A SUMMER INLESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE By Mrs. A. D. T. WHITNEY 1866, 1894 To THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FRIEND MARIA S. CUMMINS AND OF DAYS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS MADE BEAUTIFUL BY HER COMPANIONSHIP I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE STORY PREFACE TO REAL FOLKS SERIES. "Leslie Goldthwaite" was the first of a series of four, which grew fromthis beginning, and was written in 1866 and the years nearly following;the first two stories--this and "We Girls"--having been furnished, byrequest, for the magazine "Our Young Folks, " published at that time withsuch success by Messrs. Fields, Osgood & Co. , and edited by Mr. HowardM. Ticknor and Miss Lucy Larcom. The last two volumes--"Real Folks" and"The Other Girls"--were asked for to complete the set, and were notdelayed by serial publication, but issued at once, in their order ofcompletion, in book form. There is a sequence of purpose, character, and incident in the fourstories, of which it is well to remind new readers, upon theirreappearance in fresh editions. They all deal especially with girl-lifeand home-life; endeavoring, even in the narration of experiences outsidethe home and seeming to preclude its life, to keep for girlhood andwomanhood the true motive and tendency, through whatever temporaryinterruption and necessity, of and toward the best spirit and shaping ofwomanly work and surrounding; making the home-life the ideal one, andhome itself the centre and goal of effort and hope. The writing of "The Other Girls" was interrupted by the Great Fire of1872, and the work upon the Women's Relief Committee, which broughtclose contact and personal knowledge to reinforce mere sympathy andtheory, --and so, I hope, into this last of the series, a touch ofsomething that may deepen the influence of them all to stronger help. * * * * * I wish, without withdrawing or superseding the special dedication of"Leslie Goldthwaite" to the memory of the dear friend with whom theweeks were spent in which I gathered material for Leslie's "Summer, " toremember, in this new presentation of the whole series, that otherfriend, with whom all the after work in it was associated and made thefirst links of a long regard and fellowship, now lifted up and reachingonward into the hopes and certainties of the "Land o' the Leal. " I wish to join to my own name in this, the name of Lucy Larcom, whichstands representative of most brave and earnest work, in most gentle, womanly living. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY. Milton, 1893. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE GREEN OF THE LEAF II. WAYSIDE GLIMPSES III. EYESTONES IV. MARMADUKE WHARNE V. HUMMOCKS VI. DAKIE THAYNE VII. DOWN AT OUTLEDGE VIII. SIXTEEN AND SIXTY IX. "I DON'T SEE WHY" X. GEODES XI. IN THE PINES XII. CROWDED OUT XIII. A HOWL XIV. "FRIENDS OF MAMMON" XV. QUICKSILVER AND GOLD XVI. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?" XVII. LEAF-GLORY A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. CHAPTER I. THE GREEN OF THE LEAF. "Nothing but leaves--leaves--leaves! The green things don't know enoughto do anything better!" Leslie Goldthwaite said this, standing in the bay-window among herplants, which had been green and flourishing, but persistentlyblossomless, all winter, and now the spring days were come. Cousin Delight looked up; and her white ruffling, that she was daintilyhemstitching, fell to her lap, as she looked, still with a certain wideintentness in her eyes, upon the pleasant window, and the bright, freshthings it framed. Not the least bright and fresh among them was thehuman creature in her early girlhood, tender and pleasant in itsbeautiful leafage, but waiting, like any other young and growing life, to prove what sort of flower should come of it. "Now you've got one of your 'thoughts, ' Cousin Delight! I see it'biggening, ' as Elspie says. " Leslie turned round, with her little greenwatering-pot suspended in her hand, waiting for the thought. To have a thought, and to give it, were nearly simultaneous things withCousin Delight; so true, so pure, so unselfish, so made to give, --likeperfume or music, which cannot be, and be withheld, --were thoughts withher. I must say a word, before I go further, of Delight Goldthwaite. I thinkof her as of quite a young person; you, youthful readers, woulddoubtless have declared that she was old, --very old, at least for ayoung lady. She was twenty-eight, at this time of which I write; Leslie, her young cousin, was just "past the half, and catching up, " as she saidherself, --being fifteen. Leslie's mother called Miss Goldthwaite, playfully, "Ladies' Delight;" and, taking up the idea, half her womenfriends knew her by this significant and epigrammatic title. There wassomething doubly pertinent in it. She made you think at once of nothingso much as heart's-ease, --a garden heart's-ease, that flower of manynames; not of the frail, scentless, wild wood-violet, --she had beencultured to something larger. The violet nature was there, colored andshaped more richly, and gifted with rare fragrance--for those whosedelicate sense could perceive it. The very face was a pansy face; withits deep, large, purple-blue eyes, and golden brows and lashes, thecolor of her hair, --pale gold, so pale that careless people who hadperception only for such beauty as can flash upon you from a crowd, oracross a drawing-room, said hastily that she had _no_ brows or lashes, and that this spoiled her. She was not a beauty, therefore; nor was she, in any sort, a belle. She never drew around her the common attentionthat is paid eagerly to very pretty, outwardly bewitching girls; and shenever seemed to care for this. At a party, she was as apt as not to sitin a corner; but the quiet people, --the mothers, looking on, or thegirls, waiting for partners, --getting into that same corner also, foundthe best pleasure of their evening there. There was something about herdress, too, that women appreciated most fully; the delicate textures, the finishings--and only those--of rare, exquisite lace, the perfectharmony of the whole unobtrusive toilet, --women looked at these inwonder at the unerring instinct of her taste; in wonder, also, that theyonly with each other raved about her. Nobody had ever been supposed tobe devoted to her; she had never been reported as "engaged;" there hadnever been any of this sort of gossip about her; gentlemen found her, they said, hard to get acquainted with; she had not much of the smalltalk which must usually begin an acquaintance; a few--her relatives, orher elders, or the husbands of her intimate married friends--understoodand valued her; but it was her girl friends and women friends who knewher best, and declared that there was nobody like her; and so came hersobriquet, and the double pertinence of it. Especially she was Leslie Goldthwaite's delight. Leslie had no sisters, and her aunts were old, --far older than her mother; on her father'sside, a broken and scattered family had left few ties for her; next toher mother, and even closer, in some young sympathies, she clung toCousin Delight. With this diversion, we will go back now to her, and to her thought. "I was thinking, " she said, with that intent look in her eyes, "I oftenthink, of how something else was found, once, having nothing but leaves;and of what came to it. " "I know, " answered Leslie, with an evasive quickness, and turned roundwith her watering-pot to her plants again. There was sometimes a bit of waywardness about Leslie Goldthwaite; therewas a fitfulness of frankness and reserve. She was eager for truth; yetnow and then she would thrust it aside. She said that "nobody liked anicely pointed moral better than she did; only she would just as liefit shouldn't be pointed at her. " The fact was, she was in that sensitivestate in which many a young girl finds herself, when she begins to askand to weigh with herself the great questions of life, and shrinks shylyfrom the open mention of the very thing she longs more fully toapprehend. Cousin Delight took no notice; it is perhaps likely that she understoodsufficiently well for that. She turned toward the table by which shesat, and pulled toward her a heavy Atlas that lay open at the map ofConnecticut. Beside it was Lippincott's Gazetteer, --open, also. "Traveling, Leslie?" "Yes. I've been a charming journey this morning, before you came. Iwonder if I ever _shall_ travel, in reality. I've done a monstrous dealof it with maps and gazetteers. " "This hasn't been one of the stereotyped tours, it seems. " "Oh, no! What's the use of doing Niagara or the White Mountains, or evenNew York and Philadelphia and Washington, on the map? I've been one ofmy little by-way trips, round among the villages; stopping wherever Ifound one cuddled in between a river and a hill, or in a little seashorenook. Those are the places, after all, that I would hunt out, if I hadplenty of money to go where I liked with. It's so pleasant to imaginehow the people live there, and what sort of folks they would be likelyto be. It isn't so much traveling as living round, --awhile in one home, and then in another. How many different little biding-places there arein the world! And how queer it is only really to know about one or twoof them!" "What's this place you're at just now? Winsted?" "Yes; there's where I've brought up, at the end of that bit of railroad. It's a bigger place than I fancied, though. I always steer clear of thenames that end in 'ville. ' They're sure to be stupid, money-makingtowns, all grown up in a minute, with some common man's name tacked onto them, that happened to build a saw-mill, or something, first. ButWinsted has such a sweet, little, quiet, English sound. I know it never_began_ with a mill. They make pins and clocks and tools and machinesthere now; and it's 'the largest and most prosperous post-village ofLitchfield County. ' But I don't care for the pins and machinery. It's got a lake alongside of it; and Still River--don't that soundnice?--runs through; and there are the great hills, big enough to put onthe map, out beyond. I can fancy where the girls take their sunsetwalks; and the moonlight parties, boating on the pond, and the way thewoods look, round Still River. Oh, yes! that's one of the places I meanto go to. " Leslie Goldthwaite lived in one of the inland cities of Massachusetts. She had grown up and gone to school there, and had never yet been thirtymiles away. Her father was a busy lawyer, making a handsome living forhis family, and laying aside abundantly for their future provision, butgiving himself no lengthened recreations, and scarcely thinking of themas needful for the rest. It was a pleasant, large, brown, wooden house they lived in, on thecorner of two streets; with a great green door-yard about it on twosides, where chestnut and cherry trees shaded it from the public way, and flower-beds brightened under the parlor windows and about the porch. Just greenness and bloom enough to suggest, always, more; just sweetnessand sunshine and bird-song enough, in the early summer days, to whisperof broad fields and deep woods where they rioted without stint; andthese days always put Leslie into a certain happy impatience, and sether dreaming and imagining; and she learned a great deal of hergeography in the fashion that we have hinted at. Miss Goldthwaite was singularly discursive and fragmentary in herconversation this morning, somehow. She dropped the map-travelingsuddenly, and asked a new question. "And how comes on thelinen-drawer?" "O Cousin Del! I'm humiliated, --disgusted! I feel as small asbutterflies' pinfeathers! I've been to see the Haddens. Mrs. Lincefordhas just got home from Paris, and brought them wardrobes to last toremotest posterity! And _such_ things! Such rufflings, and stitchings, and embroiderings! Why, mine look--as if they'd been made by theblacksmith!" The "linen-drawer" was an institution of Mrs. Goldthwaite's; resultant, partly, from her old-fashioned New England ideas of womanly industry andthrift, --born and brought up, as she had been, in a family whosetraditions were of house-linen sufficient for a lifetime spun and wovenby girls before their twenty-first year, and whose inheritance, frommother to daughter, was invariably of heedfully stored personal andhousehold plenishings, made of pure material that was worth the layingby, and carefully bleached and looked to year by year; partly, also, from a certain theory of wisdom which she had adopted, that when girlswere once old enough to care for and pride themselves on a plentifuloutfit, it was best they should have it as a natural prerogative ofyoung-ladyhood, rather than that the "trousseau" should come to be, asshe believed it so apt to be, one of the inciting temptations toheedless matrimony. I have heard of a mother whose passion was forelegant old lace; and who boasted to her female friends that, when herlittle daughter was ten years old, she had her "lace-box, " with thebeginning of her hoard in costly contributions from the stores ofherself and of the child's maiden aunts. Mrs. Goldthwaite did a betterand more sensible thing than this; when Leslie was fifteen, shepresented her with pieces of beautiful linen and cotton and cambric, andbade her begin to make garments which should be in dozens, to be laidby, in reserve, as she completed them, until she had a well-filledbureau that should defend her from the necessity of what she called a"wretched living from hand to mouth, --always having underclothing tomake up, in the midst of all else that she would find to do and tolearn. " Leslie need not have been ashamed, and I don't think in her heart shewas, of the fresh, white, light-lying piles that had already begun tomake promise of filling a drawer, which she drew out as she answeredCousin Delight's question. The fine-lined gathers; the tiny dots of stitches that held them totheir delicate bindings; the hems and tucks, true to a thread, anddotted with the same fairy needle dimples (no machine-work, but allreal, dainty finger-craft); the bits of ruffling peeping out from thefolds, with their edges in almost invisible whip-hems; and here andthere a finishing of lovely, lace-like crochet, done at odd minutes, andfor "visiting work, "--there was something prettier and more precious, really, in all this than in the imported fineries which had come, without labor and without thought, to her friends the Haddens. Besides, there were the pleasant talks and readings of the winter evenings, allthreaded in and out, and associated indelibly with every seam. There wasthe whole of "David Copperfield, " and the beginning of "Our MutualFriend, " ruffled up into the night-dresses; and some of the crochet wasbeautiful with the rhymed pathos of "Enoch Arden, " and some with thepoetry of the "Wayside Inn;" and there were places where stitches hadhad to be picked out and done over, when the eye grew dim and the handtrembled while the great war news was being read. Leslie loved it, and had a pride in it all; it was not, truly and only, humiliation and disgust at self-comparison with the Haddens, but someother and unexplained doubt which moved her now, and which was stirredoften by this, or any other of the objects and circumstances of herlife, and which kept her standing there with her hand upon thebureau-knob, in a sort of absence, while Cousin Delight looked in, approved, and presently dropped quietly among the rest, like a bit ofmoney into a contribution-box, the delicate breadths of linen cambricshe had just finished hemstitching and rolled together. "Oh, thank you! But, Cousin Delight, " said Leslie, shutting the drawer, and turning short round, suddenly, "I wish you'd just tell me--what youthink--is the sense of that--about the fig-tree! I suppose it's awfullywicked, but I never could see. Is everything fig-leaves that isn't outand out fruit, and is it all to be cursed, and why _should_ there beanything but leaves when 'the time of figs was not yet'?" After herfirst hesitation, she spoke quickly, impetuously, and without pause, assomething that _would_ come out. "I suppose that has troubled you, as I dare say it has troubled a greatmany other people, " said Cousin Delight. "It used to be a puzzle and atrouble to me. But now it seems to me one of the most beautiful thingsof all. " She paused. "I can_not_ see how, " said Leslie emphatically. "It always seems to meso--somehow--unreasonable; and--angry. " She said this in a lower tone, as afraid of the uttered audacity of herown thought; and she walked off, as she spoke, towards the window oncemore, and stood with her back to Miss Goldthwaite, almost as if shewished to have done, again, with the topic. It was not easy for Leslieto speak out upon such things; it almost made her feel cross when shehad done it. "People mistake the true cause and effect, I think, " said DelightGoldthwaite, "and so lose all the wonderful enforcement of that actedparable. It was not, 'Cursed be the fig-tree because I have foundnothing thereon;' but, 'Let _no fruit_ grow on thee, henceforward, forever. ' It seems to me I can hear the tone of tender solemnity inwhich Jesus would say such words; knowing, as only he knew, all thatthey meant, and what should come, inevitably, of such a sentence. 'Andpresently the fig-tree withered away. ' The life was nothing, any longer, from the moment when it might not be, what all life is, a reachingforward to the perfecting of some fruit. There was nothing to come, everagain, of all its greenness and beauty, and the greenness and beauty, which were only a form and a promise, ceased to be. It was the way hetook to show his disciples, in a manner they should never forget, theinexorable condition upon which all life is given, and that the barrenlife, so soon as its barrenness is absolutely hopeless, becomes aliteral death. " Leslie stood still, with her back to Miss Goldthwaite, and her face tothe window. Her perplexity was changed, but hardly cleared. There weremany things that crowded into her thoughts, and might have been spoken;but it was quite impossible for her to speak. Impossible on this topic, and she certainly could not speak, at once, on any other. Many seconds of silence counted themselves between the two. Then CousinDelight, feeling an intuition of much that held and hindered the younggirl, spoke again. "Does this make life seem hard?" "Yes, " said Leslie then, with an effort that hoarsened her very voice, "frightful. " And as she spoke, she turned again quickly, as if to bemotionless longer were to invite more talk, and went over to the otherwindow, where her bird-cage hung, and began to take down the glasses. "Like all parables, it is manifold, " said Delight gently. "There is agreat hope in it, too. " Leslie was at her basin, now, turning the water faucet, to rinse andrefill the little drinking-vessel. She handled the things quietly, butshe made no pause. "It shows that, while we see the leaf, we may have hope of the fruit, inourselves or in others. " She could not see Leslie's face. If she had, she would have perceived aquick lifting and lightening upon it; then a questioning that would notvery long be repressed to silence. The glasses were put in the cage again, and presently Leslie came backto a little low seat by Miss Goldthwaite's side, which she had beenoccupying before all this talk began. "Other people puzzle me as much asmyself, " she said. "I think the whole world is running to leaves, sometimes. " "Some things flower almost invisibly, and hide away their fruit underthick foliage. It is often only when the winds shake their leaves down, and strip the branches bare, that we find the best that has beengrowing. " "They make a great fuss and flourish with the leaves, though, as long asthey can. And it's who shall grow the broadest and tallest, and flauntout, with the most of them. After all, it's natural; and they _are_beautiful in themselves. And there's a 'time' for leaves, too, beforethe figs. " "Exactly. We have a right to look for the leaves, and to be glad ofthem. That is a part of the parable. " "Cousin Delight! Let's talk of real things, and let the parable alone aminute. " Leslie sprang impulsively to her bureau again, and flung forth the linendrawer. "There are my fig-leaves, --some of them; and here are more. " She turned, with a quick movement, to her wardrobe; pulled out and uncovered abonnet-box which held a dainty headgear of the new spring fashion, andthen took down from a hook and tossed upon it a silken garment thatfluttered with fresh ribbons. "How much of this outside business isright, and how much wrong, I should be glad to know? It all takes timeand thoughts; and those are life. How much life must go into the leaves?That's what puzzles me. I can't do without the things; and I can't belet to take 'clear comfort' in them, as grandma says, either. " She wason the floor, now, beside her little fineries; her hands claspedtogether about one knee, and her face turned up to Cousin Delight's. Shelooked as if she half believed herself to be ill-used. "And clothes are but the first want, --the primitive fig-leaves; theworld is full of other outside business, --as much outside as these, "pursued Miss Goldthwaite, thoughtfully. "Everything is outside, " said Leslie. "Learning, and behaving, andgoing, and doing, and seeing, and hearing, and having. 'It's all amuddle, ' as the poor man says in 'Hard Times. '" "I don't think I can do without the parable, " said Cousin Delight. "Thereal inward principle of the tree--that which corresponds to thought andpurpose in the soul--urges always to the finishing of its life in thefruit. The leaves are only by the way, --an outgrowth of the samevitality, and a process toward the end; but never, in any living thing, the end itself. " "Um, " said Leslie, in her nonchalant fashion again; her chin between hertwo hands now, and her head making little appreciative nods. "That'slike condensed milk; a great deal in a little of it. I'll put thefig-leaves away now, and think it over. " But, as she sprang up, and came round behind Miss Goldthwaite's chair, she stopped and gave her a little kiss on the top of her head. If CousinDelight had seen, there was a bright softness in the eyes, which told offeeling, and of gladness that welcomed the quick touch of truth. Miss Goldthwaite knew one good thing, --when she had driven her nail. "She never hammered in the head with a punch, like a carpenter, " Lesliesaid of her. She believed that, in moral tool-craft, that finishingimplement belonged properly to the hand of an after-workman. CHAPTER II. WAYSIDE GLIMPSES I have mentioned one little theory, relating solely to domestic thrift, which guided Mrs. Goldthwaite in her arrangements for her daughter. Ibelieve that, with this exception, she brought up her family verynearly without any theory whatever. She did it very much on thetaking-for-granted system. She took for granted that her children wereborn with the same natural perceptions as herself; that they couldrecognize, little by little, as they grew into it, the principles of themoral world, --reason, right, propriety, --as they recognized, growinginto them, the conditions of their outward living. She made her own lifea consistent recognition of these, and she lived _openly_ before them. There was never any course pursued with sole calculation as to itseffect on the children. Family discussion and deliberation was seldomwith closed doors. Questions that came up were considered as they came;and the young members of the household perceived as soon as their eldersthe "reasons why" of most decisions. They were part and parcel of thewhole régime. They learned politeness by being as politely attended toas company. They learned to be reasonable by seeing how the _reason_compelled father and mother, and not by having their vision stoppedshort at the arbitrary fact that father and mother compelled them. Ithink, on the whole, the Goldthwaite no-method turned out as good amethod as any. Men have found out lately that even horses may be guidedwithout reins. It was characteristic, therefore, that Mrs. Goldthwaite--receiving oneday a confidential note proposing to her a pleasant plan in behalf ofLeslie, and intended to guard against a premature delight and eagerness, and so perhaps an ultimate disappointment for that young lady--shouldinstantly, on reading it, lay it open upon the table before herdaughter. "From Mrs. Linceford, " she said, "and concerning you. " Leslie took it up, expecting, possibly, an invitation to tea. When shesaw what it really was, her dark eyes almost blazed with sudden, joyousexcitement. "Of course, I should be delighted to say yes for you, " said Mrs. Goldthwaite, "but there are things to be considered. I can't tell how itwill strike your father. " "School, " suggested Leslie, the light in her eyes quieting a little. "Yes, and expense; though I don't think he would refuse on that score. I should have _liked_"--Mrs. Goldthwaite's tone was only half, and verygently, objecting; there was an inflection of ready self-relinquishmentin it, also--"to have had your _first_ journey with me. But you mighthave waited a long time for that. " If Leslie were disappointed in the end, she would have known that hermother's heart had been with her from the beginning, and grown peopleseldom realize how this helps even the merest child to bear a denial. "There is only a month now to vacation, " said the young girl. "What do you think Mr. Waylie would say?" "I really think, " answered Leslie, after a pause, "that he would say itwas better than books. " They sat at their sewing together, after this, without speaking verymuch more, at the present time, about it. Mrs. Goldthwaite was thinkingit over in her motherly mind, and in the mind of Leslie thought and hopeand anticipation were dancing a reel with each other. It is time to tellthe reader of the what and why. Mrs. Linceford, the elder married daughter of the Hadden family, --manyyears the elder of her sisters, Jeannie and Elinor, --was about to takethem, under her care, to the mountains for the summer, and she kindlyproposed joining Leslie Goldthwaite to her charge. "The mountains" inNew England means usually, in common speech, the one royal range of theWhite Hills. You can think what this opportunity was to a young girl full of fancy, loving to hunt out, even by map and gazetteer, the by-nooks of travel, and wondering already if she should ever really journey otherwise. Youcan think how she waited, trying to believe she could bear any decision, for the final determination concerning her. "If it had been to Newport or Saratoga, I should have said no at once, "said Mr. Goldthwaite. "Mrs. Linceford is a gay, extravagant woman, andthe Haddens' ideas don't precisely suit mine. But the mountains, --shecan't get into much harm there. " "I shouldn't have cared for Newport or the Springs, father, truly, " saidLeslie, with a little hopeful flutter of eagerness in her voice; "butthe real mountains, --O father!" The "O father!" was not without its weight. Also Mr. Waylie, whom Mr. Goldthwaite called on and consulted, threw his opinion into the favoringscale, precisely as Leslie had foreseen. He was a teacher who did notimagine all possible educational advantage to be shut up within the fourwalls of his or any other schoolroom. "She is just the girl to whom itwill do great good, " he said. Leslie's last week's lessons were notaccomplished the less satisfactorily for this word of his, and thepleasure it opened to her. There came a few busy days of stitching and starching, and crimping andpacking, and then, in the last of June, they would be off. They were togo on Monday. The Haddens came over on Saturday afternoon, just asLeslie had nearly put the last things into her trunk, --a new trunk, quite her own, with her initials in black paint upon the russet leatherat each end. On the bed lay her pretty balmoral suit, made purposely formountain wears and just finished. The young girls got together here, inLeslie's chamber, of course. "Oh, how pretty! It's perfectly charming, --the loveliest balmoral I eversaw in my life!" cried Jeannie Hadden, seizing upon it instantly as sheentered the room. "Why, you'll look like a hamadryad, all in these woodbrowns!" It was an uncommonly pretty striped petticoat, in two alternating shadesof dark and golden brown, with just a hair-line of black defining theiredges; and the border was one broad, soft, velvety band of black, and anarrower one following it above and below, easing the contrast andblending the colors. The jacket, or rather shirt, finished at the waistwith a bit of a polka frill, was a soft flannel, of the bright brownshade, braided with the darker hue and with black; and two pairs ofbright brown raw-silk stockings, marked transversely with merethread-lines of black, completed the mountain outfit. "Yes; all I want is"--said Leslie, stopping short as she took up the hatthat lay there also, --last summer's hat, a plain black straw, with aslight brim, and ornamented only with a round lace veil and two bits ofostrich feather. "But never mind! It'll do well enough!" As she laid it down again and ceased speaking, Cousin Delight came in, straight from Boston, where she had been doing two days' shopping; andin her hand she carried a parcel in white paper. I was going to say around parcel, which it would have been but for something which ran outin a sharp tangent from one side, and pushed the wrappings into an oddangle. This she put into Leslie's hands. "A fresh--fig-leaf--for you, my dear. " "What _does_ she mean?" cried the Haddens, coming close to see. "Only a little Paradise fashion of speech between Cousin Del and me, "said Leslie, coloring a little and laughing, while she began, somewhathurriedly, to remove the wrappings. "What have you done? And how did you come to think?" she exclaimed, asthe thing inclosed appeared: a round brown straw turban, --not a staringturban, but one of those that slope with a little graceful downwarddroop upon the brow, --bound with a pheasant's breast, the wing shootingout jauntily, in the tangent I mentioned, over the right ear; all inbright browns, in lovely harmony with the rest of the hamadryad costume. "It's no use to begin to thank you, Cousin Del. It's just one of thethings you re always doing, and rejoice in doing. " The happy face wasfull of loving thanks, plainer than many words. "Only you're a kind of a_sarpent_ yourself after all, I'm afraid, with your beguilements. Iwonder if you thought of that, " whispered Leslie merrily, while theothers oh-oh'd over the gift. "What else do you think I shall be goodfor when I get all those on?" "I'll venture you, " said Cousin Delight; and the trifling words conveyeda real, earnest confidence, the best possible antidote to the"beguilement. " "One thing is funny, " said Jeannie Hadden suddenly, with an accent ofdemur. "We're all pheasants. _Our_ new hats are pheasants, too. I don'tknow what Augusta will think of such a covey of us. " "Oh, it's no matter, " said Elinor. "This is a golden pheasant, on brownstraw, and ours are purple, on black. Besides, we all _look_ differentenough. " "I suppose it doesn't signify, " returned Jeannie; "and if Augusta thinksit does, she may just give me that black and white plover of hers Iwanted so. I think our complexions _are_ all pretty well suited. " This was true. The fair hair and deep blue eyes of Elinor were as prettyunder the purple plumage as Jeannie's darker locks and brilliant bloom;and there was a wonderful bright mingling of color between the goldenpheasant's breast and the gleaming chestnut waves it crowned, as Leslietook her hat and tried it on. This was one of the little touches of perfect taste and adaptation whichcould sometimes make Leslie Goldthwaite almost beautiful, and was thereever a girl of fifteen who would not like to be beautiful if she could?This wish, and the thought and effort it would induce, were likely to beher great temptation. Passably pretty girls, who may, with care, makethemselves often more than passable, have far the hardest of it withtheir consciences about these things; and Leslie had a conscience, andwas reflective for her age, --and we have seen how questions had begun totrouble her. A Sunday between a packing and a journey is a trying day always. Thereare the trunks, and it is impossible not to think of the getting up andgetting off to-morrow; and one hates so to take out fresh sleeves andcollars and pocket-handkerchiefs, and to wear one's nice white skirts. It is a Sunday put off, too probably, with but odds and ends of thoughtas well as apparel. Leslie went to church, of course, --the Goldthwaites were always regularin this; and she wore her quiet straw bonnet. Mrs. Goldthwaite had afeeling that hats were rather pert and coquettish for the sanctuary. Nevertheless they met the Haddens in the porch, in the glory of theirpurple pheasant plumes, whereof the long tail-feathers made greatcircles in the air as the young heads turned this way and that, in theexcitement of a few snatched words before they entered. The organ was playing; and the low, deep, tremulous rumble that an organgives sometimes, when it seems to creep under and vibrate all thingswith a strange, vital thrill, overswept their trivial chat and madeLeslie almost shiver. "Oh, I wish they wouldn't do that, " she said, turning to go in. "What?" said Jeannie Hadden, unaware. "Touch the nerve. The great nerve--of creation. " "What queer things Les' Goldthwaite says sometimes, " whispered Elinor;and they passed the inner door. The Goldthwaites sat two pews behind the Haddens. Leslie could not helpthinking how elegant Mrs. Linceford was, as she swept in, in her richblack silk, and real lace shawl, and delicate, costly bonnet; and theperfectly gloved hand that upheld a bit of extravagance in Valencienneslace and cambric made devotion seem--what? The more graceful andtouching in one who had all this world's luxuries, or--almost a mockery? The pheasant-plumed hats went decorously down in prayer-time, but thetail-feathers ran up perker than ever, from the posture; Leslie sawthis, because she had lifted her own head and unclosed her eyes in aself-indignant honesty, when she found on what her secret thoughts wererunning. Were other people so much better than she? And _could_ they doboth things? How much was right in all this that was outwardly sobeguiling, and where did the "serving Mammon" begin? Was everything so much intenser and more absorbing with her than withthe Haddens? Why could she not take things as they came, as these girlsdid, or seemed to do?--be glad of her pretty things, her pretty lookseven, her coming pleasures, with no misgivings or self-searchings, andthen turn round and say her prayers properly? Wasn't beauty put into the world for the sake of beauty? And wasn't itright to love it, and make much of it, and multiply it? What were artsand human ingenuities for, and the things given to work with? All thisgrave weighing of a great moral question was in the mind of the younggirl of fifteen again this Sunday morning. Such doubts and balancingsbegin far earlier, often, than we are apt to think. The minister shook hands cordially and respectfully with Mrs. Lincefordafter church. He had no hesitation at her stylishness and fineries. Everybody took everybody else for granted; and it was all right, LeslieGoldthwaite supposed, except in her own foolish, unregulated thoughts. Everybody else had done their Sunday duty, and it was enough; only shehad been all wrong and astray, and in confusion. There was a time foreverything, only her times and thoughts would mix themselves up andinterfere. Perhaps she was very weak-minded, and the only way for herwould be to give it all up, and wear drab, or whatever else might bemost unbecoming, and be fiercely severe, mortifying the flesh. She gotover that--her young nature reacting--as they all walked up the streettogether, while the sun shone down smilingly upon the world in Sundaybest, and the flowers were gay in the door-yards, and Miss Milliken'sshop was reverential with the green shutters before the windows thathad been gorgeous yesterday with bright ribbons and fresh fashions; andthere was something thankful in her feeling of the pleasantness that wasabout her, and a certainty that she should only grow morose if she tookto resisting it all. She would be as good as she could, and let thepleasantness and the prettiness come "by the way. " Yes, that was justwhat Cousin Delight had said. "All these things shall be added, "--wasnot that the Gospel word? So her troubling thought was laid for thehour; but it should come up again. It was in the "seeking first" thatthe question lay. By and by she would go back of the other to this, andsee clearer, --in the light, perhaps, of something that had been alreadygiven her, and which, as she lived on toward a fuller readiness for it, should be "brought to her remembrance. " Monday brought the perfection of a traveler's morning. There had been ashower during the night, and the highways lay cool, moist, and darkbrown between the green of the fields and the clean-washed, red-brickpavements of the town. There would be no dust even on the railroad, andthe air was an impalpable draught of delight. To the three young girls, standing there under the station portico, --for they chose the smell ofthe morning rather than the odors of apples and cakes andindescribables which go to make up the distinctive atmosphere of arailway waiting-room, --there was but one thing to be done to-day in theworld; one thing for which the sun rose, and wheeled himself toward thatpoint in the heavens which would make eight o'clock down below. Of allthe ships that might sail this day out of harbors, or the trains thatmight steam out of cities across States, they recked nothing but of thisthat was to take them toward the hills. There were unfortunates, doubtless, bound elsewhere, by peremptory necessity; there were peoplewho were going nowhere but about their daily work and errands; all thesewere simply to be pitied, or wondered at, as to how they could feel_not_ to be going upon a mountain journey. It is queer to think, on alast Thursday in November, or on a Fourth of July, of States where theremay not be a Thanksgiving, or of far-off lands that have no Independenceday. It was just as strange, somehow, to imagine how this day, that wasto them the culminating point of so much happy anticipation, thebeginning of so much certain joy, could be otherwise, and yet beanything to the supernumerary people who filled up around them the lifethat centred in just this to them. Yet in truth it was, to most folks, simply a fair Monday morning, and an excellent "drying day. " They bounded off along the iron track, --the great steam pulse throbbedno faster than in time to their bright young eagerness. It had been amomentous matter to decide upon their seats, of which there had beenopportunity for choice when they entered the car; at last they had beenhappily settled, face to face, by the good-natured removal of a coupleof young farmers, who saw that the four ladies wished to be seatedtogether. Their hand-bags were hung up, their rolls of shawls disposedbeneath their feet, and Mrs. Linceford had taken out her novel. TheHaddens had each a book also in her bag, to be perfectly according torule in their equipment; but they were not old travelers enough to careto begin upon them yet. As to Leslie Goldthwaite, _her_ book lay readyopen before her, for long, contented reading, in two chapters, bothvisible at once--the broad, open country, with its shifting pictures andsuggestions of life and pleasantness; and the carriage interior, withits dissimilar human freight, and its yet more varied hints of historyand character and purpose. She made a story in her own mind, half unconsciously, of every one abouther. Of the pretty girl alone, with no elaborate traveling arrangements, going only, it was evident, from one way-station to another, perhaps tospend a summer day with a friend. Of the stout old country grandmamma, with a basket full of doughnuts and early apples, that made a spicinessand orchard fragrance all about her, and that she surely never meant toeat herself, seeing, first, that she had not a tooth in her head, andalso that she made repeated anxious requests of the conductor, catchinghim by the coat-skirts as he passed, to "let her know in season whenthey began to get into Bartley;" who asked, confidentially, of her nextneighbor, a well-dressed elderly gentleman, if "he didn't think it wasabout as cheap comin' by the cars as it would ha' ben to hire a passageany other way?" and innocently endured the smile that her query calledforth on half a dozen faces about her. The gentleman, _without_ a smile, courteously lowered his newspaper to reply that "he always thought itbetter to avail one's self of established conveniences rather than towaste time in independent contrivances;" and the old lady sat back, --asfar back as she dared, considering her momentary apprehension ofBartley, --quite happily complacent in the confirmation of her ownwisdom. There was a trig, not to say prim, spinster, without a vestige ofcomeliness in her face, save the comeliness of a clear, clean, energeticexpression, --such as a new broom or a bright tea-kettle might have, suggesting capacity for house thrift and hearth comfort, --who wore agray straw bonnet, clean and neat as if it had not lasted for six yearsat least, which its fashion evidenced, and which, having a bright greentuft of artificial grass stuck arbitrarily upon its brim by way ofmodern adornment, put Leslie mischievously in mind of a roof so old thatblades had sprouted in the eaves. She was glad afterwards that she hadnot spoken her mischief. What made life beautiful to all these people? These farmers, who put onat daybreak their coarse homespun, for long hours of rough labor? Thesehomely, home-bred women, who knew nothing of graceful fashions; who hadalways too much to do to think of elegance in doing? Perhaps that wasjust it; they had always something to do, something outside ofthemselves, --in their honest, earnest lives there was little to temptthem to a frivolous self-engrossment. Leslie touched close upon the veryhelp and solution she wanted, as she thought these thoughts. Opposite to her there sat a poor man, to whom there had happened a greatmisfortune. One eye was lost, and the cheek was drawn and marked by somegreat scar of wound or burn. One half his face was a fearful blot. Howdid people bear such things as these, --to go through the world knowingthat it could never be pleasant to any human being to look upon them?that an instinct of pity and courtesy would even turn every casualglance away? There was a strange, sorrowful pleading in the oneexpressive side of the man's countenance, and a singularly untowardincident presently called it forth, and made it almost ludicrouslypitiful. A bustling fellow entered at a way-station, his arms full of agreat frame that he carried. As he blundered along the passage, lookingfor a seat, a jolt of the car, in starting, pitched him suddenly intothe vacant place beside this man; and the open expanse of the largelooking-glass--for it was that which the frame held--was fairly smitten, like an insult of fate, into the very face of the unfortunate. "Beg pardon, " the new comer said, in an off-hand way, as he settledhimself, holding the glass full before the other while he righted it;and then, for the first time, giving a quick glance toward him. Theastonishment, the intuitive repulsion, the consciousness of what he haddone, betokened by the instant look of the one man, and the helpless, mute "How could you?" that seemed spoken in the strange, uprolled, one-sided expression of the other, --these involuntarily-met regards madea brief concurrence at once sad and irresistibly funny, as so manythings in this strange life are. The man of the mirror inclined his burden quietly the other way; and nowit reflected the bright faces opposite, under the pheasant plumes. Wasit any delight to Leslie to see her own face so? What was the use ofbeing--what right had she to wish to be--pretty and pleasant to look at, when there were such utter lifelong loss and disfigurement in the worldfor others? Why should it not as well happen to her? And how did theworld seem to such a person, and where was the _worth while_ of it? Thiswas the question which lingered last in her mind, and to which all elsereverted. _To be able to bear_--perhaps this was it; and this wasgreater, indeed, than any outer grace. Such as these were the wayside meanings that came to Leslie Goldthwaitethat morning in the first few hours of her journey. Meanwhile, Jeannieand Elinor Hadden had begun to be tired; and Mrs. Linceford, not muchentertained with her novel, held it half closed over her finger, drewher brown veil closely, and sat with her eyes shut, compensating herselfwith a doze for her early rising. Had the same things come to these? Notprecisely; something else, perhaps. In all things, one is still takenand another left. I can only follow, minutely, one. CHAPTER III. EYESTONES. The road left the flat farming country now, and turned northward, up thebeautiful river valley. There was plenty to enjoy outside; and it wasgrowing more and more lovely with almost every mile. They left the greattowns gradually behind; each succeeding one seemed more simply rural. Young girls were gathered on the platforms at the little stations wherethey stopped sometimes; it was the grand excitement of the place, --thecoming of the train, --and to these village lasses was what the piazzasor the springs are to gay dwellers at Saratoga. By dinner-time they steamed up to the stately back staircase of the"Pemigewasset. " In the little parlor where they smoothed their hair andrested a moment before going to the dining-hall, they met again the ladyof the grass-grown bonnet. She took this off, making herselfcomfortable, in her primitive fashion, for dinner; and then Leslienoticed how little it was from any poverty of nature that the fair andabundant hair, at least, had not been made use of to take down thesevere primness of her outward style. It did take it down in spite ofall, the moment the gray straw was removed. The great round coil behindwas all real and _solid_, though it was wound about with no thought saveof security, and fastened with a buffalo-horn comb. Hair was a matter ofcourse; the thing was, to keep it out of the way; that was what thefashion of this head expressed, and nothing more. Where it was tuckedover the small ears, --and native refinement or the other thing showsvery plainly in the ears, --it lay full, and shaped into a soft curve. She was only plain, not ugly, after all; and they are very differentthings, --there being a beauty of plainness in men and women, as there isin a rich fabric, sometimes. While Leslie was noticing these things, Elinor Hadden stood by a windowwith her back to the others. She did not complain at first; one doesn'tlike to allow, at once, that the toothache, or a mischance like thisthat had happened to her, is an established fact, --one is in for it themoment one does that. But she had got a cinder in her eye; and thoughshe had winked, and stared, and rolled her eyelid under, and tried allthe approved and instinctive means, it seemed persistent; and she wasforced at last, just as her party was going in to dinner, to acknowledgethat this traveler's misery had befallen her, and to make up her mindto the pain and wretchedness and ugliness of it for hours, if not evenfor days. Her face was quite disfigured already; the afflicted eye wasbloodshot, and the whole cheek was red with tears and rubbing; she couldonly follow blindly along, her handkerchief up, and, half groping intothe seat offered her, begin comfortlessly to help herself to some soupwith her left hand. There was leaning across to inquire and pity; therewere half a dozen things suggested, to which she could only reply, forlornly and impatiently, "I've tried it. " None of them could eat much, or with any satisfaction; this atom in the wrong place set everythingwrong all at once with four people who, till now, had been so cheery. The spinster lady was seated at some little distance down, on theopposite side. She began to send quick, interested glances over at them;to make little half-starts toward them, as if she would speak; and atlast, leaving her own dinner unfinished, she suddenly pushed back herchair, got up, and came round. She touched Elinor Hadden on theshoulder, without the least ado of ceremony. "Come out here with me, "she said. "I can set you right in half a minute;" and, confident ofbeing followed, moved off briskly out of the long hall. Elinor gave a one-sided, questioning glance at her sisters before shecomplied, reminding Leslie comically of the poor, one-eyed man in thecars; and presently, with a little hesitation, Mrs. Linceford andJeannie compromised the matter by rising themselves and accompanyingElinor from the room. Leslie, of course, went also. The lady had her gray bonnet on when they got back to the little parlor;there is no time to lose in mere waiting for anything at a railwaydining-place; and she had her bag--a veritable, old-fashioned, home-madecarpet thing--open on a chair before her, and in her hand a long, knitpurse with steel beads and rings. Out of this she took a twisted bit ofpaper, and from the paper a minute something which she popped betweenher lips as she replaced the other things. Then she just beckoned, hastily, to Elinor. "It's only an eyestone; did you ever have one in? Well, you needn't beafraid of it; I've had 'em in hundreds of times. You wouldn't know 'twas there, and it'll just ease all the worry; and by and by it'll dropout of itself, cinder and all. They're terribly teasing things, cinders;and somebody's always sure to get one. I always keep three eyestones inmy purse. You needn't mind my not having it back; I've got a littleglass bottle full at home, and it's wonderful the sight of comfortthey've been to folks. " Elinor shrunk; Mrs. Linceford showed a little high-bred demur aboutaccepting the offered aid of their unknown traveling companion; but thegood woman comprehended nothing of this, and went on insisting. "You'd better let me put it in right off; it's only just to drop itunder the eyelid, and it'll work round till it finds the speck. But youcan take it and put it in yourself, when you've made up your mind, ifyou'd rather. " With which she darted her head quickly from side to side, looking about the room, and, spying a scrap of paper on a table, had theeyestone twisted in it in an instant, and pressed it into Elinor's hand. "You'll be glad enough of it, yet, " said she, and then took up her bag, and moved quickly off among the other passengers descending to thetrain. "What a funny woman, to be always carrying eyestones about, and puttingthem in people's eyes!" said Jeannie. "It was quite kind of her, I'm sure, " said Mrs. Linceford, with amingling in her tone of acknowledgment and of polite tolerance for agreat liberty. When elegant people break their necks or their limbs, common ones may approach and assist; as, when a house takes fire, persons get in who never did before; and perhaps a suffering eye maycome into the catalogue of misfortunes sufficient to equalizedifferences for the time being. But it _is_ queer for a woman to makefree to go without her own dinner to offer help to a stranger in pain. Not many people, in any sense of the word, go about provided witheyestones against the chance cinders that may worry others. Something inthis touched Leslie Goldthwaite with a curious sense of a beauty inliving that was not external. If it had not been for Elinor's mishap and inability to enjoy, it wouldhave been pure delight from the very beginning, this afternoon's ride. They had their seats upon the "mountain side, " where the view of thethronging hills was like an ever-moving panorama; as, winding their wayfarther and farther up into the heart of the wild and beautiful region, the horizon seemed continually to fill with always vaster shapes, thatlifted themselves, or emerged, over and from behind each other, likemustering clans of giants, bestirred and curious, because of theinvasion among their fastnesses of this sprite of steam. "Where you can come down, I can go up, " it seemed to fizz, in itsstrong, exulting whisper, to the river; passing it always, yet nevergetting by; tracking, step by step, the great stream backward toward itssmall beginnings. "See, there are real blue peaks!" cried Leslie joyously, pointing awayto the north and east where the outlines lay faint and lovely in the fardistance. "Oh, I wish I could see! I'm losing it all!" said Elinor, plaintivelyand blindfold. "Why don't you try the eyestone?" said Jeannie. But Elinor shrunk, even yet, from deliberately putting that great thingin her eye, agonized already by the presence of a mote. There came a touch on her shoulder, as before. The good woman of thegray bonnet had come forward from her seat farther down the car. "I'm going to stop presently, " she said, "at East Haverhill; and I_should_ feel more satisfied in my mind if you'd just let me see youeasy before I go. Besides, if you don't do something quick, the cinderwill get so bedded in, and make such an inflammation, that a dozeneyestones wouldn't draw it out. " At this terror, poor Elinor yielded, in a negative sort of way. Sheceased to make resistance when her unknown friend, taking the littletwist of paper from the hand still fast closed over it with thehalf-conscious grasp of pain, dexterously unrolled it, and produced thewonderful chalky morsel. "Now, 'let's see, says the blind man;'" and she drew down hand andhandkerchief with determined yet gentle touch. "Wet it in your ownmouth, "--and the eyestone was between Elinor's lips before she couldrefuse or be aware. Then one thumb and finger was held to take it again, while the other made a sudden pinch at the lower eyelid, and, drawing itat the outer corner before it could so much as quiver away again, thelittle white stone was slid safely under. "Now 'wink as much as you please, ' as the man said that took anawful-looking daguerreotype of me once. Good-by. Here's where I get out. And there they all are to meet me. " And then, the cars stopping, shemade her way, with her carpet-bag and parasol and a great newspaperbundle, gathered up hurriedly from goodness knows where, along thepassage, and out upon the platform. "Why, it's the strangest thing! I don't feel it in the least! Do yousuppose it ever _will_ come out again, Augusta?" cried Elinor, in a tonegreatly altered from any in which she had spoken for two hours. "Of course it will, " cried "Gray-bonnet" from beneath the window. "Don'tbe under the least mite of concern about anything but looking out for itwhen it does, to keep it against next time. " Leslie saw the plain, kindly woman surrounded in a minute by half adozen eager young welcomers and claimants, and a whole history came outin the unreserved exclamations of the few instants for which the traindelayed. "Oh, it's _such_ a blessing you've come! I don't know as Emma Jane wouldhave been married at all if you hadn't!" "We warn't sure you'd get the letter. " "Or as Aunt Nisby would spare you. " "'Life wanted to come over on his crutches. He's just got his new ones, and he gets about first-rate. But we wouldn't let him beat himself outfor to-morrow. " "How is 'Life?" "Hearty as would anyway be consistent--with one-leggedness. He'd never'a' got back, we all know, if you hadn't gone after him. " It was a youngman's voice that spoke these last sentences, and it grew tender at theend. "You're to trim the cake, " began one of the young girls again, crowdingup. "She says nobody else can. Nobody else _ever_ can. And"--with alittle more mystery--"there's the veil to fix. She says you're used towedd'n's and know about veils; and you was down to Lawrence at Lorany's. And she wants things in _real style_. She's dreadful _pudjicky_, EmmaJane is; she won't have anything without it's exactly right. " The plain face was full of beaming sympathy and readiness. Thestiff-looking spinster woman, with the "grass in the eaves of herbonnet, "--grass grown, also, over many an old hope in her own life, maybe, --was here in the midst of young joy and busy interest, making themall her own; had come on purpose, looked for and hailed as the onewithout whom nothing could ever be done, --more tenderly yet, as one butfor whom some brave life and brother love would have gone down. In themidst of it all she had had ear and answer, to the very last, for thestranger she had comforted on her way. What difference did it makewhether she wore an old bonnet with green grass in it, or a round hatwith a gay feather? whether she were fifteen or forty-five, but for thegood she had had time to do? whether Lorany's wedding down at Lawrencehad been really a stylish festival or no? There was a beauty here whichverily shone out through all; and such a life should have no time to betempted. The engine panted, and the train sped on. She never met herfellow-traveler again, but these things Leslie Goldthwaite had learnedfrom her, --these things she laid by silently in her heart. And the womanin the gray bonnet never knew the half that she had done. After taking one through wildernesses of beauty, after whirling one pastnooks where one could gladly linger whole summers, it is strange at whatcommonplace and graceless termini these railroads contrive to land one. Lovely Wells River, where the road makes its sharp angle, and runs backagain until it strikes out eastward through the valley of theAmmonoosuc; where the waters leap to each other, and the hills bendround in majestic greeting; where our young party cried out, in anignorance at once blessed and pathetic, "Oh, if Littleton should only belike this, or if we could stop here!"--yet where one cannot stop, because here there is no regular stage connection, and nothing else tobe found, very probably, that travelers might want, save the outdoorglory, --Wells River and Woodsville were left behind, lying in theevening stillness of June, --in the grand and beautiful disregard ofthings greater than the world is rushing by to seek, --and for an hourmore they threaded through fair valley sweeps and reaches, past solitaryhillside clearings and detached farms and the most primitive of mountainhamlets, where the limit and sparseness of neighborhood drew forth froma gentleman sitting behind them--come, doubtless, from some suburbanhome, where numberless household wants kept horse and wagon perpetuallyon the way for city or village--the suggestive query, "I wonder whatthey do here when they're out of saleratus?" They brought them up, as against a dead wall of dreariness anddisappointment, at the Littleton station. It had been managed as italways is: the train had turned most ingeniously into a corner whencethere was scarcely an outlook upon anything of all the magnificence thatmust yet be lying close about them; and here was only a tolerablywell-populated country town, filled up to just the point that excludesthe picturesque and does not attain to the highly civilized. And intothe heart of this they were to be borne, and to be shut up there thissummer night, with the full moon flooding mountain and river, and thewoods whispering up their peace to heaven. It was bad enough, but worse came. The hotel coach was waiting, and theyhastened to secure their seats, giving their checks to the driver, whodisappeared with a handful of these and others, leaving his horses withthe reins tied to the dash-board, and a boy ten years old upon the box. There were heads out anxiously at either side, between concern forsafety of body and of property. Mrs. Linceford looked uneasily towardthe confused group upon the platform, from among whom luggage began tobe drawn out in a fashion regardless of covers and corners. The largerusset trunk with the black "H, "--the two linen-cased ones with "Hadden"in full;--the two square bonnet-boxes, --these, one by one, were draggedand whirled toward the vehicle and jerked upon the rack; but the "ark, "as they called Mrs. Linceford's huge light French box, and the oneprecious receptacle that held all Leslie's pretty outfit, where werethese? "Those are not all, driver! There is a high black French trunk, and arusset leather one. " "Got all you give me checks for, --seb'm pieces;" and he pointed to twostrange articles of luggage waiting their turn to be lifted up, --a long, old-fashioned gray hair trunk, with letters in brass nails upon the lid, and as antiquated a carpet-bag, strapped and padlocked across the mouth, suggestive in size and fashion of the United States mail. "Never saw them before in my life! There's some dreadful mistake! What_can_ have become of ours?" "Can't say, ma'am, I'm sure. Don't often happen. But them was yourchecks. " Mrs. Linceford leaned back for an instant in a breathless despair. "Imust get out and see. " "If you please, ma'am. But 't ain't no use. The things is all clearedoff. " Then, stooping to examine the trunk, and turning over the bag, "Queer, too. These things is chalked all right for Littleton. Must ha'been a mistake with the checks, and somebody changed their minds on theway, --Plymouth, most likely, --and stopped with the wrong baggage. Wouldn't worry, ma'am; it's as bad for one as for t' other, anyhow, andthey'll be along to-morrow, no kind o' doubt. Strays allers turns up onthis here road. No danger about that. I'll see to havin' these 'erestowed away in the baggage-room. " And shouldering the bag, he seized thetrunk by the handle and hauled it along over the rough embankment and upthe steps, flaying one side as he went. "But, dear me! what am I to do?" said Mrs. Linceford piteously. "Everything in it that I want to-night, --my dressing-box and my wrappersand my air-cushion; they'll be sure not to have any bolsters on thebeds, and only one feather in each corner of the pillows!" But this was only the first surprise of annoyance. She recollectedherself on the instant, and leaned back again, saying nothing more. Shehad no idea of amusing her unknown stage companions at any length withher fine-lady miseries. Only, just before they reached the hotel, sheadded low to Jeannie, out of the unbroken train of her own privatelamentation, "And my rose-glycerine! After all this dust and heat! Ifeel parched to a mummy, and I shall be an object to behold!" Leslie sat upon her right hand. She leaned closer, and said quickly, glad of the little power to comfort, "I have some rose-glycerine here inmy bag. " Mrs. Linceford looked round at her; her face was really bright. As ifshe had not lost her one trunk also! "You are a phoenix of a travelingcompanion, you young thing!" the lady thought, and felt suddenly ashamedof her own unwonted discomfiture. Half an hour afterward Leslie Goldthwaite flitted across the passagebetween the two rooms they had secured for their party, with a bottle inher hand and a pair of pillows over her arm. "Ours is a double-beddedroom, too, Mrs. Linceford, and neither Elinor nor I care for more thanone pillow. And here is the rose-glycerine. " These essential comforts, and the instinct of good-breeding, brought thegrace and the smile back fully to Mrs. Linceford's face. More than that, she felt a gratefulness, and the contagion and emulation of cheerfulpatience under a common misfortune. She bent over and kissed Leslie asshe took the bottle from her hand. "You're a dear little sunbeam, " shesaid. "We'll send an imperative message down the line, and have all ourown traps again to-morrow. " The collar that Elinor Hadden had lent Leslie was not very becoming, the sleeves had enormous wristbands, and were made for doublesleeve-buttons, while her own were single; moreover, the brown silk net, which she had supposed thoroughly trustworthy, had given way all atonce into a great hole under the waterfall, and the soft hair would fretitself through and threaten to stray untidily. She had two such pretty nets in reserve in her missing trunk, and shedid hate so to be in any way coming to pieces! Yet there was somehow afeeling that repaid it all, and even quieted the real anxiety as tothe final "turning up" of their fugitive property, --not a mereself-complacence, hardly a self-complacence at all, but a half-surprisedgladness, that had something thankful in it. If she might not be allleaves, perhaps, after all! If she really could, even in some slightthing, care most for the life and spirit underneath, to keep this sweetand pleasant, and the fruit of it a daily good, and not a bitterness; ifshe could begin by holding herself undisturbed, though obliged to wear acollar that stood up behind and turned over in front with those lappetcorners she had always thought so ugly, --yes, even though the waterfallshould leak out and ripple over stubbornly, --though these things must goon for twenty-four hours at least, and these twenty-four hours be spentunwillingly in a dull country tavern, where the windows looked out fromone side into a village street, and from the other into stable andclothes yards! There would be something for her to do: to keep brightand help to keep the others bright. There was a hope in it; the lifewas more than raiment; it was better worth while than to have only goton the nice round collar and dainty cuffs that fitted and suited her, oreven the little bead net that came over in a Marie Stuart point soprettily between the small crimped puffs of her hair. A little matter, nothing to be self-applauding about, --only a straw;but--if it showed the possible way of the wind, the motive power thatmight be courted to set through her life, taking her out of thetrade-currents of vanity? Might she have it in her, after all? Might sheeven be able to come, if need be, to the strength of mind for wearing anold gray straw bonnet, and bearing to be forty years old, and helping toadorn the young and beautiful for looks that never--just so--should bebent again on her? Leslie Goldthwaite had read of martyr and hero sufferance all her life, as she had looked upon her poor one-eyed fellow-traveler to-day; thepang of sympathy had always been: "These things have been borne, arebeing borne, in the world; how much of the least of them could Iendure, --I, looking for even the little things of life to be madesmooth?" It depended, she began faintly and afar off to see, upon wherethe true life lay; how far behind the mere outer covering vitalitywithdrew itself. CHAPTER IV. MARMADUKE WHARNE. Up--up--up, --from glory to glory! This was what it seemed to Leslie Goldthwaite, riding, that golden Junemorning, over the road that threaded along, always climbing, the chainof hills that _could_ be climbed, into the nearer and nearer presence ofthose mountain majesties, penetrating farther and father into the grandsolitudes sentineled forever by their inaccessible pride. Mrs. Linceford had grown impatient; she had declared it impossible, whenthe splendid sunshine of that next day challenged them forth out oftheir dull sojourn, to remain there twenty-four hours longer, waitingfor anything. Trunks or none, she would go on, and wait at Jefferson, atleast, where there was something to console one. All possible precautionwas taken; all possible promises were made; the luggage should be senton next day, --perhaps that very night; wagons were going and returningoften now; there would be no further trouble, they might rest assured. The hotel-keeper had a "capital team, "--his very best, --at theirinstant service, if they chose to go on this morning; it could be at thedoor in twenty minutes. So it was chartered, and ordered round, --an openmountain wagon, with four horses; their remaining luggage was securedupon it, and they themselves took their seats gayly. "Who cares for trunks or boxes now?" Leslie cried out in joyousness, catching the first, preparatory glimpse of grandeur, when their road, that wound for a time through the low, wet valley-lands, began to ascenda rugged hillside, whence opened vistas that hinted something of theglory that was to come. All the morning long, there wheeled about them, and smiled out in the sunshine, or changed to grave, grand reticenceunder the cloud-shadows, those shapes of might and beauty that filled upearth and heaven. Leslie grew silent, with the hours of over-full delight. Thoughtsthronged in upon her. All that had been deepest and strongest in thelittle of life that she had lived wakened and lifted again in suchtranscendent presence. Only the high places of spirit can answer tothese high places of God in his creation. Now and then, Jeannie and Elinor fell into their chatter, about theirsummer plans, and pleasures, and dress; about New York, and the newhouse Mrs. Linceford had taken in West Twenty-ninth Street, where theywere to visit her next winter, and participate for the first time, underher matronizing, in city gayeties. Leslie wondered how they could; sheonly answered when appealed to; she felt as if people were jogging herelbow, and whispering distractions, in the midst of some nobleeloquence. The woods had a word for her; a question, and their own sweet answer ofhelp. The fair June leafage was out in its young glory of vivid green;it reminded her of her talk with Cousin Delight. "We _do_ love leaves for their own sake; trees, and vines, and the verygreen grass, even. " So she said to herself, asking still for the perfectparable that should solve and teach all. It came, with the breath of wild grape vines, hidden somewhere in thewayside thickets. "Under the leaf lies our tiny green blossom, " it said;"and its perfume is out on the air. Folded in the grass-blade is afeathery bloom, of seed or grain; and by and by the fields will be allwaving with it. Be sure that the blossom is under the leaf. " Elinor Hadden's sweet child-face, always gentle and good-humored, thoughvisited little yet with the deep touch of earnest thought, --smiling uponlife as life smiled upon her, --looked lovelier to Leslie as this whispermade itself heard in her heart; and it was with a sweeter patience and amore believing kindliness that she answered, and tried to enter into, her next merry words. There was something different about Jeannie. She was older; there was akind of hard determination sometimes with her, in turning fromsuggestions of graver things; the child-unconsciousness was no longerthere; something restless, now and then defiant, had taken its place;she had caught a sound of the deeper voices, but her soul would not yetturn to listen. She felt the blossom of life yearning under the leaf;but she bent the green beauty heedfully above it, and made believe itwas not there. Looking into herself and about her with asking eyes, Leslie had learnedsomething already by which she apprehended these things of others. Heretofore, her two friends had seemed to her alike, --able, both ofthem, to take life innocently and carelessly as it came; she began nowto feel a difference. Her eyes were bent away off toward the Franconia hills, when Mrs. Linceford leaned round to look in them, and spoke, in the tone her voicehad begun to take toward her. She felt one of her strong likings--herimmense fancies, as she called them, which were really warm sympathiesof the best of her with the best she found in the world--for LeslieGoldthwaite. "It seems to me you are a _stray_ sunbeam this morning, " she said, inher winning way. "What kind of thoughts are going out so far? What is itall about?" A verse of the Psalms was ringing itself in Leslie's mind; had beenthere, under all the other vague musings and chance suggestions for manyminutes of her silence. But she would not have spoken it--she _could_not--for all the world. She gave the lady one of the chance suggestionsinstead. "I have been looking down into that lovely hollow; it seemslike a children's party, with all the grave, grown folks looking on. " "Childhood and grown-up-hood; not a bad simile. " It was not, indeed. It was a wild basin, within a group of the lesserhills close by; full of little feathery birches, that twinkled andplayed in the light breeze and gorgeous sunshine slanting in upon thembetween the slopes that lay in shadow above, --slopes clothed with ranksof dark pines and cedars and hemlocks, looking down seriously, yet witha sort of protecting tenderness, upon the shimmer and frolic they seemedto have climbed up out of. Those which stood in the half way shadow weregravest. Hoar old stems upon the very tops were touched with theself-same glory that lavished itself below. This also was no less a truesimilitude. "Know ye not this parable?" the Master said. "How then shall ye knowall parables?" Verily, they lie about us by the wayside, and the wholeearth is vocal with the wisdom of the Lord. I cannot go with our party step by step; I have a summer to spend withthem. They came to Jefferson at noon, and sat themselves down in thesolemn high court and council of the mountain kings. First, they musthave rooms. In the very face of majesty they must settle their traps. "You are lucky in coming in for one vacancy, made to-day, " theproprietor said, throwing open a door that showed them a commodioussecond-floor corner-room, looking each way with broad windows upon thecircle of glory, from Adams to Lafayette. A wide balcony ran along thesouthern side against the window which gave that aspect. There were twobeds here, and two at least of the party must be content to occupy. Mrs. Linceford, of course; and it was settled that Jeannie should share itwith her. Upstairs, again, was choice of two rooms, --one flight, or two. But thefirst looked out westward, where was comparatively little of what theyhad come for. Higher up, they could have the same outlook that theothers had; a slanting ceiling opened with dormer window full upon thegrandeur of Washington, and a second faced southward to where beautifulblue, dreamy Lafayette lay soft against the tender heaven. "Oh, let us have this!" said Leslie eagerly. "We don't mind stairs. " Andso it was settled. "Only two days here?" they began to say, when they gathered in Mrs. Linceford's room at nearly tea-time, after a rest and freshening oftheir toilets. "We might stay longer, " Mrs. Linceford answered. "But the rooms aretaken for us at Outledge, and one can't settle and unpack, when it'sonly a lingering from day to day. All there is here one sees from thewindows. A great deal, to be sure; but it's all there at the firstglance. We'll see how we feel on Friday. " "The Thoresbys are here, Augusta. I saw Ginevra on the balcony just now. They seem to have a large party with them. And I'm sure I heard themtalk of a hop to-night. If your trunks would only come!" "They could not in time. They can only come in the train that reachesLittleton at six. " "But you'll go in, won't you? 'T isn't likely they dress muchhere, --though Ginevra Thoresby always dresses. Elinor and I could justput on our blue grenadines, and you've got plenty of things in yourother boxes. One of your shawls is all you want, and we can lend Lesliesomething. " "I've only my thick traveling boots, " said Leslie; "and I shouldn'tfeel fit without a thorough dressing. It won't matter the first night, will it?" "Leslie Goldthwaite, you're getting slow! Augusta!" "As true as I live, there is old Marmaduke Wharne!" "Let Augusta alone for not noticing a question till she chooses toanswer it, " said Jeannie Hadden, laughing. "And who, pray, is MarmadukeWharne? With a name like that, if you didn't say 'old, ' I should make upmy mind to a real hero, right out of a book. " "He's an original. And--yes--he is a hero, --_out_ of a book, too, in hisway. I met him at Catskill last summer. He stayed there the wholeseason, till they shut the house up and drove him down the mountain. Other people came and went, took a look, and ran away; but he was afixture. He says he always does so, --goes off somewhere and 'finds anArarat, ' and there drifts up and sticks fast. In the winter he's in NewYork; but that's a needle in a haystack. I never heard of him till Ifound him at Catskill. He's an English-man, and they say had more to hisname once. It was Wharne_cliffe_, or Wharne_leigh_, or something, andthere's a baronetcy in the family. I don't doubt, myself, that it's his, and that a part of his oddity has been to drop it. He was a poorpreacher, years ago; and then, of a sudden, he went out to England, andcame back with plenty of money, and since then he's been an apostle andmissionary among the poor. That's his winter work; the summers, as Isaid, he spends in the hills. Most people are half afraid of him; forhe's one you'll get the blunt truth from, if you never got it before. But come, there's the gong, --ugh! how they batter it! and we must getthrough tea and out upon the balcony, to see the sunset and the 'purplelight. ' There's no time now, girls, for blue grenadines; and it's alwaysvulgar to come out in a hurry with dress in a strange place. " And Mrs. Linceford gave a last touch to her hair, straightened the things on herdressing-table, shut down the lid of a box, and led the way from theroom. Out upon the balcony they watched the long, golden going down of thesun, and the creeping shadows, and the purple half-light, and theafter-smile upon the crests. And then the heaven gathered itself in itsnight stillness, and the mountains were grand in the soft gloom, untilthe full moon came up over Washington. There had been a few words of recognition with the Thoresby party, andthen our little group had betaken itself to the eastern end of thepiazza. After a while, one by one, the others strayed away, and theywere left almost alone. There was a gathering and a sound of voicesabout the drawing-room, and presently came the tones of the piano, struck merrily. They jarred, somehow, too; for the ringing, thrillingnotes of a horn, blown below, had just gone down the diminishing echoesfrom cliff to cliff, and died into a listening silence, away over, onecould not tell where, beyond the mysterious ramparts. "It's getting cold, " said Jeannie impatiently. "I think we've stayedhere long enough. Augusta, _don't_ you mean to get a proper shawl, andput some sort of lace thing on your head, and come in with us for alook, at least, at the hop? Come, Nell; come, Leslie; you might as wellbe at home as in a place like this, if you're only going to mope. " "It seems to me, " said Leslie, more to herself than to Jeannie, lookingover upon the curves and ridges and ravines of Mount Washington, showingvast and solemn under the climbing moon, "as if we had got into acathedral!" "And the 'great nerve' was being touched! Well, --that don't make _me_shiver. Besides, I didn't come here to shiver. I've come to have a rightgood time; and to look at the mountains--as much as is reasonable. " It was a pretty good definition of what Jeannie Hadden thought she hadcome into the world for. There was subtle indication in it, also, thatthe shadow of some doubt had not failed to touch her either, and thatthis with her was less a careless instinct than a resolved conclusion. Elinor, in her happy good-humor, was ready for either thing: to stay inthe night splendor longer, or to go in. It ended in their going in. Outside, the moon wheeled on in her long southerly circuit, the starstrembled in their infinite depths, and the mountains abided in awfulmight. Within was a piano tinkle of gay music, and demi-toilette, anddemi-festival, --the poor, abridged reproduction of city revelry in theinadequate parlor of an unpretending mountain-house, on a three-plycarpet. Marmaduke Wharne came and looked in at the doorway. Mrs. Linceford rosefrom her seat upon the sofa close by, and gave him courteous greeting. "The season has begun early, and you seem likely to have a pleasantsummer here, " she said, with the half-considered meaning of a commonfashion of speech. "No, madam!" answered Marmaduke Wharne, out of his real thought, with ablunt emphasis. "You think not?" said Mrs. Linceford suavely, in a quiet amusement. "Itlooks rather like it to-night. " "_This?_--It's no use for people to bring their bodies to themountains, if they can't bring souls in them!" And Marmaduke Wharneturned on his heel, and, without further courtesy, strode away. "What an old Grimgriffinhoof!" cried Jeannie under her breath; andElinor laughed her little musical laugh of fun. Mrs. Linceford drew up her shawl, and sat down again, the remnant of awell-bred smile upon her face. Leslie Goldthwaite rather wished oldMarmaduke Wharne would come back again and say more. But this firstglimpse of him was all they got to-night. CHAPTER V. HUMMOCKS. "Blown crystal clear by Freedom's northern wind. " Leslie said the last line of Whittier's glorious mountain sonnet, low, to herself, standing on the balcony again that next morning, in thecold, clear breeze; the magnificent lines of the great earth-massesrearing themselves before her sharply against a cloudless morning sky, defining and revealing themselves anew. "Freedom's northern wind will take all the wave out of your hair, andgive you a red nose!" said Jeannie, coming round from her room, and uponLeslie unaware. Well, Jeannie _was_ a pretty thing to look at, in her delicate bluecambric morning dress, gracefully braided with white, with the freshrose of recent sleep in her young cheeks, and the gladness of young lifein her dark eyes. One might look away from the mountains to look at her;for, after all, the human beauty is the highest. Only, it must expresshigh things, or at last one turns aside. "And there comes Marmaduke; he's worse than the north wind. I can'tstay to be 'blown clear' by him. " And Jeannie, in high, merrygood-humor, flitted off. It is easy to be merry and good-humored whenone's new dress fits exquisitely, and one's hair hasn't been fractiousin the doing up. Leslie had never, apparently to herself, cared less, somehow, for selfand little vanities; it seemed as if it were going to be quite easy forher, now and henceforth, to care most for the nobler things of life. Thegreat mountain enthusiasm had seized her for the first time and sweptaway before it all meaner thought; and, besides, her trunk had been leftbehind, and she had nothing to put herself into but her plain browntraveling dress. She let the wind play with the puffs of her hair, and send some littlelight locks astray about her forehead. She wrapped her shawl around her, and went and sat where she had sat the night before, at the eastern endof the balcony, her face toward the morning hills, as it had been towardthe evening radiance and purple shade. Marmaduke Wharne was moving upand down, stopping a little short of her when he turned, keeping his ownsolitude as she kept hers. Faces and figures glanced out at thehall-door for an instant each, and the keen salute of the north windsent them invariably in again. Nobody wanted to go with a red nose ortossed hair to the breakfast-table; and breakfast was almost ready. Butpresently Mrs. Linceford came, and, seeing Mr. Wharne, who alwaysinterested and amused her, she ventured forth, bidding him good-morning. "Good-morning, madam. It _is_ a good morning. " "A little sharp, isn't it?" she said, shrugging her shoulders together, irresolute about further lingering. "Ah, Leslie? Let me introduce you tothe Reverend Mr. Wharne. My young friend and traveling companion, MissLeslie Goldthwaite, Mr. Wharne. Have you two driven everybody else off, or is it the nipping air?" "I think it is either that they have not said their prayers thismorning, or that they don't know their daily bread when they see it. They think it is only saleratus cakes and maple molasses. " "As cross this morning as last night?" the lady questioned playfully. "Not cross at all, Mrs. Linceford. Only jarred upon continually by thesepeople we have here just now. It was different two years ago. ButJefferson is getting to be too well known. The mountain places are beingspoiled, one after another. " "People will come. You can't help that. " "Yes, they will come, and frivel about the gates, without ever onceentering in. 'Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who shallstand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; whohath not lifted up his soul unto vanity. '" Leslie Goldthwaite's face quickened and glowed; they were the psalmlines that had haunted her thought yesterday, among the opening visionsof the hill-country. Marmaduke Wharne bent his keen eyes upon her, fromunder their gray brows, noting her narrowly. She wist not that she wasnoted, or that her face shone. "One soul here, at least!" was what the stern old man said to himself inthat moment. He was cynical and intolerant here among the mountains, where he feltthe holy places desecrated, and the gift of God unheeded. In the hauntsof city misery and vice, --misery and vice shut in upon itself, with nobroad outlook to the heavens, --he was tender, with the love of Christhimself. "'My house shall be called the house of prayer, but these have made it aden of thieves. ' It is true not alone of the temples built with hands. " "Is that fair? How do you _know_, Mr. Wharne?" The sudden, impetuousquestions come from Leslie Goldthwaite. "I see--what I see. " "The whole?" said Leslie, more restrainedly. She remembered her respectfor age and office. Yet she felt sorely tempted, shy, proud girl as shewas, to take up cudgels for her friends, at least. Mr. Wharne liked herthe better for that. "They turn away from this, with five words, --the toll of custom, --orhalf a look, when the wind is north; and they go in to what you saw lastnight. " "After all, isn't it just _enjoyment_, either way? Mayn't one be asselfish as the other? People were kind, and bright, and pleasant witheach other last night. Is that a bad thing?" "No, little girl, it is not. " And Marmaduke Wharne came nearer toLeslie, and looked at her with a gentle look that was wonderfullybeautiful upon his stern gray face. "Only, I would have a kindness thatshould go deep, --coming from a depth. There are two things for live menand women to do: to receive, from God; and to give out, to theirfellows. One cannot be done without the other. No fruit, without thedrinking of the sunshine. No true tasting of the sunshine that is notgathering itself toward the ripening of fruit. " Here it was again; more teaching to the self-same point, --as we alwaysdo get it, with a seeming strangeness, whether it be for mind only, orfor soul. You never heard of a new name, or fact in history, that didnot come out again presently in some fresh or further mention orallusion. It is the tender training of Him before whom our life is ofso great value. At this moment, the gong sounded again; saleratus cakes and maplemolasses were ready, and they all went in. Leslie saw Imogen Thoresby change seats with her mother, because thedraught from the door was less in her place; and take the pale top cakefrom the plate, leaving a brown one for the mother. Everybody likesbrown cakes best; and it was very unbecoming to sit opposite a great, unshaded window, to say nothing of the draught. Surely a little blossompeeped out here from under the leaf. Leslie thought Imogen Thoresbymight be forgiven for having done her curls so elaborately, and put onsuch an elegant wrapper; even for having ventured only a half-look outat the balcony door, when she found the wind was north. The parable wasalready teaching her both ways. I do not mean to preach upon every page. I have begun by trying to tellyou how a great influencing thought was given into Leslie Goldthwaite'slife, and began to unravel for her perplexing questions that hadtroubled her, --questions that come, I think, to many a young girl justentering upon the world, as they came to her; how, in the simple historyof her summer among the mountains, a great deal solved itself and grewclear. I would like to succeed in making you divine this, as you followout the simple history itself. "Just in time!" cried Jeannie Hadden, running up into Leslie's room atmid-afternoon that day. "There's a stage over from Littleton, and yourtrunk is being brought up this minute. " "And the hair-trunk and the mail-bag came on, too, after all, and thequeerest people with them!" added Elinor, entering behind her. They both stood back and were silent, as a man came heavily along thepassage with the trunk upon his shoulder. He set it down and unfastenedthe straps, and in a minute more was gone, and Leslie had the lid open. All there, just as it had been in her own room at home three days ago. Her face brightened, seeing her little treasures again. She had borne itwell; she had been able to enjoy without them; but she was very gladthat they were come. "It's nice that dinner is at lunch-time here, and that nobody dressesuntil now. Make haste, and get on something pretty. Augusta won't let usget out organdies, but we're determined on the blue grenadines. It'sawfully hot, --hot enough for anything. Do your hair over the high rats, just for once. " "I always get into such a fuss with them, and I can't bear to waste thetime. How will this do?" Leslie unpinned from its cambric cover a grayiron barége, with a narrow puffing round the hem of the full skirt andthe little pointed bertha cape. With it lay bright cherry ribbons forthe neck and hair. "Lovely! Make haste and come down to our room. " And having to dressherself, Jeannie ran off again, and Elinor shut the door. It was nice to have on everything fresh; to have got her feet intorosetted slippers instead of heavy balmoral boots; to feel the lightnessand grace of her own movement as she went downstairs and along the hallsin floating folds of delicate barége, after wearing the close, uncomfortable traveling-dress, with the sense of dust and fatigue thatclung about it; to have a little flutter of bright ribbon in her hair, that she knew was, as Elinor said, "the prettiest part of her. " It waspleasant to see Mrs. Linceford looked pleased, as she opened her door toher, and to have her say, "You always do get on exactly the rightthing!" There was a fresh feeling of pleasure even in looking over atWashington, sun-lighted and shadowed in his miles of heights and depths, as she sat by the cool east window, feeling quite her dainty self again. Dress is but the outside thing, as beauty is but "skin deep;" but thereis a deal of inevitable skin-sensation, pleasurable or uncomfortable, and Leslie had a good right to be thoroughly comfortable now. The blinds to the balcony window were closed; that led to a funny littleepisode presently, --an odd commentary on the soul-and-body question, asit had come up to them in graver fashion. Outside, to two chairs just under the window, came a couple newlyarrived, --the identical proprietors of the exchanged luggage. It was anelderly countryman, and his home-bred, matter-of-fact wife. They, too, had had their privations and anxieties, and the outset of theirevidently unusual travels had been marred in its pleasure. In plaintruth, the good woman was manifestly soured by her experience. Right square before the blinds she turned her back, unconscious of theaudience within, lifted her elbows, like clothes-poles, to raise herdraperies, and settled herself with a dissatisfied flounce, thatexpressed beforehand what she was about to put in words. "For _my_part, " she announced deliberately, "I think the White Mountains is aclear--_hummux!_" "Good large hummocks, anyway, " returned her companion. "You know what I mean. 'T ain't worth comin' for. Losin' baggage, an'everything. We'd enough sight better ha' stayed at Plymouth. An' if ithadn't 'a' ben for your dunderheadedness, givin' up the checks an' neverstoppin' to see what was comin' of 'em, trunks or hencoops, we might. There's somethin' to see, there. That little bridge leadin' over to theswings and seats across the river was real pretty and pleasant. And thecars comin' in an' startin' off, right at the back door, made it lively. I alwers _did_ like to see passin. '" The attitudes inside the blinds were something, at this moment. Mrs. Linceford, in a spasm of suppressed laughter herself, held herhandkerchief to her lips with one hand, and motioned peremptory silenceto the girls with the other. Jeannie was noiselessly clapping her hands, and dancing from one toe to the other with delight. Leslie and Elinorsqueezed each other's fingers lightly, and leaned forward together, their faces brimming over with fun; and the former whispered withemphatic pantomime to Mrs. Linceford, "_If_ Mr. Wharne were only here!" "You've ben worried, " said the man. "And you've ben comin' up to 'emgradooal. You don't take 'em in. If one of these 'ere hills was set outin our fields to home, you'd think it was something more than a hummock, I guess. " "Well, why ain't they, then? It's the best way to put things where youcan see 'em to an advantage. They're all in the way of each other here, and don't show for nothing to speak of. Worried! I guess I hev ben! Ishan't git over it till I've got home an' ben settled down a week. It'sa mercy I've ever laid eyes agin on that bran'-new black alpacky!" "Well, p'r'aps the folks felt wuss that lost them stylish-lookin'trunks. I'll bet they had something more in 'em than black alpackys. " "That don't comfort me none. I've had _my_ tribulation. " "Well, come, don't be grouty, Hannah. We've got through the wust of it, and if you ain't satisfied, why, we'll go back to Plymouth again. I canstand it awhile, I guess, if 't _is_ four dollars a day. " He had evidently sat still a good while for him, honest man; and he gotup with this, and began to pace up and down, looking at the "hummocks, "which signified greater meanings to him than to his wife. Mrs. Linceford came over and put the window down. It was absolutelynecessary to laugh now, however much of further entertainment might becut off. Hannah jumped up, electrified, as the sash went down behind her. "John! John! There's folks in there!" "S'pose likely, " said John, with quiet relish of amends. "What's goodfor me 'ill do for them!" CHAPTER VI. DAKIE THAYNE. "Grimgriffinhoof won't speak to you to-night, " said Jeannie Hadden, after tea, upon the balcony. She was mistaken. There was something different, still, in LeslieGoldthwaite's look, as she came out under the sunset light, from thelooks that prevailed in the Thoresby group when they, too, made theirappearance. The one moved self-forgetfully, --her consciousness andthought sent forth, not fluttering in her robes and ribbons; with theothers there was a little air and bustle, as of people coming into anopera-box in presence of a full house. They said "lovely!" and"splendid!" of course, --their little word of applause for the scenicgrandeur of mountain and heaven, and then the half of them turned theirbacks upon it, and commenced talking together about whether waterfallswere really to be given up or not, and of how people were going to lookin high-crowned bonnets. Mrs. Linceford told the "hummux" story to Marmaduke Wharne. The old manlaughed till the Thoresby party turned to see. "But I like one thing, " he said. "The woman was honest. Her 'blackalpacky' was most to her, and she owned up to it. " The regular thing being done, outside, the company drifted back, as theshadows fell, to the parlor again. Mrs. Linceford's party moved also, and drifted with the rest. Marmaduke Wharne, quite graciously, walkedafter. The Lancers was just forming. "The bear is playing tame and amiable, " whispered Jeannie. "But he'lleat you up, for all that. I wouldn't trust him. He's going to watch, tosee how wicked you'll be. " "I shall let him see, " replied Leslie quietly. "Miss Goldthwaite, you're for the dance to-night? For the 'bright andkind and pleasant, ' eh?" the "bear" said, coming to her side within theroom. "If anybody asks me, " answered Leslie, with brave simplicity. "I likedancing--_very_ much. " "I'll find you a partner, then, " said Mr. Wharne. She looked up, surprised; but he was quite in earnest. He walked acrossthe room, and brought back with him a lad of thirteen or so, --well grownfor his age, and bright and manly-looking; but only a boy, and a littleshy and stiff at first, as boys have to be for a while. Leslie had seenhim before, in the afternoon, rolling the balls through a solitary gameof croquet; and afterward taking his tea by himself at the lower end ofthe table. He had seemed to belong to nobody, and as yet hardly to havegot the "run" of the place. "This is Master Thayne, Miss Leslie Goldthwaite, and I think he wouldlike to dance, if you please. " Master Thayne made a proper bow, and glanced up at the young girl with asmile lurking behind the diffidence in his face. Leslie smiled outright, and held out her hand. It was not a brilliant début, perhaps. The Haddens had been appropriatedby a couple of youths in frock coats and orthodox kids, with a suspicionof mustaches; and one of the Thoresbys had a young captain of cavalry, with gold bars on his shoulders. Elinor Hadden raised her prettyeyebrows, and put as much of a mock-miserable look into her happy littleface as it could hold, when she found her friend, so paired, at herright hand. "It's very good of you to stand up with me, " said the boy simply. "It'sawful slow, not knowing anybody. " "Are you here alone?" asked Leslie. "Yes; there was nobody to come with me. Oliver--my brother--will comeby and by, and perhaps my uncle and the rest of them, to meet me whereI'm to be, down among the mountains. We're all broken up this summer, and I'm to take care of myself. " "Then you don't stay here?" "No; I only came this way to see what it was like. I've got a jollyplace engaged for me, at Outledge. " "Outledge? Why, we are going there!" "Are you? That's--jolly!" repeated the boy, pausing a second for afresher or politer word, but unable to supply a synonym. "I'm glad you think so, " answered Leslie, with her genuine smile again. The two had already made up their minds to be friends. In fact, MasterThayne would hardly have acquiesced in being led up for introduction toany other young girl in the room. There had been something in LeslieGoldthwaite's face that had looked kind and sisterly to him. He had nofear of a snub with her; and these things Mr. Wharne had read, in hisbehalf, as well. "He's a queer old fellow, that Mr. Wharne, isn't he?" pursued MasterThayne, after forward and back, as he turned his partner to place. "Buthe's the only one that's had anything to say to me, and I like him. I've been down to the old mill with him to-day. Those people"--motioningslightly toward the other set, where the Thoresbys were dancing--"weredown there, too. You'd ought to have seen them look! Don't they hatehim, though?" "Hate him? Why should they do that?" "Oh, I don't know. People feel each other out, I suppose. And a word ofhis is as much as a whole preach of anybody's else. He says a word nowand then, and it hits. " "Yes, " responded Leslie, laughing. "What _did_ you do it for?" whispered Elinor, in hands across. "I like him; he's got something to say, " returned Leslie. "Augusta's looking at you, like a hen after a stray chicken. She's allbut clucking now. " "Mr. Wharne will tell her. " But Mr. Wharne was not in the room. He came back just as Leslie wasmaking her way again, after the dance, to Mrs. Linceford. "Will you do a galop with me presently?--if you don't get a betterpartner, I mean, " said Master Thayne. "That wouldn't be much of a promise, " answered Leslie, smiling. "I will, at any rate; that is, if--after I've spoken to Mrs. Linceford. " Mr. Wharne came up and said something to young Thayne, just then; andthe latter turned eagerly to Leslie. "The telescope's fixed, out on thebalcony; and you can see Jupiter and three of his moons! We must makehaste, before _our_ moon's up. " "Will you go and look, Mrs. Linceford?" asked Mr. Wharne of the lady, asLeslie reached her side. They went with him, and Master Thayne followed. Jeannie and Elinor andthe Miss Thoresbys were doing the inevitable promenade after thedance, --under difficulties. "Who is your young friend?" inquired Mrs. Linceford, with a shade ofdoubt in her whisper, as they came out on the balcony. "Master"--Leslie began to introduce, but stopped. The name, which shehad not been quite certain of, escaped her. "My name is Dakie Thayne, " said the boy, with a bow to the matron. "Now, Mrs. Linceford, if you'll just sit here, " said Mr. Wharne, placinga chair. "I suppose I ought to have come to you first; but it's allright, " he added, in a low tone, over her shoulder. "He's a nice boy. " And Mrs. Linceford put her eye to the telescope. "Dakie Thayne! It's aqueer name; and yet it seems as if I had heard it before, " she said, looking away through the mystic tube into space, and seeing Jupiter withhis moons, in a fair round picture framed expressly to her eye; yetsending a thought, at the same time, up and down the lists of a mentaldirectory, trying to place Dakie Thayne among people she had heard of. "I'll be responsible for the name, " answered Marmaduke Wharne. "'Dakie' is a nickname, of course; but they always call me so, and Ilike it best, " the boy was explaining to Leslie, while they waited inthe doorway. Then her turn came. Leslie had never looked through a telescope upon thestars before. She forgot the galop, and the piano tinkled out its gayestnotes unheard. "It seems like coming all the way back, " she said, whenshe moved away for Dakie Thayne. Then they wheeled the telescope upon its pivot eastward, and met our ownmoon coming up, as if in a grand jealousy, to assert herself within hersmall domain, and put out faint, far satellites of lordlier planets. They looked upon her mystic, glistening hill-tops, and down her awfulcraters; and from these they seemed to drop a little, as a bird might, and alight on the earth-mountains looming close at hand, with theirhuge, rough crests and sides, and sheer escarpments white withnakedness; and so--got home again. Leslie, with her maps and gazetteer, had done no traveling like this. She would not have cared, if she had known, that Imogen Thoresby waslooking for her within, to present, at his own request, the cavalrycaptain. She did not know in the least, absorbed in her pure enjoyment, that Marmaduke Wharne was deliberately trying her, and confirming hisestimate of her, in these very things. She danced her galop with Dakie Thayne, after she went back. The cavalrycaptain was introduced, and asked for it. "That was something, " as HansAndersen would say; but "What a goose not to have managed better!" waswhat Imogen Thoresby thought concerning it, as the gold bars turnedthemselves away. Leslie Goldthwaite had taken what came to her, and she had had aninnocent, merry time; she had been glad to be dressed nicely, and tolook her best: but somehow she had not thought of that much, after all;the old uncomfortableness had not troubled her to-night. "_Just to be in better business_. That's the whole of it, " she thoughtto herself, with her head upon the pillow. She put it in words, mentally, in the same off-hand fashion in which she would have spokenit to Cousin Delight. "One must look out for that, and keep at it. _That's_ the eye-stone-woman's way; and it's what has kept me fromworrying and despising myself to-night. It only happened so, this time;it was Mr. Wharne, not I. But I suppose one can always find something, by trying. And the trying"--The rest wandered off into a happy musing;and the musing merged into a dream. Object and motive, --the "seeking first;" she had touched upon that, atlast, with a little comprehension of its working. She liked Dakie Thayne. The next day they saw a good deal of him; hejoined himself gradually, but not obtrusively, to their party; theyincluded him in their morning game of croquet. This was at her instance;he was standing aside, not expecting to be counted in, though he hadbroken off his game of solitaire, and driven the balls up to thestarting-stake, as they came out upon the ground. The Thoresby set hadignored him, always, being too many already among themselves, --and hewas only a boy. This morning there were only Imogen, and Etty, the youngest; awalking-party had gone off up the Cherry Mountain road, and Ginevra wasupstairs, packing; for the Thoresbys had also suddenly decided to leavefor Outledge on the morrow. Mrs. Thoresby declared, in confidence, toMrs. Linceford, that "old Wharne would make any house intolerable; andthat Jefferson, at any rate, was no place for more than a week's stay. "She "wouldn't have it mentioned in the house, however, that she wasgoing, till the time came, --it made such an ado; and everybody's planswere at loose ends among the mountains, ready to fix themselves toanything at a day's notice; they might have tomorrow's stage loaded tocrushing, if they did not take care. " "But I thought Mrs. Devreaux and the Klines were with you, " remarkedMrs. Linceford. "Of our party? Oh, no indeed; we only fell in with them here. " "Fell in" with them; became inseparable for a week; and now werestealing a march, --_dodging_ them, --lest there might be an overcrowdingof the stage, and an impossibility of getting outside seats! Mrs. Thoresby was a woman of an imposing elegance and dignity, with her largecurls of resplendent gray hair high up on her temples, herseverely-handsome dark eyebrows, and her own perfect, white teeth; yetshe could do a shabby thing, you see, --a thing made shabby by itsmotive. The Devreaux and Klines were only "floating people, " boardingabout, --not permanently valuable as acquaintances; well enough to knowwhen one met them, --that was all. Mrs. Thoresby had daughters; she wasobliged to calculate as to what was worth while. Mrs. Linceford had anelegant establishment in New York; she had young sisters to bring out;there was suitability here; and the girls would naturally findthemselves happy together. Dakie Thayne developed brilliantly at croquet. He and Leslie, with EttyThoresby, against Imogen and the Haddens, swept triumphantly around thecourse, and came in to the stake, before there had been even a "rover"upon the other side. Except, indeed, as they were _sent_ roving, awayoff over the bank and down the road, from the sloping, unevenground, --the most extraordinary field, in truth, on which croquet wasever attempted. But then you cannot expect a level, velvet lawn on theside of a mountain. "Children always get the best of it at croquet, --when they know anythingat all, " said Imogen Thoresby discontentedly, throwing down her mallet. "You 'poked' awfully, Etty. " Etty began an indignant denial; unable to endure the double accusationof being a child, --she, a girl in her fourteenth year, --and of "poking. "But Imogen walked away quite unconcernedly, and Jeannie Hadden followedher. These two, as nearest in age, were growing intimate. Ginevra wasalmost too old, --she was twenty. They played a four-ball game then; Leslie and Etty against Elinor andDakie Thayne. But Elinor declared--laughing, all the same, in herimperturbably good-natured way--that not only Etty's pokes were againsther, but that Dakie would _not_ croquet Leslie's ball downhill. Nothingever really put Elinor Hadden out, the girls said of her, except whenher hair wouldn't go up; and then it was funny to see her. It was asunbeam in a snarl, or a snow flurry out of a blue sky. This inparenthesis, however; it was quite true, as she alleged, that DakieThayne had taken up already that chivalrous attitude toward LeslieGoldthwaite which would not let him act otherwise than as her loyalknight, even though opposed to her at croquet. "You'll have enough of that boy, " said Mrs. Linceford, when Leslie camein, and found her at her window that overlooked the wickets. "There'snothing like a masculine creature of that age for adoring andmonopolizing a girl two or three years older. He'll make you mend hisgloves, and he'll beg your hair-ribbons for hat-strings; and when you'renot dancing or playing croquet with him, he'll be after you with someboy-hobby or other, wanting you to sympathize and help. 'I know theirtricks and their manners. '" But she looked amused and kind while shethreatened, and Leslie only smiled back and said nothing. Presently fresh fun gathered in Mrs. Linceford's eyes. "You're makingqueer friends, child, do you know, at the beginning of your travels? Weshall have Cocky-locky, and Turkey-lurky, and Goosie-poosie, and all therest of them, before we get much farther. Don't breathe a word, girls, "she went on, turning toward them all, and brimming over with merrimentand mischief;--"but there's the best joke brewing. It's just like afarce. Is the door shut, Elinor? And are the Thoresbys gone upstairs?They're going with us, you know? And there's nothing to be said aboutit? And it's partly to get away from Marmaduke Wharne? Well, _he_'sgoing, too. And it's greatly because they're spoiling the place for himhere. He thinks he'll try Outledge; and there's nothing to be said aboutthat, either! And I'm the unhappy depositary of all their complaints andsecrets. And if nobody's stopped, they'll all be off in the stage withus to-morrow morning! I couldn't help telling you, for it was too goodto keep. " The secrets were secrets through the day; and Mrs. Linceford had herquiet fun, and opportunity for her demure teasing. "How long since Outledge was discovered and settled?--by the moderns, Imean, " said Mr. Wharne. "What chance will one really have of quietthere?" "Well, really, to be honest, Mr. Wharne, I'm afraid Outledge will bejust at the rampant stage this summer. It's the second year of anythinglike general accommodation, and everybody has just heard of it, and it'sthe knowing and stylish thing to go there. For a week or two it may bequiet; but then there'll be a jam. There'll be hops, and tableaux, andtheatricals, of course; interspersed with 'picnicking at the tomb ofJehoshaphat, ' or whatever mountain solemnity stands for that. It'll behuman nature right over again, be assured, Mr. Wharne. " Yet, somehow, Mr. Wharne would not be frightened from hisdetermination, --until the evening; when plans came out, and good-bys andwonders and lamentations began. "Yes, we have decided quite suddenly; the girls want to see Outledge, and there's a pleasant party of friends, you know, --one can't alwayshave that. We shall probably fill a stage: so they will take us through, instead of dropping us at the Crawford House. " In this manner Mrs. Thoresby explained to her dear friend, Mrs. Devreaux. "We shall be quite sorry to lose you all. But it would only have been aday or so longer, at any rate. Our rooms are engaged for the fifteenth, at Saratoga; we've very little time left for the mountains, and itwouldn't be worth while to go off the regular track. We shall probablygo down to the Profile on Saturday. " And then--_da capo_--"Jefferson was no place really to _stay_ at; yougot the whole in the first minute, " etc. , etc. "Good-night, Mrs. Linceford. I'm going up to unpack my valise and makemyself comfortable again. All things come round, or go by, I find, ifone only keeps one's self quiet. But I shall look in upon you atOutledge yet. " These were the stairway words of Marmaduke Wharneto-night. "'One gets the whole in the first minute'! How can they keep sayingthat? Look, Elinor, and see if you can tell me where we are?" wasLeslie's cry, as, early next morning, she drew up her window-shade, tolook forth--on what? Last night had lain there, underneath them, the great basin betweenStarr King, behind, and the roots of that lesser range, far down, abovewhich the blue Lafayette uprears itself: an enormous valley, filled withevergreen forest, over whose tall pines and cedars one looked, as ifthey were but juniper and blueberry bushes; far up above whose heads thereal average of the vast mountain-country heaped itself in swellingmasses, --miles and miles of beetling height and solid breadth. Thismorning it was gone; only the great peaks showed themselves, as afar-off, cliff-bound shore, or here and there a green island in a vast, vaporous lake. The night-chill had come down among the heights, condensing the warm exhalations of the valley-bosom that had been shoneinto all day yesterday by the long summer sun; till, when he liftedhimself once more out of the east, sending his leaping light from crestto crest, white fallen clouds were tumbling and wreathing themselvesabout the knees and against the mighty bosoms of the giants, and attheir feet the forest was a sea. "We must dress, and we must look!" exclaimed Leslie, as the earlysummons came for them. "Oh dear! oh dear! if we were only like thebirds! or if all this would wait till we get down!" "Please drop the shade just a minute, Les. This glass is in such ahorrid light! I don't seem to have but half a face, and I can't tellwhich is the up-side of that! And--oh dear! I've no _time_ to get into afuss!" Elinor had not disdained the beauty and wonder without; but itwas, after all, necessary to be dressed, and in a given time; and a badlight for a looking-glass is such a disastrous thing! "I've brushed out half my crimps, " she said, again; "and my ruffle isbasted in wrong side out, and altogether I'm got up _ŕ la furieuse_!"But she laughed before she had done scolding, catching sight of her ownexaggerated little frown in the distorting glass, that was unable, withall its malice, to spoil the bright young face when it came to smilesand dimples. And then Jeannie came knocking at the door. They had spare minutes, after all, and the mists were yet tossing in the valley when they wentdown. They were growing filmy, and floating away in shining fragments upover the shoulders of the hills, and the lake was lower and less, andthe emerging green was like the "Thousand Islands. " They waited a little there, in the wide, open door together, and lookedout upon it; and then the Haddens went round into their sister's room, and Leslie was left alone in the rare, sweet, early air. The secret joycame whispering at her heart again: that there was all this in theworld, and that one need not be utterly dull and mean, and dead to it;that something in her answered to the greatness overshadowing her; thatit was possible, sometimes, and that people did reach out into a largerlife than that of self and every-day. How else did the great mountainsdraw them to themselves so? But then she would not always be among themountains. And so she stood, drinking in at her eyes all the shifting and meltingsplendors of the marvelous scene, with her thought busy, once more, inits own questioning. She remembered what she had said to CousinDelight: "It is all outside. Going, and doing, and seeing, and hearing, and having. In myself, am I good for any more, after all? Or only--agreen fig-tree in the sunshine?" Why, with that word, did it all flash together for her, as a connectedthing? Her talk that morning, many weeks ago, that had seemed to rambleso from one irrelevant matter to another, --from the parable to herfancy-traveling, the scenes and pleasures she had made for herself, wondering if the real would ever come; to the linen-drawer, representingher little feminine absorptions and interests; and back to the fig-treeagain, ending with that word, --"the real living is the urging toward thefruit"? Her day's journey, and the hints of life--narrowed, suffering, working--that had come to her, each with its problem? Marmaduke Wharne'sindignant protest against people who "did not know their daily bread, "and his insistence upon the _two_ things for human creatures to do: the_receiving_ and the giving; the taking from God, in the sunshine, togrow; the ripening into generous uses for others, --was it all one, anddid it define the whole, and was it identical, in the broadest andhighest, with that sublime double command whereon "hang the law and theprophets"? Something like this passed into her mind and soul, brightening there, like the morning. It seemed, in that glimpse, so clear andgracious, --the truth that had been puzzling her. Easy, beautiful summer work: only to be shone upon; to lift up one'sbranching life, and be--reverently--glad; to grow sweet and helpful andgood-giving, in one's turn, --could she not begin to do that? Perhaps--byever so little; the fruit might be but a berry, yet it might be fair andfull, after its kind; and at least some little bird might be the betterfor it. All around her, too, the life of the world that had so troubledher, --who could tell, in the tangle of green, where the good and thegift might ripen and fall? Every little fern-frond has its seed. Jeannie came behind her again, and called her back to the contradictoryphase of self that, with us all, is almost ready, like Peter, to denythe true. "What are you deep in now, Les?" "Nothing. Only--we go _down_ from here, don't we, Jeannie?" "Yes. And a very good thing for you, too. You've been in the clouds longenough. I shall be glad to get you to the common level again. " "You've no need to be anxious. I can come down as fast as anybody. _That_ isn't the hard thing to do. Let's go in, and get salt-fish andcream for our breakfast. " The Haddens were new to mountain travel; the Thoresbys, literally, were"old stagers;" they were up in the stable-yard before Mrs. Linceford'sparty came out from the breakfast-room. Dakie Thayne was there, too; butthat was quite natural for a boy. They got their outside seats by it, scrambling up before the horses wereput to, and sitting there while the hostlers smiled at each other overtheir work. There was room for two more, and Dakie Thayne took a place;but the young ladies looked askance, for Ginevra had been detained byher mother, and Imogen had hoped to keep a seat for Jeannie, withoutdrawing the whole party after her, and running aground upon politeness. So they drove round to the door. "First come, first served, " cried Imogen, beckoning Jeannie, whohappened to be there, looking for her friend. "I've saved a place foryou, "--and Jeannie Hadden, nothing loath, as a man placed the mountingboard, sprang up and took it. Then the others came out. Mrs. Thoresby and Mrs. Linceford got insidethe vehicle at once, securing comfortable back corner-seats. Ginevra, with Leslie and Elinor, and one or two others too late for their owninterest, but quite comprehending the thing to be preferred, lingeredwhile the last trunks went on, hoping for room to be made somehow. "It's so gay on the top, going down into the villages. There's no funinside, " said Imogen complacently, settling herself upon her perch. "Won't there be another stage?" "Only half way. This one goes through. " "I'll go half way on the other, then, " said Ginevra. "This is the best team, and goes on ahead, " was the reply. "You'll be left behind, " cried Mrs. Thoresby. "Don't think of it, Ginevra!" "Can't that boy sit back, on the roof?" asked the young lady. "That boy" quite ignored the allusion; but presently, as Ginevra movedtoward the coach-window to speak with her mother, he leaned down toLeslie Goldthwaite. "I'll make room for _you_, " he said. But Leslie had decided. She could not, with effrontery of selfishness, take the last possible place, --a place already asked for by another. Shethanked Dakie Thayne, and, with just one little secret sigh, got intothe interior, placing herself by the farther door. At that moment she missed something. "I've left my brown veil in yourroom, Mrs. Linceford, "--and she was about to alight again to go for it. "I'll fetch it, " cried Dakie Thayne from overhead, and, as he spoke, came down on her side by the wheel, and, springing around to the houseentrance, disappeared up the stairs. "Ginevra!" Then there came a laugh and a shout and some crinolineagainst the forward open corner of the coach, and Ginevra Thoresby wasby the driver's side. A little ashamed, in spite of herself, though itwas done under cover of a joke; but "All's fair among the mountains, "somebody said, and "Possession's nine points, " said another, and thelaugh was with her, seemingly. Dakie Thayne flushed up, hot, without a word, when he came out, aninstant after. "I'm _so_ sorry!" said Leslie, with real regret, accented with honestindignation. "It's your place, " called out a rough man, who made the third upon thecoach-box. "Why don't you stick up for it?" The color went down slowly in the boy's face, and a pride came up in hiseye. He put his hand to his cap, with a little irony of deference, andlifted it off with the grace of a grown man. "I know it's my place. Butthe young lady may keep it--now. _I'd_ rather be a gentleman!" saidDakie Thayne. "You've got the best of it!" This came from Marmaduke Wharne, as thedoor closed upon the boy, and the stage rolled down the road towardCherry Mountain. There is a "best" to be got out of everything; but it is neither thebest of place or possession, nor the chuckle of the last word. CHAPTER VII. DOWN AT OUTLEDGE. Among the mountains, somewhere between the Androscoggin and the Saco, --Idon't feel bound to tell you precisely where, and I have only astory-teller's word to give you for it at all, --lies the littleneighborhood of Outledge. An odd corner of a great township such as theymeasure off in these wilds; where they take in, with some eligible"locations" of intervale land, miles also of pathless forest where thebear and the moose are wandering still, a pond, perhaps, filling up abasin of acres and acres in extent, and a good-sized mountain or two, thrown in to keep off the north wind; a corner cut off, as its nameindicates, by the outrunning of a precipitous ridge of granite, roundwhich a handful of population had crept and built itself a group ofdwellings, --this was the spot discovered and seized to themselves somefour or five years since by certain migratory pioneers of fashion. An old two-story farmhouse, with four plain rooms of generous dimensionson each floor, in which the first delighted summer party had divideditself, glad and grateful to occupy them double and even treble bedded, had become the "hotel, " with a name up across the gable of the newwing, --"Giant's Cairn House, "--and the eight original rooms made intofourteen. The wing was clapped on by its middle; rushing out at thefront toward the road to meet the summer tide of travel as it shouldsurge by, and hold up to it, arrestively, its titular sign-board; theother half as expressively making its bee-line toward the river and themountain view at back, --just as each fresh arrival, seeking out thepreferable rooms, inevitably did. Behind, upon the other side, an Lprovided new kitchens; and over these, within a year, had been carriedup a second story, with a hall for dancing, tableaux, theatricals, andtraveling jugglers. Up to this hostelry whirled daily, from the southward, the greatsix-horse stage; and from the northward came thrice a week wagons orcoaches "through the hills, " besides such "extras" as might drive downat any hour of day or night. Round the smooth curve of broad, level road that skirted the ledges fromthe upper village pranced four splendid bays; and after them rollickedand swayed, with a perfect delirium of wheels and springs, the greatblack and yellow bodied vehicle, like a huge bumble-bee buzzing backwith its spoil of a June day to the hive. The June sunset was golden androsy upon the hills and cliffs, and Giant's Cairn stood burnishedagainst the eastern blue. Gay companies, scattered about piazzas andgreenswards, stopped in their talk, or their promenades, or theircroquet, to watch the arrivals. "It's stopping at the Green Cottage. " "It's the Haddens. Their rooms have been waiting since the twenty-third, and all the rest are full. " And two or three young girls dropped malletsand ran over. "Maud Walcott!" "Mattie Shannon!" "Jeannie!" "Nell!" "How came _you_ here?" "We've been here these ten days, --looking for you the last three. " "Why, I can't take it in! I'm so surprised!" "Isn't it jolly, though?" "Miss Goldthwaite--Miss Walcott; Miss Shannon--Miss Goldthwaite;--mysister, Mrs. Linceford. " "_Me voici_!" And a third came up suddenly, laying a hand upon each ofthe Haddens from behind. "You, Sin Saxon! How many more?" "We're coming, Father Abraham! All of us, nearly, three hundred thousandmore--or less; half the Routh girls, with Madam to the fore!" "And we've got all the farther end of the wing downstairs, --the gardenbedrooms; you've no idea how scrumptious it is! You must come over aftertea, and see. " "Not all, Mattie; you forget the solitary spinster. " "No, I don't; who ever does? But can't you ignore her for once?" "Or let a fellow speak in the spirit of prophecy?" said Sin Saxon. "We're sure to get the better of Graywacke, and why not anticipate?" "Graywacke?" said Jeannie Hadden. "Is that a name? It sounds like theside of a mountain. " "And acts like one, " rejoined Sin Saxon. "Won't budge. But it isn't hername, exactly, only Saxon for Craydocke; suggestive of obstinacy and theOld Silurian, --an ancient maiden who infests our half the wing. We'vegot all the rooms but hers, and we're bound to get her out. She's beenthere three years, in the same spot, --went in with the lath andplaster, --and it's _time_ she started. Besides, haven't I got manifestdestiny on my side? Ain't I a Saxon?" Sin Saxon tossed up a merry, bewitching, saucy glance out of her blue, starlike eyes, that shoneunder a fair, low brow touched and crowned lightly with the soft hazeof gold-brown locks frizzed into a delicate mistiness after the rulingfashion of the hour. "What a pretty thing she is!" said Mrs. Linceford, when, seeing her busywith her boxes, and the master of the house approaching to show the newarrivals to their rooms, Sin Saxon and her companions flitted away asthey had come, with a few more sentences of bright girl-nonsense flungback at parting. "And a witty little minx as well. Where did you knowher, Jeannie? And what sort of a satanic name is that you call her by?" "Just suits such a mischief, doesn't it? Short for Asenath, --it wasalways her school-name. She's just finished her last year at MadamRouth's; she came there soon after we did. It's a party of thegraduates, and some younger ones left with Madam for the long holidays, that she's traveling with. I wonder if she isn't sick of her life, though, by this time! Fancy those girls, Nell, with a whole half-wing ofthe hotel to themselves, and Sin Saxon in the midst!" "Poor 'Graywacke' in the midst, you mean, " said Nell. "Like a respectable old grimalkin at the mercy of a crowd of boys and atin kettle, " added Jeannie, laughing. "I've no doubt she's a very nice person, too. I only hope, if I comeacross her, I mayn't call her Graywacke to her face, " said Mrs. Linceford. "Just what you'll be morally sure to do, Augusta!" With this, they had come up the staircase and along a narrow passageleading down between a dozen or so of small bedrooms on eitherside, --for the Green Cottage also had run out its addition of twostories since summer guests had become many and importunate, --and stoodnow where three open doors, one at the right and two at the left, invited their entrance upon what was to be their own especial territoryfor the next two months. From one side they looked up the river alongthe face of the great ledges, and caught the grandeur of far-offWashington, Adams, and Madison, filling up the northward end of the longvalley. The aspect of the other was toward the frowning glooms ofGiant's Cairn close by, and broadened then down over the pleasantsubsidence of the southern country to where the hills grew less, andfair, small, modest peaks lifted themselves just into blue height andnothing more, smiling back with a contented deference toward themightier majesties, as those who might say: "We do our gentle best; itis not yours; yet we, too, are mountains, though but little ones. " Fromunderneath spread the foreground of green, brilliant intervale, withthe river flashing down between margins of sand and pebbles in themidst. Here they put Leslie Goldthwaite; and here, somehow, her firstsensation, as she threw back her blinds to let in all the twilight forher dressing, was a feeling of half relief from the strained awe andwonder of the last few days. Life would not seem so petty here as in theface of all that other solemn stateliness. There was a reaction ofrespite and repose. And why not? The great emotions are not meant tocome to us daily in their unqualified strength. God knows how to dilutehis elixirs for the soul. His fine, impalpable air, spread round theearth, is not more cunningly mixed from pungent gases for our hourlybreath, than life itself is thinned and toned that we may receive andbear it. Leslie wondered if it were wrong that the high mountain fervor letitself go from her so soon and easily; that the sweet pleasantness ofthis new resting-place should come to her as a rest; that the laughterand frolic of the schoolgirls made her glad with such sudden sympathyand foresight of enjoyment; that she should have "come down" all the wayfrom Jefferson in Jeannie's sense, and that she almost felt it acomfortable thing herself not to be kept always "up in the clouds. " Sin Saxon, as they called her, was so bright and odd and fascinating;was there any harm--because no special, obvious good--in that? There wasa little twinge of doubt, remembering poor Miss Craydocke; but that hadseemed pure fun, not malice, after all, and it was, hearing Sin Saxontell it, very funny. She could imagine the life they led the quiet lady;yet, if it were quite intolerable, why did she remain? Perhaps, afterall, she saw through the fun of it. And I think, myself, perhaps shedid. The Marie Stuart net went on to-night; and then such a pretty muslin, white, with narrow, mode-brown stripes, and small, bright leaves droppedover them, as if its wearer had stood out under a maple-tree in Octoberand all the tiniest and most radiant bits had fallen and fastenedthemselves about her. And, last of all, with her little hooded cape ofscarlet cashmere over her arm, she went down to eat cream biscuit andwood strawberries for tea. Her summer life began with a charmingfreshness and dainty delight. There were pleasant voices of happy people about them in hall and openparlor, as they sat at their late repast. Everything seemed indicativeof abundant coming enjoyment; and the girls chatted gayly of all theyhad already discovered or conjectured, and began to talk of the ways ofthe place and the sojourners in it, quite like old _habituées_. It was even more delightful yet, strolling out when tea was over, andmeeting the Routh party again half way between the cottage and thehotel, and sauntering on with them, insensibly, till they foundthemselves on the wide wing-piazza, upon which opened the gardenbedrooms, and being persuaded after all to sit down, since they had gotthere, though Mrs. Linceford had demurred at a too hasty rushing over, as new comers, to begin visits. "Oh, nobody knows when they _are_ called upon here, or who comes first, "said Mattie Shannon. "We generally receive half way across the green, and it's a chance which turns back, or whether we get near either houseagain or not. Houses don't signify, except when it rains. " "But it just signifies that you should see how magnificently we havesettled ourselves for nights, and dressing, and when it _does_ rain, "said Sin Saxon, throwing back a door behind her, that stood a littleajar. It opened directly into a small apartment, half parlor and halfdressing-room, from which doors showed others, on either side, furnishedas sleeping-rooms. "It was Maud Walcott's, between the Arnalls' and mine; but, what withour trunks, and our beds, and our crinolines, and our towel-stands, wewanted a Bowditch's Navigator to steer clear of the reefs, andsomething was always getting knocked over; so, one night, we were seizedsimultaneously with an idea. We'd make a boudoir of this for the generalgood, and forthwith we fell upon the bed, and amongst us got it down. Itwas the greatest fun! We carried the pieces and the mattresses all offourselves up to the attic, after ten o'clock, and we gave thechambermaid a dollar next morning, and nobody's been the wiser since. And then we walked to the upper village and bought that extraordinarychintz, and frilled and cushioned our trunks into ottomans, andcurtained the dress-hooks; and Lucinda got us a rocking-chair, and Maudcame in with me to sleep, and we kept our extra pillows, and we shouldbe comfortable as queens if it wasn't for Graywacke. " "Now, Sin Saxon, you know Graywacke is just the life of the house. Whatwould such a parcel of us do, if we hadn't something to run upon?" "Only I'm afraid I shall get tired of it at last. She bears it so. Itisn't exactly saintliness, nor Graywackeiness, but it seems sometimes asif she took a quiet kind of fun out of it herself, --as if she weresomehow laughing at us, after all, in her sleeve; and if she is, she'sgot the biggest end. _She_'s bright enough. " "Don't we tree-toad her within an inch of her life, though, when we comehome in the wagons at night? I shouldn't think she could stand thatlong. I guess she wants all her beauty-sleep. And Kate Arnall cantu-whit, tu-whoo! equal to Tennyson himself, or any great white_American_ owl. " "Yes, but what do you think? As true as I live, I heard her answer backthe other night with such a sly little 'Katy-did! she did! she did!' Ithought at first it actually came from the great elm-trees. Oh, she'sbeen a girl once, you may depend; and hasn't more than half got over iteither. But wait till we have our 'howl'!" What a "howl" was, superlative to "tree-toading, " "owl-hooting, " andother divertisements, did not appear at this time; for a young man did, approaching from the front of the hotel, and came up to the group on thepiazza with the question, "At what time do we set off for Feather-Capto-morrow?" "Oh, early, Mr. Scherman; by nine o'clock. " "Earlier than you'll be ready, " said Frank Scherman's sister, one of the"Routh" girls also. "I shan't have any crimps to take down, that's one thing, " Frankanswered. And Sin Saxon, glancing at his handsome waving hair, whisperedsaucily to Jeannie Hadden, "I don't more than half believe that, either;"--then, aloud, "You must join the party too, girls, by the way. It's one of the nicest excursions here. We've got two wagons, andthey'll be full; but there's Holden's 'little red' will take six, and Idon't believe anybody has spoken for it. Mr. Scherman! wouldn't it makeyou happy to go and see?" "Most intensely!" and Frank Scherman bowed a low graceful bow, settlingback into his first attitude, however, as one who could quite willinglyresign himself to his present comparative unhappiness awhile longer. "Where is Feather-Cap?" asked Leslie Goldthwaite. "It's the mountain you see there, peeping round the shoulder of Giant'sCairn; a comfortable little rudiment of a mountain, just enough for aprimer-lesson in climbing. Don't you see how the crest drops over on oneside, and that scrap of pine--which is really a huge gaunt thing ahundred years old--slants out from it with just a tuft of green at thevery tip, like an old feather stuck in jauntily?" "And the pine woods round the foot of the Cairn are lovely, " said Maud. "Oh!" cried Leslie, drawing a long breath, as if their spicy smell werealready about her, "there is nothing I delight in so as pines!" "You'll have your fill to-morrow, then; for it's ten miles throughnothing else, and the road is like a carpet with the soft brownneedles. " "I hope Augusta won't be too tired to feel like going, " said Elinor. "We had better ask her soon, then; she is looking this way now. We oughtto go, Sin; we've got all our settling to do for the night. " "We'll walk over with you, " said Sin Saxon. "Then we shall have done upall the preliminaries nicely. We called on you--before you were off thestage-coach; you've returned it; and now we'll pay up and leave youowing us one. Come, Mr. Scherman; you'll be so far on your way toHolden's, and perhaps inertia will carry you through. " But a little girl presently appeared, running from the hotel portico atthe front, as they came round to view from thence. Madam Routh wassitting in the open hall with some newly arrived friends, and sent oneof her lambs, as Sin called them, to say to the older girls that shepreferred they should not go away again to-night. "'Ruin seize thee, Routh--less king!'" quoted Sin Saxon, with an absurdair of declamation. "'Twas ever thus from childhood's hour;' and now, just as we thought childhood's hour was comfortably over, --that theclock had struck one, and down we might run, hickory, dickory, dock, --behold the lengthened sweetness long drawn out of school rule invacation, even before the very face and eyes of Freedom on her mountainheights! Well, we must go, I suppose. Mr. Scherman, you'll have torepresent us to Mrs. Linceford, and persuade her to join us toFeather-Cap. And be sure you get the 'little red'!" "It'll be all the worse for Graywacke, if we're kept in and sent offearly, " she continued, _sotto voce_, to her companions, as they turnedaway. "My! what _has_ that boy got?" CHAPTER VIII. SIXTEEN AND SIXTY. After all this, I wonder if you wouldn't just like to look in at MissCraydocke's room with me, who can give you a pass anywhere within thegeography of my story? She came in here "with the lath and plaster, " as Sin Saxon had said. Shehad gathered little comforts and embellishments about her from summer tosummer, until the room had a home-cheeriness, and even a look of luxury, contrasted with the bare dormitories around it. Over the straw matting, that soon grows shabby in a hotel, she had laid a large, nicely-boundsquare of soft, green carpet, in a little mossy pattern, that coveredthe middle of the floor, and was held tidily in place by a foot of thebedstead and two forward ones each of the table and washstand. On thislittle green stood her Shaker rocking-chair and a round white-pinelight-stand with her work-basket and a few books. Against the wall hungsome white-pine shelves with more books, --quite a little circulatinglibrary they were for invalids and read-out people, who came to themountains, like foolish virgins, with scant supply of the oil ofliterature for the feeding of their brain-lamps. Besides these, therewere engravings and photographs in _passe-partout_ frames, thatjourneyed with her safely in the bottoms of her trunks. Also, the wallitself had been papered, at her own cost and providing, with a prettypale-green hanging; and there were striped muslin curtains to thewindow, over which were caught the sprays of some light, wandering vinethat sprung from a low-suspended terra-cotta vase between. She had everything pretty about her, this old Miss Craydocke. How manypeople do, that have not a bit of outward prettiness themselves! Not onecubit to the stature, not one hair white or black, can they add orchange; and around them grow the lilies in the glory of Solomon, and afrosted leaf or a mossy twig, that they can pick up from under theirfeet and bring home from the commonest walk, comes in with them, bearinga brightness and a grace that seems sometimes almost like a satire! Butin the midst grows silently the century-plant of the soul, absorbing toitself hourly that which feeds the beauty of the lily and the radianceof the leaf, --waiting only for the hundred years of its shrouding to beover! Miss Craydocke never came in from the woods and rocks without hertrophies. Rare, lovely mosses and bits of most delicate ferns, maidenhair and lady-bracken, tiny trails of wintergreen and arbutus, filled a great shallow Indian china dish upon her bureau top, and grew, in their fairy fashion, in the clear, soft water she kept them freshenedwith. Shining scraps of mountain minerals--garnets and bright-tinted quartzand beryls, heaped artistically, rather than scientifically, on a baseof jasper and malachite and dark basalt and glistening spar and curiousfossils; these not gathered by any means in a single summer or inordinary ramblings, but treasured long, and standing, some of them, forfriendly memories--balanced on the one side a like grouping of shellsand corals and sea-mosses on the other, upon a broad bracket-mantel putup over a little corner fireplace; for Miss Craydocke's room, joiningthe main house, took the benefit of one of its old chimneys. Above or about the pictures lay mossy, gnarled, and twisted branches, gray and green, framing them in a forest arabesque; and great pinecones, pendent from their boughs, crowned and canopied the mirror. "What _do_ you keep your kindling wood up there for?" Sin Saxon hadasked, with a grave, puzzled face, coming in, for pure mischief, on oneof her frequent and ingenious errands. "Why, where should I put a pile of wood or a basket? There's no roomfor things to lie round here; you have to hang everything up!" was MissCraydocke's answer, quick as a flash, her eyes twinkling comically withappreciation of the fun. And Sin Saxon had gone away and told the girls that the old lady knewhow to feather her nest better than any of them, and was sharp enough ata peck, too, upon occasion. She found her again, one morning, sitting in the midst of a pile ofhomespun, which she was cutting up with great shears into boys' blouses. "There! that's the noise that has disturbed me so!" cried the girl. "Ithought it was a hay-cutter or a planing-machine, or that you had gotthe asthma awfully. I couldn't write my letter for listening to it, andcame round to ask what _was_ the matter!--Miss Craydocke, I don't seewhy you keep the door bolted on your side. It isn't any more fair foryou than for me; and I'm sure I do all the visiting. Besides, it'sdangerous. What if anything should happen in the night? I couldn't getin to help you. Or there might be a fire in our room, --I'm sure I expectnothing else. We boiled eggs in the Etna the other night, and got toomuch alcohol in the saucer; and then, in the midst of the blaze andexcitement, what should Madam Routh do but come knocking at the door!Of course we had to put it in the closet, and there were all our muslindresses, --that weren't hanging on the hooks in Maud's room! I assure youI felt like the man sitting on the safety-valve, standing with my backagainst the door, and my clothes spread out for fear she would see theflash under the crack. For we'd nothing else but moonlight in theroom. --But now tell me, please, what are all these things? Meal-bags?" "Do you really want to know?" "Of course I do. Now that I've got over my fright about your stranglingwith the asthma--those shears did wheeze so!--my curiosity is all aliveagain. " "I've a cousin down in North Carolina teaching the little freedmen. " "And she's to have all these sacks to tie the naughty ones up in? What abright idea! And then to whip them with rods as the Giant did hiscrockery, I suppose? Or perhaps--they can't be petticoats! Won't she bewarm, though?" "May be, if you were to take one and sew up the seams, you would be ableto satisfy yourself. " "I? Why, I never _could_ put anything together! I tried once, with apair of hospital drawers, and they were like Sam Hyde's dog, that gotcut in two, and clapped together again in a hurry, two legs up and twolegs down. Miss Craydocke, why don't _you_ go down among the freedmen?You haven't half a sphere up here. Nothing but Hobbs's Location, and thelittle Hoskinses. " "I can't organize and execute. Letitia can. It's her gift. I can't dogreat things. I can only just carry round my little cup of cold water. " "But it gets so dreadfully joggled in such a place as this! Don't wegirls disturb you, Miss Craydocke? I should think you'd be quieter inthe other wing, or upstairs. " "Young folks are apt to think that old folks ought to go a story higher. But we're content, and they must put up with us, until the proprietororders a move. " "Well, good-by. But if ever you do smell smoke in the night, you'll drawyour bolt the first thing, won't you?" This evening, --upon which we have offered you your pass, reader, --MissCraydocke is sitting with her mosquito bar up, and her candle alight, finishing some pretty thing that daylight has not been long enough for. A flag basket at her feet holds strips and rolls of delicate birch-bark, carefully split into filmy thinness, and heaps of star-mosses, cup-mosses, and those thick and crisp with clustering brown spires, aswell as sheets of lichen silvery and pale green; and on the lap-boardacross her knees lies her work, --a graceful cross in perspective, puton card-board in birch shaded from faint buff to bistre, dashed with thedetached lines that seem to have quilted the tree-teguments together. Around the foot of the cross rises a mound of lovely moss-work inrelief, with feathery filaments creeping up and wreathing about theshaft and thwart-beam. Miss Craydocke is just dotting in some bits ofslender coral-headed stems among little brown mushrooms and chalices, asthere comes a sudden, imperative knocking at the door of communication, or defense, between her and Sin Saxon. "You must just open this time, if you please! I've got my arms full, andI couldn't come round. " Miss Craydocke slipped her lap-board--work and all--under her bureau, upon the floor, for safety; and then with her quaint, queer expression, in which curiosity, pluckiness, and a foretaste of amusement mingled soas to drive out annoyance, pushed back her bolt, and presented herselfto the demand of her visitor, much as an undaunted man might fling openhis door at the call of a mob. Sin Saxon stood there, in the light of the good lady's candle, making apretty picture against the dim background of the unlighted room beyond. Her fair hair was tossed, and her cheeks flushed; her blue eyes brightwith sauciness and fun. In her hands, or across her arms, rather, sheheld some huge, uncouth thing, that was not to the last degreedainty-smelling, either; something conglomerated rudely upon a greatcrooked log or branch, which, glanced at closer, proved to be a fragmentof gray old pine. Sticks and roots and bark, straw and grass and locksof dirty sheep's-wool, made up its bulk and its untidiness; and thisthing Sin held out with glee, declaring she had brought a real treasureto add to Miss Craydocke's collection. "Such a chance!" she said, coming in. "One mightn't have another in adozen years. I have just given Jimmy Wigley a quarter for it, and he'djust all but broken his neck to get it. It's a real crow's nest. Corvinus something-else-us, I suppose. Where will you have it? I'm goingto nail it up for you myself. Won't it make a nice contrast to thehumming-bird's? Over the bed, shall I? But then, if it _should_ dropdown on your nose, you know! I think the corner over the fireplace willbe best. Yes, we'll have it right up perpendicular, in the angle. Thebranch twists a little, you see, and the nest will run out with its oddsand ends like an old banner. Might I push up the washstand to get onto?" "Suppose you lay it _in_ the fireplace? It will just rest nicely acrossthose evergreen boughs, and--be in the current of ventilation outward. " "Well, that's an idea, to be sure. --Miss Craydocke!"--Sin Saxon saysthis in a sudden interjectional way, as if it were with some quite freshidea, --"I'm certain you play chess!" "You're mistaken. I don't. " "You would, then, by intuition. Your counter-moves are--so--triumphant. Why, it's really an ornament!" With a little stress and strain that madeher words interjectional, she had got it into place, thrusting one endup the throat of the chimney, and lodging the crotch that held the nestupon the stems of fresh pine that lay across the andirons; and the "oddsand ends, " in safe position, and suggesting neither harm norunsuitableness, looked unique and curious, and not so ugly. "It's really an ornament!" repeated Sin, shaking the dust off her dress. "As you expected, of course, " replied Miss Craydocke. "Well, I wasn't--not to say--confident. I was afraid it mightn't be muchbut scientific. But now--if you don't forget and light a fire under itsome day, Miss Craydocke!" "I shan't forget; and I'm very much obliged, really. Perhaps by and by Ishall put it in a rough box and send it to a nephew of mine, with someother things, for his collection. " "Goodness, Miss Craydocke! They won't express it. They'll think it's aninfernal machine, or a murder. But it's disposed of for the present, anyway. The truth was, you know, twenty-five cents is a kind of cup ofcold water to Jimmy Wigley, and then there was the fun of bringing itin, and I didn't know anybody but you to offer it to; I'm so glad youlike it; the girls thought you wouldn't. Perhaps I can get you another, or something else as curious, some day, --a moose's horns, or abear-skin; there's no knowing. But now, apropos of the nest, I've a crowto _pick_ with you. You gave me horrible dreams all night, the last timeI came to see you. I don't know whether it was your little freedmen'smeal-bags, or Miss Letitia's organizing and executive genius, or the cupof cold water you spoke of, or--it's just occurred to me--the fuss I hadover my waterfall that day, trying to make it into a melon; but I hadthe most extraordinary time endeavoring to pay you a visit. Down Southit was, and there you were, organizing and executing, after all, on themost tremendous scale, some kind of freedmen's institution. You wereexplaining to me and showing me all sorts of things, in such enormousbulk and extent and number! First I was to see your stables, where thecows were kept. A trillion of cows!--that was what you told me. And onthe way we went down among such wood-piles!--whole forests cut up intokindlings and built into solid walls that reached up till the sky lookedlike a thread of blue sewing-silk between. And presently we came to akind of opening and turned off to see the laundry (Mrs. Lisphin had justbrought home my things at bedtime); and _there_ was a place to do theworld's washing in, or bleach out all the Ethiopians! Tubs like the holdof the Great Eastern, and spouts coming into them like the Staubbach!Clothes-lines like a parade-ground of telegraphs, fields like prairies, snow-patched, as far as you could see, with things laid out to whiten!And suddenly we came to what was like a pond of milk, with crowds ofnegro women stirring it with long poles; and all at once something cameroaring behind and you called to me to jump aside, --that the hot waterwas let on to make the starch; and down it rushed, a cataract likeNiagara, in clouds of steam! And then--well, it changed to somethingelse, I suppose; but it was after that fashion all night long, and thelast I remember, I was trying to climb up the Cairn with a cup of coldwater set on atilt at the crown of my head, which I was to get to thesky parlor without spilling a drop!" "Nobody's brain but yours would have put it together like that, "said Miss Craydocke, laughing till she had to feel for herpocket-handkerchief to wipe away the tears. "Don't cry, Miss Craydocke, " said Sin Saxon, changing suddenly to themost touching tone and expression of regretful concern. "I didn't meanto distress you. I don't think anything is really the matter with mybrain!" "But I'll tell you what it is, " she went on presently, in her oldmanner, "I _am_ in a dreadful way with that waterfall, and I wish you'dlend me one of your caps, or advise me what to do. It's an awful thingwhen the fashion alters, just as you've got used to the last one. Youcan't go back, and you don't dare to go forward. I wish hair was likenoses, born in a shape, without giving you any responsibility. But we dohave to finish ourselves, and that's just what makes us restless. " "You haven't come to the worst yet, " said Miss Craydocke significantly. "What do you mean? What is the worst? Will it come all at once, or willit be broken to me?" "It will be broken, and _that_'s the worst. One of these years you'llfind a little thin spot coming, may be, and spreading, over yourforehead or on the top of your head; and it'll be the fashion to combthe hair just so as to show it off and make it worse; and for a whilethat'll be your thorn in the flesh. And then you'll begin to wonder whythe color isn't so bright as it used to be, but looks dingy, all you cando to it; and again, after a while, some day, in a strong light, you'llsee there are white threads in it, and the rest is fading; and so bydegrees, and the degrees all separate pains, you'll have to come to itand give up the crown of your youth, and take to scraps of lace andmuslin, or a front, as I did a dozen years ago. " Sin Saxon had no sauciness to give back for that; it made her feel allat once that this old Miss Craydocke had really been a girl too, withgolden hair like her own, perhaps, --and not so very far in the past, either, but that a like space in her own future could picture itself toher mind; and something, quite different in her mood from ordinary, madeher say, with even an unconscious touch of reverence in her voice: "Iwonder if I shall bear it, when it comes, as well as you!" "There's a recompense, " said Miss Craydocke. "You'll have got it allthen. You'll know there's never a fifty or a sixty years that doesn'thold the tens and the twenties. " "I've found out something, " said Sin Saxon, as she came back to thegirls again. "A picked-up dinner argues a fresh one some time. You can'thave cold roast mutton unless it has once been hot!" And never a wordmore would she say to explain herself. CHAPTER IX. "I DON'T SEE WHY. " The "little red" was at the door of the Green Cottage. Frank Schermanhad got the refusal of it the night before, and early in the morningMadam Routh's compliments had come to Mrs. Linceford, with the request, in all the form that mountain usage demanded, that she and the youngladies would make part of the expedition for the day. Captain Jotham Green, host and proprietor, himself stood at the horses'heads. The Green Cottage, you perceive, had double right to itsappellation. It was both baptismal and hereditary, surname and givenname, --given with a coat of fresh, pale, pea-green paint that had beenlaid on it within the year, and had communicated a certain tender, newly-sprouted, May-morning expression to the old centre and itsoutshoots. Mrs. Green, within, was generously busy with biscuits, cold chicken, doughnuts fried since sunrise, and coffee richly compounded with creamand sugar, which a great tin can stood waiting to receive and convey, and which was at length to serve as cooking utensil in reheating uponthe fire of coals the picnickers would make up under the very tassel ofFeather-Cap. The great wagons were drawn up also before the piazza of the hotel; andbetween the two houses flitted the excursionists, full of the brightenthusiasm of the setting off, which is the best part of a jaunt, invariably. Leslie Goldthwaite, in the hamadryad costume, just aware--which it wasimpossible for her to help--of its exceeding prettiness, and of glancesthat recognized it, pleased with a mixture of pleasures, was on thesurface of things once more, taking the delight of the moment with ayoung girl's innocent abandonment. It was nice to be received so amongall these new companions; to be evidently, though tacitly, _voted_ nice, in the way girls have of doing it; to be launched at once into thebeginning of apparently exhaustless delights, --all this was superaddedto the first and underlying joy of merely being alive and breathing, this superb summer morning, among these forests and hills. Sin Saxon, whatever new feeling of half sympathy and respect had beentouched in her toward Miss Craydocke the night before, in her morningmood was all alive again to mischief. The small, spare figure of thelady appeared at the side-door, coming out briskly toward them alongthe passage, just as the second wagon filled up and was ready to move. I did not describe Miss Craydocke herself when I gave you the glimpseinto her room. There was not much to describe; and I forgot it indwelling upon her surroundings and occupations. In fact, she extendedherself into these, and made you take them involuntarily and largelyinto the account in your apprehension of her. Some people seem to havegiven them at the outset a mere germ of personality like this, whichmust needs widen itself out in like fashion to be felt at all. Hermosses and minerals, her pressed leaves and flowers, her odds and endsof art and science and prettiness which she gathered about her, herindustries and benevolences, --these were herself. Out of these she wasonly a little elderly thread-paper of a woman, of no apparent accountamong crowds of other people, and with scarcely enough of bodily bulk orpresence to take any positive foothold anywhere. What she might have seemed, in the days when her hair was golden, andher little figure plump, and the very unclassical features rounded androsy with the bloom and grace of youth, was perhaps another thing; butnow, with her undeniable "front, " and cheeks straightened into linesthat gave you the idea of her having slept all night upon both of them, and got them into longitudinal wrinkles that all day was never able towear out; above all, with her curious little nose (that was the exactexpression of it), sharply and suddenly thrusting itself among things ingeneral from the middle plane of her face with slight preparatory hintof its intention, --you would scarcely charge her, upon suspicion, withany embezzlement or making away of charms intrusted to her keeping inthe time gone by. This morning, moreover, she had somehow given herself a scratch uponthe tip of this odd, investigating member; and it blushed for itsinquisitiveness under a scrap of thin pink adhesive plaster. Sin Saxon caught sight of her as she came. "Little Miss Netticoat!" shecried, just under her breath, "_with_ a fresh petticoat, _and_ a rednose!" Then, changing her tone with her quotation, -- "'Wee, modest, crimson-tippčd flower, Thou'st met me in a luckless hour!' Thou always dost! What _hast_ thou gone and got thyself up so for, justas I was almost persuaded to be good? Now--_can_ I help that?" And shedropped her folded hands in her lap, exhaled a little sigh of vanquishedgoodness, and looked round appealingly to her companions. "It's only, " said Miss Craydocke, reaching them a trifle out of breath, "this little parcel, --something I promised to Prissy Hoskins, --and_would_ you just go round by the Cliff and leave it for me?" "Oh, I'm afraid of the Cliff!" cried Florrie Arnall. "Creggin's horsesbacked there the other day. It's horribly dangerous. " "It's three quarters of a mile round, " suggested the driver. "The 'little red' might take it. They'll go faster than we, or can, ifthey try, " said Mattie Shannon. "The 'little red' 's just ready, " said Sin Saxon. "You needn't laugh. That wasn't a pun. But oh, Miss Craydocke!"--and her tone suggested themischievous apropos--"what _can_ you have been doing to your nose?" "Oh, yes!"--Miss Craydocke had a way of saying "Oh, yes!"--"It was myknife slipped as I was cutting a bit of cord, in a silly fashion, uptoward my face. It's a mercy my nose served, to save my eyes. " "I suppose that's partly what noses are for, " said Sin Saxon gravely. "Especially when you follow them, and 'go it blind. '" "It was a piece of good luck, too, after all, " said Miss Craydocke, inher simple way, never knowing, or choosing to know, that she was snubbedor quizzed. "Looking for a bit of plaster, I found my little parcel oftragacanth that I wanted so the other day. It's queer how things turnup. " "Excessively queer, " said Sin solemnly, still looking at the injuredfeature. "But, as you say, it's all for the best, after all. 'There _is_a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will. ' Hiram, wemight as well drive on. I'll take the parcel, Miss Craydocke. We'll getit there somehow, going or coming. " The wagon rolled off, veils and feathers taking the wind bravely, andmaking a gay moving picture against the dark pines and gray ledges as itglanced along. Sin Saxon tossed Miss Craydocke's parcel into the "littlered" as they passed it by, taking the road in advance, giving a saucyword of command to Jim Holden, which transferred the charge of itsdelivery to him, and calling out a hurried explanation to the ladiesover her shoulder that "it would take them round the Cliff, --the mostwonderful point in all Outledge; up and down the whole length of NewHampshire they could see from there, if their eyes were good enough!"And so they were away. Miss Craydocke turned back into the house, not a whit discomfited, andwith not so much as a contrasting sigh in her bosom or a rankle in herheart. On the contrary, a droll twinkle played among the crow's-feet atthe corners of her eyes. They could not hurt her, these merry girls, meaning nothing but the moment's fun, nor cheat her of her quiet shareof the fun either. Up above, out of a window over the piazza roof, looked twoothers, --young girls, one of them at least, --also, upon the scene ofthe setting-off. I cannot help it that a good many different people will get into myshort story. They get into a short time, in such a summer holiday, andso why not? At any rate, I must tell you about these Josselyns. These two had never in all their lives been away pleasuring before. Theyhad nobody but each other to come with now. Susan had been away a gooddeal in the last two years, but it had not been pleasuring. Martha wassome five or six years the younger. She had a pretty face, yet marked, as it is so sad to see the faces of the young, with lines andloss--lines that tell of cares too early felt, and loss of the firstfresh, redundant bloom that such lines bring. They sat a great deal at this window of theirs. It was a sort ofinstinct and habit with them, and it made them happier than almostanything else, --sitting at a window together. It was home to thembecause at home they lived so: life and duty were so framed in forthem, --in one dear old window-recess. Sometimes they thought that itwould he heaven to them by and by: that such a seat, and such a quiet, happy outlook, they should find kept for them together, in the Father'smansion, up above. At home, it was up three flights of stairs, in a tall, narrow cityhouse, of which the lower floors overflowed with young, boisterous halfbrothers and sisters, --the tide not seldom rising and inundating theirown retreat, --whose delicate mother, not more than eight years olderthan her eldest step-daughter, was tied hand and foot to her nursery, with a baby on her lap, and the two or three next above with handsalways to be washed, disputes and amusements always to be settled, smallmorals to be enforced, and clean calico tiers to be incessantly put on. And Susan and Martha sat upstairs and made the tiers. Mr. Josselyn was a book-keeper, with a salary of eighteen hundreddollars, and these seven children. And Susan and Martha were girls offair culture, and womanly tastes, and social longings. How does thisseem to you, young ladies, and what do you think of their upstairs lifetogether, you who calculate, if you calculate at all, whether fivehundred dollars may carry you respectably through your half-dozen cityassemblies, where you shine in silk and gossamer, of which there willnot be "a dress in the room that cost less than seventy-five dollars, "and come home, after the dance, "a perfect rag"? Two years ago, when you were perhaps performing in tableaux for the"benefit of the Sanitary, " these two girls had felt the great enthusiasmof the time lay hold of them in a larger way. Susan had a friend--a dearold intimate of school-days, now a staid woman of eight-and-twenty--whowas to go out in yet maturer companionship into the hospitals. AndSusan's heart burned to go. But there were all the little tiers, and theABC's, and the faces and fingers. "I can do it for a while, " said Martha, "without you. " Those two wordsheld the sacrifice. "Mamma is so nicely this summer, and by and by AuntLucy may come, perhaps. I can do _quite_ well. " So Martha sat, for months and months, in the upstairs window alone. There were martial marchings in the streets beneath; great gunsthundered out rejoicings; flags filled the air with crimson and blue, like an aurora; she only sat and made little frocks and tiers for thebrothers and sisters. God knew how every patient needle thrust wasreally also a woman's blow for her country. And now, pale and thin with close, lonely work, the time had come toher at last when it was right to take a respite; when everybody said itmust be; when Uncle David, just home from Japan, had put his hand in hispocket and pulled out three new fifty-dollar bills, and said to them inhis rough way, "There, girls! Take that, and go your lengths. " The warwas over, and among all the rest here were these two women-soldiershonorably discharged, and resting after the fight. But nobody atOutledge knew anything of the story. There is almost always at every summer sojourn some party of persons whoare to the rest what the mid-current is to the stream; who gather tothemselves and bear along in their course--in their plans and pleasuresand daily doings--the force of all the life of the place. If anyexpedition of consequence is afoot, _they_ are the expedition; othersmay join in, or hold aloof, or be passed by; in which last cases, it isonly in a feeble, rippling fashion that they go their ways and seek someseparate pleasure in by-nooks and eddies, while the gay hum of the mainchannel goes whirling on. At Outledge this party was the large and merryschoolgirl company with Madam Routh. "I don't see why, " said Martha Josselyn, still looking out, as the"little red" left the door of the Green Cottage, --"I don't see why thosenew girls who came last night should have got into everything in aminute, and we've been here a week and don't seem to catch to anythingat all. Some people are like burrs, I think, or drops of quicksilver, that always bunch or run together. We don't _stick_, Susie. What's thereason?" "Some of these young ladies have been at Madam Routh's; they were overhere last evening. Sin Saxon knows them very well. " "You knew Effie Saxon at school, too. " "Eight years ago. And this is the little one. That's nothing. " "You petted her, and she came to the house. You've told her storieshundreds of times. And she sees we're all by ourselves. " "She don't see. She doesn't think. That's just the whole of it. " "People ought to see, then. You would, Sue, and you know it. " "I've been used to seeing--and thinking. " "Used! Yes, indeed! And she's been _used_ to the other. Well, it's queerhow the parts are given out. Shall we go to the pines?" CHAPTER X. GEODES. A great cliff-side rearing itself up, rough with inaccessible crags, bristling with old, ragged pines, and dark with glooms of close cedarsand hemlocks, above a jutting table of rock that reaches out and makes ahuge semicircular base for the mountain, and is in itself aprecipice-pedestal eighty feet sheer up from the river-bank; close inagainst the hill front, on this platform of stone, that holds its footor two of soil, a little, poor unshingled house, with a tumbledownpicket-fence about it, attempting the indispensable dooryard of allbetter country-dwellings here where the great natural dooryard oresplanade makes it such an utter nonsense, --this is the place at whichthe "little red" drew up, ten minutes later, to leave Prissy Hoskins'sparcel. Dakie Thayne jumped down off the front seat, and held up his arms tohelp Leslie out over the wheel, upon her declaring that she must go anddo the errand herself, to get a nearer look at Hoskins life. Dakie Thayne had been asked, at Leslie's suggestion, to fill the vacantsixth seat beside the driver, the Thoresbys one and all declining. Mrs. Thoresby was politic: she would not fall into the wake of thisschoolgirl party at once. By and by she should be making up her ownexcursions, and asking whom she would. "There's nothing like a boy of that age for use upon a picnic, Mrs. Linceford, " Leslie had pleaded, with playful parody, in his behalf, whenthe lady had hinted something of her former sentiment concerning theencroachments and monopolies of "boys of that age. " And so he came. The Haddens got Jim Holden to lift them down on the opposite side, for arun to the verge of the projecting half-circle of rock that, like agigantic bay-window or balcony in the mighty architecture of the hills, looked up and down the whole perspective of the valley. Jim Holden wouldreadily have driven them round its very edge upon the flat, mossy sward, but for Mrs. Linceford's nerves, and the vague idea of almost anaccident having occurred there lately which pervaded the little party. "Creggin's horses had backed, " as Florrie Arnall said; and already thenew comers had picked up, they scarcely knew how, the incipienttradition, hereafter to grow into an established horror of the "Cliff. " "It was nothing, " Jim Holden said; "only the nigh hoss was a res'lesscrittur, an' contrived to git his leg over the pole; no danger with_his_ cattle. " But Mrs. Linceford cried out in utter remonstrance, andonly begged Leslie to be quick, that they might get away from the placealtogether. All this bustle of arrival and discussion and alighting had failed, curiously, to turn the head of an odd, unkempt-looking child, --a girl ofnine or ten, with an old calico sun-bonnet flung back upon hershoulders, tangled, sunburnt hair tossing above it; gown, innocent ofcrinoline, clinging to lank, growing limbs, and bare feet, whose heelswere energetically planted at a quite safe distance from each other, toinsure a fair base for the centre of gravity, --who, at the moment oftheir coming, was wrathfully "shoo-ing" off from a bit of rudetoy-garden, fenced with ends of twigs stuck up-right, a tall Shanghaihen and her one chicken, who had evidently made nothing, morally orphysically, of the feeble inclosure. "I wish you were dead and in your gravies!" cried the child, achieving, between her righteous indignation and her relenting toward her uncouthpets at the last breath, a sufficiently queer play upon her own word. And with this, the enemy being routed, she turned face to face withDakie Thayne and Leslie Goldthwaite, coming in at the dilapidated gate. "They've scratched up all my four-o'clocks!" she said. And then herrustic shyness overcame suddenly all else, and she dragged her great toeback and forth in the soft mould, and put her forefinger in her mouth, and looked askance at them from the corners of her eyes. "Prissy? Prissy Hoskins?" Leslie addressed her in sweet, inquiringtones. But the child stood still with finger in mouth, and toe workingin the ground, not a bit harder nor faster, nor changing in the least, for more or less, the shy look in her face. "That's your name, isn't it? I've got something for you. Won't you comeand get it?'" Leslie paused, waiting; fearing lest a further advance onher own part might put Prissy altogether to flight. Nothing answered inthe girl's eyes to her words; there was no lighting up of desire orcuriosity, however restrained; she stood like one indifferent oruncomprehending. "She's awful deef!" cried a new voice from the doorway. "She ain't thatscared. She's sarcy enough, sometimes. " A woman, middle-aged or more, stood on the rough, slanting door-stone. She had bare feet, in coarse calf-skin slippers, stringy petticoatsdiffering only from the child's in length, sleeves rolled up to theshoulders, no neck garniture, --not a bit of anything white about her. Over all looked forth a face sharp and hard, that might have once beengood-looking, in a raw, country fashion, and that had undoubtedly alwaysbeen, what it now was, emphatically Yankee-smart. An inch-wide stripe ofblack hair was combed each way over her forehead, and rolled up on hertemples in what, years and years ago, used to be called mostappropriately "flat curls, "--these fastened with long horn side-combs. Beyond was a strip of desert, --no hair at all for an inch and a halfmore toward the crown; the rest dragged back and tied behind with therelentless tightness that gradually and regularly, by the persistence ofyears, had accomplished this peculiar belt of clearing. It completed herexpression; it was as a very halo of Yankee saintship crowning the womanwho in despite of poverty and every discouragement had always hated, tothe very roots of her hair, anything like what she called a "sozzle;"who had always been screwed up and sharp set to hard work. She couldn'thelp the tumbledown fence; she had no "men-folks" round; and shecouldn't have paid for a hundred pickets and a day's carpentering, tohave saved her life. She couldn't help Prissy's hair even; for it wouldkink and curl, and the minute the wind took it "there it was again;" andit was not time yet, thank goodness! to harrow it back and begin in herbehalf the remarkable engineering which had laid out for herself thatbroad highway across all the thrifty and energetic bumps up toVeneration (who knows how much it had had to do with mixing them in onecommon tingle of mutual and unceasing activity?) and down again from earto ear. Inside the poor little house you would find all spick and span, the old floor white and sanded, the few tins and the pewter spoonsshining upon the shelf, the brick hearth and jambs aglow with fresh"redding, " table and chairs set back in rectangular tidiness. Only onething made a litter, or tried to; a yellow canary that hung in thewindow and sang "like a house afire, " as Aunt Hoskins said, however thatis, and flung his seeds about like the old "Wash at Edmonton, " "on bothsides of the way. " Prissy was turned out of doors in all pleasantweather, so otherwise the keeping-room stayed trim, and her curly hairgrew sunburnt. "She's ben deef ever sence she hed the scarlet-fever. Walk in, " said thewoman, by no means satisfied to let strangers get only the outsideimpression of her premises, and turning round to lead the way withoutwaiting for a reply. "Come in, Prissy!" she bawled, illustrating hersummons with what might be called a beckoning in broad capitals, donewith the whole arm from finger-tips to shoulder, twice or thrice. Leslie followed over the threshold, and Prissy ran by like a squirrel, and perched herself on a stool just under the bird-cage. "I wouldn't keep it if 't warn't for her, " said Aunt Hoskinsapologetically. She was Prissy's aunt, holding no other close domesticrelation to living thing, and so had come to be "Aunt Hoskins" in thewhole region round about, so far as she was known at all. "It's the onlybird she can hear sing of a morning. It's as good as all outdoors toher, and I hain't the heart to make her do without it. _I_'ve donewithout most things, but it don't appear to me as if I _could_ dowithout them. Take a seat, do. " "I thank you, but my friends are waiting. I've brought something forPrissy, from Miss Craydocke at the hotel. " And Leslie held out thepackage which Dakie Thayne, waiting at the door, had put into her handas she came in. "Lawful suz, Prissy! if 't ain't another book!" cried the good woman, asPrissy, quick to divine the meaning of the parcel, the like of which shehad been made accustomed to before, sprang to her aunt's side withinhearing of her exclamation. "If she ain't jest the feelingest andthoughtfullest--Well! open it yourself, child; there's no good of abundle if you don't. " Poor Prissy was thus far happy that she had not been left in theprovidence of her little life to utter ignorance of this greatestpossible delight--a common one to more outwardly favored children--of areal parcel all one's own. The book, without the brown paper and string, would have been as nothing, comparatively. Leslie could not but linger to see it untied. There came out a book, --awonderful big book, --Grimm's Tales; and some little papers fell to thefloor. These were flower seeds, --bags labeled "Petunia, " "Candytuft, ""Double Balsam, " "Portulaca. " "Why, Prissy!" shouted Miss Hoskins in her ear as she picked them up, and read the names; "them's elegant things! They'll beat yourfour-o'clocks all to nothin'. It's lucky the old Shank-high did make aclearin' of 'em. Tell Miss Craydocke, " she continued, turning again toLeslie, "that I'm comin' down myself, to--no, I _can't_ thank her! She'smade a _life_ for that 'ere child, out o' nothin', a'most!" Leslie stood hushed and penetrated in the presence of this good deed, and the joy and gratitude born of it. "This ain't all, you see; nor't ain't nothin' new. She's ben at it thesetwo year; learnin' the child to read, an' tellin' her things, an'settin' her to hunt 'em out, and to do for herself. She was crazy aboutflowers, allers, an' stories; but, lor, I couldn't stop to tell 'em toher, an' I never knew but one or two; an' now she can read 'em off tome, like a minister. She's told her a lot o' stuff about the rocks, --_I_can't make head nor tail on't; but it'd please you to see her fetchin''em in by the apern-full, an' goin' on about 'em, that is, if there wasreely any place to put 'em afterwards. That's the wust on't. I tell you, it _is_ jest _makin_' a life out o' pieces that come to hand. Here's thegirl, an' there's the woods an' rocks; there's all there was to do with, or likely to be; but she found the gumption an' the willingness, an'she's done it!" Prissy came close over to Leslie with her book in her hand. "Wait aminute, " she said, with the effort in her tone peculiar to the deaf. "I've got something to send back. " "_If_ it's convenient, you mean, " put in Aunt Hoskins sharply. "She's asblunt as a broomstick, that child is. " But Prissy had sprung away in her squirrel-like fashion, and now cameback, bringing with her something really to make one's eyes water, ifone happened, at least, to be ever so little of a geologist, --a mass ofquartz rock as large as she could grasp with her two hands, shot throughat three different angles with three long, superb, columnar crystals ofclear, pale-green beryl. If Professor Dana had known this exactlocality, and a more definite name for the "Cliff, " wouldn't he have hadit down in his Supplement with half a dozen exclamation points after the"beryl"! "I found it a-purpose!" said Prissy, with the utmost simplicity, puttingthe heavy specimen out of her own hands into Leslie's. "She's beena-wantin' it this great while, and we've looked for it everywheres!" "A-purpose" it did seem as if the magnificent fragment had been laid inthe way of the child's zealous and grateful search. "There were only therocks, " as Aunt Hoskins said; in no other way could she so joyously haveacknowledged the kindness that had brightened now three summers of herlife. "It'll bother you, I'm afeard, " said the woman. "No, indeed! I shall _like_ to take it for you, " continued Leslie, witha warm earnestness, stooping down to the little girl, and speaking inher clear, glad tone close to her cheek. "I only wish _I_ could findsomething to take her myself. " And with that, close to the littlered-brown cheek as she was, she put the period of a quick kiss to herwords. "Come again, and we'll hunt for some together, " said the child, withinstant response of cordiality. "I will come--if I possibly can, " was Leslie's last word, and then sheand Dakie Thayne hurried back to the wagon. The Haddens had just got in again upon their side. They were full ofexclamations about the wonderful view up and down the longvalley-reaches. "You needn't tell _me_!" cried Elinor, in high enthusiasm. "I don't carea bit for the geography of it. That great aisle goes straight from LakeUmbagog to the Sound!" "It is a glorious picture, " said Mrs. Linceford. "But I've had a littleone, that you've lost. You've no idea, Leslie, what a lovely tableau youhave been making, --you and Dakie, with that old woman and the blowzychild!" Leslie blushed. "You'll never look prettier, if you try ever so hard. " "Don't, Mrs. Linceford!" "Why not?" said Jeannie. "It's only a pity, I think, that you couldn'thave known it at the time. They say we don't know when we're happiest;and we _can't_ know when we're prettiest; so where's the satisfaction?" "That's part of your mistake, Jeannie, perhaps, " returned her sister. "If you had been there you'd have spoiled the picture. " "Look at that!" exclaimed Leslie, showing her beryl. "That's for MissCraydocke. " And then, when the first utterances of amazement andadmiration were over, she told them the story of the child and hermisfortune, and of what Miss Craydocke had done. "_That_'s beautiful, Ithink, " said she. "And it's the sort of beauty, may be, that one mightfeel as one went along. I wish I could find--a diamond--for that woman!" "Thir garnits on Feather-Cap, " put in Jim the driver. "Oh, _will_ you show us where?" "Well, 't ain't nowhers in partickler, " replied Jim. "It's jest as youlight on 'em. And you wouldn't know the best ones when you did. I'veseen 'em, --dead, dull-lookin' round stones that'll crack open, chock--full o' red garnits as an egg is o' meat. " "Geodes!" cried Dakie Thayne. Jim Holden turned round and looked at him as if he thought he had gothold of some new-fashioned expletive, --possibly a pretty hard one. They came down, now, on the other side of the Cliff, and struck theford. This diverted and absorbed their thoughts, for none of the ladieshad ever forded a river before. "Are you sure it's safe?" asked Mrs. Linceford. "Safe as meetin', " returned Jim. "I'd drive across with my eyes shot. " "Oh, don't!" cried Elinor. "I ain't agoin' ter; but I could, --an' the hosses, too, for thatmatter. " It was exciting, nevertheless, when the water in mid-channel came upnearly to the body of the wagon, and the swift ripples deluded the eyeinto almost conviction that horses, vehicle, and all were not gaining aninch in forward progress, but drifting surely down. They came up out ofthe depths, however, with a tug, and a swash, and a drip all over, and ascrambling of hoofs on the pebbles, at the very point aimed at in suchapparently sidelong fashion, --the wheel-track that led them up the bankand into the ten-mile pine woods through which they were to skirt thebase of the Cairn and reach Feather-Cap on his accessible side. It wasone long fragrance and stillness and shadow. They overtook the Routh party at the beginning of the mountain-path. Thepine woods stretched on over the gradual slope, as far as they wouldclimb before dinner. Otherwise the midday heats would have been too muchfor them. This was the easy part of the way, and there was breath forchat and merriment. Just within the upper edge of the woods, in a comparatively smoothopening, they halted. Here they spread their picnic, while up above, onthe bare, open rock, the young men kindled their fire and heated thecoffee; and here they ate and drank, and rested through the noontide. Light clouds flitted between the mountains and the heavens, later in theday, and flung bewildering, dreamy shadows on the far-off steeps, anddropped a gracious veil over the bald forehead and sun-bleak shouldersof Feather-Cap. It was "weather just made for them, " as fortunateexcursionists are wont to say. Sin Saxon was all life, and spring, and fun. She climbed at least threeFeather-Caps, dancing from stone to stone with tireless feet, andbounding back and forth with every gay word that it occurred to her tosay to anybody. Pictures? She made them incessantly. She was a livingdissolving view. You no sooner got one bright look or graceful attitudethan it was straightway shifted into another. She kept Frank Scherman ather side for the first half-hour, and then, perhaps, his admiration orhis muscles tired, for he fell back a little to help Madam Routh up asudden ridge, and afterwards, somehow, merged himself in the quietergroup of strangers. By and by one of the Arnalls whispered to Mattie Shannon, --"He's sidledoff with her, at last. Did you ever know such a fellow for a new face?But it's partly the petticoat. He's such an artist's eye for color. Hewas raving about her all the while she stood hanging those shawls amongthe pines to keep the wind from Mrs. Linceford. She isn't downrightpretty either. But she's got up exquisitely!" Leslie Goldthwaite, in her lovely mountain dress, her bright bloom fromenjoyment and exercise, with the stray light through the pinesburnishing the bronze of her hair, had innocently made a second picture, it would seem. One such effects deeper impression, sometimes, than theconfusing splendor of incessant changes. "Are you looking for something? Can I help you?" Frank Scherman hadsaid, coming up to her, as she and her friend Dakie, a little apart fromthe others, were poising among some loose pebbles. "Nothing that I have lost, " Leslie answered, smiling. "Something I havea very presumptuous wish to find. A splendid garnet geode, if youplease!" "That's not at all impossible, " returned the young man. "We'll have itbefore we go down, --see if we don't!" Frank Scherman knew a good deal about Feather-Cap, and something ofgeologizing. So he and Leslie--Dakie Thayne, in his unswerving devotion, still accompanying--"sidled off" together, took a long turn round underthe crest, talking very pleasantly--and restfully, after Sin Saxon'scontinuous brilliancy--all the way. How they searched among loose driftunder the cliff, how Mr. Scherman improvised a hammer from a slice ofrock; and how, after many imperfect specimens, they did at last "finda-purpose" an irregular oval of dull, dusky stone, which burst with astroke into two chalices of incrusted crimson crystals, --I ought to betoo near the end of a long chapter to tell. But this search and thisfinding, and the motive of it, were the soul and the crown of Leslie'spleasure for the day. She did not even stop to think how long she hadhad Frank Scherman's attention all to herself, or the triumph that itwas in the eyes of the older girls, among whom he was excessivelyadmired, and not very disguisedly competed for. She did not know howfast she was growing to be a sort of admiration herself among them, intheir girls' fashion, or what she might do, if she chose, in the way ofsmall, early belleship here at Outledge with such beginning, --how shewas "getting on, " in short, as girls express it. And so, as JeannieHadden asked, "Where was the satisfaction?" "You never knew anything like it, " said Jeannie to her friend Ginevra, talking it all over with her that evening in a bit of a visit to Mrs. Thoresby's room. "I never saw anybody take so among strangers. MadamRouth was delighted with her; and so, I should think, was Mr. Scherman. They say he hates trouble; but he took her all round the top of themountain, hammering stones for her to find a geode. " "That's the newest dodge, " said Mrs. Thoresby, with a little sarcasticlaugh. "Girls of that sort are always looking for geodes. " After this, Mrs. Thoresby had always a little well-bred venom for LeslieGoldthwaite. At the same time Leslie herself, coming out on the piazza for a momentafter tea, met Miss Craydocke approaching over the lawn. She had onlyher errand to introduce her, but she would not lose the opportunity. Shewent straight up to the little woman, in a frank, sweet way. But a bitof embarrassment underneath, the real respect that made hertimid, --perhaps a little nervous fatigue after the excitement andexertion of the day, --did what nerves and embarrassment, and reverenceitself will do sometimes, --played a trick with her perfectly clearthought on its way to her tongue. "Miss Graywacke, I believe?" she said, and instantly knew the dreadfulthing that she had done. "Exactly, " said the lady, with an amused little smile. "Oh, I _do_ beg your pardon, " began Leslie, blushing all over. "No need, --no need. Do you think I don't know what name I go by, behindmy back? They suppose because I'm old and plain and single, and wear afront, and don't understand rats and the German, that I'm deaf and blindand stupid. But I believe I get as much as they do out of their jokes, after all. " The dear old soul took Leslie by both her hands as shespoke, and looked a whole world of gentle benignity at her out of twosoft gray eyes, and then she laughed again. This woman had no _self_ tobe hurt. "We stopped at the Cliff this morning, " Leslie took heart to say; "andthey were so glad of your parcel, --the little girl and her aunt. AndPrissy gave me something to bring back to you; a splendid specimen ofberyl that she has found. " "Then my mind's at rest!" said Miss Craydocke, cheerier than ever. "Iwas sure she'd break her neck, or pull the mountain down on her headsome day looking for it. " "Would you like--I've found--I should like you to have that, too, --agarnet geode from Feather--Cap?" Leslie thought she had done it veryclumsily, and in a hurry, after all. "Will you come over to my little room, dear, --number fifteen, in thewest wing, --to-morrow sometime, with your stones? I want to see more ofyou. " There was a deliberate, gentle emphasis upon her words. If the grandestperson of whom she had ever known had said to Leslie Goldthwaite, "Iwant to see more of you, " she would not have heard it with a warmerthrill than she felt that moment at her heart. CHAPTER XI. IN THE PINES. It was a glorious July morning, and there was nothing particular onfoot. In the afternoon, there would be drives and walks, perhaps; forsome hours, now, there would be intensifying heat. The sun had burnedaway every cloud that had hung rosy about his rising, and the great grayflanks of Washington glared in a pale scorch close up under the sky, whose blue fainted in the flooding presence of the full white light ofsuch unblunted day. Here and there, adown his sides, something flashedout in a clear, intense dazzle, like an enormous crystal cropping fromthe granite, and blazing with reflected splendor. These were the leapsof water from out dark rifts into the sun. "Everybody will be in the pines to-day, " said Martha Josselyn. "I thinkit is better when they all go off and leave us. " "We can go up under our rock, " said Sue, putting stockings and mendingcotton into a large, light basket. "Have you got the chess-board? What_should_ we do without our mending-day?" These two girls had bought new stockings for all the little feet athome, that the weekly darning might be less for the mother while theywere away; and had come with their own patiently cared for old hose, "which they should have nothing else to do but to embroider. " They had made a sort of holiday, in their fashion, of mending-day athome, till it had come to seem like a positive treat and rest; and thehabit was so strong upon them that they hailed it even here. They alwaysgot out their little chess-board, when they sat down to the big baskettogether. They could darn, and consider, and move, and darn again; andso could keep it up all day long, as else even they would have found itnearly intolerable to do. So, though they seemed slower at it, theyreally in the end saved time. Thursday night saw the tedious work alldone, and the basket piled with neatly folded pairs, like a heap of finewhite rolls. This was a great thing, and "enough for one day, " as Mrs. Josselyn said. It was disastrous if they once began to lie over. If theycould be disposed of between sun and sun, the girls were welcome to anyplay they could get out of it. "There they go, those two together. Always to the pines, and always witha work-basket, " said Leslie Goldthwaite, sitting on the piazza step atthe Green Cottage, by Mrs. Linceford's feet, the latter lady occupyinga Shaker rocking-chair behind. "What nice girls they seem to be, --andnobody appears to know them much, beyond a 'good-morning'!" "Henny-penny, Goosie-poosie, Turkey-lurky, Ducky-daddles, _and_ ChickenLittle!" said Mrs. Linceford, counting up from thumb to little finger. "Dakie Thayne and Miss Craydocke, Marmaduke Wharne and these two, --theyjust make it out, " she continued, counting back again. "Whatever you do, Les, don't make up to Fox Lox at last, for all our sakes!" Out came Dakie Thayne, at this point, upon them, with his hands full. "Miss Leslie, _could_ you head these needles for me with black wax? Iwant them for my butterflies, and I've made _such_ a daub and scald ofit! I've blistered three fingers, and put lop-sided heads to twomiserable pins, and left no end of wax splutters on my table. I haven'tbut two sticks more, and the deacon don't keep any; I must try to get adozen pins out of it, at least. " He had his sealing-wax and a lighted"homespun candle, " as Leslie called the dips of Mrs. Green'smanufacture, in one hand, and a pincushion stuck full of needles waitingfor tops, in the other. "I told you so, " said Mrs. Linceford to Leslie. "That's it, then?" sheasked of Dakie Thayne. "What, ma'am?" "Butterflies. I knew you'd some hobby or other, --I said so. I'm gladit's no worse, " she answered, in her pleasant, smiling way. Dakie Thaynehad a great liking for Mrs. Linceford, but he adored Leslie Goldthwaite. "I'd like to show them to you, if you'd care, " he said. "I've got somesplendid ones. One great Turnus, that I brought with me in thechrysalis, that hatched out while I was at Jefferson. I rolled it up ina paper for the journey, and fastened it in the crown of my hat. I'vehad it ever since last fall. The asterias worms are spinning now, --theearly ones. They're out on the carrot-tops in shoals. I'm feeding up adozen of 'em in a box. They're very handsome, --bright green with blackand yellow spots, --and it's the queerest thing to see them stiffen outand change. " "_Can_ you? Do they do it all at once?" asked Etty Thoresby, slippinginto the rocking-chair, as Mrs. Linceford, by whom she had come andplaced herself within the last minute, rose and went in to follow herlaundress, just then going up the stairs with her basket. "Pretty much; it seems so. The first thing you know they stickthemselves up by their tails, and spin a noose to hang back their headsin, and there they are, like a papoose in a basket. Then their skinturns a queer, dead, ashy color, and grows somehow straight and tight, and they only squirm a little in a feeble way now and then, and growstiffer and stiffer till they can't squirm at all, and then they'remummies, and that's the end of it till the butterflies are born. It's astrange thing to see a live creature go into its own shroud, and hangitself up to turn into a corpse. Sometimes a live one, crawling round tofind a place for itself, will touch a mummy accidentally; and then, whenthey're not quite gone, I've seen 'em give an odd little quiver, underthe shell, as if they were almost at peace, and didn't want to beintruded on, or called back to earthly things, and the new comer takesthe hint, and respects privacy, and moves himself off to find quarterssomewhere else. Miss Leslie, how splendidly you're doing those! What'sthe difference, I wonder, between girls' fingers and boys'? I couldn'tmake those atoms of balls so round and perfect, 'if I died andsuffered, ' as Miss Hoskins says. " "It's only centrifugal force, " said Leslie, spinning round between herfinger and thumb a needle to whose head she had just touched a globuleof the bright black wax. "The world and a pin-head--both made on thesame principle. " The Haddens and Imogen Thoresby strolled along together, and addedthemselves to the group. "Let's go over to the hotel, Leslie. We've seen nothing of the girlssince just after breakfast. They must be up in the hall, arranging aboutthe tableaux. " "I'll come by and by, if you want me; don't wait. I'm going to finishthese--properly;" and she dipped and twirled another needle with daintyprecision, in the pause between her words. "Have you got a lot of brothers at home, Miss Leslie?" asked DakieThayne. "Two, " replied Leslie; "not at home, though, now; one at Exeter, and theother at Cambridge. Why?" "I was thinking it would be bad--what do you call it--political economyor something, if you hadn't any, that's all. " "Mamma wants you, " said Ginevra Thoresby, looking out at the door tocall her sisters. "She's in the Haughtleys' room. They're talking aboutthe wagon for Minster Rock to-night. What _do_ you take up your timewith that boy for?" she added, not inaudibly, as she and Imogen turnedaway together. "Oh dear!" cried blunt Etty, lingering, "I wonder if she meant me. Iwant to hear about the caterpillars. Mamma thinks the Haughtleys aresuch nice people, because they came in their own carriage, and they'vegot such big trunks, and a saddle-horse, and elegant dressing-cases, andivory-backed brushes! I wish she didn't care so much about such things. " Mrs. Thoresby would have been shocked to hear her little daughter'sarrangement and version of her ideas. She had simply been kind to thesestrangers on their arrival, in their own comfortable carriage, a fewdays since; had stepped forward, --as somehow it seemed to devolve uponher, with her dignified air and handsome gray curls, when she chose, todo, --representing by a kind of tacit consent the household in general, as somebody in every such sojourn usually will; had interested herselfabout their rooms, which were near her own, and had reported of them, privately, among other things noted in these first glimpses, that "theyhad everything about them in the most _per_fect style; ivory-backedbrushes, and lovely inlaid dressing-cases, Ginevra; the best all_through_, and no sham!" Yes, indeed, if that could but be said truly, and need not stop at brushes and boxes! Imogen came back presently, and called to Etty from the stairs, and shewas obliged to go. Jeannie Hadden waited till they were fairly off thelanding, and then walked away herself, saying nothing, but wearing aslightly displeased air. Mrs. Thoresby and her elder daughter had taken a sort of dislike toDakie Thayne. They seemed to think he wanted putting down. Nobody knewanything about him; he was well enough in his place, perhaps; but whyshould he join himself to their party? The Routh girls had FrankScherman, and two or three other older attendants; among them he wassimply not thought of, often, at all. If it had not been for Leslie andMrs. Linceford, he would have found himself in Outledge, what boys ofhis age are apt to find themselves in the world at large, --a sort of oddor stray, not provided for anywhere in the general scheme of society. For this very reason, discerning it quickly, Leslie had been loyal tohim; and he, with all his boy-vehemence of admiration and devotion, wasloyal to her. She had the feeling, motherly and sisterly in its mingledinstinct, by which all true and fine feminine natures are moved, inbehalf of the man-nature in its dawn, that so needs sympathy and gentleconsideration and provision, and that certain respect which calls forthand fosters self-respect; to be allowed and acknowledged to be somebody, lest for the want of this it should fail, unhappily, ever to be anybody. She was not aware of it; she only followed her kindly instinct. So shewas doing, unconsciously, one of the best early bits of her woman-workin the world. Once in a while it occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite to wonder why it wasthat she was able to forget--that she found she had forgotten, in ameasure--those little self-absorptions that she had been afraid of, andthat had puzzled her in her thoughtful moments. She was glad to be"taken up" with something that could please Dakie Thayne; or to go overto the Cliff and see Prissy Hoskins, and tell her a story; or help Dakieto fence in safely her beds of flower-seedlings (she had not let herfirst visit be her last, in these weeks since her introduction there), or to sit an hour with dear old Miss Craydocke and help her in a bit ofcharity work, and hear her sweet, simple, genial talk. She had taken upher little opportunities as they came. Was it by instinct only, orthrough a tender Spirit-leading, that she winnowed them and chose thebest, and had so been kept a little out of the drift and hurry thatmight else have frothed away the hours? "Give us our daily bread, " "Leadus not into temptation, "--they have to do with each other, if we "knowthe daily bread when we see it. " But that also is of the grace of God. There was the beginning of fruit under the leaf with Leslie Goldthwaite;and the fine life-current was setting itself that way with its bestimpulse and its rarest particles. The pincushion was well filled with the delicate, bristling, tiny-headed needles, when Miss Craydocke appeared, walking across, underher great brown sun-umbrella, from the hotel. "If you've nothing else to do, my dears, suppose we go over to the pinestogether? Where's Miss Jeannie? Wouldn't she like it? All the breezethere is haunts them always. " "I'm always ready for the pines, " said Leslie. "Here, Dakie, I hopeyou'll catch a butterfly for every pin. Oh, now I think of it, have youfound your _elephant_?" "Yes, half way up the garret-stairs. I can't feed him comfortably, MissLeslie. He wants to eat incessantly, and the elm-leaves wilt so quickly, if I bring them in, that the first thing I know, he's out of properprovender and off on a raid. He needs to be on the tree; but then Ishould lose him. " Leslie thought a minute. "You might tie up a branch withmosquito-netting, " she said. "Isn't that bright? I'll go right and do it, --only I haven't anynetting, " said he. "Mrs. Linceford has. I'll go and beg a piece for you. And then, ifyou'll just sit here a minute, I'll come, Miss Craydocke. " When she came back, she brought Jeannie with her. To use a vulgarproverb, Jeannie's nose was rather out of joint since the Haughtleys hadarrived. Ginevra Thoresby was quite engrossed with them, and this ofteninvolved Imogen. There was only room for six in Captain Green's wagon, and nothing had been said to Jeannie about the drive to Minster Rock. Leslie had hanging upon her finger, also, the finest and whitest andmost graceful of all possible little splint baskets, only just bigenough to carry a bit of such work as was in it now, --a strip of sheer, delicate grass-linen, which needle and thread, with her deft guidance, were turning into a cobweb border, by a weaving of lace-lines, strong, yet light, where the woof of the original material had been drawn out. It was "done for odd-minute work, and was better than anything she couldbuy. " Prettier it certainly was, when, with a finishing of the merestedge of lace, it came to encircle her round, fair arms and shoulders, orto peep out with its dainty revelation among the gathering treasures ofthe linen-drawer I told you of. She had accomplished yards of it alreadyfor her holiday work. She had brought the netting, as she promised, for Dakie Thayne, whoreceived it with thanks, and straightway hastened off to get his"elephant" and a piece of string, and to find a convenient elm-branchwhich he could convert into a cage-pasture. "I'll come round to the pines, afterward, " he said. And just then, --Sin Saxon's bright face and pretty figure showingthemselves on the hotel piazza, with a seeking look andgesture, --Jeannie and Elinor were drawn off also to ask about thetableaux, and see if they were wanted, with the like promise that "theywould come presently. " So Miss Craydocke and Leslie walked slowly round, under the sun-umbrella, to the head of the ledge, by themselves. Up this rocky promontory it was very pretty little climbing, over theirregular turf-covered crags that made the ascent; and once up, it wascharming. A natural grove of stately old pine-trees, with their glory oftasseled foliage and their breath of perfume, crowned and sheltered it;and here had been placed at cosy angles, under the deepest shade, long, broad, elastic benches of boards, sprung from rock to rock, and madesecure to stakes, or held in place by convenient irregularities of therock itself. Pine-trunks and granite offered rough support to backs thatcould so fit themselves; and visitors found out their favorite seats, and spent hours there, with books or work, or looking forth in aluxurious listlessness from out the cool upon the warm, brightvalley-picture, and the shining water wandering down from far heightsand unknown solitudes to see the world. "It's better so, " said Miss Craydocke, when the others left them. "Ihad a word I wanted to say to you. What do you suppose those two came uphere to the mountains for?" And Miss Craydocke nodded up, indicatively, toward the two girl-figures just visible by their draperies in a nook ofrock beyond and above the benches. "To get the good of them, as we did, I suppose, " Leslie answered, wondering a little what Miss Craydocke might exactly mean. "I suppose so, too, " was the reply. "And I suppose--the Lord's love camewith them! I suppose He cares whether they get the full of the good. Andyet I think He leaves it, like everything else, a little to us. " Leslie's heart beat quicker, hearing these words. It beat quicker alwayswhen such thoughts were touched. She was shy of seeking them; she almosttried, in an involuntary way, to escape them at first, when they wereopenly broached; yet she longed always, at the same time, for a deeperunderstanding of them. "I should like to know the Miss Josselynsbetter, " she said presently, when Miss Craydocke made no haste to speakagain. "I have been thinking so this morning. I have thought so veryoften. But they seem so quiet, always. One doesn't like to intrude. " "They ought to be more with young people, " Miss Craydocke went on. "Andthey ought to do less ripping and sewing and darning, if it could bemanaged. They brought three trunks with them. And what do you think thethird is full of?" Leslie had no idea, of course. "Old winter dresses. To be made over. For the children at home. So thattheir mother may be coaxed to take her turn and go away upon a visitwhen they get back, seeing that the fall sewing will be half done!That's a pretty coming to the mountains for two tired-out young things, I think!" "Oh dear!" cried Leslie pitifully; and then a secret compunction seizedher, thinking of her own little elegant, odd-minute work, which was allshe had to interfere with mountain pleasure. "And isn't it some of our business, if we could get at it?" asked MissCraydocke, concluding. "Dear Miss Craydocke!" said Leslie, with a warm brightness in her face, as she looked up, "the world is full of business; but so few people findout any but their own! Nobody but you dreamt of this, or of PrissyHoskins, till you showed us, --or of all the little Wigleys. How do youcome to know, when other people go on in their own way, and seenothing, --like the priests and Levites?" This last she added by a suddenoccurrence and application, that half answered, beforehand, her ownquestion. "When we think of people's needs as the _Master's!_" said MissCraydocke, evading herself, and never minding her syntax. "When we thinkwhat every separate soul is to Him, that He came into the world to carefor as God cares for the sparrows! It's my faith that He's never goneaway from his work, dear; that his love lies alongside every life, andin all its experience; and that his life is in his love; and that if wewant to find Him--_there_ we may! Inasmuch as ye have done it unto theleast of these, ye have done it unto me. '" She grew eloquent--the plain, simple-speaking woman--when something that was great and living to herwould find utterance. "How do you mean that?" said Leslie, with a sort of abruptness, as ofone who must have definiteness, but who hurried with her asking, lestafter a minute she might not dare. "That He really knows, and thinks, ofevery special thing and person, --and cares? Or only _would?_" "I take it as He said it, " said Miss Craydocke. "'All power is given mein heaven and in earth. ' 'And lo! I am with you alway, even unto the endof the world!' He put the two together himself, dear!" A great, warm, instant glow seemed to rush over Leslie inwardly. In thelight and quickening of it, other words shone out and declaredthemselves. "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruitof itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abidein me. " And this was the abiding! The sympathy, the interest, that founditself side by side with his! The faith that felt his uniting presencewith all! To this child of sixteen came a moment's glimpse of what might be, truly, that life which is "hid with Christ in God, " and which has itsblessed work with the Lord in the world, --came, with the word of aplain, old, unconsidered woman, whom heedless girls made daily sportof, --came, bringing with it "old and new, " like a householder of thekingdom of heaven; showing how the life and the fruit are inextricablyone, --how the growth and the withering are inevitably determined! They reached the benches now; they saw the Josselyns busy up beyond, with their chess-board between them, and their mending basket at theirfeet; they would not go now and interrupt their game. The seat which the sisters had chosen, because it was just a quietlittle corner for two, was a nook scooped out, as it were, in a jut ofgranite; hollowed in behind and perpendicularly to a height above theirheads, and embracing a mossy little flat below, so that it seemed like agreat solid armchair into which two could get together, and a thirdcould not possibly intrude. Miss Craydocke and Leslie settled themselves, and both were silent. Presently Leslie spoke again, giving out a fragmentary link of the trainof thought that had been going on in her. "If it weren't for just onething!" she said, and there she stopped. "What?" asked Miss Craydocke, as not a bit at a loss to made out theunseen connection. "The old puzzle. We _have_ to think and work a good deal of the time forourselves. And then we lose sight"-- "Of Him? Why?" Leslie said no more, but waited. Miss Craydocke's tone was clear, untroubled. The young girl looked, therefore, for this clear confidenceto be spoken out. "Why, since He is close to _our_ life also, and cares tenderly forthat?--since, if we let him possess himself of it, it is one of his ownchannels, by which He still gives himself unto the world? He didn't doit all in one single history of three years, my child, or thirty-three, out there in Judaea. He keeps on, --so I believe, --through every possibleway and circumstance of human living now, if only the life is grafted onhis. The Vine and the branches, and God tending all. And the fruit isthe kingdom of heaven. " It is never too late, and never impossible, for a human face to lookbeautiful. In the soft light and shadow of the stirring pines, with themoving from within of that which at once illumined and veiled, with anexultation and an awe, there came a glory over the homely and fadedfeatures which they could neither bar nor dim. And the thought tookpossession of the word and tone, and made them simply grand and heavenlymusical. After that they sat still again, --it matters not how many minutes. Thecrisp green spines rustled dreamily over their heads; the wild birdscalled to each other, far back in the closer lying woods; the waterglanced on, millions of new drops every instant making the self-samecircles and gushes and falls, and the wealth of summer sunshine holdingand vivifying all. Leslie had word and scene stamped together on herspirit and memory in those moments. There was a Presence in the hush andbeauty. Two souls were here met together in the name of the livingChrist. And for that there is the promise. Martha Josselyn and her sister sat and played and mended on. By and by Dakie Thayne came; said a bright word or two; glanced round, in restless boy-fashion, as if taking in the elements of the situation, and considering what was to be made out of it; perceived the pair atchess; and presently, with his mountain stick, went springing away frompoint to point, up and around the piles and masses of rock and moundthat made up the broadening ascent of the ledge. "Check to your queen, " said Sue. Martha put her elbow upon her knee, and held her needle suspended by itsthread. Sue darned away, and got a great hole laid lengthwise withsmooth lines, before her threatening move had been provided for. Then ared knight came with gallant leap, right down in the midst of the whiteforces, menacing in his turn right and left; and Martha drew a longsigh, and sat back, and poised her needle-lance again, and went to work;and it was Sue's turn to lean over the board with knit brows and holdenbreath. Something peered over the rock above them at this moment. A boy's head, from which the cap had been removed. "If only they'll play now, and not chatter!" thought Dakie Thayne, lyingprone along the cliff above, and putting up his elbows to rest his headbetween his hands. "This'll be jolly, if it don't turn to eavesdropping. Poor old Noll! I haven't had a game since I played with him!" Sue would not withdraw her attack. She planted a bishop so that, if theknight should move, it would open a course straight down toward a weakpoint beside the red king. "She means to 'fight it out on that line, if it takes all summer, '"Dakie went on within himself, having grasped, during the long pausebefore Sue's move, the whole position. "They're no fools at it, to havegot it into a shape like that! I'd just like Noll to see it!" Martha looked, and drew a thread or two into her stocking, and lookedagain. Then she stabbed her cotton-ball with her needle, and put up bothhands--one with the white stocking-foot still drawn over it--beside hertemples. At last she castled. Sue was as calm as the morning. She always grew calm and strong as thegame drew near the end. She had even let her thoughts go off to otherthings while Martha pondered and she wove in the cross-threads of herdarn. "I wonder, Martha, " she said now, suddenly, before attending to the newaspect of the board, "if I couldn't do without that muslin skirt I madeto wear under my _pińa_, and turn it into a couple of white waists tocarry home to mother? If she goes away, you know"-- "Aigh!" It was a short, sharp, unspellable sound that came from above. Suestarted, and a red piece rolled from the board. Then there was arustling and a crashing and a leaping, and by a much shorter and morehazardous way than he had climbed, Dakie Thayne came down and stoodbefore them. "I had to let you know! I couldn't listen. I was in hopesyou wouldn't talk. Don't move, please! I'll find the man. I do beg yourpardon, --I had no business, --but I so like chess, --when it's any sort ofa game!" While he spoke, he was looking about the base of the rock, and by goodfortune spied and pounced upon the bit of bright-colored ivory, whichhad rolled and rested itself against a hummock of sod. "May I see it out?" he begged, approaching, and putting the piece uponthe board. "You must have played a good deal, " looking at Sue. "We play often at home, my sister and I; and I had some good practicein"--There she stopped. "In the hospital, " said Martha, with the sharp little way she took upsometimes. "Why shouldn't you tell of it?" "Has Miss Josselyn been in the hospitals?" asked Dakie Thayne, with acertain quick change in his tone. "For the best of two years, " Martha answered. At this moment, seeing how Dakie was breaking the ice for them, up cameMiss Craydocke and Leslie Goldthwaite. "Miss Leslie! Miss Craydocke! This lady has been away among oursoldiers, in the hospitals, half through the war! Perhaps--did youever"--But with that he broke off. There was a great flush on his face, and his eyes glowed with boy-enthusiasm lit at the thought of the war, and of brave men, and of noble, ministering women, of whom he suddenlyfound himself face to face with one. The game of chess got swept together. "It was as good as over, " MarthaJosselyn said. And these five sat down together among the rocks, and inhalf an hour, after weeks of mere "good-mornings, " they had grown to beold friends. But Dakie Thayne--he best knew why--left his fragment of aquestion unfinished. CHAPTER XII. CROWDED OUT. The "by and by" people came at last: Jeannie and Elinor, and Sin Saxon, and the Arnalls, and Josie Scherman. They wanted Leslie, --to tell andask her half a hundred things about the projected tableaux. If it hadonly been Miss Craydocke and the Josselyns sitting together, with DakieThayne, how would that have concerned them, --the later comers? It wouldonly have been a bit of "the pines" preoccupied: they would have found aplace for themselves, and gone on with their own chatter. But Leslie'spresence made all the difference. The little group became the nucleus ofthe enlarging circle. Miss Craydocke had known very well how this wouldbe. They asked this and that of Leslie which they had come to ask; and shewould keep turning to the Josselyns and appealing to them; so they weredrawn in. There was a curtain to be made, first of all. Miss Craydockewould undertake that, drafting Leslie and the Miss Josselyns to helpher; they should all come to her room early to-morrow, and they wouldhave it ready by ten o'clock. Leslie wondered a little that she found_work_ for them to do: a part of the play she thought would have beenbetter; but Miss Craydocke knew how that must come about. Besides, shehad more than one little line to lay and to pull, this serpent-wise oldmaiden, in behalf of her ultimate designs concerning them. I can't stay here under the pines and tell you all their talk thissummer morning, --how Sin Saxon grew social and saucy with the quiet MissJosselyns; how she fell upon the mending-basket and their notability, and declared that the most foolish and pernicious proverb in the worldwas that old thing about a stitch in time saving nine; it might savecertain special stitches; but how about the _time_ itself, and _other_stitches? She didn't believe in it, --running round after adarning-needle and forty other things, the minute a thread broke, anddropping whatever else one had in hand, to let it ravel itself all outagain; "she believed in a good big basket, in a dark closet, and layingup there for a rainy day, and being at peace in the pleasant weather. Then, too, there was another thing; she didn't believe in notabilityitself, at all: the more one was fool enough to know, the more one hadto do, all one's life long. Providence always took care of the lame andthe lazy; and, besides, those capable people never had contented minds. They couldn't keep servants: their own fingers were always itching to dothings better. Her sister Effie was a lamentable instance. She'd marrieda man, --well, not _very_ rich, --and she had set out to learn and directeverything. The consequence was, she was like Eve after the apple, --sheknew good and evil; and wasn't the garden just a wilderness after that?She never thought of it before, but she believed that was exactly whatthat old poem in Genesis was written for!" How Miss Craydocke answered, with her gentle, tolerant common-sense, andright thought, and wide-awake brightness; how the Josselyns grew cordialand confident enough to confess that, with five little children in thehouse, there wasn't a great necessity for laying up against a rainy day, and with stockings at a dollar and a half a pair, one was apt to get thenine stitches, or a pretty comfortable multiple of them, every Wednesdaywhen the wash came in; and how these different kinds of lives, comingtogether with a friendly friction, found themselves not so uncongenial, or so incomprehensible to each other, after all, --all this, in itsdetail of bright words, I cannot stop to tell you; it would take a goodmany summers to go through one like this so fully; but when the bigbell rang for dinner, they all came down the ledge together, and Sueand Martha Josselyn, for the first time in four weeks, felt themselvesfairly one with the current interest and life of the gay house in whichthey had been dwellers and yet only lookers-on. Mrs. Thoresby, coming down to dinner, a few minutes late, with herdaughters, and pausing--as people always did at the Green Cottage, without knowing why--to step from the foot of the stairway to the openpiazza-door, and glance out before turning toward the dining-room, sawthe ledge party just dividing itself into its two little streams, thatwere to head, respectively, for cottage and hotel. "It is a wonder to me that Mrs. Linceford allows it!" was her comment. "Just the odds and ends of all the company here. And those girls, whomight take whatever stand they pleased. " "Miss Leslie always finds out the nicest people, and the best times, _I_think, " said Etty, who had dragged through but a dull morning behind theblinds of her mother's window, puzzling over crochet, --which she hated, because she said it was like everlastingly poking one's finger after asliver, --and had caught now and then, over the still air, the laughterand bird-notes that came together from among the pines. One of the MissHaughtleys had sat with them; but that only "stiffened out thedullness, " as Etty had declared, the instant the young lady left them. "Don't be pert, Etty. You don't know what you want, or what is for yourinterest. The Haddens were well enough, by themselves; but when it comesto Tom, Dick, and Harry!" "I don't believe that's elegant, mamma, " said Etty demurely; "and thereisn't Tom, Dick, nor Harry; only Dakie Thayne, and that nice, _nice_Miss Craydocke! And--I _hate_ the Haughtleys!" This with a suddenexplosiveness at the last, after the demureness. "Etty!"--and Mrs. Thoresby intoned an indescribable astonishment ofdispleasure in her utterance of her daughter's name, --"rememberyourself. You are neither to be impertinent to me, nor to speak rudelyof persons whom I choose for your acquaintance. When you are older, youwill come to understand how these chance meetings may lead to the mostvaluable friendships, or, on the contrary, to the most mortifyingembarrassments. In the mean time, you are to be guided. " After whichlittle sententious homily out of the Book of the World, Mrs. Thoresbyruffled herself with dignity, and led her brood away with her. Next day, Tom, Dick, and Harry--that is to say, Miss Craydocke, Susanand Martha Josselyn, and Leslie Goldthwaite--were gathered in thefirst-named lady's room, to make the great green curtain. And there SinSaxon came in upon them, --ostensibly to bring the curtain-rings, andexplain how she wanted them put on; but after that she lingered. "It's like the Tower of Babel upstairs, " she said, "and just about aslikely ever to get built. I can't bear to stay where I can't hear myselftalk. You're nice and cosy here, Miss Craydocke. " And with that, shesettled herself down on the floor, with all her little ruffles andflounces and billows of muslin heaping and curling themselves about her, till her pretty head and shoulders were like a new and charming sort offloating-island in the midst. And it came to pass that presently the talk drifted round to vanitiesand vexations, --on this wise. "Everybody wants to be everything, " said Sin Saxon. "They don't say so, of course. But they keep objecting, and unsettling. Nothing hushesanybody up but proposing them for some especially magnificent part. Andyou can't hush them all at once in that way. If they'd only _say_ whatthey want, and be done with it! But they're so dreadfully polite! Onlyfinding out continual reasons why nobody will do for this and that, orhave time to dress, or something, and waiting modestly to be suggestedand shut up! When I came down they were in full tilt about 'The Lady ofShalott. ' It's to be one of the crack scenes, you know, --river of bluecambric, and a real, regular, lovely property-boat. Frank Scherman sentfor it, and it came up on the stage yesterday, --drivers swearing all theway. Now they'll go on for half an hour, at least; and at the end ofthat time I shall walk in, upon the plain of Shinar, with my hair alllet down, --it's real, every _bit of it_, not a tail tied onanywhere, --and tell them I--myself--am to be the Lady of Shalott! Ithink I shall relish flinging in that little bit of honesty, like a dashof cold water into the middle of a fry. Won't it sizzle?" She sat twirling the cord upon which the dozens of great brass ringswere strung, watching the shining ellipse they made as theyrevolved, --like a child set down upon the carpet with aplaything, --expecting no answer, only waiting for the next vagrantwhimsicality that should come across her brain, --not altogether withoutmethod, either, --to give it utterance. "I don't suppose I could convince you of it, " she resumed; "but I doactually have serious thoughts sometimes. I think that very likely someof us--most of us--are going to the dogs. And I wonder what it will bewhen we get there. Why don't you contradict, or confirm, what I say, Miss Craydocke?" "You haven't said out, yet, have you?" Sin Saxon opened wide her great, wondering, saucy blue eyes, and turnedthem full upon Miss Craydocke's face. "Well, you _are_ a oner! assomebody in Dickens says. There's no such thing as a leading questionfor you. It's like the rope the dog slipped his head out of, and leftthe man holding fast at the other end, in touching confidence that hewas coming on. I saw that once on Broadway. Now I experience it. Isuppose I've got to say more. Well, then, in a general way, do you thinkliving amounts to anything, Miss Craydocke?" "Whose living?" "Sharp--as a knife that's just cut through a lemon! _Ours_, then, if youplease; us girls', for instance. " "You haven't done much of your living yet, my dear. " The tone wasgentle, as of one who looked down from such a height of years that shefelt tenderly the climbing that had been, for those who had it yet todo. "We're as busy at it, too, as we can be. But sometimes I've mistrustedsomething like what I discovered very indignantly one day when I wasfour years old, and fancied I was making a petticoat, sewing throughand through a bit of flannel. The thread hadn't any knot in it!" "That was very well, too, until you knew just where to put the stitchesthat should stay. " "Which brings us to our subject of the morning, as the sermons saysometimes, when they're half through, or ought to be. There are allkinds of stitches, --embroidery, and plain over-and-over, and whippings, and darns! When are we to make our knot and begin? and which kind are weto do?" "Most lives find occasion, more or less, for each. Practiced fingerswill know how to manage all. " "But--it's--the--pro_por_tion!" cried Sin, in a crescendo that endedwith an emphasis that was nearly a little scream. "I think that, when one looks to what is really needed most and first, will arrange itself, " said Miss Craydocke. "Something gets crowded out, with us all. It depends upon what, and how, and with what willingness welet it go. " "_Now_ we come to the superlative sort of people, --the extra good ones, who let everything go that isn't solid duty; all the ornament oflife, --good looks, --tidiness even, --and everything that's the least bitjolly, and that don't keep your high-mindedness on the strain. I want tobe _low_-minded--_weak_-minded at least--now and then. I can't bearferociously elevated people, who won't say a word that don't count;people that talk about their time being interrupted (as if their timewasn't everybody else's time, too), because somebody comes in once in awhile for a friendly call; and who go about the streets as if they wereso intent upon some tremendous good work, or big thinking, that it wouldbe dangerous even to bow to a common sinner, for fear of being waylaidand hindered. I know people like that; and all I've to say is that, ifthey're to make up the heavenly circles, I'd full as lief go down lower, where they're kind of social!" There can scarcely be a subject touched, in ever so light away, --especially a moral or a spiritual subject, --in however small acompany of persons, that shall not set in motion varied and intensecurrents of thought; bear diverse and searching application toconsciousness and experience. The Josselyns sat silent with the longbreadths of green cambric over their laps, listening with an amusementthat freshened into their habitual work-day mood like a willful littlesummer breeze born out of blue morning skies, unconscious of clouds, tothe oddities of Sin Saxon; but the drift of her sayings, the meaning sheactually had under them, bore down upon their different knowledgewith a significance whose sharpness she had no dream of. "Plainover-and-over, "--how well it illustrated what their young days and thedisposal of them had been. Miss Craydocke thought of the darns; herstory cannot be told here; but she knew what it meant to have the darnsof life fall to one's share, --to have the filling up to do, withdexterousness and pains and sacrifice, of holes that other people make! For Leslie Goldthwaite, she got the next word of the lesson she waslearning, --"_It depends on what one is willing to let get crowded out_. " Sin Saxon went on again. "I've had a special disgust given me to superiority. I wouldn't besuperior for all the world. We had a superior specimen come among us atHighslope last year. She's there yet, it's commonly believed; but nobodytakes the trouble to be positive of it. Reason why, she took upimmediately such a position of mental and moral altitude above ourheads, and became so sublimely unconscious of all beneath, that allbeneath wasn't going to strain its neck to look after her, much lessprovide itself with telescopes. We're pretty nice people, we think, butwe're not particularly curious in astronomy. We heard great things ofher, beforehand; and we were all ready to make much of her. We asked herto our parties. She came, with a look upon her as if some unpleasantduty had forced her temporarily into purgatory. She shied round like acat in a strange garret, as if all she wanted was to get out. Shewouldn't dance; she wouldn't talk; she went home early, --to her studies, I suppose, and her plans for next day's unmitigated usefulness. She tookit for granted we had nothing in us _but_ dance, and so, as Artemus Wardsays, 'If the American Eagle could solace itself in that way, we let itwent!' She might have done some good to us, --we needed to be done to, Idon't doubt, --but it's all over now. That light is under a bushel, andthat city's hid, so far as Highslope is concerned. And we've pretty muchmade up our minds, among us, to be bad and jolly. Only sometimes I getthinking, --that's all. " She got up, giving the string of rings a final whirl, and tossing theminto Leslie Goldthwaite's lap. "Good-by, " she said, shaking down herflounces. "It's time for me to go and assert myself at Shinar. '_L'empire, c'est moi!_' Napoleon was great when he said that. A greatdeal greater than if he'd pretended to be meek, and want nothing but thepublic good!" "What gets crowded out?" Day by day that is the great test of our life. Just now, everything seemed likely to get crowded out with the youngfolks at Outledge but dresses, characters, and rehearsals. The swivelthe earth turned on at this moment was the coming Tuesday evening andits performance. And the central axis of that, to nearly everyindividual interest, was what such particular individual was to "be. " They had asked Leslie to take the part of Zorayda in the "Three MoorishPrincesses of the Alhambra. " Jeannie and Elinor were to be Zayda andZorahayda. As for Leslie, she liked well enough, as we know, to lookpretty; it was, or had been, till other thoughts of late had begun to"crowd it out, " something like a besetting weakness; she had onlylately--to tell the whole truth as it seldom is told--begun to beashamed, before her higher self, to turn, the first thing in themorning, with a certain half-mechanical anxiety toward her glass, to seehow she was looking. Without studying into separate causes of complexionand so forth, as older women given to these things come to do, she knewthat somehow there was often a difference; and beside the standingquestion in her mind as to whether there were a chance of her growing upto anything like positive beauty or not, there was apt often to be areason why she would like _to-day_, if possible, to be in particulargood looks. When she got an invitation, or an excursion was planned, thefirst thing that came into her head was naturally what she should wear;and a good deal of the pleasure would depend on that. A party without anespecially pretty dress didn't amount to much; she couldn't help that;it did count with everybody, and it made a difference. She would like, undoubtedly, a "pretty part" in these tableaux; but there was more inLeslie Goldthwaite, even without touching upon the deep things, than allthis. _Only_ a pretty part did not quite satisfy: she had capacity forsomething more. In spite of the lovely Moorish costume to be contrivedout of blue silk and white muslin, and to contrast so picturesquely withJeannie's crimson, and the soft, snowy drapery of Elinor, she would havebeen half willing to be the "discreet Kadiga" instead; for the old womanhad really to look _something_ as well as _somehow_, and there was aspirit and a fun in that. The pros and cons and possibilities were working themselves graduallyclear to her thoughts, as she sat and listened, with external attentionin the beginning, to Sin Saxon's chatter. Ideas about the adaptation ofher dress-material, and the character she could bring out of, or getinto, her part, mingled themselves together; and Irving's delicious oldlegend that she had read hundreds of times, entranced, as a child, repeated itself in snatches to her recollection. Jeannie must bestately; that would quite suit her. Elinor--must just be Elinor. Thenthe airs and graces remained for herself. She thought she couldillustrate with some spirit the latent coquetry of the imprisonedbeauty; she believed, notwithstanding the fashion in which the storymeasured out their speech in rations, --always an appropriate bit, andjust so much of it to each, --that the gay Zorayda must have had theprincipal hand in their affairs; must have put the others up tomischief, and coaxed most winningly the discreet Kadiga. She could makesomething out of it: it shouldn't be mere flat prettiness. She began tocongratulate herself upon the character. And then her ingenious fancyflew off to something else that had occurred to her, and that she hadonly secretly proposed to Sin Saxon; an illustration of a certainancient nursery ballad, to vary by contrast the pathetic representationsof "Auld Robin Gray" and "The Lady of Shalott. " It was a bright plan, and she was nearly sure she could carry it out; but it was not a "prettypart, " and Sin Saxon had thought it fair she should have one; thereforeZorayda. All this was reason why Leslie's brain was busy, like herfingers, as she sat and sewed on the green curtain, and let Sin Saxontalk. Till Miss Craydocke said that "something always gets crowded out, "and so those words came to her in the midst of all. The Josselyns went away to their own room when the last rings had beensewn on; and the curtain was ready, as had been promised, at teno'clock. Leslie stayed, waiting for Dakie Thayne to come and fetch it. While she sat there, silent, by the window, Miss Craydocke brought out anew armful of something from a drawer, and came and placed her Shakerrocking-chair beside her. Leslie looked around, and saw her lap full oftwo little bright plaid dresses. "It's only the buttonholes, " said Miss Craydocke. "I'm going to makethem now, before they find me out. " Leslie looked very uncomprehending. "You didn't suppose I let those girls come in here and spend theirmorning on that nonsense for nothing, did you? This is some of _their_work, the work that's crowding all the frolic out of their lives. I'vefound out where they keep it, and I've stolen some. I'm Scotch, youknow, and I believe in brownies. They're good to believe in. Old fablesare generally _all but_ true. You've only to 'put in one to make it so, 'as children say in 'odd and even. '" And Miss Craydocke overcasted herfirst buttonhole energetically. Leslie Goldthwaite saw through the whole now, in a minute. "You did iton purpose, for an excuse!" she said; and there was a ring ofapplauding delight in her voice which a note of admiration poorlymarks. "Well, you must begin somehow, " said Miss Craydocke. "And after you'veonce begun, you can keep on. " Which, as a generality, was not soglittering, perhaps, as might be; but Leslie could imagine, with a warmheart-throb, what, in this case, Miss Craydocke's "keeping on" would be. "I found them out by degrees, " said Miss Craydocke. "They've beenoverhead here, this month nearly, and if you _don't_ listen nor lookmore than is lady-like, you can't help scraps enough to piece somethingout of by that time. They sit by their window, and I sit by mine. Icough, and sneeze, and sing, as much as I find comfortable, and theycan't help knowing where their neighbors are; and after that, it's theirlookout, of course. I lent them some books one Sunday, and so we got ona sort of visiting terms, and lately I've gone in, sometimes, and satdown awhile when I've had an errand, and they've been here; the amountof it is, they're two young things that'll grow old before they knowthey've ever been young, if somebody don't take hold. They've only gotjust so much time to stay; and if we don't contrive a holiday for thembefore it's over, why, --there's the 'Inasmuch, '--that's all. " Dakie Thayne came to the door to fetch Leslie and the curtain. "It's all ready, Dakie, --here; but I can't go just now, --not unlessthey want me _very_ much, and then you'll come, please, won't you, andlet me know again?" said Leslie, bundling up the mass of cambric, andpiling it upon Dakie's arms. Dakie looked disappointed, but promised, and departed. They were findinghim useful upstairs, and Leslie had begged him to help. "Now give me that other dress, " she said, turning to Miss Craydocke. "And you, --couldn't you go and steal something else?" She spokeimpetuously, and her eyes shone with eagerness, and more. "I've had to lay a plan, " resumed Miss Craydocke, as Leslie took themeasure of a buttonhole and began. "Change of work is as good as a rest. So I've had them down here on the curtain among the girls. Next, I'mgoing to have a bee. I've got some things to finish up for PrissyHoskins, and they're likely to be wanted in something of a hurry. She'sgot another aunt in Portsmouth, and if she can only be provided withproper things to wear, she can go down there, Aunt Hoskins says, andstay all winter, get some schooling, and see a city doctor. The man heretells them that something might be done for her hearing by a personskilled in such things, and Miss Hoskins says 'there's a little money ofthe child's own, from the vandoo when her father died, ' that would payfor traveling and advice, and 'ef the right sort ain't to be had inPortsmouth, when she once gets started, she shall go whuzzever't is, ifshe has to have a vandoo herself!' It's a whole human life of comfortand usefulness, Leslie Goldthwaite, may be, that depends!--Well, I'llhave a bee, and get Prissy fixed out. Her Portsmouth aunt is coming up, and will take her back. She'll give her a welcome, but she's poorherself, and can't afford much more. And then the Josselyns are to havea bee. Not everybody; but you and me, and we'll see by that time whoelse. It's to begin as if we meant to have them all round, for thefrolic and the sociability; and besides that, we'll steal all we can. For your part, you must get intimate. Nobody can do anything, except asa friend. And the last week they're here is the very week I'm goingeverywhere in! I'm going to charter the little red, and have parties ofmy own. We'll have a picnic at the Cliff, and Prissy will wait on uswith raspberries and cream. We'll walk up Feather-Cap, and ride upGiant's Cairn, and we'll have a sunset at Minster Rock. And it's goingto be pleasant weather every day!" They stitched away, then, dropping their talk. Miss Craydocke was out ofbreath; and Leslie measured her even loops with eyes that glittered moreand more. The half-dozen buttonholes apiece were completed; and then MissCraydocke trotted off with the two little frocks upon her arm. She cameback, bringing some two or three pairs of cotton-flannel drawers. "I took them up, just as they lay, cut out and ready, on the bed. Iwouldn't have a word. I told them I'd nothing to do, and so I haven't. My hurry is coming on all of a sudden when I have my bee. Now I've doneit once, I can do it again. They'll find out it's my way, and whenyou've once set up a way, people always turn out for it. " Miss Craydocke was in high glee. Leslie stitched up three little legs before Dakie came again, and saidthey must have her upstairs. One thing occurred to her, as they ran along the winding passages, upand down, and up again, to the new hall in the far-off L. The Moorish dress would take so long to arrange. Wouldn't ImogenThoresby like the part? She was only in the "Three Fishers. " Imogen andJeannie met her as she came in. "It is just you I wanted to find, " cried Leslie, sealing her warmimpulse with immediate act. "Will you be Zorayda, Imogen, --with Jeannieand Elinor, you know? I've got so much to do without. Sin Saxonunderstands; it's a bit of a secret as yet. I shall be _so_ obliged!" Imogen's blue eyes sparkled and widened. It was just what she had beensecretly longing for. But why in the world should Leslie Goldthwaitewant to give it up? It had got crowded out, that was all. Another thing kept coming into Leslie's head that day, --the yards ofdelicate grass-linen that she had hemstitched, and knotted into bandsthat summer, --just for idle work, when plain bindings and simpleruffling would have done as well, --and all for her accumulating treasureof reserved robings, while here were these two girls darning stockings, and sewing over heavy woollen stuffs, that actual, inevitable work mightbe dispatched in these bright, warm hours that had been meant forholiday. It troubled her to think of it, seeing that the time was gone, and nothing now but these threads and holes remained of it to her share. Martha Josselyn had asked her yesterday about the stitch, --some littlebaby-daintiness she had thought of for the mother who couldn't affordembroideries and thread-laces for her youngest and least of so many. Leslie would go and show her, and, as Miss Craydocke said, get intimate. It was true there were certain little things one could not do, except asa friend. Meanwhile, Martha Josselyn must be the Sister of Charity in that lovelytableau of Consolation. It does not take long for two young girls to grow intimate over tableauplans and fancy stitches. Two days after this, Leslie Goldthwaite was ascosily established in the Josselyns' room as if she had been there everyday all summer. Some people _are_ like drops of quicksilver, as MarthaJosselyn had declared, only one can't tell how that is till one gets outof the bottle. "Thank you, " she said to Leslie, as she mastered the little intricacy ofthe work upon the experimental scrap of cambric she had drawn. "Iunderstand it now, I think, and I shall find time, somehow, after I gethome, for what I want to do. " With that, she laid it in a corner of herbasket, and took up cotton-flannel again. Leslie put something, twisted lightly in soft paper, beside it. "I wantyou to keep that, please, for a pattern, and to remember me, " she said. "I've made yards more than I really want. It's nothing, " she added, hastily interrupting the surprised and remonstrating thanks of theother. "And now we must see about that scapulary thing, or whatever itis, for your nun's dress. " And there was no more about it, only an unusual feeling in MarthaJosselyn's heart, that came up warm long after, and by and by a littledifference among Leslie Goldthwaite's pretty garnishings, wheresomething had got crowded out. This is the way, from small to great, things sort themselves. "No man can serve two masters, " is as full and true and strong upon theside of encouragement as of rebuke. CHAPTER XIII. A HOWL. The tableaux had to be put off. Frank Scherman was obliged to go down toBoston, unexpectedly, to attend to business, and nothing could be donewithout him. The young girls felt all the reaction that comes with thesudden interruption of eager plans. A stagnation seemed to succeed totheir excitement and energy. They were thrown back into a vacuum. "There is nothing on earth to do, or to think about, " said FlorrieArnall dolefully. "Just as much as there was last week, " replied Josie Scherman, common-sense-ically. Frank was only her brother, and that made adifference. "There's Giant's Cairn as big as ever, and Feather-Cap, andMinster Rock, and the Spires. And there's plenty to do. Tableaux aren'teverything. There's your 'howl, ' Sin Saxon. That hasn't come off yet. " "'It isn't the fall that hurts, --it's the fetch-up, ' as the Irishmanobserved, " said Sin Saxon, with a yawn. "It wasn't that I dotedparticularly on the tableaux, but 'the waters wild went o'er my child, and I was left lamenting. ' It was what I happened to be after at themoment. When I get ready for a go, I do hate to take off my bonnet andsit down at home. " "But the 'howl, ' Sin! What's to become of that?" "Ain't I howling all I can?" And this was all Sin Saxon would say about it. The girls meant to keepher in mind, and to have their frolic, --the half of them in the mostimaginative ignorance as to what it might prove to be; but somehow theirleader herself seemed to have lost her enthusiasm or her intention. Leslie Goldthwaite felt neither disappointment nor impatience. She hadgot a permanent interest. It is good always to have something to fallback upon. The tableaux would come by and by; meanwhile, there wasplenty of time for their "bees, " and for the Cliff. They had long mornings in the pines, and cool, quiet afternoons in MissCraydocke's pretty room. It was wonderful the cleverness the Josselynshad come to with little frocks. One a skirt, and the other a body, --theymade nothing of finishing the whole at a sitting. "It's only seeingthe end from the beginning, " Martha said, when Leslie uttered herastonishment. "We know the way, right through; and no way seemslong when you've traveled it often. " To be sure, Prissy Hoskins'sdelaines and calicoes didn't need to be contrived after Demorest'sfashion-plates. Then they had their holiday, taking the things over to the Cliff, andtrying them all on Prissy, very much as if they had been a party ofchildren, and she a paper doll. Her rosy little face and willful curlscame out of each prettier than the last, precisely as a paper dolly'sdoes, and when at the end of all they got her into a bright violet printand a white bib-apron, it was well they were the last, for they couldn'thave had the heart to take her out of them. Leslie had made for her asmall hoop from the upper half of one of her own, and laced a littlecover upon it, of striped seersucker, of which there was a petticoatalso to wear above. These, clear, clean, and stiffened, came from MissCraydocke's stores. She never traveled without her charity-trunk, wherein, put at once in perfect readiness for different use the momentthey passed beyond her own, she kept all spare material that waited forsuch call. Breadths of old dresses, ripped and sponged and pressed, orstarched, ironed, and folded; flannel petticoats shrunken short;stockings "cut down" in the old, thrifty, grandmother fashion;underclothing strongly patched (as she said, "the Lord's mark put uponit, since it had pleased Him to give her the means to do withoutpatches"); odds and ends of bonnet-ribbons, dipped in spirits and rolledtightly upon blocks, from which they unrolled nearly as good asnew, --all these things, and more, religiously made the most of forwhomsoever they might first benefit, went about with her in this, thebiggest of her boxes, which, give out from it as she might, she neverseemed, she said, to get quite to the bottom of. Under the rounded skirts, below the short, plain trousers, Prissy'sankles and feet were made shapely with white stockings and new, stoutboots. (Aunt Hoskins believed in "white stockin's, or go athout. Bilin'an' bleachin' an' comin' out new; none o' yer aggravations 'veverlastin' dirt-color. ") And one thing more, the prettiest of all. Agreat net of golden-brown silk that Leslie had begged Mrs. Linceford, who liked netting, to make, gathered into strong, large meshes theunruly wealth of hair brushed back in rippling lines from Prissy'stemples, and showing so its brighter, natural color from underneath, where the outside had grown sun-faded. "I'm just like Cinderella, --with four godmothers!" cried the child; andshe danced up and down, as Leslie let her go from under her hands. "You're just like--a little heathen!" screamed Aunt Hoskins. "Where'syer thanks?" Her own thanks spoke themselves, partly in an hystericalsort of chuckle and sniffle, that stopped each other short, and therebuke with them. "But there! she don't know no better! 'T ain't ferevery day, you needn't think. It's for company to-day, an' fer Sundays, an' to go to Portsmouth. " "Don't spoil it for her, Miss Hoskins. Children hate to think it isn'tfor every day, " said Leslie Goldthwaite. But the child-antidote to that was also ready. "I don't care, " cried Prissy. "To-day's a great, long day, and Sunday'sfor ever and ever, and Portsmouth'll be always. " "_Can't_ yer stop ter kerchy, and say--Lud-o'-light 'n' massy, I donnowhat to _tell_ ye ter say!" And Miss Hoskins sniffled and gurgled again, and gave it up. "She has thanked us, I think, " said Miss Craydocke, in her simple way, "when she called us Godmothers!" The word came home to her good heart. God had given her, the lonely woman, the larger motherhood. "Brothers, and sisters, and mothers!" She thought how Christ traced out therelationships, and claimed them even to himself! "Now, for once, _you_'re to be done up. That's general order numbertwo, " Miss Craydocke said to the Josselyn girls, as they all first mettogether again after the Cliff party. "We've worked together till we'refriends. And so there's not a word to be said. We owe you time thatwe've taken, and more that we mean to take before you go. I'll tell youwhat for, when it's necessary. " It was a nicer matter to get the Josselyns to be helped than to help. Itwas not easy for them to bring forth their breadths and their linings, and their braids that were to be pieced, and their trimmings thatwere to be turned, and to lay bare to other eyes all their littleeconomies of contrivance; but Miss Craydocke managed it by simplestraightforwardness, --by not behaving as if there were anything to beglossed over or ignored. Instead of hushing up about economies, shebrought them forward, and gave them a most cheery and comfortable, notto say dignified air. It was all ordinary matter of course, --the wayeverybody did, or ought to do. This was the freshest end of thisbreadth, and should go down; this other had a darn that might be cutacross, and a straight piecing made, for which the slope of the skirtwould allow, --_she_ should do it so; that hem might be taken offaltogether and a new one turned; this was a very nice trimming, andplenty of it, and the wrong side was brighter than the right; she knew away of joining worsted braid that never showed, --you might have a dozenpieces in the binding of a skirt and not be noticed. This little bluefrock had no trimming; they would finish that at home. No, the prettiestthing in the world for it would be pipings of black silk, and MissCraydocke had some bits just right for covering cord, thick as a board, big enough for nothing else; and out they came, as did many anotherthing, without remark, from her bags and baskets. She had hooks andeyes, and button-fasteners, when these gave out; she used from her owncotton-spools and skeins of silk; she had tailors' twist forbuttonholes, and large black cord for the pipings; and these were butworking implements, like scissors and thimble, --taken for granted, without count. There was nothing on the surface for the most shrinkingdelicacy to rub against; but there was a kindness that went down intothe hearts of the two young girls continually. For an hour or two at least each day they sat together so, for the beingtogether. The work was "taken up. " Dakie Thayne read stories to themsometimes: Miss Craydocke had something always to produce and to summonthem to sit and hear; some sketch of strange adventure, or a ghostmarvel, or a bright, spicy magazine essay; or, knowing where to findsympathizers and helpers, Dakie would rush in upon them uncalled, withsome discovery, or want, or beautiful thing to show of his own. Theywere quite a little coterie by themselves. It shaped itself to this moreand more. Leslie did not neglect her own party. She drove and walked with Mrs. Linceford, and was ready for anything the Haddens really wanted of her;but Mrs. Linceford napped and lounged a good deal, and could spare herthen; and Jeannie and Elinor seemed somehow to feel the want of her lessthan they had done, --Elinor unconsciously drawn away by new attraction, Jeannie rather of a purpose. I am afraid I cannot call it anything else but a little loss of castewhich seemed coming to Leslie Goldthwaite just now, through these newintimacies of hers. "Something always gets crowded out. " This, too, --herpopularity among the first, --might have to be, perhaps, one of thesomethings. Now and then she felt it so, --perceived the shade of difference towardher in the tone and manner of these young girls. I cannot say that itdid not hurt her a little. She had self-love, of course; yet, for all, she was loyal to the more generous love, --to the truer self-respect. Ifshe could not have both, she would keep the best. There came to be alittle pride in her own demeanor, --a waiting to be sought again. "I can't think what has come over Les', " said Jeannie Hadden, onenight, on the piazza, to a knot of girls. She spoke in a tone at onceapologetic and annoyed. "She was always up to anything at home. Ithought she meant to lead us all off here. She might have done almostwhat she pleased. " "Everybody likes Leslie, " said Elinor. "Why, yes, we all do, " put in Mattie Shannon. "Only she will take upqueer people, you see. And--well, they're nice enough, I suppose; onlythere's never room enough for everybody. " "I thought we were all to be nowhere when she first came. There wassomething about her, --I don't know what, --not wonderful, but taking. 'Put her where you pleased, she was the central point of the picture, 'Frank said. " This came from Josie Scherman. "And she's just dropped all, to run after goodness knows what and whom!I can't see through her!" rejoined Jeannie, with a sort of finality inher accent that seemed to imply, "_I_ wash my hands of her, and won't besupposed accountable. " "Knew ye not, " broke in a gentle voice, "that she must be about herMaster's business?" It was scarcely addressed to them. Miss Craydockejust breathed audibly the thought she could not help. There came a downfall of silence upon the group. When they took breath again, --"Oh, if she's _religious_!" MattieShannon just said, as of a thing yet farther off and more finally donewith. And then their talk waited under a restraint again. "I supposed we were all religious, --Sundays, at least, " broke forth SinSaxon suddenly, who, strangely, had not spoken before. "I don't know, though. Last Saturday night we danced the German till half past twelve, and we talked charades instead of going to church, till I felt--as ifI'd sat all the morning with my feet over a register, reading a novel, when I'd ought to have been doing a German exercise or something. Ifshe's religious every day, she's seven times better than we are, that'sall. _I_ think--she's got a knot to her thread!" Nobody dared send Leslie Goldthwaite quite to Coventry after this. Sin Saxon found herself in the position of many another leader, --obligedto make some demonstration to satisfy the aroused expectations of herfollowers. Her heart was no longer thoroughly in it; but she hadpromised them a "howl, " and a howl they were determined upon, eitherwith or against her. Opportunity arose just now also. Madam Routh went off on a party to theNotch, with some New York friends, taking with her one or two of theyounger pupils, for whom she felt most constant responsibility. Theelder girls were domesticated and acquainted now at Outledge; there wereseveral matronly ladies with whom the whole party was sufficientlyassociated in daily intercourse for all the air of chaperonage thatmight be needed; and one assistant pupil, whom, to be sure, the youngladies themselves counted as a most convenient nonentity, was left innominal charge. Now or never, the girls declared with one voice it must be. All theyknew about it--the most of them--was that it was some sort of anout-of-hours frolic, such as boarding-school ne'er-do-weels delight in;and it was to plague Miss Craydocke, against whom, by this time, theyhad none of them really any manner of spite; neither had they any longerthe idea of forcing her to evacuate; but they had got wound up on thatkey at the beginning, and nobody thought of changing it. Nobody but SinSaxon. She had begun, perhaps, to have a little feeling that she wouldchange it, if she could. Nevertheless, with such show of heartiness as she found possible, sheassented to their demand, and the time was fixed. Her merry, mischievoustemperament asserted itself as she went on, until she really grew intothe mood for it once more, from the pure fun of the thing. It took two days to get ready. After the German on Thursday night, thehowl was announced to come off in Number Thirteen, West Wing. This, ofcourse, was the boudoir; but nobody but the initiated knew that. It wassupposed to be Maud Walcott's room. The assistant pupil made faintremonstrances against she knew not what, and was politely told so;moreover, she was pressingly invited to render herself with the otherguests at the little piazza door, precisely at eleven. The matronlyladies, always amused, sometimes a little annoyed and scandalized, atSin Saxon's escapades, asked her, one and another, at different times, what it was all to be, and if she really thought she had better, andamong themselves expressed tolerably grave doubts about proprieties, andwished Madam Routh would return. The vague mystery and excitement of thehowl kept all the house gently agog for this Tuesday and Wednesdayintervening. Sin Saxon gave out odd hints here and there in confidence. It was to be a "spread;" and the "grub" (Sin was a boarding-school girl, you know, and had brothers in college) was all to be stolen. There wasan uncommon clearance of cakes and doughnuts, and pie and cheese, fromeach meal, at this time. Cup-custards, even, disappeared, --cups and all. A cold supper, laid at nine on Wednesday evening, for some expectedtravelers, turned out a more meagre provision on the arrival of theguests than the good host of the Giant's Cairn had ever been known tomake. At bedtime Sin Saxon presented herself in Miss Craydocke's room. "There's something heavy on my conscience, " she said, with a disquietair. "I'm really worried; and it's too late to help it now. " Miss Craydocke looked at her with a kind anxiety. "It's never too late to _try_ to help a mistake. And _you_, MissSaxon, --you can always do what you choose. " She was afraid for her, --the good lady, --that her heedlessness mightcompromise herself and others in some untoward scrape. She didn't likethese rumors of the howl, --the last thing she thought of being her ownrest and comfort, which were to be purposely invaded. "I've let the chance go by, " said Sin Saxon desperately. "It's of no usenow. " And she rocked herself back and forth in the Shaker chair of whichshe had taken possession. "My dear, " said Miss Craydocke, "if you would only explain tome, --perhaps"-- "You _might_!" cried Sin, jumping up, and making a rush at the goodwoman, seizing her by both hands. "They'd never suspect you. It's thatcold roast chicken in the pantry. I _can't_ get over it, that I didn'ttake that!" Sin was incorrigible. Miss Craydocke shook her head, taking care toturn it aside at the same moment; for she felt her lips twitch and hereyes twinkle, in spite of herself. "I won't take this till the time comes, " said Sin, laying her hand onthe back of the Shaker chair. "But it's confiscated for to-morrow night, and I shall come for it. And, Miss Craydocke, if you _do_ manage aboutthe chicken, --I hate to trouble you to go downstairs, but I dare say youwant matches, or a drink of water, or something, and another time I'llwait upon you with pleasure, --here's the door, made for the emergency, and I on the other side of it dissolved in tears of gratitude!" And so, for the time, Sin Saxon disappeared. The next afternoon, Jimmy Wigley brought a big basket of raspberries tothe little piazza door. A pitcher of cream vanished from the tea-tablejust before the gong was struck. Nobody supposed the cat had got it. Thepeople of the house understood pretty well what was going on, and whowas at the bottom of it all; but Madam Routh's party was large, and thelife of the place; they would wink hard and long before complaining atanything that might be done in the west wing. Sin Saxon opened her door upon Miss Craydocke when she was dressed forthe German, and about to go downstairs. "I'll trust you, " she said, "about the rocking-chair. You'll want it, perhaps, till bedtime, andthen you'll just put it in here. I shouldn't like to disturb you bycoming for it late. And please step in a minute now, won't you?" She took her through the boudoir. There lay the "spread" upon a longtable, contrived by the contribution of one ordinary little one fromeach sleeping-chamber, and covered by a pair of clean sheets, whichswept the floor along the sides. About it were ranged chairs. Twopyramids of candles, built up ingeniously by the grouping of bedroomtins upon hidden supports, vine-sprays and mosses serving gracefully forconcealment and decoration, stood, one on each side, half way betweenthe ends and centre. Cake-plates were garnished with wreathedoak-leaves, and in the midst a great white Indian basket held the red, piled-up berries, fresh and fragrant. "That's the little bit of righteousness to save the city. That's paidfor, " said Sin Saxon. "Jimmy Wigley's gone home with more scrip than heever got at once before; and if your chicken-heartedness hadn't takenthe wrong direction, Miss Craydocke, I should be perfectly at ease in mymind. " "It's very pretty, " said Miss Craydocke; "but do you think Madam Routhwould quite approve? And why couldn't you have had it openly in thedining-room? And what do you call it a 'howl' for?" Miss Craydocke'squestions came softly and hesitatingly, as her doubts came. The littlefestival was charming--but for the way and place. "Oh, Miss Craydocke! Well, you're not wicked, and you can't be supposedto know; but you must take my word for it, that, if it was tamed down, the game wouldn't be worth the candle. And the howl? You just wait andsee!" The invited guests were told to come to the little piazza door. Thegirls asked all their partners in the German, and the matronly ladieswere asked, as a good many respectable people are civilly invited wheretheir declining is counted upon. Leslie Goldthwaite, and the Haddens, and Mrs. Linceford, and the Thoresbys were all asked, and might come ifthey chose. Their stay would be another matter. And so the evening andthe German went on. Till eleven, when they broke up; and the entertainers in a body rushedmerrily and noisily along the passages to Number Thirteen, West Wing, rousing from their first naps many quietly disposed, delicate people, who kept early hours, and a few babies whose nurses and mammas wouldbear them anything but gratefully in mind through the midnight hours tocome. They gained two minutes, perhaps, upon their guests, who had, some ofthem, to look up wraps, and to come round by the front hall and piazzas. In these two minutes, by Sin Saxon's order, they seated themselvescomfortably at table. They had plenty of room; but they spread theirrobes gracefully, --they had all dressed in their very prettiestto-night, --and they quite filled up the space. Bright colors, and soft, rich textures floating and mingling together, were like a rainbowencircling the feast. The candles had been touched with kerosene, andmatches lay ready. The lighting-up had been done in an instant. And thenSin Saxon went to the door, and drew back the chintz curtains fromacross the upper half, which was of glass. A group of the guests, youngmen, were already there, beneath the elms outside. But how should shesee them, looking from the bright light into the tree-shadows? She wentquietly back, and took her place at the head, leaving the door fastbolted. There came a knock. Sin Saxon took no heed, but smilingly addressedherself to offering dainties right and left. Some of the girls stared, and one or two half rose to go and give admittance. "Keep your seats, " said Sin, in her most lady-like way and tone, withthe unchanged smile upon her face. "_That_'s the _howl_!" They began to perceive the joke outside. They began to knockvociferously. They took up their cue with a readiness, and made plentyof noise, not doubting, as yet, that they should be admitted at last. Some of the ladies came round, gave a glance, saw how things were going, and retreated, --except a few, parties from other houses who had escortsamong the gentlemen, and who waited a little to see how the frolic wouldend, or at least to reclaim their attendants. Well, it was very unpardonable, --outrageous, the scandalized neighborswere beginning already to say in their rooms. Even Sin Saxon had alittle excitement in her eye beyond the fun, as she still maintained themost graceful order within, and the exchange of courtesies went onaround the board, and the tumult increased without. They tree-toaded, they cat-called, they shouted, they cheered, they howled, they evenhissed. Sin Saxon sat motionless an instant when it came to that, andgave a glance toward the lights. A word from her would put them out, andend the whole. She held her _coup_ in reserve, however, knowing herresource, and sat, as it were, with her finger on the spring, determinedto carry through coolly what she had begun. Dakie Thayne had gone away with the Linceford party when they crossed tothe Green Cottage. Afterward, he came out again and stood in the openroad. Some ladies, boarders at Blashford's, up above, came slowly awayfrom the uproar, homeward. One or two young men detached themselves fromthe group on the piazza, and followed to see them safe, as it belongedto them to do. The rest sat themselves down, at this moment, upon thesteps and platform, and struck up, with one accord, "We won't go hometill morning. " In the midst of this, a part broke off and took up, discordantly, the refrain, "Polly, put the kettle on, we'll all havetea;" others complicated the confusion further with, "Cruel, cruel PollyHopkins, treat me so, --oh, treat me so!" till they fell, at last, into an indistinguishable jumble and clamor, from which extricatedthemselves now and again and prevailed, the choruses of "Upidee, " and"Bum-bum-bye, " with an occasional drum-beat of emphasis given upon thedoor. "Don't go back there, James, " Dakie Thayne heard a voice from theretiring party say as they passed him; "it's disgraceful!" "The house won't hold Sin Saxon after this, " said another. "They wereout in the upper hall, half a dozen of them, just now, ringing theirbells and calling for Mr. Biscombe. " "The poor man don't know who to side with. He don't want to lose thewhole west wing. After all, there must be young people in the house, and if it weren't one thing it would be another. It's only a few fidgetsthat complain. They'll hush up and go off presently, and the whole thingwill be a joke over the breakfast-table to-morrow morning, aftereverybody's had a little sleep. " The singing died partially away just then, and some growling, lessnoisy, but more in earnest, began. "They don't _mean_ to let us in! I say, this is getting rather rough!" "It's only to smash a pane of glass above the bolt and let ourselves in. Why shouldn't we? We're invited. " The latent mob-element was very neardeveloping itself in these young gentlemen, high-bred, but irate. At this moment, a wagon came whirling down the road around the ledges. Dakie Thayne caught sight of the two white leaders, recognized them, andflew across to the hotel. "Stop!" cried he. At the same instant a figuremoved hastily away from behind Miss Craydocke's blinds. It was a mercythat the wagon had driven around to the front hall door. A mercy in one way; but the misfortune was that the supper-party withinknew nothing of it. A musical, lady-like laugh, quite in contrast to thedemonstrative utterances outside, had just broken forth, in response toone of Sin Saxon's brightest speeches, when through the adjoiningapartment came suddenly upon them the unlooked-for apparition of "thespinster. " Miss Craydocke went straight across to the beleaguered door, drew the bolt, and threw it back. "Gently, young gentlemen! Draw up thepiazza chairs, if you please, and sit down, " said she. "Mr. Lowe, Mr. Brookhouse, here are plates; will you be kind enough to serve yourfriends?" In three minutes she had filled and passed outward half a dozen saucersof fruit, and sent a basket of cake among them. Then she drew a seat forherself, and began to eat raspberries. It was all done so quickly--theywere so either taken by surprise--that nobody, inside or out, gain-saidor delayed her by a word. It was hardly done when a knock sounded at the door upon the passage. "Young ladies!" a voice called, --Madam Routh's. She and her friends had driven down from the Notch by sunset andmoonlight. Nobody had said anything to her of the disturbance when shecame in: her arrival had rather stopped the complaints that had begun;for people are not malignant, after all, as a general thing, and thereis a curious propensity in human nature which cools off indignation evenat the greatest crimes, just as the culprit is likely to suffer. We areapt to check the foot just as we might have planted it upon the noxiouscreature, and to let off great state criminals on parole. Madam Routhhad seen the bright light and the gathering about the west wing. She hadcaught some sounds of the commotion. She made her way at once to lookafter her charge. Sin Saxon was not a pupil now, and there was no condign punishmentactually to fear; but her heart stood still a second, for all that, andshe realized that she had been on the verge of an "awful scrape. " It wasbad enough now, as Madam Routh stood there gravely silent. She could notapprove. She was amazed to see Miss Craydocke present, countenancing andmatronizing. But Miss Craydocke _was_ present, and it altered the wholeface of affairs. Her eye took in, too, the modification of theroom, --quite an elegant little private parlor as it had been made. Theyoung men were gathered decorously about the doorway and upon theplatform, one or two only politely assisting within. They had taken thiscue as readily as the other; indeed, they were by no means aware thatthis was not the issue intended from the beginning, long as the joke hadbeen allowed to go on, and their good-humor and courtesy had beeninstantly restored. Miss Craydocke, by one master-stroke of generouspresence of mind, had achieved an instantaneous change in the position, and given an absolutely new complexion to the performance. "It is late, young ladies, " was all Madam Routh's remark at length. "They gave up their German early on purpose; it was a little surprisethey planned, " Miss Craydocke said, as she moved to meet her. And then Madam Routh, with wise, considerate dignity, took _her_ cue. She even came forward to the table and accepted a little fruit; stayedfive minutes perhaps, and then, without a spoken word, her movement togo broke up, with unmistakable intent, the party. Fifteen minutes after, all was quiet in the west wing. But Sin Saxon, when the doors closed at either hand, and the girls alonewere left around the fragments of their feast, rushed impetuously acrosstoward Miss Craydocke, and went down beside her on her knees. "Oh, you dear, magnificent old Christian!" she cried out, and laid herhead down on her lap, with little sobs, half laughter and half tears. "There, there!"--and Miss Craydocke softly patted her golden hair, andspoke as she would soothe a fretted and excited child. Next morning, at breakfast, Sin Saxon was as beautifully ruffled, ratted, and crimped, as gay, as bewitching, and defiant as ever, seatednext Madam Routh, assiduously devoted to her in the little attentionsof the meal, in high spirits and favor; even saucily alluding, acrossthe table, to "_our_ howl, Miss Craydocke!" Public opinion was carried by storm; the benison of sleep had laidwrath. Nobody knew that, an hour before, she had been in Madam Routh'sroom, making a clean breast of the whole transaction, and disclosingthe truth of Miss Craydocke's magnanimous and tactful interposition, confessing that without this she had been at her wits' ends how to put astop to it, and promising, like a sorry child, to behave better, andnever do so any more. Two hours later she came meekly to Miss Craydocke's room, where the"bee" was gathered, --for mere companionship to-day, with chess andfancy-work, --her flourishes all laid aside, her very hair brushed closeto her pretty head, and a plain gingham dress on. "Miss Craydocke!" she said, with an air she could not divest of a littlecomicality, but with an earnestness behind it shining through her eyes, "I'm good; I'm converted. I want some tow-cloth to sew on immediately. "And she sat down, folding her hands, waiting. Miss Craydocke laughed. "I don't know. I'm afraid I haven't anything tobe done just now, unless I cut out some very coarse, heavy homespun. " "I'd be glad if you would. Beggars mustn't be choosers; but if theymight, I should say it was the very thing. Sackcloth, you know; andthen, perhaps, the ashes might be excused. I'm in solemn earnest, though. I'm reformed. You've done it; and you, " she added, turninground short on Leslie Goldthwaite, --"you've been at it a long time, _unbeknownst_ to yourself; and you, ma'am, --you finished it last night. It's been like the casting out of the devils in Scripture. They alwaysgive a howl, you know, and go out of 'em!" CHAPTER XIV. "FRIENDS OF MAMMON. " Sin Saxon came heart and soul into Miss Craydocke's generous anddelicate plans. The work was done, to be sure. The third trunk, that hadbeen "full of old winter dresses to be made over, " was locked upon thenice little completed frocks and sacks that forestalled the care andhurry of "fall work" for the overburdened mother, and were to gladdenher unexpecting eyes, as such store only can gladden the anxious familymanager who feels the changeful, shortening days come treading, withtheir speedy demands, upon the very skirts of long, golden sunshinyAugust hours. Susan and Martha Josselyn felt, on their part, as only busy workers feelwho fasten the last thread, or dash a period to the last page, and turnaround to breathe the breath of the free, and choose for once and for awhile what they shall do. The first hour of this freedom rested themmore than the whole six weeks that they had been getting half-rest, withthe burden still upon their thought and always waiting for their hands. It was like the first half-day to children, when school has closed andbooks are brought home for the long vacation. All the possible delightof coming weeks is distilled to one delicious drop, and tasted then. "It's 'none of my funeral, ' I know, " Sin Saxon said to Miss Craydocke. "I'm only an eleventh-hour helper; but I'll come in for the holidaybusiness, if you'll let me; and perhaps, after all, that's more in myline. " Everything seemed to be in her line that she once took hold of. She hadlittle private consultations with Miss Craydocke. "It's to be your partyto Feather-Cap, but it shall be my party to Minster Rock, " she said. "Leave that to me, please. Now the howl's off my hands, I feel equal toanything. '" Just in time for the party to Minster Rock, a great basket and box fromhome arrived for Sin Saxon. In the first were delicious early peaches, rose-color and gold, wrapped one by one in soft paper and laid amongfine sawdust; early pears, also, with the summer incense in theirspiciness; greenhouse grapes, white and amber and purple. The other helddelicate cakes and confections unknown to Outledge, as carefully put up, and quite fresh and unharmed. "Everything comes in right for me, " sheexclaimed, running back and forth to Miss Craydocke with new and morecharming discoveries as she excavated. Not a word did she say of theletter that had gone down from her four days before, asking her motherfor these things, and to send her some money; "for a party, " she toldher, "that she would rather give here than to have her usual summer_fęte_ after her return. " "You quite eclipse and extinguish my poor little doings, " said MissCraydocke, admiring and rejoicing all the while as genuinely as Sinherself. "Dear Miss Craydocke!" cried the girl; "if I thought it would seem likethat, I would send and tip them all into the river. But you, --you_can't_ be eclipsed! Your orbit runs too high above ours. " Sin Saxon's brightness and independence, that lapsed so easilyinto sauciness, and made it so hard for her to observe the mereconventionalisms of respect, in no way hindered the real reverence thatgrew in her toward the superiority she recognized, and that now softenedher tone to a tenderness of humility before her friend. There was a grace upon her in these days that all saw. Over her real witand native vivacity, it was like a porcelain shade about a flame. Onecould look at it, and be glad of it, without winking. The brightness wasall there, but there was a difference in the giving forth. What had beena bit self-centred and self-conscious--bright as if only for beingbright and for dazzling--was outgoing and self-forgetful, and sosoftened. Leslie Goldthwaite read by it a new answer to some of her oldquestions. "What harm is there in it?" she had asked herself on theirfirst meeting, when Sin Saxon's overflow of merry mischief, that yet did"no special or obvious good, " made her so taking, so the centre ofwhatever group into which she came. Afterward, when, running to itsheight, this spirit showed in behavior that raised misgivings among thescrupulous and orderly that would not let them any longer be whollyamused; and came near betraying her, or actually did betray her, intoindecorums beyond excuse or countenance, Leslie had felt the harm, andbegun to shrink away. "Nothing _but_ leaves" came back to her; hersummer thought recurred and drew to itself a new illustration. This itwas to have no aim but to rustle and flaunt; to grow leaves continually;to make one's _self_ central and conspicuous, and to fill great space. But now among these very leaves gleamed something golden and glorious;something was ripening suddenly out that had lain unseen in itsgreenness; the time of figs seemed coming. Sin Saxon was intent upon newpurpose; something to be _done_ would not let her "stand upon the order"or the fashion of her doing. She forgot her little airs, that had beenapt to detract from her very wit, and leave it only smartness; brightthings came to her, and she uttered and acted them; but they seemedinvoluntary and only on the way; she could not help herself, and nobodywould have had it helped; she was still Sin Saxon; but she had simplytold the truth in her wayward way that morning. Miss Craydocke had doneit, with her kindly patience that was no stupidity, her simple dignitythat never lowered itself and that therefore could not be lowered, andher quiet continuance in generous well-doing, --and Sin Saxon wasdifferent. She was won to a perception of the really best in life, --thatwhich this plain old spinster, with her "scrap of lace and a front, " hadfound worth living for after the golden days were over. The impulse oftemperament, and the generosity which made everything instant and entirewith her, acted in this also, and carried her full over to an enthusiasmof affectionate coöperation. There were a few people at Outledge--of the sort who, having once madeup their minds that no good is ever to come out of Nazareth, see allthings in the light of that conviction--who would not allow the praiseof any voluntary amendment to this tempering and new direction of Sin'svivacity. "It was time she was put down, " they said, "and they were gladthat it was done. That last outbreak had finished her. She might as wellrun after people now whom she had never noticed before; it was plainthere was nothing else left for her; her place was gone, and her reignwas over. " Of all others, Mrs. Thoresby insisted upon this moststrongly. The whole school-party had considerably subsided. Madam Routh held atighter rein; but that Sin Saxon had a place and a power still, shefound ways to show in a new spirit. Into a quiet corner of thedancing-hall, skimming her way, with the dance yet in her feet, betweengroups of staid observers, she came straight, one evening, from abright, spirited figure of the German, and stretched her hand to MarthaJosselyn. "It's in your eyes, " she whispered, --"come!" Night after night Martha Josselyn had sat there with the waltz-music inher ears, and her little feet, that had had one merry winter's trainingbefore the war, and many a home practice since with the younger ones, quivering to the time beneath her robes, and seen other girls chosen outand led away, --young matrons, and little short-petticoated childreneven, taken to "excursionize" between the figures, --while nobody thoughtof her. "I might be ninety, or a cripple, " she said to her sister, "fromtheir taking for granted it is nothing to me. How is it that everythinggoes by, and I only twenty?" There had been danger that MarthaJosselyn's sweet, generous temper should get a dash of sour, onlybecause of there lying alongside it a clear common-sense and a pureinstinct of justice. Susan's heart longed with a motherly tenderness forher young sister when she said such words, --longed to put all pleasantthings somehow within her reach. She had given it up for herself, yearssince. And now, all at once, Sin Saxon came and "took her out. " It was a more generous act than it shows for, written. There is a littletacit consent about such things which few young people of a "set" havethought, desire, or courage to disregard. Sin Saxon never did anythingmore gracefully. It was one of the moments that came now, when she wistnot that she shone. She was dropping, little by little, in the realityof a better desire, that "satisfaction" Jeannie Hadden had spoken of, of"knowing when one is at one's prettiest, " or doing one's cleverest. The"leaf and the fruit" never fitted better in their significance than toSin Saxon. Something intenser and more truly living was taking the placeof the mere flutter and flash and grace of effect. It was the figure in which the dancers form in facing columns, two andtwo, the girls and the young men; when the "four hands round" keeps themmoving in bright circles all along the floor, and under arches of raisedand joined hands the girls came down, two and two, to the end, formingtheir long line face to face against the opposing line of theirpartners. The German may be, in many respects, an undesirable dance; itmay be, as I have sometimes thought, at least a selfish dance, affordingpleasure chiefly to the initiated few, and excluding gradually, almostfrom society itself, those who do not participate in it. I speak of ithere neither to uphold nor to condemn, --simply because they _did_ danceit at Outledge as they do everywhere, and I cannot tell my story withoutit; but I think at this moment, when Sin Saxon led the figure withMartha Josselyn, there was something lovely, not alone in its gracefulgrouping, but in the very spirit and possibility of the thing that soappeared. There is scope and chance even here, young girls, for thebeauty of kindness and generous thought. Even here, one may give a joy, may soothe a neglect, may make some heart conscious for a moment of thegreat warmth of a human welcome; and, though it be but to a pastime, Ithink it comes into the benison of the Master's words when, even forthis, some spirit gets a feeling like them, --"I was a stranger, and yetook me in. " Some one, standing behind where Leslie Goldthwaite came to her place atthe end of the line by the hall-door, had followed and interpreted thewhole; had read the rare, shy pleasure in Martha Josselyn's face andmovement, the bright, expressive warmth in Sin Saxon's and thehalf-surprise of observation upon others; and he thought as I do. "'Friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. ' That girl has evensanctified the German!" There was only one voice like that, only one person who would so speakhimself out. Leslie Goldthwaite turned quickly, and found herself faceto face with Marmaduke Wharne. "I am so glad you have come!" said she. He regarded her shrewdly. "Then you can do without me, " he said. "Ididn't know by this time how it might be. " The last two had taken their places below Leslie while these words wereexchanged, and now the whole line moved forward to meet their partners, and the waltz began. Frank Scherman had got back to-day, and was dancingwith Sin Saxon. Leslie and Dakie Thayne were together, as they had beenthat first evening at Jefferson, and as they often were. The fourstopped, after their merry whirl, in this same corner by the door whereMr. Wharne was standing. Dakie Thayne shook hands with his friend in hisglad boy's way. Across their greetings came Sin Saxon's words, spoken toher companion, --"You're to take her, Frank. " Frank Scherman was an oldchildhood's friend, not a mere mountain acquaintance. "I'll bring upplenty of others first, but you're to wait and take _her_. And, wherevershe got her training, you'll find she's the featest-footed among us. " Itwas among the children--training them--that she had caught the trick ofit, but Sin Saxon did not know. "I'm ready to agree with you, with but just the reservation that _you_could not make, " Frank Scherman answered. "Nonsense, " said Sin Saxon. "But stop! here's something better andquicker. They're getting the bouquets. Give her yours. It's your turn. Go!" Sin Saxon's blue eyes sparkled like two stars; the golden mist ofher hair was tossed into lighter clouds by exercise; on her cheeks abright rose-glow burned; and the lips parted with their sweetest, because most unconscious, curve over the tiny gleaming teeth. Herword and her glance sent Frank Scherman straight to do her bidding;and a bunch of wild azaleas and scarlet lilies was laid in MarthaJosselyn's hand, and she was taken out again into the dance by thebest partner there. We may trust her to Sin Saxon and FrankScherman, and her own "feat-footedness;" everything will not go byher any more, and she but twenty. Marmaduke Wharne watched it all with that keen glance of his that waslike a level line of fire from under the rough, gray brows. "I am glad you saw that, " said Leslie Goldthwaite, watching also, andwatching him. "By the light of your own little text, --'kind, and bright, andpleasant'? You think it will do me good?" "I think it _was_ good; and I am glad you should really know SinSaxon--at the first. " And at the best; Marmaduke Wharne quite understoodher. She gave him, unconsciously, the key to a whole character. It mightas easily have been something quite different that he should have firstseen in this young girl. Next morning they all met on the piazza. Leslie Goldthwaite presentedSin Saxon to Mr. Wharne. "So, my dear, " he said, without preface, "you are the belle of theplace?" He looked to see how she would take it. There was not the first twinkleof a simper about eye or lip. Surprised, but quite gravely, she lookedup, and met his odd bluntness with as quaint an honesty of her own. "Iwas pretty sure of it a while ago, " she said. "And perhaps I was, in ademoralized sort of a way. But I've come down, Mr. Wharne, --like thecoon. I'll tell you presently, " she went on, --and she spoke now withwarmth, --"who is the real belle, --the beautiful one of this place! Thereshe comes!" Miss Craydocke, in her nice, plain cambric morning-gown, and her smoothfront, was approaching down the side passage across the wing. Just asshe had come one morning, weeks ago; and it was the identical "freshpetticoat" of that morning she wore now. The sudden coincidence andrecollection struck Sin Saxon as she spoke. To her surprise, MissCraydocke and Marmaduke Wharne moved quickly toward each other, andgrasped hands like old friends. "Then you know all about it!" Sin Saxon said, a few minutes after, whenshe got her chance. "But you _don't_ know, sir, " she added, with adesperate candor, "the way I took to find it out! I've been tormentingher, Mr. Wharne, all summer. And I'm heartily ashamed of it. " Marmaduke Wharne smiled. There was something about this girl that suitedhis own vein. "I doubt she _was_ tormented, " he said quietly. At that Sin Saxon smiled, too, and looked up out of her hearty shamewhich she had truly felt upon her at her own reminder. "No, Mr. Wharne, she never was; but that wasn't my fault. After all, perhaps, --isn't thatwhat the optimists think?--it was best so. I should never have found herthoroughly out in any other way. It's like"--and there she stopped shortof her comparison. "Like what?" asked Mr. Wharne, waiting. "I can't tell you now, sir, " she answered with a gleam of her oldfearless brightness. "It's one end of a grand idea, I believe, that Ijust touched on. I must think it out, if I can, and see if it all holdstogether. " "And then I'm to have it?" "It will take a monstrous deal of thinking, Mr. Wharne. " CHAPTER XV. QUICKSILVER AND GOLD. "If I could only remember the chemicals!" said Sin Saxon. She was downamong the outcrops and fragments at the foot of Minster Rock. Close inaround the stones grew the short, mossy sward. In a safe hollow betweentwo of them, against a back formed by another that rose higher with asmooth perpendicular, she had chosen her fireplace, and there she hadbeen making the coffee. Quite intent upon the comfort of her friends shewas to-day; something really to do she had: "in better business, " asLeslie Goldthwaite phrased it to herself once, she found herself, thanonly to make herself brilliant and enchanting after the manner of theday at Feather-Cap. And let me assure you, if you have not tried it, that to make the coffee and arrange the feast at a picnic like this issomething quite different from being merely an ornamental. There is thefire to coax with chips and twigs, and a good deal of smoke to swallow, and one's dress to disregard. And all the rest are off in scatteredgroups, not caring in the least to watch the pot boil, but supposing, none the less, that it will. To be sure, Frank Scherman and Dakie Thaynebrought her firewood, and the water from the spring, and waited loyallywhile she seemed to need them; indeed, Frank Scherman, much as heunquestionably was charmed with her gay moods, stayed longest by her inher quiet ones; but she herself sent them off, at last, to climb withLeslie and the Josselyns again into the Minster, and see thence thewonderful picture that the late sloping light made on the far hills andfields that showed to their sight between framing tree-branches and talltrunk-shafts as they looked from out the dimness of the rock. She sat there alone, working out a thought; and at last she spoke as Ihave said: "If I could only remember the chemicals!" "My dear! What do you mean? The chemicals? For the coffee?" It was MissCraydocke who questioned, coming up with Mr. Wharne. "Not the coffee, --no, " said Sin Saxon, laughing rather absently, as toointent to be purely amused. "But the--assaying. There, --I've remembered_that_ word, at least!" Miss Craydocke was more than ever bewildered. "What is it, my dear? Anexperiment?" "No; an analogy. Something that's been in my head these three days. Ican't make everything quite clear, Mr. Wharne, but I know it's there. Iwent, I must tell you, a little while ago, to see some Coloradospecimens--ores and things--that some friends of ours had, who areinterested in the mines; and they talked about the processes, andsomebody explained. There were gold and silver and iron, and copper andlead and sulphur, that had all been boiled up together some time, andcooled into rock. And the thing was to sort them out. First, theycrushed the whole mass into powder, and then did something toit--applied heat, I believe--to drive away the sulphur. That fumed off, and left the rest as promiscuous as before. Then they--oxidized thelead, however they managed it, and got that out. You see I'm not quitesure of the order of things, or of the chemical part. But they got itout, and something took it. Then they put in quicksilver, and that tookhold of the gold. Then there were silver and copper and iron. So theyhad to put back the lead again, and that grappled the silver. And whatthey did with the copper and iron is just what I can't possiblyrecollect, but they divided them somehow, and there was the great rockriddle all read out. Now, haven't we been just like that this summer?And I wonder if the world isn't like it, somehow? And ourselves, too, all muddled up, and not knowing what we _are_ made of, till the rightchemicals touch us? There's so much in it, Mr. Wharne, I can't put itin clear order. But it _is_ there, --isn't it?" "Yes, it is there, " answered Mr. Wharne, with the briefest gravity. ForMiss Craydocke, there were little shining drops standing in her eyes, and she tried not to wink lest they should fall out, pretending they hadbeen really tears. And what was there to cry about, you know? "Here we have been, " Sin Saxon resumed, "all crushed up together, andthe characters coming out little by little, with different things. Sulphur's always the first, --heats up and flies off, --it don't take longto find that; and common oxygen gets at common lead, and so on; but, dear Miss Craydocke, do you know what comforts me? That you _must_ havethe quicksilver to discover the gold!" Miss Craydocke winked. She had to do it then, and the two little rounddrops fell. They went down, unseen, into the short pasture-grass, and Iwonder what little wild-flowers grew of their watering some dayafterward. It was getting a little too quiet between them now for people on apicnic, perhaps; and so in a minute Sin Saxon said again: "It's good toknow there is a way to sort everything out. Perhaps the tares and wheatmean the same thing. Mr. Wharne, why is it that things seem more sureand true as soon as we find out we can make an allegory to them?" "Because we do _not_ make the allegory. It is there, as you have said. 'I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things which have beenkept secret from the foundation of the world. ' These things are thatspeech of God that was in the beginning. The Word made flesh, --it is Hethat interpreteth. " That was too great to give small answer to. Nobody spoke again till SinSaxon had to jump up to attend to her coffee, that was boiling over, andthen they took up their little cares of the feast, and their chat overit. Cakes and coffee, fruits and cream, --I do not care to linger over these. I would rather take you to the cool, shadowy, solemn Minster cavern, thedeep, wondrous recess in the face of solid rock, whose foundation andwhose roof are a mountain; or above, upon the beetling crag that makesbut its porch-lintel, and looks forth itself across great air-spacestoward its kindred cliffs, lesser and more mighty, all around, makingone listen in one's heart for the awful voices wherewith they call toeach other forevermore. The party had scattered again, after the repast, and Leslie and theJosselyns had gone back into the Minster entrance, where they nevertired of standing, and out of whose gloom they looked now upon all theflood of splendor, rosy, purple, and gold, which the royal sun flungback--his last and richest largess--upon the heights that looked longestafter him. Mr. Wharne and Miss Craydocke climbed the cliff. Sin Saxon, on her way up, stopped short among the broken crags below. There wassomething very earnest in her gaze, as she lifted her eyes, wide andbeautiful with the wonder in them, to the face of granite uprearedbefore her, and then turned slowly to look across and up the valley, where other and yet grander mountain ramparts thrust their greatforbiddance on the reaching vision. She sat down, where she was, upon arock. "You are very tired?" Frank Scherman said, inquiringly. "See how they measure themselves against each other, " Sin Saxon said, for answer. "Look at them, Leslie and the rest, inside the Minster thatarches up so many times their height above their heads, --yet what alittle bit, a mere mousehole, it is out of the cliff itself; and thenlook at the whole cliff against the Ledges, that, seen from anywhereelse, seem to run so low along the river; and compare the Ledges withFeather-Cap, and Feather-Cap with Giant's Cairn, and Giant's Cairn withWashington, thirty miles away!" "It is grand surveying, " said Frank Scherman. "I think we see things from the little best, " rejoined Sin Saxon. "Washington is the big end of the telescope. " "Now you have made me look at it, " said Frank Scherman, "I don't think Ihave been in any other spot that has given me such a real idea of themountains as this. One must have steps to climb by, even in imagination. How impertinent we are, rushing at the tremendousness of Washington inthe way we do; scaling it in little pleasure-wagons, and never taking inthe thought of it at all!" Something suddenly brought a flush to Sin Saxon's face, and almost aquiver to her lips. She was sitting with her hands clasped across herknees, and her head a little bent with a downward look, after that long, wondering mountain gaze, that had filled itself and then withdrawn forthought. She lifted her face suddenly to her companion. The impetuouslook was in her eyes. "There's other measuring too, Frank. What a foolI've been!" Frank Scherman was silent. It was a little awkward for him, scarcelycomprehending what she meant. He could by no means agree with Sin Saxonwhen she called herself a fool; yet he hardly knew what he was tocontradict. "We're well placed at this minute. Leslie Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayneand the Josselyns half way up above there, in the Minster. Mr. Wharneand Miss Craydocke at the top. And I down here, where I belong. Impertinence! To think of the things I've said in my silliness to thatwoman, whose greatness I can no more measure! Why didn't somebody stopme? I don't answer for you, Frank, and I won't keep you; but I thinkI'll just stay where I am, and not spoil the significance!" "I'm content to rank beside you; we can climb together, " said FrankScherman. "Even Miss Craydocke has not got to the highest, you see, " hewent on, a little hurriedly. Sin Saxon broke in as hurriedly as he, with a deeper flush still uponher face. "There's everything beyond. That's part of it. But she helpsone to feel what the higher--the Highest--must be. She's like the rockshe stands on. She's one of the steps. " "Come, Asenath, let's go up. " And he held out his hand to her till shetook it and rose. They had known each other from childhood, as I said;but Frank Scherman hardly ever called her by her name. "Miss Saxon" wasformal, and her school sobriquet he could not use. It seemed to mean agreat deal when he did say "Asenath. " And Sin Saxon took his hand and let him lead her up, notwithstanding the"significance. " They are young, and I am not writing a love-story; but I think theywill "climb together;" and that the words that wait to be said are merewords, --they have known and understood each other so long. * * * * * "I feel like a camel at a fountain, drinking in what is to last throughthe dry places, " said Martha Josselyn, as they came up. "Miss Saxon, youdon't know what you have given us to-day. I shall take home the hills inmy heart. " "We might have gone without seeing this, " said Susan. "No, you mightn't, " said Sin Saxon. "It's my good luck to see you seeit, that's all. It couldn't be in the order of things, you know, thatyou should be so near it, and want it, and not have it, somehow. " "So much _is_ in the order of things, though!" said Martha. "And thereare so many things we want, without knowing them even to _be_!" "That's the beauty of it, I think, " said Leslie Goldthwaite, turningback from where she stood, bright in the sunset glory, on the open rock. Her voice was like that of some young prophet of joy, she was so full ofthe gladness and loveliness of the time. "That's the beauty of it, Ithink. There is such a worldful, and you never know what you may becoming to next!" "Well, this is our last--of the mountains. We go on Tuesday. " "It isn't your last of us, though, or of what we want of you, " rejoinedSin Saxon. "We must have the tableaux for Monday. We can't do withoutyou in Robin Gray or Consolation. And about Tuesday, --it's only your ownmaking up of minds. You haven't written, have you? They don't expectyou? When a week's broken in upon, like a dollar, the rest is of noaccount. And there'll be sure to be something doing, so many are goingthe week after. " "We shall have letters to-night, " said Susan. "But I think we must go onTuesday. " Everybody had letters that night. The mail was in early, and CaptainGreen came up from the post-office as the Minster party was alightingfrom the wagons. He gave Dakie Thayne the bag. It was Dakie's delight todistribute, calling out the fortunate names as the expectant grouppressed around him, like people waiting the issue of a lottery venture. "Mrs. Linceford, Miss Goldthwaite, Mrs. Linceford, Mrs. _Lince_ford!Master--hm!--Thayne, " and he pocketed a big one like a dispatch. "Captain Jotham Green. Where is he? Here, Captain Green; you and I havegot the biggest, if Mrs. Linceford does get the most. I believe shetells her friends to write in hits, and put one letter into three orfour envelopes. When I was a _very_ little boy, I used to get a dollarchanged into a hundred coppers, and feel ever so much richer. " "That boy's forwardness is getting insufferable!" exclaimed Mrs. Thoresby, sitting apart, with two or three others who had not joined thegroup about Dakie Thayne. "And why Captain Green should give _him_ thebag always, I can't understand. It is growing to be a positivenuisance. " Nobody out of the Thoresby clique thought it so. They had a merry timetogether, --"you and I and the post, " as Dakie said. But then, betweenyou and me and that confidential personage, Mrs. Thoresby and herdaughters hadn't very many letters. "That is all, " said Dakie, shaking the bag. "They're only for the verygood, to-night. " He was not saucy: he was only brimming-over glad. Heknew "Noll's" square handwriting, and his big envelopes. There was great news to-night at the Cottage. They were to have a hero, perhaps two or three, among them. General Ingleside and friends werecoming, early in the week, the Captain told them with expansive face. There are a great many generals and a great many heroes now. This manhad been a hero beside Sheridan, and under Sherman. Colonel Inglesidehe was at Stone River and Chattanooga, --leading a brave Western regimentin desperate, magnificent charges, whose daring helped to turn thatterrible point of the war and made his fame. But Leslie, though her heart stirred at the thought of a real, greatcommander fresh from the field, had her own news that half neutralizedthe excitement of the other: Cousin Delight was coming, to share herroom with her for the last fortnight. The Josselyns got their letters. Aunt Lucy was staying on. Aunt Lucy'shusband had gone away to preach for three Sundays for a parish where hehad a prospect of a call. Mrs. Josselyn could not leave homeimmediately, therefore, although the girls should return; and their roomwas the airiest for Aunt Lucy. There was no reason why they should notprolong their holiday if they chose, and they might hardly ever get awayto the mountains again. More than all, Uncle David was off once more forChina and Japan, and had given his sister two more fifties, --"for whatdid a sailor want of greenbacks after he got afloat?" It was "a cloversummer" for the Josselyns. Uncle David and his fifties wouldn't be backamong them for two years or more. They must make the most of it. Sin Saxon sat up late, writing this letter to her mother:-- DARLING MAMMA, --I've just begun to find out really what to do here. Cream doesn't always rise to the top. You remember the Josselyns, ourquiet neighbors in town, that lived in the little house in theold-fashioned block opposite, --Sue Josselyn, Effie's schoolmate? And howthey used to tell me stories and keep me to nursery-tea? Well, they'rethe cream; they and Miss Craydocke. Sue has been in the hospitals, --twoyears, mamma!--while I've been learning nocturnes, and going to Germans. And Martha has been at home, sewing her face sharp; and they're here nowto get rounded out. Well now, mamma, I want so--a real dish of mountainsand cream, if you ever heard of such a thing! I want to take a wagon, and invite a party as I did my little one to Minster Rock, and gothrough the hills, --be gone as many days as you will send me money for. And I want you to take the money from that particular little corner ofyour purse where my carpet and wall-paper and curtains, that were tonew-furnish my room on my leaving school, are metaphorically rolled up. There's plenty there, you know; for you promised me my choice ofeverything, and I had fixed on that lovely pearl-gray paper at ----'s, with the ivy and holly pattern, and the ivy and scarlet-geranium carpetthat was such a match. I'll have something cheaper, or nothing at all, and thank you unutterably, if you'll only let me have my way in this. Itwill do me so much good, mamma! More than you've the least idea of. People can do without French paper and Brussels carpets, but everybodyhas a right to mountain and sea and cloud glory, --only they don't halfof them get it, and perhaps that's the other half's lookout! I know you'll understand me, mamma, particularly when I talk sense; foryou always understood my nonsense when nobody else did. And I'm going todo your faith and discrimination credit yet. Your bad child, --with just a small, hidden savor of grace in her, _being_ your child, -- ASENATH SAXON. CHAPTER XVI. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?" Saturday was a day of hammering, basting, draping, dressing, rehearsing, running from room to room. Upstairs, in Mrs. Green's garret, LeslieGoldthwaite and Dakie Thayne, with a third party never before introducedupon the stage, had a private practicing; and at tea-time, when thegreat hall was cleared, they got up there with Sin Saxon and FrankScherman, locked the doors, and in costume, with regular accompanimentof bell and curtain, the performance was repeated. Dakie Thayne was stage-manager and curtain-puller; Sin Saxon and FrankScherman represented the audience, with clapping and stamping, andlaughter that suspended both; making as nearly the noise of two hundredas two could: this being an essential part of the rehearsal in respectto the untried nerves of the _débutant_, which might easily be a littleuncertain. "He stands fire like a Yankee veteran. " "It's inimitable, " said Sin Saxon, wiping the moist merriment from hereyes. "And your cap, Leslie! And that bonnet! And this unutterable oldoddity of a gown! Who did contrive it all? and where did they come from?You'll carry off the glory of the evening. It ought to be the last. " "No, indeed, " said Leslie. "Barbara Frietchie must be last, of course. But I'm so glad you think it will do. I hope they'll be amused. " "Amused! If you could only see your own face!" "I see Sir Charles's, and that makes mine. " The new performer, you perceive, was an actor with a title. That night's coach, driving up while the dress-rehearsal of the othertableaux was going on at the hall, brought Cousin Delight to the GreenCottage, and Leslie met her at the door. Sunday morning was a pause and rest and hush of beauty and joy. Theysat--Delight and Leslie--by their open window, where the smell of thelately harvested hay came over from the wide, sunshiny entrance of thegreat barn, and away beyond stretched the pine woods, and the hillsswelled near in dusky evergreen, and indigo shadows, and lessened fardown toward Winnipiseogee, to where, faint and tender and blue, theoutline of little Ossipee peeped in between great shoulders somodestly, --seen only through the clearest air on days like this. Leslie's little table, with fresh white cover, held a vase of ferns andwhite convolvulus, and beside this Cousin Delight's two books that cameout always from the top of her trunk, --her Bible and her little "DailyFood. " To-day the verses from Old and New Testaments were these: "Thesteps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in hisway. " "Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming thetime. " They had a talk about the first, --"The steps, " the little details; notmerely the general trend and final issue; if, indeed, these could bedirected without the other. "You always make me see things, Cousin Delight, " Leslie said. "It is very plain, " Delight answered; "if people only would read theBible as they read even a careless letter from a friend, counting eachword of value, and searching for more meaning and fresh inference todraw out the most. One word often answers great doubts and askings thathave troubled the world. " Afterward, they walked round by a still wood-path under the Ledge to theNorth Village, where there was a service. It was a plain little church, with unpainted pews; but the windows looked forth upon a green mountainside, and whispers of oaks and pines and river-music crept in, and thebreath of sweet water-lilies, heaped in a great bowl upon the communiontable of common stained cherrywood, floated up and filled the place. Theminister, a quiet, gray-haired man, stayed his foot an instant at thatsimple altar, before he went up the few steps to the desk. He had asermon in his pocket from the text, "The hairs of your heads are allnumbered. " He changed it at the moment in his mind, and, when presentlyhe rose to preach, gave forth in a tone touched, through the verypresence of that reminding beauty, with the very spontaneousness of theMaster's own saying, "Consider the lilies. " And then he told them ofGod's momently thought and care. There were scattered strangers, from various houses, among the simplerural congregation. Walking home through the pines again, Delight andLeslie and Dakie Thayne found themselves preceded and followed along thenarrow way. Sin Saxon and Frank Scherman came up and joined them whenthe wider openings permitted. Two persons just in front were commenting upon the sermon. "Very fair for a country parson, " said a tall, elegant-looking man, whose broad, intellectual brow was touched by dark hair slightlyfrosted, and whose lip had the curve that betokens self-reliance andstrong decision, --"very fair. All the better for not flying too high. Narrow, of course. He seems to think the Almighty has nothing grander todo than to finger every little cog of the tremendous machinery of theuniverse, --that he measures out the ocean of his purposes as we drop aliquid from a phial. To me it seems belittling the Infinite. " "I don't know whether it is littleness or greatness, Robert, that mustescape minutiae, " said his companion, apparently his wife. "If we couldreach to the particles, perhaps we might move the mountains. " "We never agree upon this, Margie. We won't begin again. To my mind, thegrand plan of things was settled ages ago, --the impulses generated thatmust needs work on. Foreknowledge and intention, doubtless; in thatsense the hairs _were_ numbered. But that there is a special directionand interference to-day for you and me--well, we won't argue, as I said;but I never can conceive it so; and I think a wider look at the worldbrings a question to all such primitive faith. " The speakers turned down a side way with this, leaving the ledge pathand their subject to our friends. Only to their thoughts at first; butpresently Cousin Delight said, in a quiet tone, to Leslie, "That doesn'taccount for the steps, does it?" "I am glad it _can't_, " said Leslie. Dakie Thayne turned a look toward Leslie, as if he would gladly know ofwhat she spoke, --a look in which a kind of gentle reverence wasstrangely mingled with the open friendliness. I cannot easily indicateto you the sort of feeling with which the boy had come to regard thisyoung girl, just above him in years and thought and in the attitudewhich true womanhood, young or old, takes toward man. He had no sisters;he had been intimately associated with no girl-companions; he had livedwith his brother and an uncle and a young aunt, Rose. LeslieGoldthwaite's kindness had drawn him into the sphere of a new andpowerful influence, --something different in thought and purpose from theapparent unthought of the present little world about her; and thislifted her up in his regard and enshrined her with a sort of puresanctity. He was sometimes really timid before her, in the midst of hisfrank chivalry. "I wish you'd tell me, " he said suddenly, falling back with her as thepath narrowed again. "What are the 'steps'?" "It was a verse we found this morning, --Cousin Delight and I, " Leslieanswered; and as she spoke the color came up full in her cheeks, and hervoice was a little shy and tremulous. "'The steps of a good man areordered by the Lord. ' That one word seemed to make one certain. 'Steps, '--not path, nor the end of it; but all the way. " Somehow she wasquite out of breath as she finished. Meantime Sin Saxon and Frank had got with Miss Goldthwaite, and weretalking too. "Set spinning, " they heard Sin Saxon say, "and then let go. That was hisidea. Well! Only it seems to me there's been especial pains taken toshow us it can't be done. Or else, why don't they find out perpetualmotion? Everything stops after a while, unless--I can't talktheologically, but I mean all right--you hit it again. " "You've a way of your own of putting things, Asenath, " said FrankScherman, --with a glance that beamed kindly and admiringly upon her and"her way, "--"but you've put that clear to me as nobody else ever did. Aproof set in the very laws themselves, momentum that must lessen andlose itself with the square of the distance. The machinery cavil won'tdo. " "Wheels; but a living spirit within the wheels, " said Cousin Delight. "Every instant a fresh impulse; to think of it so makes it real, MissGoldthwaite, --and grand and awful. " The young man spoke with a strengthin the clear voice that could be so light and gay. "And tender, too. 'Thou layest Thine hand upon me, '" said DelightGoldthwaite. Sin Saxon was quiet; her own thought coming back upon her with areflective force, and a thrill at her heart at Frank Scherman's words. Had these two only planned tableaux and danced Germans together before? Dakie Thayne walked on by Leslie Goldthwaite's side, in his happycontent touched with something higher and brighter through thatinstant's approach and confidence. If I were to write down his thoughtas he walked, it would be with phrase and distinction peculiar tohimself and to the boy-mind, --"It's the real thing with her; it don'tmake a fellow squirm like a pin put out at a caterpillar. She's _good_;but she isn't _pious!_" This was the Sunday that lay between the busy Saturday and Monday. "Itis always so wherever Cousin Delight is, " Leslie Goldthwaite said toherself, comparing it with other Sundays that had gone. Yet she too, forweeks before, by the truth that had come into her own life and gone outfrom it, had been helping to make these moments possible. She had beenshone upon, and had put forth; henceforth she should scarcely know whenthe fruit was ripening or sowing itself anew, or the good and gladnessof it were at human lips. She was in Mrs. Linceford's room on Monday morning, putting highvelvet-covered corks to the heels of her slippers, when Sin Saxon cameover hurriedly, and tapped at the door. "_Could_ you be _two_ old women?" she asked, the instant Leslie opened. "Ginevra Thoresby has given out. She says it's her cold, --that shedoesn't feel equal to it; but the amount of it is she got her chill withthe Shannons going away so suddenly, and the Amy Robsart and QueenElizabeth picture being dropped. There was nothing else to put her in, and so she won't be Barbara. " "Won't be Barbara Frietchie!" cried Leslie, with an astonishment as ifit had been angelhood refused. "No. Barbara Frietchie is only an old woman in a cap and kerchief, andshe just puts her head out of a window: the _flag_ is the whole of it, Ginevra Thoresby says. " "_May_ I do it? Do you think I can be different enough in the two? Willthere be time?" Leslie questioned eagerly. "We'll change the programme, and put 'Taking the Oath' between. The capscan be different, and you can powder your hair for one, and--_would_ itdo to ask Miss Craydocke for a front for the other?" Sin Saxon had growndelicate in her feeling for the dear old friend whose hair had once beengolden. "I'll tell her about it, and ask her to help me contrive. She'll be sureto think of anything that can be thought of. " "Only there's the dance afterward, and you had so much more costume forthe other, " Sin Saxon said demurringly. "Never mind. I shall _be_ Barbara; and Barbara wouldn't dance, Isuppose. " "Mother Hubbard would, marvelously. " "Never mind, " Leslie answered again, laying down the little slipper, finished. "She don't care _what_ she is, so that she helps along, " Sin Saxon saidof her, rejoining the others in the hall. "I'm ashamed of myself and allthe rest of you, beside her. Now make yourselves as fine as you please. " We must pass over the hours as only stories and dreams do, and putourselves, at ten of the clock that night, behind the green curtain andthe footlights, in the blaze of the three rows of bright lamps, that, one above another, poured their illumination from the left upon thestage, behind the wide picture-frame. Susan Josselyn and Frank Scherman were just "posed" for "Consolation. "They had given Susan this part, after all, because they wanted Marthafor "Taking the Oath, " afterward. Leslie Goldthwaite was giving a hastytouch to the tent drapery and the gray blanket; Leonard Brookhouse andDakie Thayne manned the halyards for raising the curtain; there was theusual scuttling about the stage for hasty clearance; and Sin Saxon'shand was on the bell, when Grahame Lowe sprang hastily in through thedressing-room upon the scene. "Hold on a minute, " he said to Brookhouse. "Miss Saxon, GeneralIngleside and party are over at Green's, --been there since nine o'clock. Oughtn't we to send compliments or something, before we finish up?" Then there was a pressing forward and an excitement. The wounded soldiersprang from his couch; the nun came nearer, with a quick light in hereye; Leslie Goldthwaite, in her mob cap, quilted petticoat, big-floweredcalico train, and high-heeled shoes; two or three supernumeraries, inRebel gray, with bayonets, coming on in "Barbara Frietchie;" and SirCharles, bouncing out from somewhere behind, to the great hazard of theframe of lights, --huddled together upon the stage and consulted. DakieThayne had dropped his cord and almost made a rush off at the firstannouncement; but he stood now, with a repressed eagerness that trembledthrough every fibre, and waited. "Would he come?" "Isn't it too late?" "Would it be any compliment?""Won't it be rude not to?" "All the patriotic pieces are just coming!""Will the audience like to wait?" "Make a speech and tell 'em. You, Brookhouse. " "Oh, he _must_ come! Barbara Frietchie and the flag! Justthink!" "Isn't it grand?" "Oh, I'm so frightened!" These were thehurried sentences that made the buzz behind the scenes; while in front"all the world wondered. " Meanwhile, lamps trembled, the curtainvibrated, the very framework swayed. "What is it? Fire?" queried a nervous voice from near the footlights. "This won't do, " said Frank Scherman. "Speak to them, Brookhouse. DakieThayne, run over to Green's, and say, the ladies' compliments to GeneralIngleside and friends, --and beg the honor of their presence at theconcluding tableaux. " Dakie was off with a glowing face. Something like an odd, knowing smiletwinkling out from the glow also, as he looked up at Scherman and tookhis orders. All this while he had said nothing. Leonard Brookhouse made his little speech, received with applause and acheer. Then they quieted down behind the scenes, and a rustle and buzzbegan in front, --kept up for five minutes or so, in gentle fashion, tilltwo gentlemen, in plain clothes, walked quietly in at the open door; atsight of whom, with instinctive certainty, the whole assembly rose. Leslie Goldthwaite, peeping through the folds of the curtain, saw atall, grand-looking man, in what may be called the youth of middle age, every inch a soldier, bowing as he was ushered forward to a seat vacatedfor him, and followed by one younger, who modestly ignored the noticeintended for his chief. Dakie Thayne was making his way, with eyesalight and excited, down a side passage to his post. Then the two actors hurried once more into position; the stage wascleared by a whispered peremptory order; the bell rung once, the tenttrembling with some one whisking further out of sight behind it, --twice, and the curtain rose upon "Consolation. " Lovely as the picture is, it was lovelier in the living tableau. Therewas something deep and intense in the pale calm of Susan Josselyn'sface, which they had not counted on even when they discovered that herswas the very face for the "Sister. " Something made you thrill at thethought of what those eyes would show, if the downcast, quiet lids wereraised. The earnest gaze of the dying soldier met more, perhaps, in itsuplifting; for Frank Scherman had a look, in this instant of enacting, that he had never got before in all his practicings. The picture was tooreal for applause, --almost, it suddenly seemed, for representation. "Don't I know that face, Noll?" General Ingleside asked, in a low tone, of his companion. Instead of answering at once, the younger man bent further forwardtoward the stage, and his own very plain, broad, honest face, full overagainst the downcast one of the Sister of Mercy, took upon itself thatforce of magnetic expression which makes a look felt even across acrowd of other glances, as if there were but one straight line ofvision, and that between such two. The curtain was going slowly down;the veiling lids trembled, and the paleness replaced itself with aslow-mounting flush of color over the features, still held motionless. They let the cords run more quickly then. She was getting tired, theysaid; the curtain had been up too long. Be that as it might, nothingcould persuade Susan Josselyn to sit again, and "Consolation" could notbe repeated. So then came "Mother Hubbard and her Dog"--the slow old lady and theknowing beast that was always getting one step ahead of her. Thepossibility had occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite as she and Dakie Thayneamused themselves one day with Captain Green's sagacious Sir CharlesGrandison, a handsome black spaniel, whose trained accomplishment was tohold himself patiently in any posture in which he might be placed, untilthe word of release was given. You might stand him on his hind legs, with paws folded on his breast; you might extend him on his back, withhelpless legs in air; you might put him in any attitude possible to bemaintained, and maintain it he would, faithfully, until the signal wasmade. From this prompting came the illustration of Mother Hubbard. Also, Leslie Goldthwaite had seized the hidden suggestion of application, andhinted it in certain touches of costume and order of performance. Nobodywould think, perhaps, at first, that the striped scarlet and whitepetticoat under the tucked-up train, or the common print apron of darkblue, figured with innumerable little white stars, meant anything beyondthe ordinary adjuncts of a traditional old woman's dress; but when, inthe second scene, the bonnet went on, --an ancient marvel of exasperatedfront and crown, pitched over the forehead like an enormous helmet, anddecorated, upon the side next the audience, with black and white eagleplumes springing straight up from the fastening of an American shield;above all, when the dog himself appeared, "dressed in his clothes" (acane, an all-round white collar and a natty little tie, a pair ofthree-dollar tasseled kid gloves dangling from his left paw, and a smallmonitor hat with a big spread--eagle stuck above the brim, --theremaining details of costume being of no consequence), --when he stood"reading the news" from a huge bulletin, --"LATEST BY CABLE FROMEUROPE, "--nobody could mistake the personification of Old and YoungAmerica. It had cost much pains and many dainty morsels to drill Sir Charles, with all the aid of his excellent fundamental education; and the greatfear had been that he might fail them at the last. But the scenes wererapid, in consideration of canine infirmity. If the cupboard was empty, Mother Hubbard's basket behind was not; he got his morsels duly; and theaudience was "requested to refrain from applause until the end. " Refrainfrom laughter they could not, as the idea dawned upon them anddeveloped; but Sir Charles was used to that in the execution of hisordinary tricks; he could hardly have done without it better than anyother old actor. A dog knows when he is having his day, to say nothingof doing his duty; and these things are as sustaining to him as toanybody. This state of his mind, manifest in his air, helped also tocomplete the Young America expression. Mother Hubbard's mingledconsternation and pride at each successive achievement of herastonishing puppy were inimitable. Each separate illustration made itspoint. Patriotism, especially, came in when the undertaker, bearing thepall with red-lettered border, --Rebellion, --finds the dog, withupturned, knowing eye, and parted jaws, suggestive as much of a goodgrip as of laughter, half risen upon fore-paws, as far from "dead" asever, mounting guard over the old bone "Constitution. " The curtain fell at last amid peals of applause and calls for theactors. Dakie Thayne had accompanied with the reading of the ballad, slightlytransposed and adapted. As Leslie led Sir Charles before the curtain, in response to the continued demand, he added the concluding stanza, -- "The dame made a courtesy, The dog made a bow; The dame said, 'Your servant, ' The dog said, 'Bow-wow. '" Which, with a suppressed "Speak, sir!" from Frank Scherman, was broughtproperly to pass. Done with cleverness and quickness from beginning toend, and taking the audience utterly by surprise, Leslie's littlecombination of wit and sagacity had been throughout a signal success. The actors crowded round her. "We'd no idea of it!" "Capital!" "A greathit!" they exclaimed. "Mother Hubbard is the star of the evening, " saidLeonard Brookhouse. "No, indeed, " returned Leslie, patting Sir Charles'shead, --"this is the dog-star. " "Rather a Sirius reflection upon the restof us, " rejoined Brookhouse, shrugging his shoulders, as he walked offto take his place in the "Oath, " and Leslie disappeared to make readyfor "Barbara Frietchie. " Several persons, before and behind the curtain, were making up theirminds, just now, to a fresh opinion. There was nothing so very slow ortame, after all, about Leslie Goldthwaite. Several others had known thatlong ago. "Taking the Oath" was piquant and spirited. The touch of restive scornthat could come out on Martha Josselyn's face just suited her part; andLeonard Brookhouse was very cool and courteous, and handsome andgentlemanly-triumphant as the Union officer. "Barbara Frietchie" was grand. Grahame Lowe played Stonewall Jackson. They had improvised a pretty bit of scenery at the back, with a fewsticks, some paint, brown carpet-paper, and a couple of mosquito bars; aDutch gable with a lattice window, vines trained up over it, and bushesbelow. It was a moving tableau, enacted to the reading of Whittier'sglorious ballad. "Only an old woman in a cap and kerchief, putting herhead out at a garret window, "--that was all; but the fire was in theyoung eyes under the painted wrinkles and the snowy hair; the armstretched itself out quick and bravely at the very instant of thepistol-shot that startled timid ears; one skillful movement detached andseized the staff in its apparent fall, and the liberty-colors flashedfull in Rebel faces, as the broken lower fragment went clattering to thestage. All depended on the one instant action and expression. These wereperfect. The very spirit of Barbara stirred her representative. Thecurtain began to descend slowly, and the applause broke forth before thereading ended. But a hand, held up, hushed it till the concluding lineswere given in thrilling tones, as the tableau was covered from sight. "Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, And the Rebel rides on his raids no more. "Honor to her! and let a tear Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. "Over Barbara Frietchie's grave, Flag of Freedom and Union, wave! "Peace and order and beauty draw Round thy symbol of light and law; "And ever the stars above look down On thy stars below in Frederick town!" Then one great cheer broke forth, and was prolonged to three. "Not be Barbara Frietchie!" Leslie would not have missed that thrill forthe finest beauty-part of all. For the applause--that was for the flag, of course, as Ginevra Thoresby said. The benches were slid out at a window upon a lower roof, the curtain waslooped up, and the footlights carried away; the "music" came up, andtook possession of the stage; and the audience hall resolved itself intoa ball-room. Under the chandelier, in the middle, a tableau not setforth in the programme was rehearsed and added a few minutes after. Mrs. Thoresby, of course, had been introduced to the General; Mrs. Thoresby, with her bright, full, gray curls and her handsome figure, stood holding him in conversation between introductions, graciouslywaiving her privilege as new comers claimed their modest word. Mrs. Thoresby took possession; had praised the tableaux, as "quitecreditable, really, considering the resources we had, " and was followinga slight lead into a long talk, of information and advice on her part, about Dixville Notch. The General thought he should go there, after aday or two at Outledge. Just here came up Dakie Thayne. The actors, in costume, were graduallymingling among the audience, and Barbara Frietchie, in white hair, fromwhich there was not time to remove the powder, plain cap and kerchief, and brown woolen gown, with her silken flag yet in her hand, came withhim. This boy, who "was always everywhere, " made no hesitation, butwalked straight up to the central group, taking Leslie by the hand. Close to the General, he waited courteously for a long sentence of Mrs. Thoresby's to be ended, and then said, simply, "Uncle James, this is myfriend Miss Leslie Goldthwaite. My brother, Dr. Ingleside--why, where isNoll?" Dr. Oliver Ingleside had stepped out of the circle in the last half ofthe long sentence. The Sister of Mercy--no longer in costume, however--had come down the little flight of steps that led from thestage to the floor. At their foot the young army surgeon was shakinghands with Susan Josselyn. These two had had the chess-practicetogether--and other practice--down there among the Southern hospitals. Mrs. Thoresby's face was very like some fabric subjected to chemicalexperiment, from which one color and aspect has been suddenly andutterly discharged to make room for something different and new. Betweenthe first and last there waits a blank. With this blank full upon her, she stood there for one brief, unprecedented instant in her life, afigure without presence or effect. I have seen a daguerreotype in whichwere cap, hair, and collar, quite correct, --what should have been a facerubbed out. Mrs. Thoresby rubbed herself out, and so performed herinvoluntary tableau. "Of course I might have guessed. I wonder it never occurred to me, " Mrs. Linceford was replying presently, to her vacuous inquiry. "The nameseemed familiar, too; only he called himself 'Dakie. ' I rememberperfectly now. Old Jacob Thayne, the Chicago millionaire. He marriedpretty little Mrs. Ingleside, the Illinois Representative's widow, thatfirst winter I was in Washington. Why, Dakie must be a dollar prince!" He was just Dakie Thayne, though, for all that. He and Leslie andCousin Delight, the Josselyns and the Inglesides, dear Miss Craydockehurrying up to congratulate, Marmaduke Wharne looking on without a shadeof cynicism in the gladness of his face, and Sin Saxon and FrankScherman flitting up in the pauses of dance and promenade, --well, afterall, these were the central group that night. The pivot of the littlesolar system was changed; but the chief planets made but slight accountof that; they just felt that it had grown very warm and bright. "Oh, Chicken Little!" Mrs. Linceford cried to Leslie Goldthwaite, givingher a small shake with her good-night kiss at her door. "How did youknow the sky was going to fall? And how have you led us all this chaseto cheat Fox Lox at last?" But that wasn't the way Chicken Little looked at it. She didn't caremuch for the bit of dramatic _dénouement_ that had come about byaccident, --like a story, Elinor said, --or the touch of poetic justicethat tickled Mrs. Linceford's world-instructed sense of fun. DakieThayne wasn't a sum that needed proving. It was very nice that thisfamous general should be his uncle, --but not at all strange: they werejust the sort of people he _must_ belong to. And it was nicest ofall that Dr. Ingleside and Susan Josselyn should have known eachother, --"in the glory of their lives, " she phrased it to herself, witha little flash of girl enthusiasm and a vague suggestion of romance. "Why didn't you tell us?" Mrs. Linceford said to Dakie Thayne nextmorning. "Everybody would have"--She stopped. She could not tell thisboy to his frank face that everybody would have thought more and mademore of him because his uncle had got brave stars on his shoulders, andhis father had died leaving two millions or so of dollars. "I know they would have, " said Dakie Thayne. "That was just it. What isthe use of telling things? I'll wait till I've done something that tellsitself. " CHAPTER XVII. LEAF-GLORY. There was a pretty general break-up at Outledge during the weekfollowing. The tableaux were the _finale_ of the season's gayety, --ofthis particular little episode, at least, which grew out of theassociation together of these personages of our story. There might comea later set, and later doings; but this last week of August sent themere summer-birds fluttering. Madam Routh must be back in New York, toprepare for the reopening of her school; Mrs. Linceford had letters fromher husband, proposing to meet her by the first, in N----, and so theHaddens would be off; the Thoresbys had stayed as long as they cared toin any one place where there seemed no special inducement; GeneralIngleside was going through the mountains to Dixville Notch. RoseIngleside, --bright and charming as her name; just a fit flower to putbeside our Ladies' Delight, finding out at once, as all girls and womendid, her sweetness, and leaning more and more to the rare and delicatesphere of her quiet attraction, --Oliver and Dakie Thayne, --these werehis family party; but there came to be question about Leslie andDelight. Would not they make six? And since Mrs. Linceford and hersisters must go, it seemed so exactly the thing for them to fall into;otherwise Miss Goldthwaite's journey hither would hardly seem to havebeen worth while. Early September was so lovely among the hills;opportunities for a party to Dixville Notch would not come every day; inshort, Dakie had set his heart upon it, Rose begged, the General was aspressing as true politeness would allow, and it was settled. "Only, " Sin Saxon said suddenly, on being told, "I should like if youwould tell me, General Ingleside, the precise military expressionsynonymous with 'taking the wind out of one's sails. ' Because that'sjust what you've done for me. " "My dear Miss Saxon! In what way?" "Invited my party, --some of them, --and taken my road. That's all. Ispoke first, though I didn't speak out loud. See here!" And she produceda letter from her mother, received that morning. "Observe the date, ifyou please, --August 24. 'Your letter reached me yesterday. ' And it hadtraveled round, as usual, two days in papa's pocket, beside. I alwaysallow for that. 'I quite approve your plan; provided, as you say, theparty be properly matronized. I'--H'm--h'm! that refers to littleexplanations of my own. Well, all is, I was going to do this verything, --with enlargements. And now Miss Craydocke and I may collapse. " "Why, when with you and your enlargements we might make the mostadmirable combination? At least, the Dixville road is open to all. " "Very kind of you to say so, --the first part, I mean, --if you couldpossibly have helped it. But there are insurmountable obstacles on thatDixville road--to us. There's a lion in the way. Don't you see we shouldbe like the little ragged boys running after the soldier-company? Wecouldn't think of putting ourselves in that 'bony light, ' especiallybefore the eyes of Mrs. --Grundy. " This last, as Mrs. Thoresby sweptimpressively along the piazza in full dinner costume. "Unless you go first, and we run after you, " suggested the General. "All the same. You talked Dixville to her the very first evening, youknow. No, nobody can have an original Dixville idea any more. And I'vebeen asking them, --the Josselyns, and Mr. Wharne and all, and was justcoming to the Goldthwaites; and now I've got them on my hands, and Idon't know where in the world to take them. That comes of keeping aninspiration to ripen. Well, it's a lesson of wisdom! Only, as Effie saysabout her housekeeping, the two dearest things in living are butter andexperience!" Amidst laughter and banter and repartee, they came to it, of course; themost delightful combination and joint arrangement. Two wagons, theGeneral's and Dr. Ingleside's two saddle-horses, Frank Scherman's littlemountain mare, that climbed like a cat, and was sure-footed as achamois, --these, with a side-saddle for the use of a lady sometimes uponthe last, made up the general equipment of the expedition. All Mrs. Grundy knew was that they were wonderfully merry and excited together, until this plan came out as the upshot. The Josselyns had not quite consented at once, though their faces werebright with a most thankful appreciation of the kindness that offeredthem such a pleasure; nay, that entreated their companionship as a thingso genuinely coveted to make its own pleasure complete. Somehow, whenthe whole plan developed, there was a little sudden shrinking on Sue'spart, perhaps on similar grounds to Sin Saxon's perception ofinsurmountable obstacles; but she was shyer than Sin of putting forthher objections, and the general zeal and delight, and Martha's longinglook, unconscious of cause why not, carried the day. There had never been a blither setting off from the Giant's Cairn. Allthe remaining guests were gathered to see them go. There was not a motein the blue air between Outledge and the crest of Washington. All thesubtile strength of the hills--ores and sweet waters and resinousperfumes and breath of healing leaf and root distilled to absolutepurity in the clear ether that sweeps only from such bare, thunder-scoured summits--made up the exhilarant draught in which theydrank the mountain joy and received afar off its baptism of delight. It was beautiful to see the Josselyns so girlish and gay; it was lovelyto look at old Miss Craydocke, with her little tremors of pleasure, andthe sudden glistenings in her eyes; Sin Saxon's pretty face was clearand noble, with its pure impulse of kindliness, and her fun was like asparkle upon deep waters. Dakie Thayne rushed about in a sort of generalsatisfaction which would not let him be quiet anywhere. Outsiders lookedwith a kind of new, half-jealous respect on these privileged few who hadso suddenly become the "General's party. " Sin Saxon whispered to LeslieGoldthwaite: "It's neither his nor mine, honeysuckle; it'syours, --Henny-penny and all the rest of it, as Mrs. Linceford said. "Leslie was glad with the crowning gladness of her bright summer. "That girl has played her cards well, " Mrs. Thoresby said of her, alittle below her voice, as she saw the General himself making herespecially comfortable with Cousin Delight in a back seat. "Particularly, my dear madam, " said Marmaduke Wharne, coming close andspeaking with clear emphasis, "as she could not possibly have known thatshe had a trump in her hand!" * * * * * To tell of all that week's journeying, and of Dixville Notch; theadventure, the brightness, the beauty, and the glory; the sympathy ofabounding enjoyment, the waking of new life that it was to some of them;the interchange of thought, the cementing of friendships, --would be tobegin another story, possibly a yet longer one. Leslie's summer, according to the calendar, is already ended. Much in this world mustpause unfinished, or come to abrupt conclusion. People "die suddenly atlast, " after the most tedious illnesses. "Married and lived happy everafter, " is the inclusive summary that winds up many an old tale whosetime of action only runs through hours. If in this summer-time withLeslie Goldthwaite your thoughts have broadened somewhat with hers, somequestions for you have been partly answered; if it has appeared to youhow a life enriches itself by drawing toward and going forth into thelife of others through seeing how this began with her, it is nounfinished tale that I leave with you. A little picture I will give you, farther on, a hint of somethingfarther yet, and say good-by. Some of them came back to Outledge, and stayed far into the still, richSeptember. Delight and Leslie sat before the Green Cottage one morning, in the heart of a golden haze and a gorgeous bloom. All around the feet of the great hills lay the garlands of early-ripenedautumn. You see nothing like it in the lowlands, --nothing like the fireof the maples, the carbuncle-splendor of the oaks, the flash of scarletsumachs and creepers, the illumination of every kind of little leaf inits own way, upon which the frost touch comes down from those tremendousheights that stand rimy in each morning's sun, trying on white caps thatby and by they shall pull down heavily over their brows, till they cloakall their shoulders also in the like sculptured folds, to stand andwait, blind, awful chrysalides, through the long winter of their deathand silence. Delight and Leslie had got letters from the Josselyns and Dakie Thayne. There was news in them such as thrills always the half-comprehendingsympathies of girlhood. Leslie's vague suggestion of romance had becomefulfillment. Dakie Thayne was wild with rejoicing that dear old Noll wasto marry Sue. "She had always made him think of Noll, and his ways andlikings, ever since that day of the game of chess that by his meanscame to grief. It was awful slang, but he could not help it: it was justthe very jolliest go!" Susan Josselyn's quiet letter said, --"That kindness which kept us on andmade it beautiful for us, strangers, at Outledge, has brought to me, byGod's providence, this great happiness of my life. " After a long pause of trying to take it in, Leslie looked up. "What asummer this has been! So full; so much has happened! I feel as if I hadbeen living such a great deal!" "You have been living in others' lives. You have had a great deal to dowith what has happened. " "Oh, Cousin Delight! I have only been _among_ it! I could not_do_--except such a very little. " "There is a working from us beyond our own. But if our working runs withthat?--You have done more than you will ever know, little one. " DelightGoldthwaite spoke very tenderly. Her own life, somehow, had been closelytouched, through that which had grown and gathered about Leslie. "Itdepends on that abiding. 'In me, and I in you; so shall ye bear muchfruit. '" She stopped. She would not say more. Leslie thought her talking ratherwide of the first suggestion; but this child would never know, asDelight had said, what a centre, in her simple, loving way, she hadbeen for the working of a purpose beyond her thought. Sin Saxon came across the lawn, crowned with gold and scarlet, trailingcreepers twined about her shoulders, and flames of beauty in her fullhands. "Miss Craydocke says she praised God with every leaf she took. I'm afraid I forgot to, for the little ones. But I was so greedy and sobusy, getting them all for her. Come, Miss Craydocke; we've got no endof pressing to do, to save half of them!" "She can't do enough for her. Oh, Cousin Delight, the leaves _are_glorified, after all! Asenath never was so charming; and she is morebeautiful than ever!" Delight's glance took in also another face than Asenath's, grown intosomething in these months that no training or taking thought could havedone for it. "Yes, " she said, in the same still way in which she hadspoken before, "that comes too, --as God wills. All things shall beadded. " * * * * * My hint is of a Western home, just outside the leaping growth andceaseless stir of a great Western city; a large, low, cosy mansion, witha certain Old World mellowness and rest in its aspect, --looking forth, even, as it does on one side, upon the illimitable sunset-ward sweep ofthe magnificent promise of the New; on the other, it catches a glimpse, beyond and beside the town, of the calm blue of a fresh-water ocean. The place is "Ingleside;" the General will call it by no other than thefamily name, --the sweet Scottish synonym for Home-corner. And here, while I have been writing and you reading these pages, he has had themall with him; Oliver and Susan, on their bridal journey, which waitedfor summer-time to come again, though they have been six months married;Rose, of course, and Dakie Thayne, home in vacation from a great schoolwhere he is studying hard, hoping for West Point by and by; LeslieGoldthwaite, who is Dakie's inspiration still; and our Flower, ourPansy, our Delight, --golden-eyed Lady of innumerable sweet names. The sweetest and truest of all, says the brave soldier and high-souledgentleman, is that which he has persuaded her to wear for life, --DelightIngleside.