Rodney's. 

"Father, I've broken my promise; but I don't think anybody couldhave helped it. You couldn't have helped it yourself. "

"I've seen Aunt Euphrasia. I've been here almost an hour. I havethanked God that nothing is broken _but_ the promise, Rodney; and Ithink the term of that was broken only because the intent had beenso faithfully kept. I'm satisfied with _one_ year. I believe all therest of your years will be safer and better for having this littlelady to promise to, and to help you keep your word. "

And he bent down his splendid gray head, with the dark eyes lookingsoftly at her, and kissed Sylvie on the forehead. 

Sylvie stood still a moment, with a very lovely, happy, shy lookupon her downcast face; then she lifted it up quickly, with a clear, earnest expression. 

"I hope you think, Mr. Sherrett, --I hope you feel sure, "--she said, "that I wouldn't have been engaged to Rodney while there was apromise?"

"Not more than you could possibly help, " said Mr. Sherrett, smiling. 

"Not the very least little bit!" said Sylvie, emphatically; and thenthey all three laughed together. 

 * * * * *

I don't know why everything should have happened as it did, just inthese few days; except--that this book was to be all printed by thetwenty-third of April, and it all had to go in. 

That very afternoon there came a letter to Miss Euphrasia from Mr. Dakie Thayne. 

He had found Mr. Farron Saftleigh in Dubuque; he had pressed himclose upon the matter of his transactions with Mrs. Argenter; he hadobtained a hold upon him in some other business that had come to hisknowledge in the course of his inquiries at Denver: and the resulthad been that Mr. Farron Saftleigh had repurchased of him therailroad bonds and the deeds of Donnowhair land, to the amount offive thousand dollars; which sum he inclosed in his own cheekpayable to the order of Sylvia Argenter. 

Knowing, morally, some things that I have not had opportunity toinvestigate in detail, and cannot therefore set down as verities, --Iam privately convinced that this little business agency on the partof Dakie Thayne, was--in some proportion at least, --a piece of ahorse-shoe!

If you have not happened to read "Real Folks, " you will not knowwhat that means. If you have, you will now get a glimpse of how ithad come to Ruth and Dakie that their horse-shoe, --their littlesection of the world's great magnet of loving relation, --might bemade. Indeed, I do know, and can tell you, the very words Ruth saidto Dakie one day when they had been married just three weeks. 

"I've always thought, Dakie, that if ever I had money, --or if ever Icame to advise or help anybody who had, and who wanted to do goodwith it, --that there would be one special way I should like to take. I should like to sit up in the branches, and shake down fruit intothe laps of some people who never would know where it came from, andwouldn't take it if they did; though they couldn't reach a singlebough to pick for themselves. I mean nice, unlucky people; peoplewho always have a hard time, and need to have a good one; and areobliged in many things to pretend they do. There are a good many whoare willing and anxious to help the very poor, but I think there's amission waiting for somebody among the pinched-and-smiling people. I've been a Ruth Pinch myself, you see; and I know all about it, Mr. John Westlock!"

So I know they looked about for crafty little chances to piece outand supplement small ways and means; to put little traps of goodluck in the way for people to stumble upon, --and to act the partgenerally of a human limited providence, which is a better thingthan fairy godmothers, or enchanted cats, or frogs under the bridgeat the world's end, in which guise the gentle charities clothedthemselves in the old elf fables, that were told, I truly believe, to be lived out in real doing, as much as the New Testament Parableswere. And a great deal of the manifold responsibility that Mr. DakieThayne undertakes, as broker or agent in the concerns of others, isundertaken with a deliberate ulterior design of this sort. I thinkMr. Farron Saftleigh probably was made to pay about three thousanddollars of the sum he had wheedled Mrs. Argenter out of. DakieThayne makes things yield of themselves as far as they will; hebrings capacity and character to bear upon his ends as well asmoney; he knows his money would not last forever if he did not. 

Mr. Sherrett and Rodney stayed at Hill-hope over the Sunday. Mr. AndMrs. Kirkbright arrived on Saturday morning. 

There was a first home-service in the Chapel-Room that looked outupon the Rock, and into which the conservatory already gave itsgreenness and sweetness, that first Sunday after Easter. 

Christopher Kirkbright read the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for theday; the Prayer, that God "who had given his only Son to die for oursins, and to rise again for our justification, would grant them soto put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that they mightalways serve Him in pureness and truth"; the Assurance of "thevictory that overcometh the world, even our faith in the Son ofGod, " who came "not by water only, but by water and blood"; and that"the spirit and the water and the blood agree in one, "--in ourredemption; the Story of that First Day of the week, when Jesus cameback to his disciples, after his resurrection, and said, "Peace beunto you, " _showing them his hands and his side_. 

He spoke to them of the Blood of Christ, which is the Pain of Godfor every one of us; which touches the quick of our own souls wheretheir life is joined to his or else is dead. Of how, when we feelit, we know that this Divine Pain comes down that we may die by itto sin and live again to justification, in pureness and truth, thatthe Lord shows us his wounds for us, and waits to pronounce hispeace upon us; because _He suffers_ till we are at peace. That sohis goodness leads us to repentance; that the blood of suffering, and the water of cleansing, and the spirit of life renewed, agree inone, that if we receive the one, --if we bear the pain with which Hetouches us, --we shall also receive the other. 

"Bear, therefore, whatever crucifixion you have to bear, because ofyour wrong-doing. We, indeed, suffer justly; but He, who hath donenothing amiss, suffers at our side. 'If we are planted together inthe likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of hisresurrection;' our old life is crucified with Him, that the body ofsin might be destroyed. 'We are dead unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. '"

Mary Moxall was there, clothed and in her right mind; her baby onher lap. Good Mrs. Crumford, the mother-matron, sat beside her. Andrew Dorray, the plasterer, and his wife, Annie, were there. Menand women from the farmhouse and the cottages, dressed in theirSabbath best; and little children, looking in with steadfast, wondering eyes, at the open conservatory door, upon the vines andblooms steeped in sunshine, and mingling their sweet odors with thescent of the warm, moist earth in which they grew. 

They would all have pinks and rosebuds to carry away with them, toremember the Sunday by, and to be forever linked, in their tendercolor and fragrance, with the dim apprehension of somewhat holy. There would be an association for them of the heavenly things unseenwith the heavenliest things that are seen. 

Mr. Kirkbright had given especial pains and foresight to the fillingof this little greenhouse. He meant that there should be a summerpleasantness at Hill-hope from the very first. 

After dinner he and Desire walked up and down the long front uppergallery upon which their own rooms and their guest-rooms opened, andwhence the many windows on the other hand gave the whole outlookupon Farm and Basin, the smoking kilns, the tidy little homesalready established, and the buildings that were making ready formore. 

Christopher Kirkbright told his wife of many things he hoped toaccomplish. He pointed out here and there what might be done. Overthere was a maple wood where they would have sugar-makings in thespring. There was a quarry in yonder hill. Down here, through thatleft hand hollow and ravine, would run their bit of railroad. 

"A little world of itself might almost grow up here on these twohundred acres, " he said. 

"And for the home, --you must make that large and beautiful, Desire!We are not shut up here to guard and rule a penitentiary; we are tobring the best and sweetest and most beautiful life possible to us, close to the life we want to help. There is room for them and us;there is opportunity for their world and ours to touch each otherand grow toward one. We must have friends here, Daisy"; (she let_him_ call her "Daisy"; had he not the right to give her a new namefor her new life?) "friends to enjoy the delicious summers, and tomake the long winters full of holiday times. You must inventdelights as well as uses: delights that will be uses. It must be sofor _your_ sake; I must have my Desire satisfied, --content, in waysthat perhaps she herself would not find out her need in. "

"_Is_ not your Desire satisfied?"

"What a blessed little double name you have! Yes, Daisy, the veryDesire of my heart has come to me!"

Rodney and Sylvie walked down again to the Cascade Rock, andfinished their talk together, --this April number of it, Imean, --about the brown house and the three-windowed, sunny room, andthe grass plot where they would play croquet, and the road to themills that was shaded all the way down, so that she could walk withher bonnet off to meet him when he was coming up to tea. About theivies that the "good Miss Goodwyns" had kept safe and thriving atDorbury, and the furniture that Sylvie had stored in a loft in theBank Block. How pretty the white frilled curtains would be in theporch room!

"And the interest of the five thousand dollars will be all I shallever want to spend for anything!"

"We shall be quite rich people, Sylvie. We must take care not togrow proud and snobbish. "

"We had much better walk than ride, Rodney. I think that is theriddle that all our spills have been meant to read us. "