Between Whiles. 

by

Helen Jackson (H. H. )

Author of "Ramona, " "A Century of Dishonor, " "Verses, " "Sonnets andLyrics, " "Glimpses of Three Coasts, " "Bits of Travel, " "Bits of Travelat Home, " "Zeph, " "Mercy Philbrick's Choice, " "Hetty's Strange History, ""Bits of Talk about Home Matters, " "Bits of Talk for Young Folks, ""Nelly's Silver Mine, " "Cat Stories. "

1888. 

Contents. 

The Inn of the Golden PearThe Mystery of Wilhelm RütterLittle Bel's SupplementThe Captain of the "Heather Bell"Dandy SteveThe Prince's Little Sweetheart

Between Whiles. 

The Inn of the Golden Pear. 

I. 

 Who buys? Who buys? 'Tis like a market-fair; The hubbub rises deafening on the air: The children spend their honest money there; The knaves prowl out like foxes from a lair. 

 Who buys? Who sells? Alas, and still alas! The children sell their diamond stones for glass; The knaves their worthless stones for diamonds pass. He laughs who buys; he laughs who sells. Alas!

In the days when New England was only a group of thinly settledwildernesses called "provinces, " there was something almost like the oldfeudal tenure of lands there, and a relation between the rich land-ownerand his tenants which had many features in common with those of therelation between margraves and vassals in the days of Charlemagne. 

Far up in the North, near the Canada line, there lived at that time aneccentric old man, whose name is still to be found here and there on thetattered parchments, written "WILLAN BLAYCKE, Gentleman. "

Tradition occupies itself a good deal with Willan Blaycke, and does notgive his misdemeanors the go-by as it might have done if he had beeneither a poorer or a less clever man. Why he had crossed the seas andcast in his lot with the pious Puritans, nobody knew; it was certainlynot because of sympathy with their God-reverencing faith and God-fearinglives, nor from any liking for hardships or simplicity of habits. He hadgold enough, the stories say, to have bought all the land from the St. Johns to the Connecticut if he had pleased; and he had servants andhorses and attire such as no governor in all the provinces could boast. He built himself a fine house out of stone, and the life he led in itwas a scandal and a byword everywhere. For all that, there was not a manto be found who had not a good word to say for Willan Blaycke, and not awoman who did not look pleased and smile if he so much as spoke to her. He was generous, with a generosity so princely that there were many whosaid that he had no doubt come of some royal house. He gave away a farmto-day, and another to-morrow, and thought nothing of it; and whentenants came to him pleading that they were unable to pay their rent, hewas never known to haggle or insist. 

Naturally, with such ways as these he made havoc of his estates, vast asthey were, and grew less and less rich year by year. However, there wasenough of his land to last several generations out; and if he hadmarried a decent woman for his wife, his posterity need never havecomplained of him. But this was what Willan Blaycke did, --and it is asmuch a mystery now as it doubtless was then, why he did it, --he marriedJeanne Dubois, the daughter of a low-bred and evil-disposed Frenchmanwho kept a small inn on the Canadian frontier. Jeanne had a handsome butwicked face. She stood always at the bar, and served every man who came;and a great thing it was for the house, to be sure, that she had suchbold black eyes, red cheeks, and a tongue even bolder than her glances. But there was not a farmer in all the north provinces who would havetaken her to wife, not one, for she bore none too good a name; and men'sspeech about her, as soon as they had turned their backs and gone ontheir journeys, was quite opposite to the gallant and flattering thingsthey said to her face in the bar. Some people said that Willan Blayckewas drunk when he married Jeanne, that she took him unawares by means ofa base plot which her father and she had had in mind a long time. Otherssaid that he was sober enough when he did it, only that he was like oneout of his mind, --he sorrowed so for the loss of his only son, Willan, whom he had in the beginning of that year sent back to England to betaught in school. 

He had brought the child out with him, --a little chap, with marvellouslyblack eyes and yellow curls, who wore always the costliest ofembroidered coats, which it was plain some woman's hand had embroideredfor him; but whether the child's mother were dead or alive WillanBlaycke never told, and nobody dared ask. 

That the boy needed a mother sadly enough was only too plain. Ridingfrom county to county on his little white pony by his father's side, sitting up late at roystering feasts till he nodded in his chair, seeingall that rough men saw, and hearing all that rough men said, the childwas in a fair way to be ruined outright; and so Willan Blaycke at lastcame to see, and one day, in a fit of unwonted conscientiousness andwisdom, he packed the poor sobbing little fellow off to England incharge of a trusty escort, and sternly made up his mind that the ladshould not return till he was a man grown. It was only a few monthsafter this that Jeanne Dubois became Mistress Willan Blaycke; so itseemed not improbable that the bereaved father's loneliness had had muchto do with that extraordinary step. 

Be that as it may, whether he were drunk or sober when he married her, he treated her as a gentleman should treat his wife, and did his best tomake her a lady. She was always clad in a rich fashion; and a fine showshe made in her scarlet petticoat and white hat with a streaming scarletfeather in it, riding high on her pillion behind Willan Blaycke on hisgreat black horse, or sitting up straight and stiff in the swingingcoach with gold on the panels, which he had bought for her in Boston ata sale of the effects of one of the disgraced and removed governors ofthe province of Massachusetts. If there had been any roads to speak ofin those days, Jeanne Dubois would have driven from one end to the otherof the land in her fine coach, so proud was she of its splendor; buteven pride could not heal the bruises she got in jolting about in it, nor the terror she felt of being overturned. So she gradually left offusing it, and consoled herself by keeping it standing in all goodweather in full sight from the highway, that everybody might know shehad it. 

It was a sore trial to Jeanne that she had no children, --a sore trialalso to her wicked old father, who had plotted that the great Blayckeestates should go down in the hands of his descendants. Not so WillanBlaycke. It was undoubtedly a consolation to him in his last days tothink that his son Willan would succeed to everything, and the Duboisblood remain still in its own muddy channel. It is evident that beforehe died he had come to think coldly of his wife; for his mention of herin his will was of the curtest, and his provision for her during herlifetime, though amply sufficient for her real needs, not at all inkeeping with the style in which she had dwelt with him. 

The exiled Willan had returned to America a year before his father'sdeath. He was a quiet, well-educated, rather scholarly young man. Itwould be foolish to deny that his filial sentiment had grown cool duringthe long years of his absence, and that it received some violent shockson his return to his father's house. But he was full of ambition, andsoon saw the opening which lay before him for distinction and wealth asthe ultimate owner of the Blaycke estates. To this end he bent all hisenergies. He had had in England a good legal education; he was a clearthinker and a ready speaker, and speedily made himself so well known andwell thought of, that when his father died there were many who said itwas well the old man had been taken away in time to leave the youngWillan a property worthy of his talents and industry. 

Willan had lived in his father's house more as a guest than as a son. Tothe woman who was his father's wife, and sat at the head of his father'stable, he bore himself with a distant courtesy, which was far moreirritating to her coarse nature than open antagonism would have been. But Jeanne Dubois was clever woman enough to comprehend her owninferiority to both father and son, and to avoid collisions with either. She had won what she had played for, and on the whole she had not beendisappointed. As she had never loved her husband, she cared little thathe did not love her; and as for the upstart of a boy with his fine airs, well, she would bide her time for that, Jeanne thought, --for it hadnever crossed Jeanne's mind that when her husband died she would not bestill the mistress of the fine stone house and the gilt panelled coach, and have more money than she knew what to do with. Many maliciousreveries she had indulged in as to how, when that time came, she would"send the fellow packing, " "he shouldn't stay in her house a day. " So, when it came to pass that the cards were turned, and it was Willan whosaid to her, on the morning after his father's funeral, "What are yourplans, Madame?" Jeanne was for a few seconds literally dumb with angerand astonishment. 

Then she poured out all the pent-up hatred of her vulgar soul. It was ahorrible scene. Willan conducted himself throughout the interview withperfect calmness; the same impassable distance which had always been soexasperating to Jeanne was doubly so now. He treated her as if she weremerely some dependant of the house, for whom he, as the executor of thewill, was about to provide according to instructions. 

"If I can't live in my own house, " cried the angry woman, "I'll go backto my father and tend bar again; and how'll you like that?"

"It is purely immaterial to me, Madame, " replied Willan, "where youlive. I merely wish to know your address, that I may forward to you thequarterly payments of your annuity. I should think it probable, " headded with an irony which was not thrown away on Jeanne, "that youwould be happier among your own relations and in the occupations towhich you were accustomed in your youth. "

Jeanne was not deficient in spirit. As soon as she had ascertainedbeyond a doubt that all that Willan had told her was true, and thatthere was no possibility of her ever getting from the estate anythingexcept her annuity, she packed up all her possessions and left thehouse. No fine instinct had restrained her from laying, hands oneverything to which she could be said to have a shadow ofclaim, --indeed, on many things to which she had not, --and even Willanhimself, who had been prepared for her probable greed, was surprisedwhen on returning to the house late one evening he found the piazzapiled high from one end to the other with her boxes. Jeanne stood bywith a defiant air, superintending the cording of the last one. Sheanticipated some remonstrance or inquiry from Willan, and was halfdisappointed when he passed by, giving no sign of having observed theboxes at all, and simply lifting his hat to her with his usualformality. The next morning, instead of the public vehicle which Jeannehad engaged to call for her, her own coach and the gray horses she hadbest liked were driven to the door. This unexpected tribute from Willanalmost disarmed her for the moment. It was her coach almost more thanher house which she had grieved to lose. 

"Well, really, Mr. Willan, " she exclaimed, "I never once thought oftaking that, though there's no doubt about its being my own, and yourfather'd tell you so if he was here; and the horses too. He always saidthe grays were mine from the day he bought them. But I'm much obliged toyou, I'm sure. "

"You have no occasion to thank me, Madame, " replied Willan, standing onthe threshold of the house, pale with excitement at the prospect ofimmediate freedom from the presence of the coarse creature. "The coachis your own, and the horses; and if they had not been, I should not havepermitted them to remain here. "

"Oh ho!" sneered Jeanne, all her antagonism kindled afresh at this lastgratuitous fling. "You needn't think you can get rid of everythingthat'll remind you of me, young man. You'll see me oftener than youlike, at the Golden Pear. You'll have to stop there, as your father didbefore you. " And Jeanne's black eyes snapped viciously as she drove off, her piles of boxes following slowly in two wagon-loads behind. 

Willan was right in one thing. After the first mortification ofreturning to her father's house, a widow, disgraced by being pensionedoff from her old home, had worn away, Jeanne was happier than she hadever been in her life. Her annuity, which was small for Mistress WillanBlaycke, was large for Jeanne, daughter of the landlord of the GoldenPear; and into that position she sank back at once, --so contentedly, too, that her father was continually reproaching her with a great lackof spirit. It was a sad come-down from his old air-castles for her andfor himself, --he still the landlord of a shabby little inn, and Jeanne, stout and middle-aged, sitting again behind the bar as she had donefifteen years before. It was pretty hard. So long as he knew that Jeannewas living in her fine house as Mistress Blaycke he had been content, in spite of Willan Blaycke's having sternly forbidden him ever to showhis face there. But this last downfall was too much. Victor Duboisground his teeth and swore many oaths over it. But no swearing couldalter things; and after a while Victor himself began to take comfort inhaving Jeanne back again. "And not a bit spoiled, " as he would say tohis cronies, "by all the fine ways, to which she had never taken; thanksto God, Jeanne was as good a girl yet as ever. "--"And as handsome too, "the politic cronies would add. 

The Golden Pear was a much more attractive place since Jeanne had comeback. She was a good housekeeper, and she had learned much in WillanBlaycke's house. Moreover, she was a generous creature, and did not inthe least mind spending a few dollars here and there to make thingstidier and more comfortable. 

A few weeks after Jeanne's return to the inn there appeared in thefamily a new and by no means insignificant member. This was the youngVictorine Dubois, who was a daughter, they said, of Victor Dubois's sonJean, the twin brother of Jeanne. He had gone to Montreal many yearsago, and had been moderately prosperous there as a wine-seller in asmall way. He had been dead now for two years, and his widow, beingabout to marry again, was anxious to get the young Victorine off herhands. So the story ran, and on the surface it looked probable enough. But Montreal was not a great way off from the parish of St. Urbans, inwhich stood Victor Dubois's inn; there were men coming and going oftenwho knew the city, and who looked puzzled when it was said in theirhearing that Victorine was the eldest child of Jean Dubois thewine-seller. She had been kept at a convent all these years, old Victorsaid, her father being determined that at least one of his childrenshould be well educated. 

Nobody could gainsay this, and Mademoiselle Victorine certainly had theair of having been much better trained and taught than most girls in herstation. But somehow, nobody quite knew why, the tale of her being JeanDubois's daughter was not believed. Suspicions and at last rumors wereafloat that she was an illegitimate child of Jeanne's, born a few yearsbefore her marriage to Willan Blaycke. 

Nothing easier, everybody knew, than for Mistress Willan Blaycke tohave supported half a dozen illegitimate children, if she had had them, on the money her husband gave her so lavishly; and there was old Victor, as ready and unscrupulous a go-between as ever an unscrupulous womanneeded. These rumors gained all the easier credence because Victorinebore so striking a resemblance to her "Aunt Jeanne. " On the other hand, this ought not to have been taken as proof any more one way than theother; for there were plenty of people who recollected very well that inthe days when little Jean and Jeanne toddled about together as children, nobody but their mother could tell them apart, except by their clothes. So the winds of gossiping breaths blew both ways at once in the matter, and it was much discussed for a time. But like all scandals, as soon asit became an old story nobody cared whether it were false or true; andbefore Victorine had been a year at the Golden Pear, the question of herrelationship there was rarely raised. 

One thing was certain, that no mother could have been fonder or moredevoted to a child than Jeanne was to her niece; and everybody saidso, --some more civilly, some maliciously. Her pride in the girl's beautywas touching to see. She seemed to have forgotten that she was ever abeauty herself; and she had no need to do this, for Jeanne was not yetforty, and many men found her piquant and pleasing still. But all hervanity seemed now to be transferred to Victorine. It was Victorine whowas to have all the fine gowns and ornaments; Victorine who must go tothe dances and fêtes in costumes which were the wonder and the envy ofall the girls in the region; Victorine who was to have everything madeeasy and comfortable for her in the house; and above all, --and here themother betrayed herself, for mother she was; the truth may as well betold early as late in our story, --most of all, it was Victorine who wasto be kept away from the bar, and to be spared all contact with therough roysterers who frequented the Golden Pear. 

Very ingenious were Jeanne's excuses for these restrictions on herniece's liberty. Still more ingenious her explanations of the occasionalexceptions she made now and then in favor of some well-to-do youngfarmer of the neighborhood, or some traveller in whom her alert maternaleye detected a possible suitor for Victorine's hand. Victorine herselfwas not so fastidious. She was young, handsome, overflowing withvitality, and with no more conscience or delicacy than her mother hadhad before her. If the whole truth had been known concerning the lastfour years of her life in the convent, it would have considerablyastonished those good Catholics, if any such there be, who still believethat convents are sacred retreats filled with the chaste and the devout. Victorine Dubois at the age of eighteen, when her grandfather took herhome to his house, was as well versed a young woman in the ways and thewiles of love-making as if she had been free to come and go all herlife. And that this knowledge had been gained surreptitiously, in stolenmoments and brief experiences at the expense of the whole of herreverence for religion, the whole of her faith in men's purity, was notpoor Victorine's fault, only her misfortune; but the result was no lessdisastrous to her morals. She went out of the convent as complete alittle hypocrite as ever told beads and repeated prayers. Only acertain sort of infantile superstitiousness of nature remained in her, and made her cling to the forms, in which, though she knew they did notmean what they pretended, she suspected there might be some sort ofmechanical efficacy at last; like the partly undeceived disciple andassistant of a master juggler, who is not quite sure that there may notbe a supernatural power behind some of the tricks. Beyond an overflowinganimal vitality, and a passion for having men make love to her, therereally was not much of Victorine. But it is wonderful how far these twoqualities can pass in a handsome woman for other and nobler ones. Theanimal life so keen, intense, sensuous, can seem like cleverness, wit, taste; the passion for receiving homage from men can make a womangraceful, amiable, and alluring. Some of the greatest passions the worldhas ever seen have been inspired in men by just such women as this. 

Victorine was not without accomplishments and some smattering ofknowledge. She had read a good deal of French, and chattered it likethe true granddaughter of a Normandy _propriétaire_. She sang, in ahalf-rude, half-melodious way, snatches of songs which sounded betterthan they really were, she sang them with so much heartiness andabandon. She embroidered exquisitely, and had learned the trick ofmaking many of the pretty and useless things at which nuns work sopatiently to fill up their long hours. She had an insatiable love ofdress, and attired herself daily in successions of varied colors andshapes merely to look at herself in the glass, and on the chance ofshowing herself to any stray traveller who might come. 

The inn had been built in a piecemeal fashion by Victor Dubois himself, and he had been unconsciously guided all the while by his memories ofthe old farmhouse in Normandy in which he was born; so that the housereally looked more like Normandy than like America. It had on one cornera square tower, which began by being a shed attached to the kitchen, then was promoted to bearing up a chamber for grain, and at last wastopped off by a fine airy room, projecting on all sides over the othertwo, and having great casement windows reaching close up to the broad, hanging eaves. A winding staircase outside led to what had been thegrain-chamber: this was now Jeanne's room. The room above wasVictorine's, and she reached it only by a narrow, ladder-like stairwayfrom her mother's bedroom; so the young lady's movements were kept wellin sight, her mother thought. It was an odd thing that it never occurredto Jeanne how near the sill of Victorine's south window was to the stoutrailing of the last broad platform of the outside staircase. Thisrailing had been built up high, and was partly roofed over, making apretty place for pots of flowers in summer; and Victorine never lookedso well anywhere as she did leaning out of her window and watering theflowers which stood there. Many a flirtation went on between thiscasement window and the courtyard below, where all the travellers werein the habit of standing and talking with the ostlers, and with oldVictor himself, who was not the landlord to leave his ostlers to do asthey liked with horses and grain, --many a flirtation, but none thatmeant or did any harm; for with all her wildness and love of frolic, Mademoiselle Victorine never lost her head. Deep down in her heart shehad an ambition which she never confessed even to her aunt Jeanne. Shehad read enough romances to believe that it was by no means animpossible thing that a landlord's daughter should marry a gentleman;and to marry a gentleman, if she married at all, Victorine was fullyresolved. She never tired of questioning her aunt about the details ofher life in Willan Blaycke's house; and she sometimes gazed for hours atthe gilt-panelled coach, which on all fine days stood in the courtyardof the Golden Pear, the wonder of all rustics. On the rare occasionswhen her aunt went abroad in this fine vehicle, Victorine sat by herside in an ecstasy of pride and delight. It seemed to her that to be theowner of such a coach as that, to live in a fine house, and have a finegentleman for one's husband must be the very climax of bliss. Shewondered much at her aunt's contentment in her present estate. 

"How canst thou bear it, Aunt Jeanne?" she said sometimes. "How canstthou bear to live as we live here, --to be in the bar-room with the men, and to sit always in the smoke, after the fine rooms and the companythou hadst for so long?"

"Bah!" Jeanne would reply. "It's little thou knowest of that finecompany. I had like to die of weariness more often than I was gay in it;and as for fine rooms, I care nothing for them. "

"But thy husband, Aunt Jeanne, " Victorine once ventured to say, --"surelythou wert not weary when he was with thee?"

Jeanne's face darkened. "Keep a civiller tongue in thy head, " shereplied, "than to be talking to widows of the husbands they have buried. He was a good man, Willan Blaycke, --a good man; but I liked him notovermuch, though we lived not in quarrelling. He went his ways, as mengo, and I let him be. "

Victorine's curiosity was by no means satisfied. She asked endlessquestions of all whom she met who could tell her anything about heraunt's husband. Very much she regretted that she had not been taken fromthe convent before this strange, free-hearted, rollicking gentleman haddied. She would have managed affairs better, she thought, than AuntJeanne had done. Romantic visions of herself as his favorite flittedthrough her brain. 

"Why didst thou not send for me sooner to come to thee, Aunt Jeanne, "she said, "that I too might have seen the life in the great stonehouse?"

A sudden flush covered Jeanne's face. Was she never to hear the end oftroublesome questions about the past?

"Wilt thou never have done with it?" she said, half angrily. "Has itnever been said in thy hearing how that my husband would not permit evenmy father to come inside of his house, much less one no nearer thanthou?" And Jeanne eyed Victorine sharply, with a suspicion which waswholly uncalled for. Nobody had ever been bold or cruel enough tosuggest to Victorine any doubts regarding her birth. The girl wasindignant. She had never known before that her grandfather had been thusinsulted. 

"What had grandfather done?" she cried. "Was he not thy husband'sfather, too, being thine? How dared thy husband treat him so?"

Jeanne was silent for a few moments. A latent sense of justice to herdead husband restrained her from assenting to Victorine's words. 

"Nay, " she said; "there are many things thou canst not understand. Thygrandfather never complained. Willan Blaycke treated me most fairlywhile he lived; and if it had not been for the boy, I would have hadthee in the stone house to-day, and had all my rights. "

"Why did the boy hate thee?" asked Victorine. "What is he like?"

"As like to a magpie as one magpie is to another, " said Jeanne, bitterly; "with his fine French cloth of black, and his white ruffles, and his long words in his mouth. Ah, but him I hate! It is to him we oweit all. "

"Dwells he now in the great house alone?" said Victorine. 

"Ay, that he does, --alone with his books, of which he has about as manyas there are leaves on the trees; one could not so much as step or sitfor a book in one's way. I did hear that he has now with him another ofhis own order, and that the two are riding all over the country, marking out the lines anew of all the farms, and writing new bonds whichare so much harder on men than the old ones were. Bah! but he has thesoul of a miser in him, for all his handsome face!"

"Is he then so very handsome, Aunt Jeanne?" said Victorine, eagerly. 

"Ay, ay, child. I'll give him his due for that, evilly as he has treatedme. He is a handsomer man than his father was; and when his father and Iwere married there was not a woman in the provinces that did not say Ihad carried off the handsomest man that ever strode a horse. I'd like tohave had thee see me, too, in that day, child. I was counted as handsomeas he, though thou'dst never think it now. "

"But I would think it!" cried Victorine, hotly and loyally. "What ailsthee, Aunt Jeanne? Did I not hear Father Hennepin himself saying to theeonly yesterday that thou wert comelier to-day than ever? and he saw theemarried, he told me. "

"Tut, tut, child!" replied Jeanne, looking pleased. "None know betterthan the priests how to speak idle words to women. But what was hetelling thee? How came it that he spoke of the time when I was married?"added Jeanne, again suspicious. 

"It was I that asked him, " replied Victorine. "I wish always so muchthat I had been with thee instead of in the convent, dear aunt. Doesthis son of thy husband, this handsome young man who is so like unto amagpie, --does he never in his journeyings come this way?"

"Ay, often, " replied Jeanne. "I know that he must, because a large partof his estate lies beyond the border and joins on to this parish. It wasthat which brought his father here, in the beginning, and there is noother inn save this for miles up and down the border where he can tarry;but it is likely that he will sooner lie out in the fields than sleepunder this roof, because I am here. I had looked to say my mind to himas often as he came; and that it would be a sore thing to him to see hisfather's wife in the bar, I know beyond a doubt. I have often said tomyself what a comfortable spleen I should experience when I mightcourtesy to him and say, 'What would you be pleased to take, sir?' ButI think he is minded to rob me of that pleasure, for it is certain hemust have ridden this way before now. "

"I have a mind to burn a candle to the Virgin, " said Victorine, slowly, "that he may come here. I would like for once to set my eyes on hisface. "

An unwonted earnestness in Victorine's tone and a still more unwontedseriousness in her face arrested Jeanne's attention. 

"What is it to thee to see him or not to see him, eh? What is it thouhast in thy silly head. If thou thinkest thou couldst win him over totake us back to live in his house again, --which is my own house, to besure, if I had my rights, --thy wits are wool-gathering, I can tell theethat, " cried Jeanne. "He has the pride of ten thousand devils in him. There was that in his face when I drove away from the door, --and hestanding with his head uncovered too, --which I tell thee if I had been aman I could have killed him for. He take us back! He! he!" And Jeannelaughed a bitter laugh at the bare idea of the thing. 

"I had not thought of any such thing, Aunt Jeanne, " replied Victorine, still speaking slowly, and still with a dreamy expression on her face, as she leaned out of the window and began idly plucking the blossomsfrom a bough of the big pear-tree, which was now all white with flowersand buzzing with bees. "Dost thou not think the bees steal a littlesweet that ought to go into the fruit?" continued the artful girl, whodid not choose that her aunt should question her any further as to thereason of her desire to see Willan Blaycke. "I remember that once FatherAnselmo at the convent said to me he thought so. There was a vine of thewild grape which ran all over the wall between the cloister and theconvent; and when it was in bloom the air sickened one, and thou couldsthardly go near the wall for the swarming bees that were drinking thehoney from the flowers. And Father Anselmo said one evening that theywere thieves; they stole sweet which ought to go into the grapes. "

This was a clever diversion. It turned Jeanne's thoughts at once awayfrom Willan Blaycke, but it did not save Mademoiselle Victorine from acatechising quite as sharp as she was in danger of on the other subject. 

"And what wert thou doing talking with a priest in the garden at night?"cried Jeanne, fiercely. "Is that the way maidens are trained in aconvent! Shame on thee, Victorine! what hast thou revealed?"

"The Virgin forbid, " answered Victorine, piously, racking her brainsmeanwhile for a ready escape from this dilemma, and trying in her frightto recall precisely what she had just said. "I said not that he told itto me in the garden; it was in the confessional that he said it. I hadconfessed to him the grievous sin of a horrible rage I had been in whenone of the bees had stung me on the lip as I was gathering the cool vineleaves to lay on the good Sister Clarice's forehead, who was ill with afever. "

"Eh, eh!" said Jeanne, relieved; "was that it? I thought it could not bethou wert in the garden in the evening hours, and with a priest. "

"Oh no, " said Victorine, demurely. "It was not permitted to conversewith the priests except in the chapel. " And choking back an amusedlittle laugh she bounded to the ladder-like stairway and climbed up intoher own room. 

"Saints! what an ankle the girl has, to be sure!" thought Jeanne, as shewatched Victorine's shapely legs slowly vanishing up the stair. "Whathas filled her head so full of that upstart Willan, I wonder!"

A thought struck Jeanne; the only wonder was it had never struck herbefore. In her sudden excitement she sprung from her chair, and began towalk rapidly up and down the floor. She pressed her hand to herforehead; she tore open the handkerchief which was crossed on her bosom;her eyes flashed; her cheeks grew red; she breathed quicker. 

"The girl's handsome enough to turn any man's head, and twice as cleveras I ever was, " she thought. 

She sat down in her chair again. The idea which had occurred to her wasover-whelming. She spoke aloud and was unconscious of it. 

"Ah, but that would be a triumph!" she said. "Who knows? who knows?"

"Victorine!" she called; "Victorine!"

"Yes, aunt, " replied Victorine. 

"There's plenty of honey left in the flowers to keep pears sweet afterthe bees are dead, " said Jeanne, mischievously, and went downstairschuckling over her new secret thought. "I'll never let the child knowI've thought of such a thing, " she mused, as she took her accustomedseat in the bar. "I'll bide my time. Strange things have happened, andmay happen again. "

"What a queer speech of Aunt Jeanne's!" thought Victorine at hercasement window. "What a fool I was to have said anything about FatherAnselmo! Poor fellow! I wonder why he doesn't run away from themonastery!"

II. 

 The south wind's secret, when it blows, Oh, what man knows? How did it turn the rose's bud Into a rose? What went before, no garden shows; Only the rose!

 What hour the bitter north wind blows, The south wind knows. Why did it turn the rose's bud Into a rose? Alas, to-day the garden shows A dying rose!

Jeanne had not to wait long. It was only a few days after thisconversation with Victorine, --the big pear-tree was still snowy-whitewith bloom, and the tireless bees still buzzed thick among itsboughs, --when Jeanne, standing in the doorway at sunset, saw two ridersapproaching the inn. At her first glance she recognized Willan Blaycke. Jeanne's mind moved quickly. In the twinkling of an eye she had sprungback into the bar-room, and said to her father, --

"Father, father, be quick! Here comes Willan Blaycke riding; andanother, an old man, with him. Thou must tend the bar; for hand so muchas a glass of gin to that man will I never. I shut myself up till he isgone. "

"Nay, nay, Jeanne, " replied Victor; "I'll turn him from my door. He's toget no lodging under this roof, he nor his, --I promise you that. " AndVictor was bustling angrily to the door. 

This did not suit Mistress Jeanne at all. In great dismay inwardly, butoutwardly with slow and smooth-spoken accents, as if reflectingdiscreetly, she replied, "He might do me great mischief if he wereangered, father. All the moneys go through his hand. I think it is saferto speak him fair. He hath the devil's own temper if he be opposed inthe smallest thing. It has cost him sore enough, I'll be bound, to findhimself here at sundown, and beholden to thee for shelter; it is none ofhis will to come, I know that well enough. Speak him fair, father, speakhim fair; it is a silly fowl that pecks at the hand which holds corn. Iwill hide myself till he is away, though, for I misgive me that I shouldbe like to fly out at him. "

"But, Jeanne--" persisted Victor. But Jeanne was gone. 

"Speak him fair, father; take no note that aught is amiss, " she calledback from the upper stair, from which she was vanishing into herchamber. "I will send Victorine to wait at the supper. He hath neverseen her, and need not to know that she is of our kin at all, "

"Humph!" muttered Victor. "Small doubt to whom the girl is kin, if a manhave eyes in his head. " And he would have argued the point longer withJeanne, but he had no time left, for the riders had already turned intothe courtyard, and were giving their horses in charge to thewhite-headed ostler Benoit. Benoit had served in the Golden Pear for aquarter of a century. He had served Victor Dubois's father in Normandy, had come with his young master to America, and was nominally his servantstill. But if things had gone by their right names at the Golden Pear, old Benoit would not have been called servant for many a year back. Nota secret in that household which Benoit had not shared; not a plot hehad not helped on. At Jeanne's marriage he was the only witness exceptFather Hennepin; and there were some who recollected still with whatextraordinary chuckles of laughter Benoit had walked away from thechapel after that ceremony had been completed. To the young VictorineBenoit had been devoted ever since her coming to the inn. Whenever sheappeared in sight the old man came to gaze on her, and stood lingeringand admiring as long as she remained. 

"Thou art far handsomer than thy mother ever was, " he had said to herone morning soon after her arrival. 

"Oh, didst thou know my mother, then, when she was young?" criedVictorine. "She is not handsome now, though she is newly wed; when shecame to see me in the convent, I thought her very ugly. When didst thouknow her, Benoit?"

Benoit was very red in the face, and began to toss straw vigorously ashe looked away from Victorine and answered: "It was but once that I hadsight of her, when Master Jean brought her here after they were married. Thou dost not favor her in the least. Thou art like Master Jean. "

"And the saints know that that last is the holy truth, whatever therest may be, " thought Benoit, as he bustled about the courtyard. 

"But thy tongue is the tongue of an imbecile, " said Victor, followinghim into the stable. 

"Ay, that it is, sir, " replied Benoit, humbly. "I had like to havebitten it off before I had finished speaking; but no harm came. "

"Not this time, " replied Victor; "but the next thou might not be so welllet off. The girl has a sharper wit than she shows ordinarily. She hathlearned too well the ways of convents. I trust her not wholly, Benoit. Keep thy eyes open, Benoit. We'll not have her go the ways of her motherif it can be helped. " And the worldly and immoral old grandfather turnedon his heel with a wicked laugh. 

Benoit had never seen young Willan Blaycke, but he knew him at his firstglance. 

"The son!" he muttered under his breath, as he saw him alight. "Is he tobe lodged here? I doubt. " And Benoit looked about for Victor, who wasnowhere to be seen. Slowly and with a surly face he came forward totake the horses. 

"What're you about, old man? Wear you shoes of lead? Take our horses, and see you to it they are well rubbed down before they have aught toeat or drink. We have ridden more than ten leagues since the noon, "cried the elder of the two travellers. 

"And ought to have ridden more, " said the younger in an undertone. Itwas, as Jeanne had said, a sore thing to Willan Blaycke to be forced toseek a night's shelter in the Golden Pear. 

"Tut, tut!" said the other, "what odds! It is a whimsey, a weakness ofyours, boy. What's the woman to you?"

Victor Dubois, who had come up now, heard these words, and his swarthycheek was a shade darker. Benoit, who had lingered till he shouldreceive a second order from the master of the inn as to the strangers'horses, exchanged a quick glance with Victor, while he said in arespectful tone, "Two horses, sir, for the night. " The glance said, "Iknow who the man is; shall we keep him?"

"Ay, Benoit, " Victor answered; "see that Jean gives them a good rubbingat once. They have been hard ridden, poor beasts!" While Victor wasspeaking these words his eyes said to Benoit, "Bah! It is even so; butwe dare not do otherwise than treat him fair. "

"Will you be pleased to walk in, gentlemen; and what shall I have thehonor of serving for your supper?" he continued. "We have some youngpigeons, if your worships would like them, fat as partridges, and stilla bottle or two left of our last autumn's cider. "

"By all means, landlord, by all means, let us have them, roasted on aspit, man, --do you hear?--roasted on a spit, and let your cook lard themwell with fat bacon; there is no bird so fat but a larding doth help itfor my eating, " said the elder man, rubbing his hands and laughing moreand more cheerily as his companion looked each moment more and moreglum. 

"No, I'll not go in, " said Willan, as Victor threw open the door intothe bar-room. "It suits me better to sit here under the trees untilsupper is ready. " And he threw himself down at the foot of the greatpear-tree. He feared to see Jeanne sitting in the bar, as she hadthreatened. The ground was showered thick with the soft white petals ofthe blossoms, which were now past their prime. Willan picked up ahandful of them and tossed them idly in the air. As he did so, a showerof others came down on his face, thick, fast; they half blinded him fora moment. He sprung to his feet and looked up. It was like looking intoa snowy cloud. He saw nothing. "Some bird flying through, " he thought, and lay down again. 

 "Ah! luck for the bees, The flowers are in flower; Luck for the bees in spring. Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour; No summer is fair as the spring. Ah! luck for the bees; The honey in flowers Is highest when they are on wing!"

came in a gay Provençal melody from the pear-tree above Willan's head, and another shower of white petals fell on his face. 

"Good God!" said Willan Blaycke, under his breath, "what witchcraft isgoing on here? what girl's voice is that?" And he sprang again to hisfeet. 

The voice died slowly away; the singer was moving farther off, --

 "Ah! woe for the bees, The flowers are dead; No summer is fair as the spring. Ah me, but the honey is thick in the comb; 'Tis a long time now since spring. Ah, woe for the bees That honey is sweet, Is sweeter than anything!"

"Sweeter than anything, --sweeter than anything!" the voice, grown faintnow, repeated this refrain over and over, as the syllables of sound diedaway. 

It was Victorine going very slowly down the staircase from her room intoJeanne's. And it was Victorine who had accidentally brushed thepear-tree boughs as she watered her plants on the roof of the outsidestairway. She did not see Willan lying on the ground underneath, and shedid not think that Willan might be hearing her song; and yet was herhead full of Willan Blaycke as she went down the staircase, and not alittle did she quake at the thought of seeing him below. 

Jeanne had come breathless to her room, crying, "Victorine! Victorine!That son of my husband's of whom we were talking, young Willan Blaycke, is at the door, --he, and an old man with him; and they must perforcestay here all night. Now, it would be a shame I could in no wise bear tostand and serve him at supper. Wilt thou not do it in my stead? thereare but the two. " And the wily Jeanne pretended to be greatlydistressed, as she sank into a chair and went on: "In truth, I do notbelieve I can look on his face at all. I will keep my room till he havegone his way, --the villain, the upstart, that I may thank for all mytrouble! Oh, it brings it all back again, to see his face!" And Jeanneactually brought a tear or two into her wily eyes. 

The no less wily Victorine tossed her head and replied: "Indeed, then, and the waiting on him is no more to my liking than to thine own, AuntJeanne! I did greatly desire to see his face, to see what manner of manhe could be that would turn his father's widow out of her house; but Ithink Benoit may hand the gentleman his wine, not I. " And Victorinesauntered saucily to the window and looked out. 

"A plague on all their tempers!" thought Jeanne, impatiently. Her plansseemed to be thwarted when she least expected it. For a few moments shewas silent, revolving in her mind the wisdom of taking Victorine intoher counsels, and confiding to her the motive she had for wishing her tobe seen by Willan Blaycke. But she dreaded lest this might defeat herobject by making the girl self-conscious. Jeanne was perplexed; and inher perplexity her face took on an expression as if she were grieved. Victorine, who was much dismayed by her aunt's seeming acquiescence inher refusal to serve the supper, exclaimed now, --

"Nay, nay, Aunt Jeanne, do not look grieved. I will indeed go down andserve the supper, if thou takest it so to heart. The man is nothing tome, that I need fear to see him. "

"Thou art a good girl, " replied Jeanne, much relieved, and littledreaming how she had been gulled by Mademoiselle Victorine, --"thou art agood girl, and thou shalt have my lavender-colored paduasoy gown ifthou wilt lay thyself out to see that all is at its best, both in thebedrooms and for the supper. I would have Willan Blaycke perceive thatone may live as well outside of his house as in it. And, Victorine, " sheadded, with an attempt at indifference in her tone, "wear thy white gownthou hadst on last Sunday. It pleased me better than any gown thou hastworn this year, --that, and thy black silk apron with the red lace; theybecome thee. "

So Victorine had arrayed herself in the white gown; it was of linenquaintly woven, with a tiny star thrown up in the pattern, and shonelike damask. The apron was of heavy black silk, trimmed all around withcrimson lace, and crimson lace on the pockets. A crimson rose inVictorine's black hair and crimson ribbons at her throat and on hersleeves completed the toilet. It was ravishing; and nobody knew itbetter than Mademoiselle Victorine herself, who had toiled many an hourin the convent making the crimson lace for the precise purpose oftrimming a black apron with it, if ever she escaped from the convent, and who had chosen out of fifty rose-bushes at the last Parish Fair theone whose blossoms matched her crimson lace. There is a picture still tobe seen of Victorine in this costume; and many a handsome young girl, having copied the costume exactly for a fancy ball, has looked from thepicture to herself and from herself to the picture, and gone to the balldissatisfied, thinking in her heart, --

"After all, I don't look half as well in it as that French girl did. "

As Victorine came leisurely down the stairs, half singing, halfchanting, her little song, Jeanne looked at her in admiration. 

"Well, and if either of the men have an eye for a pretty girl clad inattire that becomes her, they can look at thee, my Victorine. That blackapron will go well with the lavender paduasoy also. "

"That it will, Aunt Jeanne, " answered Victorine, her face glowing withpleasure. "I can never thank thee enough. I did not think ever to havethe paduasoy for my own. "

"All my gowns are for thee, " said Jeanne, in a voice of greattenderness. "I shall presently take to the wearing of black; it bettersuits my years. Thou canst be young; it is enough. I am an old woman. "

Victorine bent over and kissed her aunt, and whispered: "Fie on thee, Aunt Jeanne! The Father Hennepin does not think thee an old woman;neither Pierre Gaspard from the mill. I hear the men when they aretalking under my window of thee. Thou knowest thou mightest wed any dayif thou hadst the mind. "

Jeanne shook her head. "That I have not, then, " she said. "I keep thename of Willan Blaycke for all that of any man hereabouts which can beoffered to me. Thou art the one to wed, not I. But far off be that day, "she added hastily; "thou art young for it yet. "

"Ay, " replied the artful young maiden, "that am I, and I think I will beold before any man make a drudge of me. I like my freedom better. Andnow will I go down and serve thy stepson, --the handsome magpie, thereader of books. " And with a mocking laugh Victorine bounded down thestaircase and went into the kitchen. Her grandfather was running aboutthere in great confusion, from dresser to fireplace, to table, topantry, back and forth, breathless and red in the face. The pigeons weresputtering before the fire, and the odor of the frying bacon filled theplace. 

"Diable! Girl, out of this!" he cried; "this is no place for thee. Go tothine aunt. "

"She did bid me come and serve the supper for the strangers, " repliedVictorine. "She herself will not come down. "

"Go to the devil! Thou shalt not, and it is I that say it, " shoutedVictor; and Victorine, terrified, fled back to Jeanne, and reported hergrandfather's words. 

Poor Jeanne was at her wit's end now. "Why said he that?" she asked. 

"I know not, " replied Victorine, demurely. "He was in one of his greatrages, and I do think that the pigeons are fast burning, by the smell. "

"Bah!" cried Jeanne, in disgust. "Is this a house to live in, where onecannot be let down from one's chamber except in sight of the highway?Run, Victorine! Look over and see if the strangers be in sight. I mustgo down to the kitchen. I would a witch were at hand with a broom or atail of a mare. I'd mount and down the chimney, I warrant me!"

Laughing heartily, Victorine ran to reconnoitre. "There is none insight, " she cried. "Thou canst come down. A man is asleep under thepear-tree, but I think not he is one of them. "

Jeanne ran quickly down the stairs, followed by Victorine, who, as sheentered the kitchen again, took up her position in one corner, and stoodleaning against the wall, tapping her pretty little black slippers withtheir crimson bows impatiently on the floor. Jeanne drew her father toone side, and whispered in his ear. He retorted angrily, in a loudertone. Not a look or tone was lost on Victorine. Presently the old man, shrugging his shoulders, went back to the pigeons, and began to turn thespit, muttering to himself in French. Jeanne had conquered. 

"Thy grandfather is in a rage, " she said to Victorine, "because we mustgive meat and drink to the man who has treated me so ill; that is why hedid not wish thee to serve. But I have persuaded him that it is needfulthat we do all we can to keep Willan Blaycke well disposed to us. Hemight withhold from me all my money if he so chose; and he is rich, andwe are but poor people. We could not find any redress. So do thou takecare and treat him as if thou hadst never heard aught against him fromme. It will lie with thee, child, to see that he goes not away angered;for thy grandfather is in a mood when the saints themselves could nothold his tongue if he have a mind to speak. Keep thou out of his sighttill supper be ready. I stay here till all is done. "

Between the kitchen and the common living-room, which was also thedining-room, was a long dark passage-way, at one end of which was asmall storeroom. Here Victorine took refuge, to wait till her auntshould call her to serve the supper. The window of this storeroom waswide open. The shutter had fallen off the hinges several days before, and Benoit had forgotten to put it up. Victorine seated herself on acider cask close to the window, and leaning her head against the wallbegan to sing again in a low tone. She had a habit of singing at alltimes, and often hardly knew that she sang at all. The Provençal melodywas still running in her head. 

 "Ah! luck for the bees, The flowers are in flower; Luck for the bees in spring. Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour; No summer is fair as the spring. Ah! luck for the bees; The honey in flowers Is highest when they are on wing!"

she sang. Then suddenly breaking off she began singing a wild, sadmelody of another song:--

 "The sad spring rain, It has come at last. The graves lie plain, And the brooks run fast; And drip, drip, drip, Falls the sad spring rain; And tears fall fresh, In the sad spring air, From lovers' eyes, On the graves laid bare. "

It was very dark in the storeroom; it was dark out of doors. The moonhad been up for an hour, but the sky was overcast thick with clouds. Willan Blaycke was still asleep under the pear-tree. His head was only afew feet from the storeroom window. The sound of Victorine's singingreached his ears, but did not at first waken him, only blendedconfusedly with his dreams. In a few seconds, however, he waked, sprangto his feet, and looked about him in bewilderment. Out of the darkness, seemingly within arm's reach, came the low sweet notes, --

 "And drip, drip, drip, Falls the sad spring rain; And tears fall fresh, In the sad spring air, From lovers' eyes, On the graves laid bare. "

Groping his way in the direction from which the voice came, Willanstumbled against the wall of the house, and put his hand on thewindow-sill. "Who sings in here?" he cried, fumbling in the empty space. 

"Holy Mother!" shrieked Victorine, and ran out of the storeroom, lettingthe door shut behind her with all its force. The noise echoed throughthe inn, and waked Willan's friend, who was also taking a nap in one ofthe old leather-cushioned high-backed chairs in the bar-room. Rubbinghis eyes, he came out to look for Willan. He met him on the threshold. 

"Ah!" he said, "where have you been all this time? I have slept in achair, and am vastly rested. "

"The Lord only knows where I have been, " answered Willan, laughing. "Itoo have slept; but a woman with a voice like the voice of a wild birdhas been singing strange melodies in my ear. "

The elder man smiled. "The dreams of young men, " he said, "are wont tohave the sound of women's voices in them. "

"This was no dream, " retorted Willan. "She was so near me I heard thepanting breath with which she cried out and fled when I made a steptowards her. "

"Gentlemen, will it please you to walk in to supper?" said Victor, appearing in the doorway with a clean white apron on, and no trace, inhis smiling and obsequious countenance, of the rage in which he had beena few minutes before. 

A second talk with Jeanne after Victorine had left the kitchen hadproduced a deep impression on Victor's mind. He was now as eager asJeanne herself for the meeting between Victorine and Willan Blaycke. 

The pigeons were not burned, after all. Most savory did they smell, andWillan Blaycke and his friend fell to with a will. 

"Saidst thou not thou hadst some of thy famous pear cider left, landlord?" asked Willan. 

"Ay, sir, my granddaughter has gone to draw it; she will be here in atrice. "

As he spoke the door opened, and Victorine entered, bearing in her lefthand a tray with two curious old blue tankards on it; in her right handa gray stone jug with blue bands at its neck. Both the jug and thetankards had come over from Normandy years ago. Victorine raised hereyes, and looking first at Willan, then at his friend, went immediatelyto the older man, and courtesying gracefully, set her tray down on thetable by his side, and filled the two tankards. The cider was likechampagne; it foamed and sparkled. The old man eyed it keenly. 

"This looks like the cidre mousseux I drank at Littry, " he said, andtaking up his tankard tossed it off at a draught. "Tastes like it, too, by Jove!" he said. "Old man, out of what fruits in this bleak countrydost thou conjure such a drink?"

Victor smiled. Praise of the cider of the Golden Pear went to his heartof hearts. "Monsieur has been in Calvados, " he said. "It is kind of himthen to praise this poor drink of mine, which would be but scornedthere. There is not a warm enough sunshine to ripen our pears here totheir best, and the variety is not the same; but such as they are, Ihave an orchard of twenty trees, and it is by reason of them that theinn has its name. "

Willan was not listening to this conversation. He held his fork, with abit of untasted pigeon on it, uplifted in one hand; with the other hedrummed nervously on the table. His eyes were riveted on Victorine, whostood behind the old man's chair, her soft black eyes glancing quietlyfrom one thing to another on the table to see if all were right. Willan's gaze did not escape the keen eyes of Victorine's grandfather. Chuckling inwardly, he assumed an expression of great anxiety, andcoming closer to Willan's chair said in a deprecating tone, --

"Are not the pigeons done to your liking, sir? You do not eat. "

Willan started, dropped his fork, then hastily took it up again. 

"Yes, yes, " he said, "that they are; done to a turn. " And he fell toeating again. But do what he would, he could not keep his eyes off theface of the girl. If she moved, his gaze followed her about the room, asstraight as a steel follows on after a magnet; and when she stood still, he cast furtive glances that way each minute. In very truth, he mightwell be forgiven for so doing. Not often does it fall to the lot of mento see a more bewitching face than the face of Victorine Dubois. Many awoman might be found fairer and of a nobler cast of feature; but in thecountenance of Victorine Dubois was an unaccountable charm wellnighindependent of feature, of complexion, of all which goes to the ordinarysumming up of a woman's beauty. There was in the glance of her eye asomething, I know not what, which no man living could wholly resist. Itwas at once defiant and alluring, tender and mocking, artless andmischievous. No man could make it out; no man might see it twice alikein the space of an hour. No more was the girl herself twice alike in anhour, or a day, for that matter. She was far more like some frolicsomecreature of the woods than like a mortal woman. The quality of wildnesswhich Willan had felt in her voice was in her nature. Neither hergrandfather nor her mother had in the least comprehended her during thefew months she had lived with them. A certain gentleness of nature, which was far more physical than mental, far more an idle nonchalancethan recognition of relations to others, had blinded them to her realcapriciousness and selfishness. They rarely interfered with her, orobserved her with any discrimination. Their love was content with hersurface of good humor, gayety, and beauty; she was an ever-presentdelight and pride to them both, and that she might only partiallyreciprocate this fondness never crossed their minds. They did notrealize that during all these eighteen years that they had been caring, planning, and plotting for her their names had represented nothing inher mind except unseen, unknown relatives to whom she was indebted forsupport, but to whom she also owed what she hated and rebelledagainst, --her imprisonment in the convent. Why should she love them?Blood tells, however; and when Victorine found herself free, and face toface with the grandfather of whom she had so long heard and only onceseen, and the Aunt Jeanne who had been described to her as the lovingbenefactress of her youth, she had a new and affectionate sentimenttowards them. But she would at any minute have calmly sacrificed themboth for the furtherance of her own interests; and the thoughts she wasthinking while Willan Blaycke gazed at her so ardently this night wereprecisely as follows:--

"If I could only have a good chance at him, I could make him marry me. Isee it in his face. I suppose I'd never see Aunt Jeanne again, orgrandfather; but what of that? I'd play my cards better than Aunt Jeannedid, I know that much. Let me once get to be mistress of that stonehouse--" And the color grew deeper and deeper on Victorine's cheeks inthe excitement of these reflections. 

"Poor girl!" Willan Blaycke was thinking. "I must not gaze at her soconstantly. The color in her cheeks betrays that I distress her. " Andthe honest gentleman tried his best to look away and bear good part inconversation with his friend. It was a doubly good stroke on the part ofthe wily Victorine to take her place behind the elder man's chair. Itlooked like a proper and modest preference on her part for age; and itkept her out of the old man's sight, and in the direct range of Willan'seyes as he conversed with his friend. When she had occasion to handanything to Willan she did so with an apparent shyness which wascaptivating; and the tone of voice in which she spoke to him was low andtimid. 

Old Victor could hardly contain himself. He went back and forth betweenthe dining-room and kitchen far oftener than was necessary, that hemight have the pleasure of saying to Jeanne: "It works! it works! Hedoth gaze the eyes out of his head at her. The girl could not do better. She hath affected the very thing which will snare him the quickest. "

"Oh no, father! Thou mistakest Victorine. She hath no plan of snaringhim; it was with much ado I got her to consent to serve him at all. Itwas but for my sake she did it. "

Victor stared at Jeanne when she said this. "Thou hast not told her, then?" he said. 

"Nay, that would have spoiled all; if the girl herself had it in herhead, he would have seen it. "

Victor walked slowly back into the dining-room, and took further andcloser observations of Mademoiselle Victorine's behavior andexpressions. When he went next to the kitchen he clapped Jeanne on theshoulder, and said with a laugh: "'Tis a wise mother knows her ownchild. If that girl in yonder be not bent on turning the head of WillanBlaycke before she sleeps to-night, may the devil fly away with me!"

"Well, likely he may, if thou prove not too heavy a load, " retorted thefilial Jeanne. "I tell thee the girl's heart is full of anger againstWillan Blaycke. She is but doing my bidding. I charged her to see to itthat he was pleased, that he should go away our friend. "

"And so he will go, " replied Victor, dryly; "but not for thy bidding ormine. The man is that far pleased already that he shifteth as if thevery chair were hot beneath him. A most dutiful niece thou hast, Mistress Jeanne!"

When supper was over Willan Blaycke walked hastily out of the house. Hewanted to be alone. The clouds had broken away, and the full moon shoneout gloriously. The great pear-tree looked like a tree wrapped in cloud, its blossoms were so thick and white. Willan paced back and forthbeneath it, where he had lain sleeping before supper. He looked towardthe window from whence he had heard the singing voice. "It must havebeen she, " he said. "How shall I bring it to pass to see her again? forthat I will and must. " He went to the window and looked in. All wasdark. As he turned away the door at the farther end opened, and a ray oflight flashing in from the hall beyond showed Victorine bearing in herhand the jug of cider. She had made this excuse to go to the storeroomagain, having observed that Willan had left the house. 

"He might seek me again there, " thought she. 

Willan heard the sound, turned back, and bounding to the windowexclaimed, "Was it thou who sang?"

Victorine affected not to hear. Setting down her jug, she came close tothe window and said respectfully: "Didst thou call? What can I fetch, sir?"

Willan Blaycke leaned both his arms on the window-sill, and looking intothe eyes of Victorine Dubois replied: "Marry, girl, thou hast alreadyfetched me to such a pass that thy voice rings in my ears. I asked theeif it were thou who sang?"

Retreating from the window a step or two, Victorine said sorrowfully: "Idid not think that thou hadst the face of one who would jest lightlywith maidens. " And she made as if she would go away. 

"Pardon, pardon!" cried Willan. "I am not jesting; I implore thee, thinkit not. I did sleep under this tree before supper, and heard suchsinging! I had thought it a bird over my head except that the song hadwords. I know it was thou. Be not angry. Why shouldst thou? Where didstthou learn those wild songs?"

"From Sister Clarice, in the convent, " answered Victorine. "It is onlylast Easter that my grandfather fetched me from the convent to live withhim and my aunt Jeanne. "

"Thy aunt Jeanne, " said Willan, slowly. "Is she thy aunt?"

"Yes, " said Victorine, sadly; "she that was thy father's wife, whom thouwilt not have in thy house. "

This was a bold stroke on Victorine's part. To tell truth, she had hadno idea one moment before of saying any such thing; but a sudden emotionof resentment got the better of her, and the words were uttered beforeshe knew it. 

Willan was angry. "All alike, " he thought to himself, --"a bad lot. Idare say the woman has set the girl here for nothing else than to try toplay on my feelings. " And it was in a very cold tone that he replied toVictorine, --

"Thou art not able to judge of such matters at thy age. Thy aunt isbetter here than there. Thou knowest, " he added in a gentler tone, seeing Victorine's great black eyes swimming in sudden tears, "that shewas never as mother to me. I had never seen her till I returned a mangrown. "

Victorine was sobbing now. "Oh, " she cried, "what ill luck is mine! Ihave angered thee; and my aunt did especially charge me that I was totreat thee well. She doth never speak an ill word of thee, sir, never!Do not thou charge my hasty words to her. " And Victorine leaned out ofthe window, and looked up in Willan Blaycke's face with a look which shehad had good reason to know was well calculated to move a man's heart. 

Willan Blaycke had led a singularly pure life. He was of a reticent andpartly phlegmatic nature; though he looked so like his father, heresembled him little in temperament. This calmness of nature, added to adeep-seated pride, had stood him in stead of firmly rooted principles ofvirtue, and had carried him safe through all the temptations of hisunprotected and lonely youth. He had the air and bearing, and had had inmost things the experience, of a man of the world; and yet he was asignorant of the wily ways of a wily woman as if he had never been out ofthe wilderness. Victorine's tears smote on him poignantly. 

"Thou poor child!" he said most kindly, "do not weep. Thou hast done noharm. I bear no ill will to thine aunt, and never did; and if I had, thou wouldst have disarmed it. This inn seems to me no place for a youngmaiden like thee. "

Victorine glanced cautiously around her, and whispered: "It wereungrateful in me to say as much; but oh, sir, if thou didst but know howI wish myself back in the convent! I like not the ways of this place;and I fear so much the men who are often here. When thou didst speak atfirst I did think thou wert like them; but now I perceive that thou artquite different. Thou seemest to me like the men of whom Sister Claricedid tell me. " Victorine stopped, called up a blush to her cheeks, andsaid: "But I must not stay talking with thee. My aunt will be lookingfor me. "

"Stay, " said Willan. "What did the Sister Clarice tell thee of men? Ithought not that nuns conversed on such matters. "

"Oh!" replied Victorine, innocently, "it was different with the SisterClarice. She was a noble lady who had been betrothed, and her betrotheddied; and it was because there were none left so noble and so good ashe, she said, that she had taken the veil and would die in the convent. She did talk to me whole nights about this young lord whom she was tohave wed, and she did think often that she saw his face look downthrough the roof of the cell. "

Clever Victorine! She had invented this tale on the spur of the instant. She could not have done better if she had plotted long to devise amethod of flattering Willan Blaycke. It is strange how like inspirationare the impulses of artful women at times. It would seem wellnighcertain that they must be prompted by malicious fiends wishing to luremen on to destruction in the surest way. 

Victorine had talked with Willan perhaps five minutes. In that space oftime she had persuaded him of four things, all false, --that she was aninnocent, guileless girl; that she had been seized with a sudden andreverential admiration for him; that she had no greater desire in lifethan to be back again in the safe shelter of the convent; and that heraunt Jeanne had never said an ill-word of him. 

"Victorine! Victorine!" called a sharp loud voice, --the voice ofJeanne, --who would have bitten her tongue out rather than have brokenin on this interview, if she had only known. "Victorine, where art thouloitering?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, sir, do not thou tell my grandfather that I havetalked with thee!" cried Victorine, in feigned terror. "Here I am, aunt;I will be there in one second, " she cried aloud, and ran hastily downthe storeroom. At the door she stopped, hesitated, turned back, andgoing towards the window said wistfully: "Thou hast never been herebefore all these three months. I suppose thou travellest this way veryseldom. "

The full moon shone on Victorine's face as she said this. Her expressionwas like that of a wistful little child. Willan Blaycke did not quiteknow what he was doing. He reached his hand across the window-silltowards Victorine; she did not extend hers. "I will come again sooner, "he said. "Wilt thou not shake hands?"

Victorine advanced, hesitated, advanced again; it was inimitably done. "The next time, if I know thee better, I might dare, " she whispered, andfled like a deer. 

"Where hast thou been?" said Jeanne, angrily. "The supper dishes areyet all to wash. "

Victorine danced gayly around the kitchen floor. "Talking with the sonof thy husband, " she said. "He seems to me much cleverer than a magpie. "

Jeanne burst out laughing. "Thou witch!" she said, secretly wellpleased. "But where didst thou fall upon him? Thou hast not been in thebar-room?"

"Nay, he fell upon me, the rather, " replied Victorine, artlessly, "as Iwas resting me at the window of the long storeroom. He heard me singing, and came there. "

"Did he praise thy voice?" asked Jeanne. "He is a brave singer himself. "

"Is he?" said Victorine, eagerly. "He did not tell me that. He said myvoice was like the voice of a wild bird. And there be birds and birdsagain, I was minded to tell him, and not all birds make music; but heseemed to me not one to take jests readily. "

"So, " said Jeanne; "that he is not. Leaves he early in the morning?"

"I think so, " replied Victorine. "He did not tell me, but I heard theelder man say to Benoit to have the horses ready at earliest light. "

"Thou must serve them again in the morning, " said Jeanne. "It will bebut the once more. "

"Nay, " answered Victorine, "I will not. "

Something in the girl's tone arrested her aunt's attention. "And why?"she said sharply, looking scrutinizingly at her. 

Victorine returned the gaze with one as steady. It was as well, shethought, that there should be an understanding between her aunt andherself soon as late. 

"Because he will come again the sooner, Aunt Jeanne, if he sees me nomore after to-night. " And Victorine gave a little mocking nod with herhead, turned towards the dresser piled high with dishes, and began tomake a great clatter washing them. 

Jeanne was silent. She did not know how to take this. 

Victorine glanced up at her mischievously, and laughed aloud. "Better agrape for me than two figs for thee. Dost know the old proverb, AuntJeanne? Thou hadst thy figs; I will e'en pluck the grape. "

"Bah, child! thou talkest wildly, " said Jeanne; "I know not what thou'rt at. "

But she did know very well; only she did not choose to seem tounderstand. However, as she thought matters over later in the evening, in the solitude of her own room, one thing was clear to her, and thatwas that it would probably be safe to trust Mademoiselle Victorine torow her own boat; and Jeanne said as much to her father when he inquiredof her how matters had sped. 

In spite of Victorine's refusal to serve at the breakfast, she had notthe least idea of letting Willan go away in the morning without beingreminded of her presence. She was up before light, dressed in a prettypink and white flowered gown, which set off her black hair and eyeswell, and made her look as if she were related to an apple-blossom. Shewatched and listened till she heard the sound of voices and the horses'feet in the courtyard below; then throwing open her casement she leanedout and began to water her flowers on the stairway roof. At the firstsound Willan Blaycke looked up and saw her. It was as pretty a pictureas a man need wish to see, and Willan gazed his fill at it. The windowwas so high up in the air that the girl might well be supposed not tosee anything which was going on in the courtyard; indeed, she never oncelooked that way, but went on daintily watering plant after plant, picking off dead leaves, crumpling them up in her fingers and throwingthem down as if she were alone in the place; singing, too, softly in alow tone snatches of a song, the words of which went floating awaytantalizingly over Willan's head, in spite of all his efforts to hear. 

It was a great tribute to Victorine's powers as an actress that it neveronce crossed Willan's mind that she could possibly know he was lookingat her all this time. It was equally a token of another man's estimateof her, that when old Benoit, hearing the singing, looked up and saw herwatering her flowers at this unexampled hour, he said under his breath, "Diable!" and then glancing at the face of Willan, who stood gazing upat the window utterly unconscious of the old ostler's presence, said"Diable!" again, but this time with a broad and amused smile. 

III. 

 The fountain leaps as if its nearest goal Were sky, and shines as if its life were light. No crystal prism flashes on our sight Such radiant splendor of the rainbow's whole Of color. Who would dream the fountain stole Its tints, and if the sun no more were bright Would instant fade to its own pallid white? Who dream that never higher than the dole Of its own source, its stream may rise? Thus we See often hearts of men that by love's glow Are sudden lighted, lifted till they show All semblances of true nobility; The passion spent, they tire of purity, And sink again to their own levels low!

The next time Willan Blaycke came to the Golden Pear he did not seeVictorine. This was by no device of hers, though if she had consideredbeforehand she could not better have helped on the impression she hadmade on him than by letting him go away disappointed, having come hopingto see her. She was away on a visit at the home of Pierre Gaspard themiller, whose eldest daughter Annette was Victorine's one friend in theparish. There was an eldest son, also, Pierre second, on whomMademoiselle Victorine had cast observant glances, and had alreadythought to herself that "if nothing else turned up--but there was timeenough yet. " Not so thought Pierre, who was madly in love withVictorine, and was so put about by her cold and capricious ways with himthat he was fast coming to be good for nothing in the mill or on thefarm. But he is of no consequence in this account of the career ofMademoiselle, only this, --that if it had not been for him she had notprobably been away from the Golden Pear on the occasion of WillanBlaycke's second visit. Pierre had not shown himself at the inn for someweeks, and Victorine was uneasy about him. Spite of her plans about amuch finer bird in the bush, she was by no means minded to lose the birdshe had in hand. She was too clear-sighted a young lady not to perceivethat it would be no bad thing to be ultimately Mistress Gaspard of themill, --no bad thing if she could not do better, of which she was as yetfar from sure. So she had inveigled her aunt into taking the notion intoher head that she needed change, and the two had ridden over toGaspard's for a three days' visit, the very day before Willan arrived. 

"I warrant me he was set aback when I did tell him as he alighted that Ifeared me he would not be well served just at present, as there was nowoman about the house, " said Victor, chuckling as he told Jeanne thestory. "He did give a little start, --not so little but that I saw itwell, though he fetched himself up with his pride in a trice, and saidloftily: 'I have no doubt all will be sufficient; it is but a bite ofsupper and a bed that I require. I must go on at daybreak, ' But Benoitsaw him all the evening pacing back and forth under the pear-tree, andmany times looking up at the shut casement of the window where he hadseen Victorine standing on the morning when he was last here. "

"Did he ask aught about her?" said Jeanne. 

"Bah!" said Victor, contemptuously. "Dost take him for a fool? He willbe farther gone than he is yet, ere he will let either thee or me seethat the girl is aught to him. "

"I wish he had found her here, " said Jeanne. "It was an ill bit of luckthat took her away; and that Pierre, he is like to go mad about her, since these three days under one roof. I knew not he was so daft, or Ihad not taken her there. "

"She were well wed to Pierre Gaspard, " said Victor; "mated with one'sown degree is best mated, after all. What shall we say if the lad comeasking her hand? He will not ask twice, I can tell you that of aGaspard. "

"Trust the girl to keep him from asking till she be ready to say him yeaor nay, " replied Jeanne. "I know not wherever the child hath learnt suchways with men; surely in the convent she saw none but priests. "

"And are not priests men?" sneered Victor, with an evil laugh. "Faith, and I think there is nought which other men teach which they do notteach better!"

"Fie, father! thou shouldst not speak ill of the clergy; it is badluck, " said Jeanne. Jeanne was far honester of nature than either herfather or her child; she was not entirely without reverence, and as faras she could, without too much inconvenience, kept good faith with herreligion. 

When Victorine heard that Willan Blaycke had been at the inn in theirabsence, she shrugged her pretty shoulders, and said, laughingly, "Eh, but that is good!"

"Why sayest thou so?" replied Jeanne. "I say it is ill. "

"And I say it is good, " retorted Victorine; and not another word couldJeanne get out of her on the matter. 

Victorine was right. As Willan Blaycke rode away from the Golden Pear, he was so vexed with the unexpected disappointment that he was in a moodfit to do some desperate thing. He had tried with all his might to putVictorine's face and voice and sweet little form out of his thoughts, but it was beyond his power. She haunted him by day and by night, --worseby night than by day, --for he dreamed continually of standing just theother side of a window-sill across which Victorine reached snowy littlehands and laid them in his, and just as he was about to grasp them thevision faded, and he waked up to find himself alone. Willan Blaycke hadnever loved any woman. If he had, --if he had had even the leastexperience in the way of passionate fancies, he could have rated thisimpression which Victorine had produced on him for what it was worth andno more, and taking counsel of his pride have waited till the discomfortof it should have passed away. But he knew no better than to supposethat because it was so keen, so haunting, it must last forever. He wasalmost appalled at the condition in which he found himself. It more thanequalled all the descriptions which he had read of unquenchable love. Hecould not eat; he could not occupy himself with any affairs: allbusiness was tedious to him, and all society irksome. He lay awake longhours, seeing the arch black eyes and rosy cheeks and piquant littlemouth; worn out by restlessness, he slept, only to see the eyes andcheeks and mouth more vividly. It was all to no purpose that he reasonedwith himself, --that he asked himself sternly a hundred times a day, --

"Wilt thou take the granddaughter of Victor Dubois to be the mother ofthy children? Is it not enough that thy father disgraced his name forthat blood? Wilt thou do likewise?"

The only answer which came to all these questions was Victorine's softwhisper: "Oh, if thou didst but know, sir, how I wish myself safe backin the convent!" and, "Thou seemest to me like the men of whom SisterClarice did tell me. "

"Poor little girl!" he said; "she is of their blood, but not of theirsort. Her mother was doubtless a good and pure woman, even though shehad not good birth or breeding; and this child hath had good trainingfrom the Sisters in the convent. She is of a most ladylike bearing, andhas a fine sense of all which is proper and becoming, else would she notso dislike the ways of an inn, and have such fear of the men that gazeon her there. "

So touching is the blindness of those blinded by love! It is enough tomake one weep sometimes to see it, --to see, as in this instance ofWillan Blaycke, an upright, modest, and honest gentleman creating out ofthe very virtues of his own nature the being whom he will worship, andthen clothing this ideal with a bit of common clay, of immodest andill-behaved flesh, which he hath found ready-made to his hand, and fullof the snare of good looks. 

When Willan Blaycke rode away this time from the Golden Pear, he was, aswe say, in a mood ready to do some desperate thing, he was so vexed anddisappointed. What he did do, proved it; he turned his horse and rodestraight for Gaspard's mill. The artful Benoit had innocently droppedthe remark, as he was holding the stirrup for Willan to mount, thatMistress Jeanne and her niece were at Pierre Gaspard's; that for hispart he wished them back, --there was no luck about a house without awoman in it. 

Willan Blaycke made some indifferent reply, as if all that were nothingto him, and galloped off. But before he had gone five miles Benoit'sleaven worked, and he turned into a short-cut lane he knew which led tothe mill. He did not stop to ask himself what he should do there; hesimply galloped on towards Victorine. It was only a couple of leagues tothe mill, and its old tower and wheel were in sight before he thought ofits being near. Then he began to consider what errand he could make;none occurred to him. He reined his horse up to a slow walk, and fellinto a reverie, --so deep a one that he did not see what he might haveseen had he looked attentively into a copse of poplars on a high bankclose to his road, --two young girls sitting on the ground peelingslender willow stems for baskets. It was Annette Gaspard and Victorine;and at the sound of a horse's feet they both leaned forward and lookeddown into the road. 

"Oh, see, Victorine!" Annette cried; "a brave rider goes there. Who canhe be? I wonder if he goes to the mill? Perhaps my father will keep himto dinner. "

At the first glance Victorine recognized Willan Blaycke, but she gave nosign to her friend that she knew him. 

"He sitteth his horse like one asleep, " she said, "or in a dream. I callhim not a brave rider. He hath forgotten something, " she added; "see, heis turning about!" And with keen disappointment the girls saw thehorseman wheel suddenly, and gallop back on the road he had come. At thelast moment, by a mighty effort, Willan had wrenched his will to thedecision that he would not seek Victorine at the mill. 

And this was why, when her aunt told her that he had been at the innduring their absence, Victorine shrugged her shoulders, and said with sopleased a laugh, "Eh! that is good. " She understood by a lightningintuition all which had happened, --that he had ridden towards the millseeking her, and had changed his mind at the last, and gone away. Butshe kept her own counsel, told nobody that she had seen him, and said inher mischievous heart, "He will be back before long. "

And so he was; but not even Victorine, with all her confidence in thestrength of the hold she had so suddenly acquired on him, could haveimagined how soon and with what purpose he would return. On the eveningof the sixth day, just at sunset, he appeared, walking with hissaddle-bags on his shoulders and leading his horse. The beast limpedbadly, and had evidently got a sore hurt. Old Benoit was standing in thearched entrance of the courtyard as they approached. 

"Marry, but that beast is in a bad way!" he exclaimed, and went to meetthem. Benoit loved a horse; and Willan Blaycke's black stallion was ahorse to which any man's heart might well go out, so knowing, docile, proud, and swift was the creature, and withal most beautifully made. Thepoor thing went haltingly enough now, and every few minutes stopped andlooked around piteously into his master's face. 

"And the man doth look as distressed as the beast, " thought Benoit, ashe drew near; "it is a good man that so loves an animal. " And Benoitwarmed toward Willan as he saw his anxious face. 

If Benoit had only known! No wonder Willan's face was sorrow-stricken!It was he himself that had purposely lamed the stallion, that he mighthave plain and reasonable excuse for staying at the Golden Pear somedays. He had not meant to hurt the poor creature so much, and hisconscience pricked him horribly at every step the horse took. He pattedhim on his neck, spoke kindly to him, and did all in his power to atonefor his cruelty. That all was very little, however, for each step wastorture to the beast; his fore feet were nearly bleeding. This was whatWillan had done: the day before he had taken off two of the horse'sshoes, and then galloped fast over miles of rough and stony road. Thehorse had borne himself gallantly, and shown no fatigue till nightfall, when he suddenly went lame, and had grown worse in the night, so thatWillan had come very near having to lie by at an inn some leagues to thenorth, where he had no mind to stay. A heavy price he was paying for thedelight of looking on Victorine's face, he began to think, as he toiledalong on foot, mile after mile, the saddle-bags on his shoulders, andthe hot sun beating down on his head; but reach the Golden Pear that dayhe would, and he did, --almost as footsore as the stallion. Neithermaster nor beast was wonted to rough ways. 

"My horse is sadly lame, " Willan said to Benoit as he came up. "He casttwo shoes yesterday, and I was forced to ride on, spite of it, for therewas no blacksmith on the road I came. I fear me thou canst not shoe himto-night, his feet have grown so sore!"

"No, nor to-morrow nor the day after, " cried Benoit, taking up theinflamed feet and looking at them closely. "It was a sin, sir, to ridesuch a creature unshod; he is a noble steed. "

"Nay, I have not ridden a step to-day, " answered Willan, "and I amwellnigh as sore as he. We have come all the way from the northboundary, --a matter of some six leagues, I think, --from the inn of JeanGauvois. "

"But he is a farrier himself!" cried Benoit. "How let he the beast goout like this?"

"It was I forbade him to touch the horse, " replied the wily Willan. "Hedid lame a good mare for me once, driving a nail into the quick. Ithought the horse would be better to walk this far and get thy moreskilful handling. There is not a man in this country, they tell me, canshoe a horse so well as thou. Dost thou not know some secret ofhealing, " he continued, "by which thou canst harden the feet, so thatthey will be fit to shoe to-morrow?"

Benoit shook his head. "Thy horse hath been too tenderly reared, " hesaid. "A hurt goes harder with him than with our horses. But I will domy best, sir. I doubt not it will inconvenience thee much to wait heretill he be well. If thou couldst content thee with a beast sorry to lookat, but like the wind to go, we have a nag would carry thee along, andthou couldst leave the stallion till thy return. "

"But I come not back this way, " replied Willan, strangely ready with hislies, now he had once undertaken the rôle of a manoeuvrer. "I go farsouth, even down to the harbors of the sound. I must bide the beast'stime now. He hath made time for me many a day, and I do assure you, goodBenoit, I love him as if he were my brother. "

"Ay, " replied the ostler; "so thought I when I saw thee bent under thysaddle-bags and leading the horse by the rein. It's an evil man likesnot his beast. We say in Normandy, sir, --

 "'Evil master to good beast, Serve him ill at every feast!'"

"So he deserves, " replied Willan, heartily; and in his heart he added, "I hope I shall not get my deserts. "

Benoit led the poor horse away toward the stables, and Willan enteredthe house. No one was to be seen. Benoit had forgotten to tell him thatno one was at home except Victorine. It was a market-day at St. Urban's;and Victor and Jeanne had gone for the day, and would not be back tilllate in the evening. 

Willan roamed on from room to room, --through the bar-room, theliving-room, the kitchen; all were empty, silent. As he retraced hissteps he stopped for a second at the foot of the stairs which led fromthe living-room to the narrow passage-way overhead. 

Victorine was in her aunt's room, and heard the steps. "Who is there?"she called. Willan recognized her voice; he considered a second what heshould reply. 

"Benoit! is it thou?" Victorine called again impatiently; and the nextminute she bounded down the stairway, crying, "Why dost thou terrify meso, thou bad Benoit, not answering me when I--" She stopped, face toface with Willan Blaycke, and gave a cry of honest surprise. 

"Ah! but is it really thou?" she said, the rosy color mounting all overher face as she recollected how she was attired. She had been asleepall the warm afternoon, and had on only a white petticoat and a shortgown of figured stuff, red and white. Her hair was falling over hershoulders. Willan's heart gave a bound as he looked at her. Before hehad fairly seen her, she had turned to fly. 

"Yes, it is I, --it is I, " he called after her. "Wilt thou not comeback?"

"Nay, " answered Victorine, from the upper stair; "that I may not do, forthe house is alone. " Victorine was herself now, and was wise enough notto go quite out of sight. She looked entrancing between the dark woodenbalustrades, one slender hand holding to them, and the other catching uppart of her hair. "When my aunt returns, if she bids me to wait atsupper I shall see thee. " And Victorine was gone. 

"Then sing for me at thy window, " entreated Willan. 

"I know not the whole of any song, " cried Victorine; but broke, as shesaid it, into a snatch of a carol which seemed to the poor infatuatedman at the foot of the stairway like the song of an angel. He hurriedout, and threw himself down under the pear-tree where he had lainbefore. The blossoms had all fallen from the pear-tree now, and throughthe thinned branches he could see Victorine's window distinctly. Shecould see him also. 

"It would be no hard thing to love such a man as he, methinks, " she saidto herself as she went on leisurely weaving the thick braids of herhair, and humming a song just low enough for Willan to half hear andhalf lose the words. 

 "Once in a hedge a bird went singing, Singing because there was nobody near. Close to the hedge a voice came crying, 'Sing it again! I am waiting to hear. Sing it forever! 'T is sweet to hear. '

 "Never again that bird went singing Till it was surer that no one was near. Long in that hedge there was somebody waiting, Crying in vain, 'I am waiting to hear. Sing it again! It was sweet to hear. '"

"I wonder if Sister Clarice's lover had asked her to sing, as WillanBlaycke just now asked me, that she did make this song, " thoughtVictorine. "It hath a marvellous fitness, surely. " And she repeated thelast three lines. 

 "Long in that hedge there was somebody waiting, Crying in vain, 'I am waiting to hear. Sing it again! It was sweet to hear. '"

"But I should be silent like the bird, and not sing, " she reflected, andpaused for a while. Willan listened patiently for a few moments. Thengrowing impatient, he picked up a handful of turf and flung it up at thewindow. Victorine laughed to herself as she heard it, but did not sing. Another soft thud against the casement; no reply from Victorine. Then ina moment more, in a rich deep voice, and a tune far sweeter than anyVictorine had sung, came these words:--

 "Faint and weary toiled a pilgrim, Faint and weary of his load; Sudden came a sweet bird winging Glad and swift across his road. 

 "'Blessed songster!' cried the pilgrim, 'Where is now the load I bore? I forget it in thy singing; Hearing thee, I faint no more, '

 "While he spoke the bird went winging Higher still, and soared away; 'Cruel songster!' cried the pilgrim, 'Cruel songster not to stay!'

 "Was the songster cruel? Never! High above some other road Glad and swift he still was singing, Lightening other pilgrims' load!"

Victorine bent her head and listened intently to this song. It touchedthe best side of her nature. 

"Indeed, that is a good song, " she said to herself, "but it fitteth notmy singing. I make choice for whom I sing; I am not minded so to givepleasure to all the world. "

She racked her brains to recall some song which would be as pertinent areply to Willan's song as his had been to hers; but she could think ofnone. She was vexed; for the romance of this conversing by means ofsongs pleased her mightily. At last, half in earnest and half in fun, she struck boldly into a measure on which she would hardly have venturedcould she have seen the serious and tender expression on the face of herlistener under the pear-tree. As Willan caught line after line of therollicking measure, his countenance changed. 

"An elfish mood is upon her, " he thought. "She doth hold herself so safein her chamber that she may venture on words she had not sung nearer athand. She is not without mischief in her blood, no doubt. " And Willan'sown look began to grow less reverential and more eager as he listened. 

 "The bee is a fool in the summer; He knows it when summer is flown: He might, for all good of his honey, As well have let flowers alone. 

 "The butterfly, he is the wiser; He uses his wings when they 're grown; He takes his delight in the summer, And dies when the summer is done. 

 "A heart is a weight in the bosom; A heart can be heavy as stone: Oh, what is the use of a lover? A maiden is better alone. "

Victorine was a little frightened herself, as she sang this last stanza. However, she said to herself: "I will bear me so discreetly at supperthat the man shall doubt his very ears if he have ever heard me singsuch words or not. It is well to perplex a man. The more he beperplexed, the more he meditateth on thee; and the more he meditateth onthee, the more his desire will grow, if it have once taken root. "

A very wise young lady in her generation was this graduate of a conventwhere no men save priests ever came!

Just as Victorine had sung the last verse of her song, she heard thesound of wheels and voices on the road. Victor and Jeanne were cominghome. Willan heard the sounds also, and slowly arose from the ground andsauntered into the courtyard. He had an instinct that it would be betternot to be seen under the pear-tree. 

Great was the satisfaction of Victor and Jeanne when they found thatWillan Blaycke was a guest in the inn; still greater when they learnedthat he would be kept there for at least two days by the lameness of hishorse. 

"Thou need'st not make great haste with the healing of the beast, " saidVictor to Benoit; "it might be a good turn to keep the man here for aspace. " And the master exchanged one significant glance with his man, and saw that he need say no more. 

There was no such specific understanding between Jeanne and Victorine. From some perverse and roguish impulse the girl chose to take no counselin this game she had begun to play; but each woman knew that the othercomprehended the situation perfectly. 

When Victorine came into the dining-room to serve Willan Blaycke'ssupper, she looked, to his eyes, prettier than ever. She wore the samewhite gown and black silk apron with crimson lace she had worn before. Her cheeks and her eyes were bright from the excitement of theserenading and counter-serenading in which she had been engaged. Herwhole bearing was an inimitable blending of shyness and archness, tempered by almost reverential respect. Willan Blaycke would have beeneither more or less than mortal man if he had resisted it. He didnot, --he succumbed then and there and utterly to his love for Victorine;and the next morning when breakfast was ready he electrified VictorDubois by saying, with a not wholly successful attempt at jocularity, --

"Look you! your man tells me I am like to be kept here a matter of somethree days or more, before my horse be fit to bear me. Now, it irks meto be the cause of so much trouble, seeing that I am the only travellerin the house. I pray you that I may sit down with you all at meal-times, as is your wont, and that you make no change in the manner of yourliving by reason of my being in the house. I shall be better pleasedso. "

There was about as much command as request in Willan's manner; and aftersome pretended hesitancy Victor yielded, only saying, by way ofbreaking down the last barrier, --

"My daughter hath desired not to see thee. I know not how she may takethis request of thine; it seemeth but reasonable unto me, and it will bethat saving of work for her. I think she may consent. "

Nothing but her love for Victorine would have induced Jeanne to sitagain at meat with her stepson, but for Victorine's sake Jeanne wouldhave done much harder things; and indeed, after the first few moments ofawkwardness had passed by, she found that she was much lessuncomfortable in Willan's presence than she had anticipated. 

Willan's own manner did much to bring this about. He was so deeply inlove with Victorine that it had already transformed his sentiments onmost points, and on none more than in regard to Jeanne. He thought nobetter of her character than he had thought before; but he found himselffrequently recollecting, as he had never done before, or at least hadnever done in a kindly way, that, after all, she had been his father'swife for ten years, and it would perhaps have been a more dignifiedthing in him to have attempted to make her continue in a style of livingsuitable to his father's name than to have relegated her, as he haddone, to her original and lower social station. 

Jeanne's behavior towards him was very judicious. Affection is the bestteacher of tact in many an emergency in life; we see it every day amongignorant and untaught people. 

Jeanne knew, or felt without knowing, that the less she appeared to beconscious of anything unusual or unpleasant in this resumption offamiliar relations on the surface, between herself and Willan, the morefree his mind would be to occupy itself with Victorine; and she actedaccordingly. She never obtruded herself on his attention; she neverbetrayed any antagonism toward him, or any recollection of the formerand different footing on which they had lived. A stranger sitting at thetable would not have dreamed, from anything in her manner to him, thatshe had ever occupied any other position than that of the landlord'sdaughter and landlady of the inn. 

A clear-sighted observer looking on at affairs in the Golden Pear forthe next three days would have seen that all the energies of both Victorand Jeanne were bent to one end, --namely, leaving the coast clear forWillan Blaycke to fall in love with Victorine. But all that Willanthought was that Victor and his daughter were far quieter and modesterpeople than he had supposed, and seemed disposed to keep themselves tothemselves in a most proper fashion. It never crossed his mind thatthere was anything odd in his finding Victorine so often and so longalone in the living-room; in the uniform disappearance of both Victorand Jeanne at an early hour in the evening. Willan was too much in loveto wonder at or disapprove of anything which gave him an opportunity oftalking with Victorine, or, still better, of looking at her. 

What he liked best was silently to watch her as she moved about, doingher light duties in her own graceful way. He was not a voluble lover; hewas still too much bewildered at his own condition. Moreover, he had notyet shaken himself free from the tormenting disapproval of hisconscience; he lost sight of that very fast, however, as the days spedon. Victorine played her cards most admirably. She did not betray evenby a look that she understood that he loved her; she showed towards himan open and honest admiration, and an eager interest in all that he saidor did, --an almost affectionate good-will, too, in serving his everywant, and trying to make the time of his detention pass pleasantly tohim. 

"It must be a sore trial, sir, for thee to be kept in a poor place likethis so many days. Benoit says that he thinks not thy horse can gosafely for yet some days, " she said to Willan one morning. "Would itamuse thee to ride over to Pierre Gaspard's mill to-day? If thou couldstabide the gait of my grandfather's nag, I might go on my pony, and showthee the way. The river is high now, and it is a fair sight to see thewhite blossoms along the banks. "

Cunning Victorine! She had all sorts of motives in this proposition. Shethought it would be well to show Willan Blaycke to Pierre. "He maydiscover that there are other men beside himself in the world, " shemused; and, "It would please me much to go riding up to the door forAnnette to see with the same brave rider she did so admire;" and, "Thereare many ways to bring a man near one in riding through the woods. " Allthese and many more similar musings lay hid behind the innocent look shelifted to Willan's face as she suggested the ride. 

It was only the third morning of Willan's stay at the inn; but the timehad been put to very good use. Already it had become natural to him tocome and go with Victorine, --to stay where she was, to seek her if shewere missing. Already he had learned the way up the outside staircase tothe platform where she kept her flowers and sometimes sat. He was livingin a dream, --going the way of all men, head-long, blindfold, into a lifeof which he knew and could know nothing. 

"Indeed, and that is what I should like best of all things, " he repliedto Victorine. "Will thy aunt let thee go?"

"Why not?" asked Victorine, opening her eyes wide in astonishment. "Iride all over the parish on my pony alone. "

"Stupid of me!" ejaculated Willan, inwardly: "as if these people couldknow any scruples about etiquette!"

"These people, " as Willan contemptuously called them, stood at the doorof the inn, and watched him riding away with Victorine with hardlydisguised exultation. Not till the riders were fairly out of sight didVictor venture to turn his face toward Jeanne's. Then, bursting into aloud laugh, he clapped Jeanne on the shoulder, and said: "We'll see theegrandmother of thy husband's grandchildren yet, Jeanne. Ha! ha!"

Jeanne flushed. She was not without a sense of shame. Her love forVictorine made her sensitive to the stain on her birth. 

"Thinkest thou it could ever be known?" she asked anxiously. 

"Never, " replied her father, --"never; 'tis as safe as if we were alldead. And for that, the living are safer than the dead, if there betight enough lock on their mouths. "

"He doth seem to be as much in love as one need, " said Jeanne. 

"Ay, " said Victor, "more than ever his father was with thee. "

"Canst thou not let that alone?" said Jeanne, angrily. "Surely it islong enough gone by, and small profit came of it. "

"Not so, not so, daughter, " replied Victor, soothingly; "if we can butset the girl in thy shoes, thou didst not wear thine for nought, eventhough they pinched thee for a time. "

"That they did, " retorted Jeanne; "it gives me a cramp now but toremember them. "

Willan and Victorine galloped merrily along the river road. The woodswere sweet with spring fragrances; great thickets of dogwood trees werewhite with flowers; mossy hillocks along the roadside were pink with thedainty bells of the Linnaea. The road was little more than a woodman'spath, and curved now right, now left, in seeming caprice; now forded astream, now came out into a cleared field, again plunged back into densegroves of larch and pine. 

"Never knew I that the woods were so beautiful thus early in the year, "said the honest Willan. 

"Nor I, till to-day, " said the artful Victorine, who knew well enoughwhat Willan did not know himself. 

"Dost thou ride here alone?" asked Willan. "It is a wild place for theeto be alone. "

"If I came not alone, I could not come at all, " replied Victorine, sorrowfully. "My grandfather is too busy, and my aunt likes not to rideexcept she must, on a market day or to go to church. No one but thouhast ever walked or ridden with me, " she added in a low voice, sighing;"and now after two days or three thou wilt be gone. "

Willan sighed also, but did not speak. The words, "I will always ride bythy side, Victorine, " were on his lips, but he felt himself stillwithheld from speaking them. 

The visit at the mill was unsatisfactory. The elder Gaspard was away, and young Pierre was curt and surly. The sight of Victorine ridingfamiliarly, and with an evident joyous pride, by the side of one of therichest men in the country, and a young man at that, --and a young man, moreover, who looked and behaved as if he were in love with hiscompanion, --how could the poor miller be expected to be cordial andunconstrained with such a sight before his eyes! Annette also was moreoverawed even than Victorine had desired she should be by the sight ofthe handsome stranger, --so overawed, and withal perhaps a littlecurious, that she was dumb and awkward; and as for _Mère_ Gaspard, shenever under any circumstances had a word to say. So the visit was verystupid, and everybody felt ill at ease, --especially Willan, who had losthis temper in the beginning at a speech of Pierre's to Victorine, whichseemed to his jealous sense too familiar. 

"I thought thou never wouldst take leave, " he said ill-naturedly toVictorine, as they rode away. 

Victorine turned towards him with an admirably counterfeited expressionof surprise. "Oh, sir, " she said, "I did think I ought to wait for theeto take leave. I was dying with the desire I had to be back in the woodsagain; and only when I could not bear it any longer, did I bethink me tosay that my aunt expected us back to dinner. "

Long they lingered on the river-banks on their way home. Even theplotting brain of Victorine was not insensible to the charm of the sky, the air, the budding foliage, and the myriads of blossoms. "Oh, sir, "she said, "I think there never was such a day as this before!"

"I know there never was, " replied Willan, looking at her with anexpression which was key to his words. But the daughter of Jeanne Duboiswas not to be wooed by any vague sentimentalisms. There was one sentencewhich she was intently waiting to hear Willan Blaycke speak. Anythingshort of that Mademoiselle Victorine was too innocent to comprehend. 

"Sweet child!" thought Willan to himself, "she doth not know the speechof lovers. I mistrust that if I wooed her outright, she would beafraid. "

It was long past noon when they reached the Golden Pear. Dinner hadwaited till the hungry Victor and Jeanne could wait no longer; but avery pretty and dainty little repast was ready for Willan and Victorine. As she sat opposite him at the table, so bright and beaming, her wholeface full of pleasure, Willan leaned both his arms on the table andlooked at her in silence for some minutes. 

"Victorine!" he said. Victorine started. She was honestly very hungry, and had been so absorbed in eating her dinner she had not noticedWillan's look. She dropped her knife and sprang up. 

"What is it, sir?" she said; "what shall I fetch?" Her instantaneousresumption of the serving-maid's relation to him jarred on Willan atthat second indescribably, and shut down like a floodgate on the wordshe was about to speak. 

"Nothing, nothing, " said he. "I was only going to say that thou mustsleep this afternoon; thou art tired. "

"Nay, I am not tired, " said Victorine, petulantly. "What is a matter ofsix leagues of a morning? I could ride it again between this and sunset, and not be tired. "

But she was tired, and she did sleep, though she had not meant to do sowhen she threw herself on her bed, a little later; she had meant only torest herself for a few minutes, and then in a fresh toilette return toWillan. But she slept on and on until after sunset, and Willan wanderedaimlessly about, wondering what had become of her. Jeanne saw him, butforebore to take any note of his uneasiness. She had looked in uponVictorine in her slumber, and was well content that it should be so. 

"The girl will awake refreshed and rosy, " thought Jeanne; "and it willdo no harm, but rather good, if he have missed her sorely all theafternoon. "

Supper was over, and the evening work all done when Victorine waked. Itwas dusk. Rubbing her eyes, she sprang up and went to the window. Jeanneheard her steps, and coming to the foot of the stairs called: "Thouneed'st not to come down; all is done. What shall I bring thee to eat?"

"Why didst thou not waken me?" replied Victorine, petulantly; "I meantnot to sleep. "

"I thought the sleep was better, " replied her aunt. "Thou didst looktired, and it suits no woman's looks to be tired. "

Victorine was silent. She saw Willan walking up and down under thepear-tree. She leaned out of her window and moved one of theflower-pots. Willan looked up; in a second more he had bounded up thestaircase, and eagerly said: "Art thou there? Wilt thou never comedown?"

Victorine was uncertain in her own mind what was the best thing to donext; so she replied evasively: "Thou wert right, after all. I did notfeel myself tired, but I have slept until now. "

"Then thou art surely rested. Canst thou not come and walk with me inthe pear orchard?" said Willan. 

"I fear me I may not do that after nightfall, " replied Victorine. "Myaunt would be angry. "

"She need not know, " replied the eager Willan. "Thou canst come down bythis stairway, and it is already near dark. "

Victorine laughed a little low laugh. This pleased her. "Yes, " she said, "I have often come down by, that post from my window; but truly, I fearI ought not to do it for thee. What should I say to my aunt if shemissed me?"

"Oh, she thinks thee asleep, " said Willan. "She told me at supper thatshe would not waken thee. "

All of which Mistress Jeanne heard distinctly, standing midway on thewide staircase, with Victorine's supper of bread and milk in her hand. She had like to have spilled the whole bowlful of milk for laughing. Butshe stood still, holding her breath lest Victorine should hear her, tillthe conversation ceased, and she heard Victorine moving about in herroom again. Then she went in, and kissing Victorine, said: "Eat thysupper now, and go to bed; it is late. Good-night. I'll wake thee earlyenough in the morning to pay for not having called thee this afternoon. Good-night. "

Then Jeanne went down to her own room, blew out her candle, and seatedherself at the window to hear what would happen. 

"My aunt's candle is out; she hath gone to bed, " whispered Victorine, asholding Willan's hand she stole softly down the outer stair. "I do doubtmuch that I am doing wrong. "

"Nay, nay, " whispered Willan. "Thou sweet one, what wrong can there bein thy walking a little time with me? Thy aunt did let thee ride with meall the day. " And he tenderly guided Victorine's steps down the steepstairs. 

"Pretty well! pretty well!" laughed Mistress Jeanne behind her casement;and as soon as the sound of Willan's and Victorine's steps had diedaway, she ran downstairs to tell Victor what had happened. Victor wasnot so pleased as Jeanne; he did not share her confidence in Victorine'scharacter. 

"Sacre!" he said; "what wert thou thinking of? Dost want another nieceto be fetched up in a convent? Thou mayst thank thyself for it, if thouart grandmother to one. I trust no man out of sight, and no girl. Theman's in love with the girl, that is plain; but he means no marrying. "

"That thou dost not know, " retorted Jeanne. "I tell thee he is anhonorable, high-minded man, and as pure as if he were but just nowweaned. I know him, and thou dost not. He will marry her, or he willleave her alone. "

"We shall see, " muttered the coarse old man as he walked away, --"weshall see. Like mother, like child. I trust them not. " And in a thoroughill-humor Victor betook himself to the courtyard. What he heard theredid not reassure him. Old Benoit had seen Willan and Victorine goingdown through the poplar copse toward the pear orchard. "And may thesaints forsake me, " said Benoit, "if I do not think he had his armaround her waist and her head on his shoulder. Think'st thou he willmarry her?"

"Nay, " growled Victor; "he's no fool. That Jeanne hath set her heart onit, and thinketh it will come about; but not so I. "

"He seems of a rare fine-breeding and honorable speech, " said Benoit. 

"Ay, ay, " replied Victor, "words are quick said, and fine manners comeeasy to some; but a man looks where he weds. "

"His father did not have chance for much looking, " sneered Benoit. 

"This is another breed, even if his father begot him, " replied Victor. "He goeth no such way as that. " And thoroughly disquieted, Victorreturned to the house to report to Jeanne what Benoit had seen. She wasstill undisturbed. 

"Thou wilt see, " was her only reply; and the two sat down together inthe porch to await the lovers' return. Hour after hour passed; evenJeanne began to grow alarmed. It was long after midnight. 

"I fear some accident hath befallen them, " she said at last. "Would itbe well, thinkest thou, to go in search of them?"

"Not a step!" cried Victor. "He took her away, and he must needs bringher back. We await them here. He shall see whether he may tamper withthe granddaughter of Victor Dubois. "

"Hush, father!" said Jeanne, "here they come. "

Walking very slowly, arm in arm, came Willan and Victorine. They hadevidently no purpose of entering the house clandestinely, but wereapproaching the front door. 

"Hoity, toity!" muttered Victor; "he thinks he can lord it over us, surely. "

"Be quiet, father!" entreated Jeanne. Her quick eye saw something new inthe bearing of both Willan and Victorine. But Victor was not to bequieted. With an angry oath, he sprung forward from the porch, and beganto upbraid Willan in no measured tones. 

Willan lifted his right hand authoritatively. "Wait!" he said. "Do notsay what thou wilt repent, Victor Dubois. Thy granddaughter hathpromised to be my wife. "

So the new generation avenged the old; and Willan Blaycke, in the primeof his cultured and fastidious manhood, fell victim to a spell lesscoarsely woven but no less demoralizing than that which had imbitteredthe last years of his father's life. 

[Footnote: Note. --"The Inn of the Golden Pear" includes three chaptersof a longer story entitled "Elspeth Pynevor, "--a story of suchremarkable vigor and promise, and planned on such noble and powerfullines as to deepen regret that its author's death left it but halffinished. A single sentence has been added by another hand to round theepisode of Willan Blaycke's infatuation to conclusion. ]

The Mystery of Wilhelm Rütter. 

It was long past dusk of an August evening. Farmer Weitbreck stoodleaning on the big gate of his barnyard, looking first up and then downthe road. He was chewing a straw, and his face wore an expression ofdeep perplexity. These were troublous times in Lancaster County. Neverbefore had the farmers been so put to it for farm service; harvest-timehad come, and instead of the stream of laborers seeking employment, which usually at this season set in as regularly as river freshets inspring, it was this year almost impossible to hire any one. 

The explanation of this nobody knew or could divine; but the fact wasindisputable, and the farmers were in dismay, --nobody more so thanFarmer Weitbreck, who had miles of bottom-lands, in grain of one sortand another, all yellow and nodding, and ready for the sickle, andnobody but himself and his son John to swing scythe, sickle, or flail onthe place. 

"Never I am caught this way anoder year, " thought he, as he gazedwearily up and down the dark, silent road; "but that does to me no gootthis time that is now. "

Gustavus Weitbreck had lived so long on his Pennsylvania farm that heeven thought in English instead of in German, and, strangely enough, inEnglish much less broken and idiomatic than that which he spoke. But hisphraseology was the only thing about him that had changed. In modes offeeling, habits of life, he was the same he had been forty years ago, when he farmed a little plot of land, half wheat, half vineyard, in theMayence meadows in the fatherland, --slow, methodical, saving, stupid, upright, obstinate. All these traits "Old Weitbreck, " as he was calledall through the country, possessed to a degree much out of the ordinary;and it was a combination of two of them--the obstinacy and thesavingness--which had brought him into his present predicament. 

In June he had had a good laborer, --one of the best known, and eagerlysought by every farmer in the county; a man who had never yet beenbeaten in a mowing-match or a reaping. By his help the haying had beendone in not much more than two thirds the usual time; but when JohnWeitbreck, like a sensible fellow, said, "Now, we would better keep Alfon till harvest; there is plenty of odds-and-ends work about the farm hecan help at, and we won't get his like again in a hurry, " his father hadcried out, --

"Mein Gott! It is that you tink I must be made out of money! I vill notkeep dis man on so big wages to do vat you call odd-and-end vork. We doodd-and-end vork ourself. "

There was no discussion of the point. John Weitbreck knew better thanever to waste his time and breath or temper in trying to change apurpose of his father's or convince him of a mistake. But he bided histime; and he would not have been human if he had not now taken secretsatisfaction, seeing his father's anxiety daily increase as the Augustsun grew hotter and hotter, and the grain rattled in the husks waitingto be reaped, while they two, straining their arms to the utmost, and inlong days' work, seemed to produce small impression on the great fields. 

"The women shall come work in field to-morrow, " thought the old man, ashe continued his anxious reverie. "It is not that they sit idle all dayin house, when the wheat grows to rattle like the peas in pod. They canhelp, the mütter and Carlen; that will be much help; they can do. " Andhearing John's steps behind him, the old man turned and said, --

"Johan, dere comes yet no man to reap. To-morrow must go in the fieldCarlen and the mütter; it must. The wheat get fast too dry; it is moreas two men can do. "

John bit his lips. He was aghast. Never had he seen his mother andsister at work in the fields. John had been born in America; and he wasAmerican, not German, in his feeling about this. Without dueconsideration he answered, --

"I would rather work day and night, father, than see my mother andsister in the fields. I will do it, too, if only you will not make themgo!"

The old man, irritated by the secret knowledge that he had nobody buthimself to blame for the present dilemma, still more irritated, also, bythis proof of what was always exceedingly displeasing to him, --his son'shaving adopted American standards and opinions, --broke out furiouslywith a wrath wholly disproportionate to the occasion, --

"You be tam, Johan Weitbreck. You tink we are fine gentlemen and ladies, like dese Americans dat is too proud to vork vid hands. I say tam discountry, vere day say all is alike, an' vork all; and ven you come here, it is dat nobody vill vork, if he can help, and vimmins ish shame to beseen vork. It is not shame to be seen vork; I vork, mein vife vork too, an' my childrens vork too, py tam!"

John walked away, --his only resource when his father was in a passion. John occupied that hardest of all positions, --the position of afull-grown, mature man in a father's home, where he is regarded asnothing more than a boy. 

As he entered the kitchen and saw his pretty sister Carlen at the highspinning-wheel, walking back and forth drawing the fine yarn betweenher chubby fingers, all the while humming a low song to which thewhirring of the wheel made harmonious accompaniment, he thought tohimself bitterly: "Work, indeed! As if they did not work now longer thanwe do, and quite as hard! She's been spinning ever since daylight, Ibelieve. "

"Is it hard work spinning, Liebchen?" he asked. 

Carlen turned her round blue eyes on him with astonishment. There wassomething in his tone that smote vaguely on her consciousness. Whatcould he mean, asking such a question as that?

"No, " she said, "it is not hard exactly. But when you do it very long itdoes make the arms ache, holding them so long in the same position; andit tires one to stand all day!"

"Ay, " said John, "that is the way it tires one to reap; my back is nearbroke with it to-day. "

"Has no one come to help yet?" she said. 

"No!" said John, angrily, "and that is what I told father when he letAlf go. It is good enough for him for being so stingy and short-sighted;but the brunt of it comes on me, --that's the worst of it. I don't seewhat's got all the men. There have always been plenty round every yeartill now. "

"Alf said he shouldn't be here next year, " said Carlen, each cheekshowing a little signal of pink as she spoke; but it was a dim light theone candle gave, and John did not see the flush. "He was going to thewest to farm; in Oregon, he said. "

"Ay, that's it!" replied John. "That's where everybody can go but me!I'll be going too some day, Carlen. I can't stand things here. If itweren't for you I'd have been gone long ago. "

"I wouldn't leave mother and father for all the world, John, " criedCarlen, warmly, "and I don't think it would be right for you to! Whatwould father do with the farm without you?"

"Well, why doesn't he see that, then, and treat me as a man ought to betreated?" exclaimed John; "he thinks I'm no older than when he used tobeat me with the strap. "

"I think fathers and mothers are always that way, " said the gentle, cheery Carlen, with a low laugh. "The mother tells me each time how towind the warp, as she did when I was little; and she will always lookinto the churn for herself. I think it is the way we are made. We willdo the same when we are old, John, and our children will be wondering atus!"

John laughed. This was always the way with Carlen. She could put a manin good humor in a few minutes, however cross he felt in the beginning. 

"I won't, then!" he exclaimed. "I know I won't. If ever I have a songrown, I'll treat him like a son grown, not like a baby. "

"May I be there to see!" said Carlen, merrily, --

 "And you remember free The words I said to thee. 

"Hold the candle here for me, will you, that's a good boy. While we havetalked, my yarn has tangled. "

As they stood close together, John holding the candle high over Carlen'shead, she bending over the tangled yarn, the kitchen door openedsuddenly, and their father came in, bringing with him a stranger, --ayoung man seemingly about twenty-five years of age, tall, well made, handsome, but with a face so melancholy that both John and Carlen felt ashiver as they looked upon it. 

"Here now comes de hand, at last of de time, Johan, " cried the old man. "It vill be that all can vel be done now. And it is goot that he is frommine own country. He cannot English speak, many vords; but dat isnothing; he can vork. I tolt you dere vould be mans come!"

John looked scrutinizingly at the newcomer. The man's eyes fell. 

"What is your name?" said John. 

"Wilhelm Rütter, " he answered. 

"How long have you been in this country?"

"Ten days. "

"Where are your friends?"

"I haf none. "

"None?"

"None. "

These replies were given in a tone as melancholy as the expression ofthe face. 

Carlen stood still, her wheel arrested, the yarn between her thumb andringer, her eyes fastened on the stranger's face. A thrill ofunspeakable pity stirred her. So young, so sad, thus alone in the world;who ever heard of such a fate?

"But there were people who came with you in the ship?" said John. "Thereis some one who knows who you are, I suppose. "

"No, no von dat knows, " replied the newcomer. 

"Haf done vid too much questions, " interrupted Farmer Weitbreck. "I hafhim asked all. He stays till harvest be done. He can vork. It is to beeasy see he can vork. "

John did not like the appearance of things. "Too much mystery here, " hethought. "However, it is not long he will be here, and he will be in thefields all the time; there cannot be much danger. But who ever heard ofa man whom no human being knew?"

As they sat at supper, Farmer Weitbreck and his wife plied Wilhelm withquestions about their old friends in Mayence. He was evidently familiarwith all the localities and names which they mentioned. His replies, however, were given as far as possible in monosyllables, and he spoke noword voluntarily. Sitting with his head bent slightly forward, his eyesfixed on the floor, he had the expression of one lost in thoughts of thegloomiest kind. 

"Make yourself to be more happy, mein lad, " said the farmer, as he badehim good-night and clapped him on the shoulder. "You haf come to housevere is German be speaked, and is Germany in hearts; dat vill be to youas friends. "

A strange look of even keener pain passed over the young man's face, andhe left the room hastily, without a word of good-night. 

"He's a surly brute!" cried John; "nice company he'll be in the field! Ibelieve I'd sooner have nobody!"

"I think he has seen some dreadful trouble, " said Carlen. "I wish wecould do something for him; perhaps his friends are all dead. I thinkthat must be it, don't you think so, mütter?"

Frau Weitbreck was incarnate silence and reticence. These traits werenative in her, and had been intensified to an abnormal extent by thirtyyears of life with a husband whose temper and peculiarities were such asto make silence and reticence the sole conditions of peace and comfort. To so great a degree had this second nature of the good frau beendeveloped, that she herself did not now know that it was a secondnature; therefore it stood her in hand as well as if she had beenoriginally born to it, and it would have been hard to find in LancasterCounty a more placid and contented wife than she. She never dreamed thather custom of silent acquiescence in all that Gustavus said--of waitingin all cases, small and great, for his decision--had in the outset beenborn of radical and uncomfortable disagreements with him. And as forGustavus himself, if anybody had hinted to him that his frau couldthink, or ever had thought, any word or deed of his other than right, hewould have chuckled complacently at that person's blind ignorance of thetruth. 

"Mein frau, she is goot, " he said; "goot frau, goot mütter. Americanfraus not goot so she; all de time talk and no vork. American fraus, American mans, are sheep in dere house. "

But in regard to this young stranger, Frau Weitbreck seemed strangelystirred from her usual phlegmatic silence. Carlen's appeal to her hadbarely been spoken, when, rising in her place at the head of the table, the old woman said solemnly, in German, --

"Yes, Liebchen, he goes with the eyes like eyes of a man that saw alwaysthe dead. It must be as you say, that all whom he loves are in thegrave. Poor boy! poor boy! it is now that one must be to him mother andfather and brother. "

"And sister too, " said Carlen, warmly. "I will be his sister. "

"And I not his brother till he gets a civiller tongue in his head, " saidJohn. 

"It is not to be brother I haf him brought, " interrupted the old man. "Alvays you vimmen are too soon; it may be he are goot, it may be he arepad; I do not know. It is to vork I haf him brought. "

"Yes, " echoed Frau Weitbreck; "we do not know. "

It was not so easy as Carlen and her mother had thought, to be likemother and sister to Wilhelm. The days went by, and still he was as mucha stranger as on the evening of his arrival. He never voluntarilyaddressed any one. To all remarks or even questions he replied in thefewest words and curtest phrases possible. A smile was never seen on hisface. He sat at the table like a mute at a funeral, ate without liftinghis eyes, and silently rose as soon as his own meal was finished. He hadsoon selected his favorite seat in the kitchen. It was on the right-handside of the big fireplace, in a corner. Here he sat all through theevenings, carving, out of cows' horns or wood, boxes and small figuressuch as are made by the peasants in the German Tyrol. In this work hehad a surprising skill. What he did with the carvings when finished, noone knew. One night John said to him, --

"I do not see, Wilhelm, how you can have so steady a hand after holdingthe sickle all day. My arm aches, and my hand trembles so that I can butjust carry my cup to my lips. "

Wilhelm made no reply, but held his right hand straight out at arm'slength, with the delicate figure he was carving poised on hisforefinger. It stood as steady as on the firm ground. 

Carlen looked at him admiringly. "It is good to be so steady-handed, "she said; "you must be strong, Wilhelm. "

"Yes, " he said, "I haf strong;" and went on carving. 

Nothing more like conversation than this was ever drawn from him. Yet heseemed not averse to seeing people. He never left the kitchen till thetime came for bed; but when that came he slipped away silent, taking nopart in the general good-night unless he was forced to do so. SometimesCarlen, having said jokingly to John, "Now, I will make Wilhelm saygood-night to-night, " succeeded in surprising him before he could leavethe room; but often, even when she had thus planned, he contrived toevade her, and was gone before she knew it. 

He slept in a small chamber in the barn, --a dreary enough little place, but he seemed to find it all sufficient. He had no possessions exceptthe leather pack he had brought on his back. This lay on the floorunlocked; and when the good Frau Weitbreck, persuading herself that shewas actuated solely by a righteous, motherly interest in the young man, opened it, she found nothing whatever there, except a few garments ofthe commonest description, --no book, no paper, no name on any article. It would not appear possible that a man of so decent a seeming asWilhelm could have come from Germany to America with so few personalbelongings. Frau Weitbreck felt less at ease in her mind about him aftershe examined this pack. 

He had come straight from the ship to their house, he had said, when hearrived; had walked on day after day, going he knew not whither, askingmile by mile for work. He did not even know one State's name fromanother. He simply chose to go south rather than north, --always south, he said. 

"Why?"

He did not know. 

He was indeed strong. The sickle was in his hand a plaything, soswift-swung that he seemed to be doing little more than simply stridingup and down the field, the grain falling to right and left at his steps. From sunrise to sunset he worked tirelessly. The famous Alf had neverdone so much in a day. Farmer Weitbreck chuckled as he looked on. 

"Vat now you say of dat Alf?" he said triumphantly to John; "vork he asdis man? Oh, but he make swing de hook!"

John assented unqualifiedly to this praise of Wilhelm's strength andskill; but nevertheless he shook his head. 

"Ay, ay, " he said, "I never saw his equal; but I like him not. Whatcarries he in his heart to be so sour? He is like a man bewitched. Iknow not if there be such a thing as to be sold to the devil, as thestories say; but if there be, on my word, I think Wilhelm has made somesuch bargain. A man could not look worse if he had signed himself away. "

"I see not dat he haf fear in his face, " replied the old man. 

"No, " said John, "neither do I see fear. It is worse than fear. I wouldlike to see his face come alive with a fear. He gives me cold shiverslike a grave underfoot. I shall be glad when he is gone. "

Farmer Weitbreck laughed. He and his son were likely to be again atodds on the subject of a laborer. 

"But he vill not go. I haf said to him to stay till Christmas, maybealways. "

John's surprise was unbounded. 

"To stay! Till Christmas!" he cried. "What for? What do we need of a manin the winter?"

"It is not dat to feed him is much, and all dat he make vid de knife ismine. It is home he vants, no oder ting; he vork not for money. "

"Father, " said John, earnestly, "there must be something wrong aboutthat man. I have thought so from the first. Why should he work fornothing but his board, --a great strong fellow like that, that could makegood day's wages anywhere? Don't keep him after the harvest is over. Ican't bear the sight of him. "

"Den you can turn de eyes to your head von oder way, " retorted hisfather. "I find him goot to see; and, " after a pause, "so do Carlen. "

John started. "Good heavens, father!" he exclaimed. 

"Oh, you need not speak by de heavens, mein son!" rejoined the old man, in a taunting tone. "I tink I can mine own vay, vidout you to be help. Iwas not yesterday born!"

John was gone. Flight was his usual refuge when he felt his temperbecoming too much for him; but now his steps were quickened by animpulse of terrible fear. Between him and his sister had always been abond closer than is wont to link brother and sister. Only one year apartin age, they had grown up together in an intimacy like that of twins;from their cradles till now they had had their sports, tastes, joys, sorrows in common, not a secret from each other since they couldremember. At least, this was true of John; was he to find it no longertrue of Carlen? He would know, and that right speedily. As by a flash oflightning he thought he saw his father's scheme, --if Carlen were to wedthis man, this strong and tireless worker, this unknown, mysteriousworker, who wanted only shelter and home and cared not for money, whatan invaluable hand would be gained on the farm! John groaned as hethought to himself how little anything--any doubt, any misgiving, perhaps even an actual danger--would in his father's mind outweigh theone fact that the man did not "vork for money. "

As he walked toward the house, revolving these disquieting conjectures, all his first suspicion and antagonism toward Wilhelm revived in fullforce, and he was in a mood well calculated to distort the simplestacts, when he suddenly saw sitting in the square stoop at the door thetwo persons who filled his thoughts, Wilhelm and Carlen, --Wilhelmsteadily at work as usual at his carving, his eyes closely fixed on it, his figure, as was its wont, rigidly still; and Carlen, --ah! it was anunlucky moment John had taken to search out the state of Carlen'sfeeling toward Wilhelm, --Carlen sitting in a posture of dreamy reverie, one hand lying idle in her lap holding her knitting, the ball rollingaway unnoticed on the ground; her other arm thrown carelessly over therailing of the stoop, her eyes fixed on Wilhelm's bowed head. 

John stood still and watched her, --watched her long. She did not move. She was almost as rigidly still as Wilhelm himself. Her eyes did notleave his face. One might safely sit in that way by the hour and gazeundetected at Wilhelm. He rarely looked up except when he was addressed. 

After standing thus a few moments John turned away, bitter and sick atheart. What had he been about, that he had not seen this? He, the lovingcomrade brother, to be slower of sight than the hard, grasping parent!

"I will ask mother, " he thought. "I can't ask Carlen now! It is toolate. "

He found his mother in the kitchen, busy getting the bountiful supperwhich was a daily ordinance in the Weitbreck religion. To John'ssharpened perceptions the fact that Carlen was not as usual helping inthis labor loomed up into significance. 

"Why does not Carlen help you, mütter?" he said hastily. "What is shedoing there, idling with Wilhelm in the stoop?"

Frau Weitbreck smiled. "It is not alvays to vork, ven one is young, " shesaid. "I haf not forget!" And she nodded her head meaningly. 

John clenched his hands. Where had he been? Who had blinded him? How hadall this come about, so soon and without his knowledge? Were his fatherand his mother mad? He thought they must be. 

"It is a shame for that Wilhelm to so much as put his eyes on Carlen'sface, " he cried. "I think we are fools; what know we about him? I doubthim in and out. I wish he had never darkened our doors. "

Frau Weitbreck glanced cautiously at the open door. She was frying sweetcakes in the boiling lard. Forgetting everything in her fear of beingoverheard, she went softly, with the dripping skimmer in her hand, across the kitchen, the fat falling on her shining floor at every step, and closed the door. Then she came close to her son, and said in awhisper, "The fader think it is goot. " At John's angry exclamation sheraised her hand in warning. 

"Do not loud spraken, " she whispered; "Carlen will hear. "

"Well, then, she shall hear!" cried John, half beside himself. "It ishigh time she did hear from somebody besides you and father! I reckonI've got something to say about this thing, too, if I'm her brother. By----, no tramp like that is going to marry my sister without I knowmore about him!" And before the terrified old woman could stop him, hehad gone at long strides across the kitchen, through the best room, andreached the stoop, saying in a loud tone: "Carlen! I want to see you. "

Carlen started as one roused from sleep. Seeing her ball lying at adistance on the ground, she ran to pick it up, and with scarlet cheeksand uneasy eyes turned to her brother. 

"Yes, John, " she said, "I am coming. "

Wilhelm did not raise his eyes, or betray by any change of feature thathe had heard the sound or perceived the motion. As Carlen passed him hereyes involuntarily rested on his bowed head, a world of pity, perplexity, in the glance. John saw it, and frowned. 

"Come with me, " he said sternly, --"come down in the pasture; I want tospeak to you. "

Carlen looked up apprehensively into his face; never had she seen thereso stern a look. 

"I must help mütter with the supper, " she said, hesitating. 

John laughed scornfully. "You were helping with the supper, I suppose, sitting out with yon tramp!" And he pointed to the stoop. 

Carlen had, with all her sunny cheerfulness, a vein of her father'stemper. Her face hardened, and her blue eyes grew darker. 

"Why do you call Wilhelm a tramp, " she said coldly. 

"What is he then, if he is not a tramp?" retorted John. 

"He is no tramp, " she replied, still more doggedly. 

"What do you know about him?" said John. 

Carlen made no reply. Her silence irritated John more than any wordscould have done; and losing self-control, losing sight of prudence, hepoured out on her a torrent of angry accusation and scornful reproach. 

She stood still, her eyes fixed on the ground. Even in his hot wrath, John noticed this unwonted downcast look, and taunted her with it. 

"You have even caught his miserable hangdog trick of not looking anybodyin the face, " he cried. "Look up now! look me in the eye, and say whatyou mean by all this. "

Thus roughly bidden, Carlen raised her blue eyes and confronted herbrother with a look hardly less angry than his own. 

"It is you who have to say to me what all this means that you have beensaying, " she cried. "I think you are out of your senses. I do not knowwhat has happened to you. " And she turned to walk back to the house. 

John seized her shoulders in his brawny hands, and whirled her roundtill she faced him again. 

"Tell me the truth!" he said fiercely; "do you love this Wilhelm?"

Carlen opened her lips to reply. At that second a step was heard, andlooking up they saw Wilhelm himself coming toward them, walking at hisusual slow pace, his head sunk on his breast, his eyes on the ground. Great waves of blushes ran in tumultuous flood up Carlen's neck, cheeks, forehead. John took his hands from her shoulders, and stepped back witha look of disgust and a smothered ejaculation. Wilhelm, hearing thesound, looked up, regarded them with a cold, unchanged eye, and turnedin another direction. 

The color deepened on Carlen's face. In a hard and bitter tone she said, pointing with a swift gesture to Wilhelm's retreating form: "You can seefor yourself that there is nothing between us. I do not know what crazehas got into your head. " And she walked away, this time unchecked by herbrother. He needed no further replies in words. Tokens stronger than anyspeech had answered him. Muttering angrily to himself, he went on downto the pasture after the cows. It was a beautiful field, more like NewEngland than Pennsylvania; a brook ran zigzagging through it, and hereand there in the land were sharp lifts where rocks cropped out, makingminiature cliffs overhanging some portions of the brook's-course. Graylichens and green mosses grew on these rocks, and belts of wild flag andsedges surrounded their base. The cows, in a warm day, used to standknee-deep there, in shade of the rocks. 

It was a favorite place of Wilhelm's. He sometimes lay on the top of oneof these rocks the greater part of the night, looking down into thegliding water or up into the sky. Carlen from her window had more thanonce seen him thus, and passionately longed to go down and comfort hislonely sorrow. 

It was indeed true, as she had said to her brother, that there was"nothing between" her and Wilhelm. Never a word had passed; never a lookor tone to betray that he knew whether she were fair or not, --whethershe lived or not. She came and went in his presence, as did all others, with no more apparent relation to the currents of his strange veiledexistence than if they or he belonged to a phantom world. But it wasalso true that never since the first day of his mysterious coming hadWilhelm been long absent from Carlen's thoughts; and she did indeed findhim--as her father's keen eyes, sharpened by greed, had observed--goodto look upon. That most insidious of love's allies, pity, had stormedthe fortress of Carlen's heart, and carried it by a single charge. Whatcould a girl give, do, or be, that would be too much for one sostricken, so lonely as was Wilhelm! The melancholy beauty of his face, his lithe figure, his great strength, all combined to heighten thisimpression, and to fan the flames of the passion in Carlen's virginsoul. It was indeed, as John had sorrowfully said to himself, "too late"to speak to Carlen. 

As John stood now at the pasture bars, waiting for the herd of cows, slow winding up the slope from the brook, he saw Wilhelm on the rocksbelow. He had thrown himself down on his back, and lay there with hisarms crossed on his breast. Presently he clasped both hands over hiseyes as if to shut out a sight that he could no longer bear. Somethingakin to pity stirred even in John's angry heart as he watched him. 

"What can it be, " he said, "that makes him hate even the sky? It may beit is a sweetheart he has lost, and he is one of that strange kind ofmen who can love but once; and it is loving the dead that makes him solike one dead himself. Poor Carlen! I think myself he never so much assees her. "

A strange reverie, surely, for the brother who had so few short momentsago been angrily reproaching his sister for the disgrace and shame ofcaring for this tramp. But the pity was short-lived in John's bosom. Hisinborn distrust and antagonism to the man were too strong for anygentler sentiment toward him to live long by their side. And when thefamily gathered at the supper-table he fixed upon Wilhelm so suspiciousand hostile a gaze that even Wilhelm's absent mind perceived it, and hein turn looked inquiringly at John, a sudden bewilderment apparent inhis manner. It disappeared, however, almost immediately, dying away inhis usual melancholy absorption. It had produced scarce a ripple on themonotonous surface of his habitual gloom. But Carlen had perceived all, both the look on John's face and the bewilderment on Wilhelm's; and itroused in her a resentment so fierce toward John, she could not forbearshowing it. "How cruel!" she thought. "As if the poor fellow had not allhe could bear already without being treated unkindly by us!" And sheredoubled her efforts to win Wilhelm's attention and divert histhoughts, all in vain; kindness and unkindness glanced off alike, powerless, from the veil in which he was wrapped. 

John sat by with roused attention and sharpened perception, noting all. Had it been all along like this? Where had his eyes been for the pastmonth? Had he too been under a spell? It looked like it. He groaned inspirit as he sat silently playing with his food, not eating; and whenhis father said, "Why haf you not appetite, Johan?" he rose abruptly, pushed back his chair, and leaving the table without a word went out anddown again into the pasture, where the dewy grass and the quiveringstars in the brook shimmered in the pale light of a young moon. To John, also, the mossy rocks in this pasture were a favorite spot for rest andmeditation. Since the days when he and Carlen had fished from theiredges, with bent pins and yarn, for minnows, he had loved the place:they had spent happy hours enough there to count up into days; and notthe least among the innumerable annoyances and irritations of which hehad been anxious in regard to Wilhelm was the fact that he too hadperceived the charm of the field, and chosen it for his own melancholyretreat. 

As he seated himself on one of the rocks, he saw a figure glidingswiftly down the hill. 

It was Carlen. 

As she drew near he looked at her without speaking, but the loving girlwas not repelled. Springing lightly to the rock, she threw her armsaround his neck, and kissing him said: "I saw you coming down here, John, and I ran after you. Do not be angry with me, brother; it breaksmy heart. "

A sudden revulsion of shame for his unjust suspicion filled John withtenderness. 

"Mein Schwester, " he said fondly, --they had always the habit of usingthe German tongue for fond epithets, --"mein Schwester klein, I love youso much I cannot help being wretched when I see you in danger, but I amnot angry. "

Nestling herself close by his side, Carlen looked over into the water. 

"This is the very rock I fell off of that day, do you remember?" shesaid; "and how wet you got fishing me out! And oh, what an awful beatingfather gave you! and I always thought it was wicked, for if you had notpulled me out I should have drowned. "

"It was for letting you fall in he beat me, " laughed John; and theyboth grew tender and merry, recalling the babyhood times. 

"How long, long ago!" cried Carlen. 

"It seems only a day, " said John. 

"I think time goes faster for a man than for a woman, " sighed Carlen. "It is a shorter day in the fields than in the house. "

"Are you not content, my sister?" said John. 

Carlen was silent. 

"You have always seemed so, " he said reproachfully. 

"It is always the same, John, " she murmured. "Each day like every otherday. I would like it to be some days different. "

John sighed. He knew of what this new unrest was born. He longed tobegin to speak of Wilhelm, and yet he knew not how. Now that, afterlonger reflection, he had become sure in his own mind that Wilhelm carednothing for his sister, he felt an instinctive shrinking fromrecognizing to himself, or letting it be recognized between them, thatshe unwooed had learned to love. His heart ached with dread of thesuffering which might be in store for her. 

Carlen herself cut the gordian knot. 

"Brother, " she whispered, "why do you think Wilhelm is not good?"

"I said not that, Carlen, " he replied evasively. "I only say we knownothing; and it is dangerous to trust where one knows nothing. "

"It would not be trust if we knew, " answered the loyal girl. "I believehe is good; but, John, John, what misery in his eyes! Saw you everanything like it?"

"No, " he replied; "never. Has he never told you anything about himself, Carlen?"

"Once, " she answered, "I took courage to ask him if he had relatives inGermany; and he said no; and I exclaimed then, 'What, all dead!' 'Alldead, ' he answered, in such a voice I hardly dared speak again, but Idid. I said: 'Well, one might have the terrible sorrow to lose all one'srelatives. It needs only that three should die, my father and mother andmy brother, --only three, and two are already old, --and I should have norelatives myself; but if one is left without relatives, there are alwaysfriends, thank God!' And he looked at me, --he never looks at one, youknow; but he looked at me then as if I had done a sin to speak the word, and he said, 'I have no friends. They are all dead too, ' and then wentaway! Oh, brother, why cannot we win him out of this grief? We can begood friends to him; can you not find out for me what it is?"

It was a cruel weapon to use, but on the instant John made up his mindto use it. It might spare Carlen grief, in the end. 

"I have thought, " he said, "that it might be for a dead sweetheart hemourned thus. There are men, you know, who love that way and never smileagain. "

Short-sighted John, to have dreamed that he could forestall anyconjecture in the girl's heart!

"I have thought of that, " she answered meekly; "it would seem as if itcould be nothing else. But, John, if she be really dead--" Carlen didnot finish the sentence; it was not necessary. 

After a silence she spoke again: "Dear John, if you could be morefriendly with him I think it might be different. He is your age. Fatherand mother are too old, and to me he will not speak. " She sighed deeplyas she spoke these last words, and went on: "Of course, if it is for adead sweetheart that he is grieving thus, it is only natural that thesight of women should be to him worse than the sight of men. But it isvery seldom, John, that a man will mourn his whole life for asweetheart; is it not, John? Why, men marry again, almost always, evenwhen it is a wife that they have lost; and a sweetheart is not so muchas a wife. "

"I have heard, " said the pitiless John, "that a man is quicker healed ofgrief for a wife than for one he had thought to wed, but lost. "

"You are a man, " said Carlen. "You can tell if that would be true. "

"No, I cannot, " he answered, "for I have loved no woman but you, mysister; and on my word I think I will be in no haste to, either. Itbrings misery, it seems to me. "

If Carlen had spoken her thought at these words, she would have said, "Yes, it brings misery; but even so it is better than joy. " But Carlenwas ashamed; afraid also. She had passed now into a new life, whitherher brother, she perceived, could not follow. She could barely reachhis hand across the boundary line which parted them. 

"I hope you will love some one, John, " she said. "You would be happywith a wife. You are old enough to have a home of your own. "

"Only a year older than you, my sister, " he rejoined. 

"I too am old enough to have a home of my own, " she said, with a gentledignity of tone, which more impressed John with a sense of the change inCarlen than all else which had been said. 

It was time to return to the house. As he had done when he was ten, andshe nine, John stood at the bottom of the steepest rock, withupstretched arms, by the help of which Carlen leaped lightly down. 

"We are not children any more, " she said, with a little laugh. 

"More's the pity!" said John, half lightly, half sadly, as they went onhand in hand. 

When they reached the bars, Carlen paused. Withdrawing her hand fromJohn's and laying it on his shoulder, she said: "Brother, will you nottry to find out what is Wilhelm's grief? Can you not try to be friendswith him?"

John made no answer. It was a hard thing to promise. 

"For my sake, brother, " said the girl. "I have spoken to no one else butyou. I would die before any one else should know; even my mother. "

John could not resist this. "Yes, " he said; "I will try. It will behard; but I will try my best, Carlen. I will have a talk with Wilhelmto-morrow. "

And the brother and sister parted, he only the sadder, she far happier, for their talk. "To-morrow, " she thought, "I will know! To-morrow! oh, to-morrow!" And she fell asleep more peacefully than had been her wontfor many nights. 

On the morrow it chanced that John and Wilhelm went separate ways towork and did not meet until noon. In the afternoon Wilhelm was sent onan errand to a farm some five miles away, and thus the day passedwithout John's having found any opportunity for the promised talk. Carlen perceived with keen disappointment this frustration of hispurpose, but comforted herself, thinking, with the swift forerunningtrust of youth: "To-morrow he will surely get a chance. To-morrow hewill have something to tell me. To-morrow!"

When Wilhelm returned from this errand, he came singing up the road. Carlen heard the voice and looked out of the window in amazement. Neverbefore had a note of singing been heard from Wilhelm's voice. She couldnot believe her ears; neither her eyes, when she saw him walkingswiftly, almost running, erect, his head held straight, his eyes gazingfree and confident before him. 

What had happened? What could have happened? Now, for the first time, Carlen saw the full beauty of his face; it wore an exultant look as ofone set free, triumphant. He leaped lightly over the bars; he stoopedand fondled the dog, speaking to him in a merry tone; then he whistled, then broke again into singing a gay German song. Carlen was stupefiedwith wonder. Who was this new man in the body of Wilhelm? Where haddisappeared the man of slow-moving figure, bent head, downcast eyes, gloom-stricken face, whom until that hour she had known? Carlen claspedher hands in an agony of bewilderment. 

"If he has found his sweetheart, I shall die, " she thought. "How couldit be? A letter, perhaps? A message?" She dreaded to see him. Shelingered in her room till it was past the supper hour, dreading what sheknew not, yet knew. When she went down the four were seated at supper. As she opened the door roars of laughter greeted her, and the firstsight she saw was Wilhelm's face, full of vivacity, excitement. He wastelling a jesting story, at which even her mother was heartily laughing. Her father had laughed till the tears were rolling down his cheeks. Johnwas holding his sides. Wilhelm was a mimic, it appeared; he wasimitating the ridiculous speech, gait, gestures, of a man he had seen inthe village that afternoon. 

"I sent you to village sooner as dis, if I haf known vat you are likeven you come back, " said Farmer Weitbreck, wiping his eyes. 

And John echoed his father. "Upon my word, Wilhelm, you are a goodactor. Why have you kept your light under a bushel so long?" And Johnlooked at him with a new interest and liking. If this were the trueWilhelm, he might welcome him indeed as a brother. 

Carlen alone looked grave, anxious, unhappy. She could not laugh. Taleafter tale, jest after jest, fell from Wilhelm's lips. Such astory-teller never before sat at the Weitbreck board. The old kitchennever echoed with such laughter. 

Finally John exclaimed: "Man alive, where have you kept yourself allthis time? Have you been ill till now, that you hid your tongue? Whathas cured you in a day?"

Wilhelm laughed a laugh so ringing, it made him seem like a boy. 

"Yes, I have been ill till to-day, " he said; "and now I am well. " And herattled on again, with his merry talk. 

Carlen grew cold with fear; surely this meant but one thing. Nothingelse, nothing less, could have thus in an hour rolled away the burden ofhis sadness. 

Later in the evening she said timidly, "Did you hear any news in thevillage this afternoon, Wilhelm?"

"No; no news, " he said. "I had heard no news. "

As he said this a strange look flitted swiftly across his face, and wasgone before any eye but a loving woman's had noted it. It did not escapeCarlen's, and she fell into a reverie of wondering what possible doublemeaning could have underlain his words. 

"Did you know Mr. Dietman in Germany?" she asked. This was the name ofthe farmer to whose house he had been sent on an errand. They werenew-comers into the town, since spring. 

"No!" replied Wilhelm, with another strange, sharp glance at Carlen. "Isaw him not before. "

"Have they children?" she continued. "Are they old?"

"No; young, " he answered. "They haf one child, little baby. "

Carlen could not contrive any other questions to ask. "It must have beena letter, " she thought; and her face grew sadder. 

It was a late bedtime when the family parted for the night. Theastonishing change in Wilhelm's manner was now even more apparent thanit had yet been. Instead of slipping off, as was his usual habit, without exchanging a good-night with any one, he insisted on shakinghands with each, still talking and laughing with gay and affectionatewords, and repeating, over and again, "Good-night, good-night. " FarmerWeitbreck was carried out of himself with pleasure at all this, andholding Wilhelm's hand fast in his, shaking it heartily, and clappinghim on the shoulder, he exclaimed in fatherly familiarity: "Dis is goot, mein son! dis is goot. Now are you von of us. " And he glanced meaninglyat John, who smiled back in secret intelligence. As he did so there wentlike a flash through his mind the question, "Can Carlen have spoken withhim to-day? Can that be it?" But a look at Carlen's pale, perplexed facequickly dissipated this idea. "She looks frightened, " thought John. "Ido not much wonder. I will get a word with her. " But Carlen had gonebefore he missed her. Running swiftly upstairs, she locked the door ofher room, and threw herself on her knees at her open window. Presentlyshe saw Wilhelm going down to the brook. She watched his every motion. First, he walked slowly up and down the entire length of the field, following the brook's course closely, stopping often and bending over, picking flowers. A curious little white flower called "Ladies'-Tress"grew there in great abundance, and he often brought bunches of it toher. 

"Perhaps it is not for me this time, " thought Carlen, and the tears cameinto her eyes. After a time Wilhelm ceased gathering the flowers, andseated himself on his favorite rock, --the same one where John and Carlenhad sat the night before. "Will he stay there all night?" thought theunhappy girl, as she watched him. "He is so full of joy he does not wantto sleep. What will become of me! what will become of me!"

At last Wilhelm arose and came toward the house, bringing the bunch offlowers in his hand. At the pasture bars he paused, and looked back overthe scene. It was a beautiful picture, the moon making it light as day;even from Carlen's window could be seen the sparkle of the brook. 

As he turned to go to the barn his head sank on his breast, his stepslagged. He wore again the expression of gloomy thought. A new fear arosein Carlen's breast. Was he mad? Had the wild hilarity of his speech anddemeanor in the evening been merely a new phase of disorder in anunsettled brain? Even in this was a strange, sad comfort to Carlen. Shewould rather have him mad, with alternations of insane joy and gloom, than know that he belonged to another. Long after he had disappeared inthe doorway at the foot of the stairs which led to his sleeping-place inthe barn-loft, she remained kneeling at the window, watching to see ifhe came out again. Then she crept into bed, and lay tossing, wakeful, and anxious till near dawn. She had but just fallen asleep when she wasaroused by cries. It was John's voice. He was calling loudly at thewindow of their mother's bedroom beneath her own. 

"Father! father! Get up, quick! Come out to the barn!"

Then followed confused words she could not understand. Leaning from herwindow she called: "What is it, John? What has happened?" But he wasalready too far on his way back to the barn to hear her. 

A terrible presentiment shot into her mind of some ill to Wilhelm. Vainly she wrestled with it. Why need she think everything that happenedmust be connected with him? It was not yet light; she could not haveslept many minutes. With trembling hands she dressed, and runningswiftly down the stairs was at the door just as her father appearedthere. 

"What is it? What is it, father?" she cried. "What has happened?"

"Go back!" he said in an unsteady voice. "It is nothing. Go back to bed. It is not for vimmins!"

Then Carlen was sure it was some ill to Wilhelm, and with a loud cry shedarted to the barn, and flew up the stairway leading to his room. 

John, hearing her steps, confronted her at the head of the stairs. 

"Good God, Carlen!" he cried, "go back! You must not come here. Where isfather?"

"I will come in!" she answered wildly, trying to force her way pasthim. "I will come in. You shall not keep me out. What has happened tohim? Let me by!" And she wrestled in her brother's strong arms withstrength almost equal to his. 

"Carlen! You shall not come in! You shall not see!" he cried. 

"Shall not see!" she shrieked. "Is he dead?"

"Yes, my sister, he is dead, " answered John, solemnly. In the nextinstant he held Carlen's unconscious form in his arms; and when FarmerWeitbreck, half dazed, reached the foot of the stairs, the first sightwhich met his eyes was his daughter, held in her brother's arms, apparently lifeless, her head hanging over his shoulder. 

"Haf she seen him?" he whispered. 

"No!" said John. "I only told her he was dead, to keep her from goingin, and she fainted dead away. "

"Ach!" groaned the old man, "dis is hard on her. "

"Yes, " sighed the brother; "it is a cruel shame. "

Swiftly they carried her to the house, and laid her on her mother'sbed, then returned to their dreadful task in Wilhelm's chamber. 

Hung by a stout leathern strap from the roof-tree beam, there swung thedead body of Wilhelm Rütter, cold, stiff. He had been dead for hours; hemust have done the deed soon after bidding them good-night. 

"He vas mad, Johan; it must be he vas mad ven he laugh like dat lastnight. Dat vas de beginning, Johan, " said the old man, shaking from headto foot with horror, as he helped his son lift down the body. 

"Yes!" answered John; "that must be it. I expect he has been mad allalong. I do not believe last night was the beginning. It was not likeany sane man to be so gloomy as he was, and never speak to a livingsoul. But I never once thought of his being crazy. Look, father!" hecontinued, his voice breaking into a sob, "he has left these flowershere for Carlen! That does not look as if he was crazy! What can it allmean?"

On the top of a small chest lay the bunch of white Ladies'-Tress, with apaper beneath it on which was written, "For Carlen Weitbreck, --these, and the carvings in the box, all in memory of Wilhelm. "

"He meant to do it, den, " said the old man. 

"Yes, " said John. 

"Maybe Carlen vould not haf him, you tink?"

"No, " said John, hastily; "that is not possible. "

"I tought she luf him, an' he vould stay an' be her mann, " sighed thedisappointed father. "Now all dat is no more. "

"It will kill her, " cried John. 

"No!" said the father. "Vimmins does not die so as dat. She feel padmaybe von year, maybe two. Dat is all. He vas great for vork. Dat Alfvas not goot as he. "

The body was laid once more on the narrow pallet where it had slept forits last few weeks on earth, and the two men stood by its side, discussing what should next be done, how the necessary steps could betaken with least possible publicity, when suddenly they heard the soundof horses' feet and wheels, and looking out they saw Hans Dietman andhis wife driving rapidly into the yard. 

"Mein Gott! Vat bring dem here dis time in day, " exclaimed FarmerWeitbreck. "If dey ask for Wilhelm dey must all know!"

"Yes, " replied John; "that makes no difference. Everybody will have toknow. " And he ran swiftly down to meet the strangely arrived neighbors. 

His first glance at their faces showed him that they had come on nocommon errand. They were pale and full of excitement, and Hans's firstword was: "Vere is dot man you sent to mine place yesterday?"

"Wilhelm?" stammered Farmer Weitbreck. 

"Wilhelm!" repeated Hans, scornfully. "His name is not 'Wilhelm. ' Hisname is Carl, --Carl Lepmann; and he is murderer. He killed vonman--shepherd, in our town--last spring; and dey never get trail ofhim. So soon he came in our kitchen yesterday my vife she knew him; shewait till I get home. Ve came ven it vas yet dark to let you know votman vas in your house. "

Farmer Weitbreck and his son exchanged glances; each was too shocked tospeak. Mr. And Mrs. Dietman looked from one to the other inbewilderment. "Maype you tink ve speak not truth, " Hans continued. "Just let him come here, to our face, and you will see. "

"No!" said John, in a low, awe-stricken voice, "we do not think you arenot speaking truth. " He paused; glanced again at his father. "We'dbetter take them up!" he said. 

The old man nodded silently. Even his hard and phlegmatic nature wasshaken to the depths. 

John led the way up the stairs, saying briefly, "Come. " The Dietmansfollowed in bewilderment. 

"There he is, " said John, pointing to the tall figure, rigid, under theclose-drawn white folds; "we found him here only an hour ago, hung fromthe beam. "

A horror-stricken silence fell on the group. 

Hans spoke first. "He know dat we know; so he kill himself to save datde hangman have trouble. "

John resented the flippant tone. He understood now the whole mystery ofWilhelm's life in this house. 

"He has never known a happy minute since he was here, " he said. "Henever smiled; nor spoke, if he could help it. Only last night, after hecame back from your place, he laughed and sang, and was merry, andlooked like another man; and he bade us all good-night over and over, and shook hands with every one. He had made up his mind, you see, thatthe end had come, and it was nothing but a relief to him. He was glad todie. He had not courage before. But now he knew he would be arrested hehad courage to kill himself. Poor fellow, I pity him!" And John smoothedout the white folds over the clasped hands on the quiet-stricken breast, resting at last. "He has been worse punished than if he had been hung inthe beginning, " he said, and turned from the bed, facing the Dietmans asif he constituted himself the dead man's protector. 

"I think no one but ourselves need know, " he continued, thinking in hisheart of Carlen. "It is enough that he is dead. There is no good to begained for any one, that I see, by telling what he had done. "

"No, " said Mrs. Dietman, tearfully; but her husband exclaimed, in avindictive tone:

"I see not why it is to be covered in secret. He is murderer. It is tobe sent vord to Mayence he vas found. "

"Yes, they ought to know there, " said John, slowly; "but there is noneed for it to be known here. He has injured no one here. "

"No, " exclaimed Farmer Weitbreck. "He haf harm nobody here; he vas goot. I haf ask him to stay and haf home in my house. "

It was a strange story. Early in the spring, it seemed, about six weeksbefore Hans Dietman and his wife Gretchen were married, a shepherd onthe farm adjoining Gretchen's father's had been murdered by afellow-laborer on the same farm. They had had high words about a dog, and had come to blows, but were parted by some of the other hands, andhad separated and gone their ways to their work with their respectiveflocks. 

This was in the morning. At night neither they nor their flocksreturned; and, search being made, the dead body of the younger shepherdwas found lying at the foot of a precipice, mutilated and wounded, farmore than it would have been by any accidental fall. The othershepherd, Carl Lepmann, had disappeared, and was never again seen by anyone who knew him, until this previous day, when he had entered theDietmans' door bearing his message from the Weitbreck farm. At the firstsight of his face, Gretchen Dietman had recognized him, thrown up herarms involuntarily, and cried out in German: "My God! the man thatkilled the shepherd!" Carl had halted on the threshold at hearing thesewords, and his countenance had changed; but it was only for a second. Heregained his composure instantly, entered as if he had heard nothing, delivered his message, and afterward remained for some time on the farmchatting with the laborers, and seeming in excellent spirits. 

"And so vas he ven he come home, " said Farmer Weitbreck; "he make dat veall laugh and laugh, like notings ever vas before, never before he openhis mouth to speak; he vas like at funeral all times, night and day. Butnow he seem full of joy. It is de most strange ting as I haf seen in mylife. "

"I do not think so, father, " said John. "I do not wonder he was glad tobe rid of his burden. "

It proved of no use to try to induce Hans Dietman to keep poor Carl'ssecret. He saw no reason why a murderer should be sheltered fromdisgrace. To have his name held up for the deserved execration seemed toHans the only punishment left for one who had thus evaded the hangman;and he proceeded to inflict this punishment to the extent of hisability. 

Finding that the tale could not be kept secret, John nerved himself totell it to Carlen. She heard it in silence from beginning to end, askeda few searching questions, and then to John's unutterable astonishmentsaid: "Wilhelm never killed that man. You have none of you stopped tosee if there was proof. "

"But why did he fly, Liebchen?" asked John. 

"Because he knew he would be accused of the murder, " she replied. "Theymight have been fighting at the edge of the precipice and the shepherdfell over, or the shepherd might have been killed by some one else, andWilhelm have found the body. He never killed him, John, never. "

There was something in Carlen's confident belief which communicateditself to John's mind, and, coupled with the fact that there wascertainly only circumstantial evidence against Wilhelm, slowly broughthim to sharing her belief and tender sorrow. But they were alone in thisbelief and alone in their sorrow. The verdict of the community wasunhesitatingly, unqualifiedly, against Wilhelm. 

"Would a man hang himself if he knew he were innocent?" said everybody. 

"All the more if he knew he could never prove himself innocent, " saidJohn and Carlen. But no one else thought so. And how could the truthever be known in this world?

Wilhelm was buried in a corner of the meadow field he had so loved. Before two years had passed, wild blackberry vines had covered the gravewith a thick mat of tangled leaves, green in summer, blood-red in theautumn. And before three more had passed there was no one in the placewho knew the secret of the grave. Farmer Weitbreck and his wife wereboth dead, and the estate had passed into the hands of strangers who hadheard the story of Wilhelm, and knew that his body was buried somewhereon the farm; but in which field they neither asked nor cared, and therewas no mourner to tell the story. John Weitbreck had realized his dreamof going West, a free man at last, and by no means a poor one; he lookedout over scores of broad fields of his own, one of the most fertile ofthe Oregon valleys. 

Alf was with him, and Carlen; and Carlen was Alf's wife, --placid, contented wife, and fond and happy mother, --so small ripples did thereremain from the tempestuous waves beneath which Carl Lepmann's life hadgone down. Some deftly carved boxes and figures of chamois and theirhunters stood on Carlen's best-room mantel, much admired by herneighbors, and longed for by her toddling girl, --these, and a bunch ofdried and crumbling blossoms of the Ladies' Tress, were all that hadsurvived the storm. The dried flowers were in the largest of the boxes. They lay there side by side with a bit of carved abalone shell Alf hadgot from a Nez Perce Indian, and some curious seaweeds he had picked upat the mouth of the Columbia River. Carlen's one gilt brooch was kept inthe same box, and when she took it out of a Sunday, the sight of thewithered flowers always reminded her of Wilhelm. She could not have toldwhy she kept them; it certainly was not because they woke in her breastany thoughts which Alf might not have read without being disquieted. Shesometimes sighed, as she saw them, "Poor Wilhelm!" That was all. 

But there came one day a letter to John that awoke even in Carlen'smotherly and contented heart strange echoes from that past which she hadthought forever left behind. It was a letter from Hans Dietman, whostill lived on the Pennsylvania farm, and who had been recently joinedthere by a younger brother from Germany. 

This brother had brought news which, too late, vindicated the memory ofWilhelm. Carlen had been right. He was no murderer. 

It was with struggling emotions that Carlen heard the tale; pride, joy, passionate regret, old affection, revived. John was half afraid to goon, as he saw her face flushing, her eyes filling with tears, kindlingand shining with a light he had not seen in them since her youth. 

"Go on! go on!" she cried. "Why do you stop? Did I not tell you so? Andyou never half believed me! Now you see I was right! I told you Wilhelmnever harmed a human being!"

It was indeed a heartrending story, to come so late, so bootless now, tothe poor boy who had slept all these years in the nameless grave, evenits place forgotten. 

It seemed that a man sentenced in Mayence to be executed for murder hadconfessed, the day before his execution, that it was he who had killedthe shepherd of whose death Carl Lepmann had so long been held guilty. They had quarrelled about a girl, a faithless creature, forsworn to bothof them, and worth no man's love or desire; but jealous anger got thebetter of their sense, and they grappled in fight, each determined tokill the other. 

The shepherd had the worst of it; and just as he fell, mortally hurt, Carl Lepmann had come up, --had come up in time to see the murderer leapon his horse to ride away. 

In a voice, which the man said had haunted him ever since, Carl hadcried out: "My God! You ride away and leave him dead! and it will be Iwho have killed him, for this morning we fought so they had to tear usapart!"

Smitten with remorse, the man had with Carl's help lifted the body andthrown it over the precipice, at the foot of which it was afterwardfound. He then endeavored to persuade the lad that it would never bediscovered, and he might safely return to his employer's farm. ButCarl's terror was too great, and he had finally been so wrought upon byhis entreaties that he had taken him two days' journey, by lonely ways, the two riding sometimes in turn, sometimes together, --two days' and twonights' journey, --till they reached the sea, where Carl had taken shipfor America. 

"He was a good lad, a tender-hearted lad, " said the murderer. "He mighthave accused me in many a village, and stood as good chance to bebelieved as I, if he had told where the shepherd's body was thrown; buthe could be frightened as easily as a woman, and all he thought of wasto fly where he would never be heard of more. And it was the thought ofhim, from that day till now, has given me more misery than the thoughtof the dead man!"

Carlen was crying bitterly; the letter was just ended, when Alf cameinto the room asking bewilderedly what it was all about. 

The name Wilhelm meant nothing to him. It was the summer before Wilhelmcame that he had begun this Oregon farm, which he, from the first, hadfondly dedicated to Carlen in his thoughts; and when he went back toPennsylvania after her, he found her the same as when he went away, onlycomelier and sweeter. It would not be easy to give Alf an uncomfortablethought about his Carlen. But he did not like to see her cry. 

Neither, when he had heard the whole story, did he see why her tearsneed have flowed so freely. It was sad, no doubt, and a bitter shametoo, for one man to suffer and go to his grave that way for the sin ofanother. But it was long past and gone; no use in crying over it now. 

"What a tender-hearted, foolish wife it is!" he said in gruff fondness, laying his hand on Carlen's shoulder, "crying over a man dead and buriedthese seven years, and none of our kith or kin, either. Poor fellow! Itwas a shame!"

But Carlen said nothing. 

Little Bel's Supplement. 

"Indeed, then, my mother, I'll not take the school at Wissan Bridgewithout they promise me a supplement. It's the worst school i' a' PrinceEdward Island. "

"I doubt but ye're young to tackle wi' them boys, Bel, " replied themother, gazing into her daughter's face with an intent expression inwhich it would have been hard to say which predominated, --anxiety orfond pride. "I'd sooner see ye take any other school between this an'Charlottetown, an' no supplement. "

"I'm not afraid, my mother, but I'll manage 'em well enough; but I'llnot undertake it for the same money as a decent school is taught. They'll promise me five pounds' supplement at the end o' the year, orI'll not set foot i' the place. "

"Maybe they'll not be for givin' ye the school at all when they seewhat's yer youth, " replied the mother, in a half-antagonistic tone. There was between this mother and daughter a continual undercurrent ofpossible antagonism, overlain and usually smothered out of sight bypassionate attachment on both sides. 

Little Bel tossed her head. "Age is not everything that goes to themakkin o' a teacher, " she retorted. "There's Grizzy McLeod; she'steachin' at the Cove these eight years, an' I'd shame her myself any dayshe likes wi' spellin' an' the lines; an' if there's ever a boy in aschool o' mine that'll gie me a floutin' answer such's I've heard hertake by the dozen, I'll warrant ye he'll get a birchin'; an' thetrustees think there's no teacher like Grizzy. I'm not afraid. "

"Grizzy never had any great schoolin' herself, " replied her mother, piously. "There's no girl in all the farms that's had what ye've had, Bel. "

"It isn't the schoolin', mother, " retorted little Bel. "The schoolin' 'sgot nothin' to do with it. I'd teach a school better than Grizzy McLeodif I'd never had a day's schoolin'. "

"An' now if that's not the talk of a silly, " retorted the quicklyangered parent. "Will ye be tellin' me perhaps, then, that them thatcan't read theirselves is to be set to teach letters?"

Little Bel was too loyal at heart to her illiterate mother to wound herfurther by reiterating her point. Throwing her arms around her neck, andkissing her warmly, she exclaimed: "Eh, my mother, it's not a silly thatye could ever have for a child, wi' that clear head, and the wise thingsalways said to us from the time we're in our cradles. Ye've never achild that's so clever as ye are yerself. I didn't mean just what Isaid, ye must know, surely; only that the schoolin' part is the smallestpart o' the keepin' a school. "

"An' I'll never give in to such nonsense as that, either, " said themother, only half mollified. "Ye can ask yer father, if ye like, if itstands not to reason that the more a teacher knows, the more he canteach. He'll take the conceit out o' ye better than I can. " And goodIsabella McDonald turned angrily away, and drummed on the window-panewith her knitting-needles to relieve her nervous discomfort at thisslight passage at arms with her best-beloved daughter. 

Little Bel's face flushed, and with compressed lips she turned silentlyto the little oaken-framed looking-glass that hung so high on the wallshe could but just see her chin in it. As she slowly tied her pinkbonnet strings she grew happier. In truth, she would have been a maidenhard to console if the face that looked back at her from the quaint oakleaf and acorn wreath had not comforted her inmost soul, and made heragain at peace with herself. And as the mother looked on she too wascomforted; and in five minutes more, when Little Bel was ready to saygood-by, they flung their arms around each other, and embraced andkissed, and the daughter said, "Good-by t' ye now, mother. Wish me well, an' ye'll see that I get it, --supplement an' all, " she added slyly. Andthe mother said, "Good luck t' ye, child; an' it's luck to them thatgets ye. " That was the way quarrels always ended between IsabellaMcDonald and her oldest daughter. 

The oldest daughter, and yet only just turned of twenty; and there wereeight children younger than she, and one older. This is the way amongthe Scotch farming-folk in Prince Edward Island. Children come tumblinginto the world like rabbits in a pen, and have to scramble for a livingalmost as soon and as hard as the rabbits. It is a narrow life theylead, and full of hardships and deprivations, but it has itscompensations. Sturdy virtues in sturdy bodies come of it, --the sort ofvirtue made by the straitest Calvinism, and the sort of body made out ofoatmeal and milk. One might do much worse than inherit both. 

It seemed but a few years ago that John McDonald had wooed and wonIsabella McIntosh, --wooed her with difficulty in the bosom of her familyof six brothers and five sisters, and won her triumphantly in spite ofthe open and contemptuous opposition of one of the five sisters. ForJohn himself was one of seven in his father's home, and whoever marriedJohn must go there to live, to be only a daughter in a mother-in-law'shouse, and take a daughter's share of the brunt of everything. "Andnothing to be got except a living, and it was a poor living the McDonaldfarm gave beside the McIntosh, " the McIntosh sisters said. And, moreover: "The saint did not live that could get on with John McDonald'smother. That was what had made him the silent fellow he was, alwaysbeing told by his mother to hold his tongue and have done speaking; anda fine pepper-pot there'd be when Isabella's hasty tongue and temperwere flung into that batch!"

There was no gainsaying all this. Nevertheless, Isabella married John, went home with him into his father's house, put her shoulder against herspoke in the family wheel, and did her best. And when, ten years later, as reward of her affectionate trust and patience, she found herself solemistress of the McDonald farm, she did not feel herself ill paid. Theold father and mother were dead, two sisters had died and two hadmarried, and the two sons had gone to the States to seek better fortunesthan were to be made on Prince Edward Island. John, as eldest son, had, according to the custom of the island, inherited the farm; and Mrs. Isabella, confronting her three still unmarried sisters, was able atlast triumphantly to refute their still resentfully rememberedobjections to her choice of a husband. 

"An' did ye suppose I did not all the time know that it was to this itwas sure to come, soon or late?" she said, with justifiable complacency. "It's a good thing to have a house o' one's own an' an estate. An' thelinen that's in the house! I've no need to turn a hand to the flax-wheelfor ten years if I've no mind. An' ye can all bide your times, an' seewhat John'll make o' the farm, now he's got where he can have things hisown way. His father was always set against anything that was new, an'the place is run down shameful; but John'll bring it up, an' I'm not anold woman yet. "

This last was the unkindest phrase Mrs. John McDonald permitted herselfto use. There was a rebound in it which told on the Mclntosh sisters;for they, many years older than she, were already living on tolerancein their father's house, where their oldest brother and his wife ruledthings with an iron hand. All hopes of a husband and a home of their ownhad quite died out of their spinster bosoms, and they would not havebeen human had they not secretly and grievously envied the comely, blooming Isabella her husband, children, and home. 

But, with all this, it was no play-day life that Mrs. Isabella had led. At the very best, and with the best of farms, Prince Edward Islandfarming is no high-road to fortune; only a living, and that of theplainest, is to be made; and when children come at the rate of ten intwenty-two years, it is but a small showing that the farmer's bankaccount makes at the end of that time. There is no margin for fineries, luxuries, small ambitions of any kind. Isabella had her temptations inthese directions, but John was firm as a rock in withstanding them. Ifhe had not been, there would never have been this story to tell of hisLittle Bel's school-teaching, for there would never have been moneyenough in the bank to have given her two years' schooling inCharlottetown, the best the little city afforded, --"and she boardin'all the time like a lady, " said the severe McIntosh aunts, whodisapproved of all such wide-flying ambitions, which made womendiscontented with and unfitted for farming life. 

"And why should Isabella be setting her daughters up for teachers?" theysaid. "It's no great schoolin' she had herself, and if her girls do aswell as she's done, they'll be lucky, "--a speech which made JohnMcDonald laugh out when it was reported to him. He could afford to laughnow. 

"I mind there was a day when they thought different o' me from that, " hesaid. "I'm obliged to them for nothin'; but I'd like the little one tohave a better chance than the marryin' o' a man like me, an' ifanything'll get it for her, it'll be schoolin'. "

The "boardin' like a lady, " which had so offended the Misses Mclntosh'ssense of propriety, was not, after all, so great an extravagance as theyhad supposed; for it was in his own brother's house her thrifty fatherhad put her, and had stipulated that part of the price of her board wasto be paid in produce of one sort and another from the farm, at marketrates; "an' so, ye see, the lass 'll be eatin' it there 'stead of here, "he said to his wife when he told her of the arrangement, "an' it's asma' difference it'll make to us i' the end o' the two years. "

"An' a big difference to her a' her life, " replied Isabella, warmly. 

"Ay, wife, " said John, "if it fa's out as ye hope; but it's mainuncertain countin' on the book-knowledge. There's some it draws up an'some it draws down; it's a millstone. But the lass is bright; she's aslike you as two peas in a pod. If ye'd had the chance she's had--"

Rising color in Isabella's face warned John to stop. It is a strangething to see how often there hovers a flitting shadow of jealousybetween a mother and the daughter to whom the father unconsciouslymanifests a chivalrous tenderness akin to that which in his youth he hadgiven only to the sweetheart he sought for wife. Unacknowledged, perhaps, even unmanifested save in occasional swift and unreasonablepetulances, it is still there, making many a heartache, which is nonethe less bitter that it is inexplicable to itself, and dares not so muchas confess its own existence. 

"It's a better thing for a woman to make her way i' the world on thebook-learnin' than to be always at the wheel an' the churn an' thefloors to be whitened, " replied Isabella, sharply. "An' one year likeanother, till the year comes ye're buried. I look for Bel to marry aminister, or maybe even better. "

"Ye'd a chance at a minister yersel', then, my girl, " replied the wiseJohn, "an' ye did not take it. " At which memory the wife laughed, andthe two loyal hearts were merry together for a moment, and young again. 

Little Bel had, indeed, even before the Charlottetown schooling, had afar better chance than her mother; for in her mother's day there was nofree school in the island, and in families of ten and twelve it was onlya turn and turn about that the children had at school. Since the freeschools had been established many a grown man and woman had sighedcuriously at the better luck of the youngsters under the new regime. Noexcuse now for the poorest man's children not knowing how to read andwrite and more; and if they chose to keep on, nothing to hinder theirdipping into studies of which their parents never heard so much as thenames. 

And this was not the only better chance which Little Bel had had. JohnMcDonald's farm joined the lands of the manse; his house was a shortmile from the manse itself; and by a bit of good fortune for Little Belit happened that just as she was growing into girlhood there came a newminister to the manse, --a young man from Halifax, with a young bride, the daughter of an officer in the Halifax garrison, --gentlefolks, bothof them, but single-hearted and full of fervor in their work for thesouls of the plain farming-people given into their charge. And both Mr. Allan and Mrs. Allan had caught sight of Little Bel's face on theirfirst Sunday in church, and Mrs. Allan had traced to her a flute-likevoice she had detected in the Sunday-school singing; and before long, toIsabella's great but unspoken pride, the child had been "bidden to themanse for the minister's wife to hear her sing;" and from that day therewas a new vista in Little Bel's life. 

Her voice was sweet as a lark's and as pure, and her passionate lovefor music a gift in itself. "It would be a sin not to cultivate it, "said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "even if she never sees another pianothan mine, nor has any other time in her life except these few years toenjoy it; she will always have had these, and nothing can separate herfrom her voice. "

And so it came to pass that when, at sixteen, Little Bel went toCharlottetown for her final two years of study at the High School, sheplayed almost as well as Mrs. Allan herself, and sang far better. And inall Isabella McDonald's day-dreams of the child's future, vague orminute, there was one feature never left out. The "good husband" comingalways was to be a man who could "give her a piano. "

In Charlottetown Bel found no such friend as Mrs. Allan; but she had ayoung school-mate who had a piano, and--poor short-sighted creature thatshe was, Bel thought--hated the sight of it, detested to practise, andshed many a tear over her lessons. This girl's parents were thankful tosee their daughter impressed by Bel's enthusiasm for music; and so welldid the clever girl play her cards that before she had been six monthsin the place, she was installed as music-teacher to her ownschoolfellow, earning thereby not only money enough to buy the fewclothes she needed, but, what to her was better than money, theprivilege of the use of the piano an hour a day. 

So when she went home, at the end of the two years, she had lostnothing, --in fact, had made substantial progress; and her old friend andteacher, Mrs. Allan, was as proud as she was astonished when she firstheard her play and sing. Still more astonished was she at the forcefulcharacter the girl had developed. She went away a gentle, loving, clinging child; her nature, like her voice, belonging to the order ofbirds, --bright, flitting, merry, confiding. She returned a woman, stillloving, still gentle in her manner, but with a new poise in her bearing, a resoluteness, a fire, of which her first girlhood had given nosuggestion. It was strange to see how similar yet unlike were thecomments made on her in the manse and in the farmhouse by the twocouples most interested in her welfare. 

"It is wonderful, Robert, " said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "how thatgirl has changed, and yet not changed. It is the music that has liftedher up so. What a glorious thing is a real passion for any art in ahuman soul! But she can never live here among these people. I must takeher to Halifax. "

"No, " said Mr. Allan; "her work will be here. She belongs to her peoplein heart, all the same. She will not be discontented. "

"Husband, I'm doubtin' if we've done the right thing by the child, aftera', " said the mother, tearfully, to the father, at the end of the firstevening after Bel's return. "She's got the ways o' the city on her, an'she carries herself as if she'd be teachin' the minister his own self. Idoubt but she'll feel herself strange i' the house. "

"Never you fash yourself, " replied John. "The girl's got her head, that's a'; but her heart's i' the right place. Ye'll see she'll put herstrength to whatever there's to be done. She'll be a master hand atteachin', I'll wager!"

"You always did think she was perfection, " replied the mother, in acrisp but not ill-natured tone, "an' I'm not gainsayin' that she's notas near it as is often seen; but I'm main uneasy to see her carryin'herself so positive. "

If John thought in his heart that Bel had come through direct heredityon the maternal side by this "carryin' herself positive, " he knew betterthan to say so, and his only reply was a good-natured laugh, with:"You'll see! I'm not afraid. She's a good child, an' always was. "

Bel passed her examination triumphantly, and got the Wissan Bridgeschool; but she got only a contingent promise of the five-poundsupplement. It went sorely against her will to waive this point. Verykeenly Mr. Allan, who was on the Examining Board, watched her face asshe modestly yet firmly pressed it. 

The trustees did not deny that the Wissan Bridge school was a difficultand unruly one; that to manage it well was worth more money than theordinary school salaries. The question was whether this very young ladycould manage it at all; and if she failed, as the last incumbenthad, --failed egregiously, too; the school had broken up in riotousconfusion before the end of the year, --the canny Scotchmen of the SchoolBoard did not wish to be pledged to pay that extra five pounds. Theutmost Bel could extract from them was a promise that if at the end ofthe year her teaching had proved satisfactory, the five pounds should bepaid. More they would not say; and after a short, sharp struggle withherself Bel accepted the terms; but she could not restrain a farewellshot at the trustees as she turned to go. "I'm as sure o' my five poundsas if ye'd promised it downright, sirs. I shall keep ye a good school atWissan Bridge. "

"We'll make it guineas, then, Miss Bel, " cried Mr. Allan, enthusiastically, looking at his colleagues, who nodded their heads, andsaid, laughing, "Yes, guineas it is. "

"And guineas it will be, " retorted Little Bel, as with cheeks likepeonies she left the room. 

"Egad, but she's a fine spirit o' her ain, an' as bonnie a face as I'veseen since I remember, " cried old Mr. Dalgetty, the senior member ofthe Board, and the one hardest to please. "I'd not mind bein' a pupil atWissan Bridge school the comin' term myself. " And he gave an old man'sprivileged chuckle as he looked at his colleagues. "But she's over-youngfor the work, --over-young. "

"She'll do it, " said Mr. Allan, confidently. "Ye need have no fear. Mywife's had the training of the girl since she was little. She's got thebest o' stuff in her. She'll do it. "

Mr. Allan's prediction was fulfilled. Bel did it. But she did it at thecost of harder work than even she had anticipated. If it had not beenfor her music she would never have pulled through with the boys ofWissan Bridge. By her music she tamed them. The young Marsyas himselfnever piped to a wilder set of creatures than the uncouth lads and youngmen that sat in wide-eyed, wide-mouthed astonishment listening to thefirst song their pretty young schoolmistress sang for them. To havesinging exercises part of the regular school routine was a new thing atWissan Bridge. It took like wild-fire; and when Little Bel, shrewd anddiplomatic as a statesman, invited the two oldest and worst boys in theschool to come Wednesday and Saturday afternoons to her boarding-placeto practise singing with her to the accompaniment of the piano, so as tobe able to help her lead the rest, her sovereignty was established. Theywere not conquered; they were converted, --a far surer and more lastingprocess. Neither of them would, from that day out, have been guilty ofan act, word, or look to annoy her, any more than if they had been rivallovers suing for her hand. As Bel's good luck would have it, --and Belwas born to good luck, there is no denying it, --one of these boys had agood tenor voice, the other a fine barytone; they had both in theirrough way been singers all their lives, and were lovers of music. 

"That was more than half the battle, my mother, " confessed Bel, when, atthe end of the first term she was at home for a few days, and wasrecounting her experiences. "Except for the singin' I'd never have gotArchie McLeod under, nor Sandy Stairs either. I doubt they'd have beentoo many for me, but now they're like two more teachers to the fore. I'dleave the school-room to them for a day, an' not a lad'd dare stir inhis seat without their leave. I call them my constables; an' I'mteaching them a small bit of chemistry out o' school hours, too, an'that's a hold on them. They'll see me out safe; an' I'm thinkin' I'llowe them a bit part o' the five guineas when I get it, " she addedreflectively. 

"The minister says ye're sure of it, " replied her mother. "He says ye'vethe best school a'ready in all his circuit. I don't know how ever yecome to't so quick, child. " And Isabella McDonald smiled wistfully, spite of all her pride in her clever bairn. 

"Ye see, then, what he'll say after the examination at New Year's, "gleefully replied Bel, "if he thinks the school is so good now. It'll betwice as good then; an' such singin' as was never heard before in anyschool-house on the island, I'll warrant me. I'm to have the piano overfor the day to the school-house. Archie and Sandy'll move it in a bigwagon, to save me payin' for the cartin'; an' I'm to pay a half-poundfor the use of it if it's not hurt, --a dear bargain, but she'd not letit go a shilling less. And, to be sure, there is the risk to becounted. An' she knew I 'd have it if it had been twice that. But I gotit out of her that for that price she was to let me have all the schoolover twice a week, for two months before, to practise. So it's not toodear. Ye'll see what ye'll hear then. "

It had been part of Little Bel's good luck that she had succeeded inobtaining board in the only family in the village which had thedistinction of owning a piano; and by paying a small sum extra, she hadobtained the use of this piano for an hour each day, --the bestinvestment of Little Bel's life, as the sequel showed. 

It was a bitter winter on Prince Edward Island. By New Year's time theroads were many of them wellnigh impassable with snow. Fierce windsswept to and fro, obliterating tracks by noon which had been clear inthe morning; and nobody went abroad if he could help it. New Year's Dayopened fiercest of all, with scurries of snow, lowering sky, and a windthat threatened to be a gale before night. But, for all that, thetying-posts behind the Wissan Bridge school-house were crowded full ofsteaming horses under buffalo-robes, which must stamp and paw andshiver, and endure the day as best they might, while the New Year'sexamination went on. Everybody had come. The fame of the singing of theWissan Bridge school had spread far and near, and it had been whisperedabout that there was to be a "piece" sung which was finer than anythingever sung in the Charlottetown churches. 

The school-house was decorated with evergreens, --pine and spruce. TheNew Year's Day having fallen on a Monday, Little Bel had had a clearworking-day on the Saturday previous; and her faithful henchmen, Archieand Sandy, had been busy every evening for a week drawing the boughs ontheir sleds and piling them up in the yard. The teacher's desk had beenremoved, and in its place stood the shining red mahogany piano, --a newand wonderful sight to many eyes there. 

All was ready, the room crowded full, and the Board of Trustees not yetarrived. There sat their three big arm-chairs on the raised platform, empty, --a depressing and perplexing sight to Little Bel, who, in hershort blue merino gown, with a knot of pink ribbon at her throat, and aroll of white paper (her schedule of exercises) in her hand, stood onthe left hand of the piano, her eyes fixed expectantly on the doors. Theminutes lengthened out into quarter of an hour, half an hour. AnxiouslyBel consulted with her father what should be done. 

"The roads are something fearfu', child, " he replied; "we must make bigallowance for that. They're sure to be comin', at least some one o'them. It was never known that they failed on the New Year's examination, an' it would seem a sore disrespect to begin without them here. "

Before he had finished speaking there was heard a merry jingling ofbells outside, dozens and dozens it seemed, and hilarious voices andlaughter, and the snorting of overdriven horses, and the stamping offeet, and more voices and more laughter. Everybody looked in hisneighbor's face. What sounds were these? Who ever heard a sober SchoolBoard arrive in such fashion as this? But it was the SchoolBoard, --nothing less: a good deal more, however. Little Bel's heartsank within her as she saw the foremost figure entering the room. Whatevil destiny had brought Sandy Bruce in the character of school visitorthat day?--Sandy Bruce, retired school-teacher himself, superintendentof the hospital in Charlottetown, road-master, ship-owner, exciseman, --Sandy Bruce, whose sharp and unexpected questions had beenknown to floor the best of scholars and upset the plans of the best ofteachers. Yes, here he was, --Sandy Bruce himself; and it was his fiercelittle Norwegian ponies, with their silver bells and fur collars, theadmiration of all Charlottetown, that had made such a clatter andstamping outside, and were still keeping it up; for every time theystirred the bells tinkled like a peal of chimes. And, woe upon woe, behind him came, not Bel's friend and pastor, Mr. Allan, but the crustyold Dalgetty, whose doing it had been a year before, as Bel very wellknew, that the five-pound supplement had been only conditionallypromised. 

Conflicting emotions turned Bel's face scarlet as she advanced to meetthem; the most casual observer could not have failed to see that dismaypredominated, and Sandy Bruce was no casual observer; nothing escapedhis keen glance and keener intuition, and it was almost with a wickedtwinkle in his little hazel eyes that he said, still shaking off thesnow, stamping and puffing: "Eh, but ye were not lookin' for me, teacher! The minister was sent for to go to old Elspie Breadalbane, who's dyin' the morn; and I happened by as he was startin', an' he mademe promise to come i' his place; an' I picked up my friend Dalgetty herea few miles back, wi' his horse flounderin' i' the drifts. Except for meye'd ha' had no board at all here to-day; so I hope ye'll give me no badwelcome. "

As he spoke he was studying her face, where the color came and went likewaves; not a thought in the girl's heart he did not read. "Poor littlelassie!" he was thinking to himself. "She's shaking in her shoes withfear o' me. I'll not put her out. She's a dainty blossom of a girl. What's kept her from being trodden down by these Wissan Bridgeracketers, I'd like to know. "

But when he seated himself on the platform, and took his first look atthe rows of pupils in the centre of the room, he was near starting withamazement. The Wissan Bridge "racketers, " as he had mentally calledthem, were not to be seen. Very well he knew many of them by sight; forhis shipping business called him often to Wissan Bridge, and this wasnot the first time he had been inside the school-house, which had beenso long the dread and terror of school boards and teachers alike. Apuzzled frown gathered between Sandy Bruce's eyebrows as he gazed. 

"What has happened to the youngsters, then? Have they all been convartedi' this twelvemonth?" he was thinking. And the flitting perplexedthought did not escape the observation of John McDonald, who was asquick a reader of faces as Sandy himself, and had been by no means freefrom anxiety for his little Bel when he saw the redoubtable visage ofthe exciseman appear in the doorway. 

"He's takin' it in quick the way the bairn's got them a' in hand, "thought John. "If only she can hold hersel' cool now!"

No danger. Bel was not the one to lose a battle by appearing to quail inthe outset, however clearly she might see herself outnumbered. Andsympathetic and eager glances from her constables, Archie and Sandy, told her that they were all ready for the fray. These glances SandyBruce chanced to intercept, and they heightened his bewilderment. ToArchie McLeod he was by no means a stranger, having had occasion morethan once to deal with him, boy as he was, for complications withriotous misdoings. He had happened to know, also, that it was ArchieMcLeod who had been head and front of the last year's revolt in theschool, --the one boy that no teacher hitherto had been able to control. And here stood Archie McLeod, rising in his place, leader of the form, glancing down on the boys around him with the eye of a general, watchingthe teacher's eye, meanwhile, as a dog watches for his master's signal. 

And the orderly yet alert and joyously eager expression of the wholeschool, --it had so much the look of a miracle to Sandy Bruce's eye, that, not having been for years accustomed to the restraint and dignityof school visitors, of technical official, he was on the point of givinga loud whistle of astonishment Luckily recollecting himself in time, hesmothered the whistle and the "Whew! what's all this?" which had been onhis tongue's end, in a vigorous and unnecessary blowing of his nose. Andbefore that was over, and his eyes well wiped, there stood the wholeschool on its feet before him, and the room ringing with such a chorusas was never heard in a Prince Edward Island school-room before. Thiscompleted his bewilderment, and swallowed it up in delight. If SandyBruce had an overmastering passion in his rugged nature, it was formusic. To the sound of the bag-pipes he had often said he would march todeath and "not know it for dyin'. " The drum and the fife could draw himas quickly now as when he was a boy, and the sweet singing of a woman'svoice was all the token he wanted of the certainty of heaven and theexistence of angels. 

When Little Bel's clear, flute-like soprano notes rang out, carryingalong the fifty young voices she led, Sandy jumped up on his feet, waving his hand, in a sudden heat of excitement, right and left; andlooking swiftly all about him on the platform, he said: "It's notsittin' we'es take such welcome as this, my neebors!" Each man and womanthere, catching the quick contagion, rose; and it was a tumultuous crowdof glowing faces that pressed forward around the piano as the singingwent on, --fathers, mothers, rustics, all; and the children, pleased andastonished, sang better than ever, and when the chorus was ended it wassome minutes before all was quiet. 

Many things had been settled in that few minutes. John McDonald's heartwas at rest. "The music'll carry a' before it, no matter if they do makea failure here 'n' there, " he thought. "The bairn is a' right. " Themother's heart was at rest also. 

"She's done wonders wi' 'em, --wonders! I doubt not but it'll go throughas it's begun. Her face's a picture to look on. Bless her!" Isabella wassaying behind her placid smile. 

"Eh, but she's won her guineas out o' us, " thought old Dalgetty, ungrudgingly, "and won 'em well. "

"I don't see why everybody is so afraid of Sandy Bruce, " thought LittleBel. "He looks as kind and as pleased as my own father. I don't believehe'll ask any o' his botherin' questions. "

What Sandy Bruce thought it would be hard to tell; nearer the truth, probably, to say that his head was in too much of a whirl to thinkanything. Certain it is that he did not ask any botherin' questions, butsat, leaning forward on his stout oaken staff, held firmly between hisknees, and did not move for the next hour, his eyes resting alternatelyon the school and on the young teacher, who, now that her first frightwas over, was conducting her entertainment with the composure anddignity of an experienced instructor. 

The exercises were simple, --declamations, reading of selectedcompositions, examinations of the principal classes. At short intervalscame songs to break the monotony. The first one after the opening choruswas "Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon. " At the first bars of this SandyBruce could not keep silence, but broke into a lone accompaniment in adeep bass voice, untrained but sweet. 

"Ah, " thought Little Bel, "what'll he say to the last one, I wonder?"

When the time came she found out. If she had chosen the arrangement ofher music with full knowledge of Sandy Bruce's preferences, and with theexpress determination to rouse him to a climax of enthusiasm, she couldnot have done better. 

When the end of the simple programme of recitations and exhibition hadbeen reached, she came forward to the edge of the platform--her cheekswere deep pink now, and her eyes shone with excitement--and said, turning to the trustees and spectators: "We have finished, now, all wehave to show for our year's work, and we will close our entertainment bysinging 'Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled!'"

"Ay, ay! that wi' we!" shouted Sandy Bruce, again leaping to his feet;and as the first of the grand chords of that grand old tune rang outfull and loud under Little Bel's firm touch, he strode forward to thepiano, and with a kindly nod to her struck in. 

With the full force of his deep, bass-like, violoncello notes, gatheringup all the others and fusing them into a pealing strain, it waselectin'. Everybody sang. Old voices, that had not sung for a quarter ofa century or more, joined in. It was a furor: Dalgetty swung his tartancap, Sandy his hat; handkerchiefs were waved, staves rang on the floor. The children, half frightened in spite of their pleasure, were quieterthan their elders. 

"Eh, but it was good fun to see the old folks gone crazy for once!" saidArchie McLeod, in recounting the scene. "Now, if they'd get that wayoftener they'd not be so hard down on us youngsters. "

At the conclusion of the song the first thing Little Bel heard wasDalgetty's piping voice behind her, --

"And guineas it is, Miss McDonald. Ye've won it fair an' square. Guineasit is!"

"Eh, what? Guineas! What is 't ye're sayin'?" asked Sandy Bruce; hiseyes, steady glowing like coals, gazing at Little Bel. 

"The supplement, sir, " answered Little Bel, lifting her eyes roguishlyto his. "Mr. Dalgetty thought I was too young for the school, an' he'dpromise me no supplement till he saw if I'd be equal to 't. "

This was the sly Bel's little revenge on Dalgetty, who began confusedlyto explain that it was not he any more than the other trustees, and heonly wished that they had all been here to see, as he had seen, howfinely the school had been managed; but nobody heard what he said, forabove all the humming and buzzing and laughing there came up from thecentre of the school-room a reiterated call of "Sirs!" "Trustees!" "Mr. Trustee!" "Board!"

It was Archie McLeod, standing up on the backs of two seats, waving awhite paper, and trying frantically to make himself heard. The face of aman galloping for life and death, coming up at the last second with areprieve for one about to be shot, could hardly be fuller of intenseanxiety than was Archie's as he waved his paper and shouted. 

Little Bel gazed bewilderingly at him. This was not down on herprogramme of the exercises. What could it be?

As soon as partial silence enabled him to speak, Archie proceeded toread a petition, setting forth, to the respected Board of Trustees, thatthe undersigned, boys and girls of the Wissan Bridge School, did herebyunanimously request that they might have no other teacher than MissMcDonald, "as long as she lives. "

This last clause had been the cause of bitter disputing between Archieand Sandy, --Sandy insisting upon having it in; Archie insisting that itwas absurd, because they would not go to school as long as Miss McDonaldlived. "But there's the little ones and the babies that'll be growin'up, " retorted Sandy, "an' there'll never be another like her: I say, 'aslong as she lives'"; and "as long as she lives" it was. And when Archie, with an unnecessary emphasis, delivered this closing clause of thepetition, it was received with a roar of laughter from the platform, which made him flush angrily, and say, with a vicious punch in Sandy'sribs: "There, I told ye, it spoiled it a'. They're fit to die over it;an' sma' blame to 'em, ye silly!"

But he was reassured when he heard Sandy Bruce's voice overtopping thetumult with: "A vary sensible request, my lad; an' I, for one, am o' yerway o' thinkin'. "

In which speech was a deeper significance than anybody at the timedreamed. In that hurly-burly and hilarious confusion no one had time toweigh words or note meanings; but there were some who recalled it a fewmonths later when they were bidden to a wedding at the house of JohnMcDonald, --a wedding at which Sandy Bruce was groom, and Little Bel thebrightest, most winsome of brides. 

It was an odd way that Sandy went to work to win her: his ways had beenodd all his life, --so odd that it had long ago been accepted in theminds of the Charlottetown people that he would never find a woman towed him; only now and then an unusually perspicacious person divinedthat the reason of his bachelorhood was not at all that women did notwish to wed him, spite of his odd ways, but that he himself found nowoman exactly to his taste. 

True it was that Sandy Bruce, aged forty, had never yet desired anywoman for his wife till he looked into the face of Little Bel in theWissan Bridge school-house. And equally true was it that before the laststrains of "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled" had died away on thatmemorable afternoon of her exhibition of her school, he had determinedthat his wife she should be. 

This was the way he took to win her. No one can deny that it was odd. 

There was some talk between him and his temporary colleague on theSchool Board, old Dalgetty, as they drove home together behind the briskNorwegian ponies; and the result of this conversation was that the nextmorning early--in fact, before Little Bel was dressed, so late had shebeen indulged, for once, in sleeping, after her hard labors in theexhibition the day before--the Norwegian ponies were jingling theirbells at John McDonald's door; and John himself might have been seen, with a seriously puzzled face, listening to words earnestly spoken bySandy, as he shook off the snow and blanketed the ponies. 

As the talk progressed, John glanced up involuntarily at Little Bel'swindow. Could it be that he sighed? At any rate, there was no regret inhis heart as he shook Sandy's hand warmly, and said: "Ye've my freeconsent to try; but I doubt she's not easy won. She's her head now, an'her ain way; but she's a good lass, an' a sweet one. "

"An' I need no man to tell me that, " said the dauntless Sandy, as hegave back the hearty hand-grip of his friend; "an' she'll never repentit, the longest day o' her life, if she'll ha' me for her man. " And hestrode into the house, bearing in his hand the five golden guineas whichhis friend Dalgetty had, at his request, commissioned him to pay. 

"Into her own hand, mind ye, mon, " chuckled Dalgetty, mischievously. "Ye'll not be leavin' it wi' the mither. " To which sly satire Sandy'sonly reply was a soft laugh and nod of his head. 

As soon as Little Bel crossed the threshold of the room where SandyBruce stood waiting for her, she knew the errand on which he had come. It was written in his face. Neither could it be truthfully said to be asurprise to Little Bel; for she had not been woman, had she failed torecognize on the previous day that the rugged Scotchman's whole naturehad gone out toward her in a sudden and overmastering attraction. 

Sandy looked at her keenly. "Eh, ye know't a'ready, " he said, --"thething I came to say t' ye. " And he paused, still eying her more like ajudge than a lover. 

Little Bel turned scarlet. This was not her ideal of a wooer. "Knowwhat, Mr. Bruce?" she said resentfully. "How should I know what ye cameto say?"

"Tush! tush, lass! do na prevaricate, " Sandy began, his eyes gloating onher lovely confusion; "do na preteend--" But the sweet blue eyes weretoo much for him. Breaking down utterly, he tossed the guineas to oneside on the table, and stretching out both hands toward Bel, heexclaimed, --"Ye're the sweetest thing the eyes o' a mon ever rested on, lass, an' I'm goin' to win ye if ye'll let me. " And as Bel opened hermouth to speak, he laid one hand, quietly as a mother might, across herlips, and continued: "Na! na! I'll not let ye speak yet. I'm not a sillyto look for ye to be ready to say me yes at this quick askin'; but I'llnot let ye say me nay neither. Ye'll not refuse me the only thing I'maskin' the day, an' that's that ye'll let me try to make ye love me. Ye'll not say nay to that, lass. I'll gie my life to it. " And now hewaited for an answer. 

None came. Tears were in Bel's eyes as she looked up in his face. Twiceshe opened her lips to speak, and twice her heart and the words failedher. The tears became drops and rolled down the cheeks. Sandy wasdismayed. 

"Ye're not afraid o' me, ye sweet thing, are ye?" he gasped out. "I'dnot vex ye for the world. If ye bid me to go, I'd go. "

"No, I'm not afraid o' ye, Mr. Bruce, " sobbed Bel. "I don't know what itis makes me so silly. I'm not afraid o' ye, though. But I was for a fewminutes yesterday, " she added archly, with a little glint of a roguishsmile, which broke through the tears like an April sun through rain, andturned Sandy's head in the twinkling of an eye. 

"Ay, ay, " he said; "I minded it weel, an' I said to myself then, in thatfirst sight I had o' yer face, that I'd not harm a hair o' yer head. Oh, my little lass, would ye gie me a kiss, --just one, to show ye're notafraid, and to gie me leave to try to win ye out o' likin' into lovin'?"he continued, drawing closer and bending toward her. 

And then a wonderful thing happened. Little Bel, who, although she wastwenty years old, and had by no means been without her admirers, hadnever yet kissed any man but her father and brothers, put up her rosylips, as confidingly as a little child, to be kissed by this strangewooer, who wooed only for leave to woo. 

"An' if he'd only known it, he might ha' asked a' he wanted then as wellas later, " said Little Bel, honestly avowing the whole to her mother. "As soon as he put his hands on me the very heart in me said he was myman for a' my life. An' there's no shame in it that I can see. If a manmay love that way in the lighting of an eye, why may not a girl do thesame? There's not one kind o' heart i' the breast of a man an' anotherkind i' the breast of a woman, as ever I heard. " In which Little Bel, inher innocence, was wiser than people wiser than she. 

And after this there is no need of telling more, --only a picture or twowhich are perhaps worth sketching in few words. One is the expressionwhich was seen on Sandy Bruce's face one day, not many weeks after hisfirst interview with Little Bel, when, in reply to his question, "An'now, my own lass, what'll ye have for your weddin' gift from me? Tell methe thing ye want most i' a' the earth, an' if it's in my means ye shallhave it the day ye gie me the thing I want maist i' the whole earth. "

"I've got it a'ready, Sandy, " said Little Bel, taking his face in herhands, and making a feint of kissing him; then withdrawing coquettishly. Wise, innocent Bel! Sandy understood. 

"Ay, my lass; but next to me. What's the next thing ye'd have?"

Bel hesitated. Even to her wooer's generosity it might seem a daringrequest, --the thing she craved. 

"Tell me, lass, " said Sandy, sternly. "I've mair money than ye think. There's no lady in a' Charlottetown can go finer than ye if ye've amind. "

"For shame, Sandy!" cried Bel. "An' you to think it was fine apparel I'dbe askin'! It's a--a"--the word refused to leave her tongue--"a--piano, Sandy;" and she gazed anxiously at him. "I'll never ask ye for anotherthing till the day o' my death, Sandy, if ye'll gie me that. "

Sandy shouted in delight. For a brief space a fear had seized him--ofwhich he now felt shame indeed--that his sweet lassie might be about toask for jewels or rich attire; and it would have sorely hurt Sandy'spride in her had this been so. 

"A piano!" he shouted. "An' did ye not think I'd that a'ready in mymind? O' coorse, a piano, an' every other instrument under the skiesthat ye'll wish, my lass, ye shall have. The more music ye make, thegladder the house'll be. Is there nothin' else ye want, lass, --nothin'?"

"Nothing in all this world, Sandy, but you and a piano, " replied LittleBel. 

The other picture was on a New Year's Day, just a twelvemonth from theday of Little Bel's exhibition in the Wissan Bridge school-house. It isa bright day; the sleighing is superb all over the island, and theCharlottetown streets are full of gay sleighs and jingling bells, --noneso gay, however, as Sandy Bruce's, and no bells so merry as the silverones on his fierce little Norwegian ponies, that curvet and prance, andare all their driver can hold. Rolled up in furs to her chin, how rosyand handsome looks Little Bel by her husband's side, and how full ofproud content is his face as he sees the people all turning to look ather beauty! And who is this driving the Norwegian ponies? Who butArchie, --Archie McLeod, who has followed his young teacher to her newhome, and is to grow up, under Sandy Bruce's teachings, into a sharp andsuccessful man of the shipping business. 

And as they turn a corner they come near running into another fur-piled, swift-gliding sleigh, with a grizzled old head looking out of a tartanhood, and eyes like hawks', --Dalgetty himself; and as they pass the headnods and the eyes laugh, and a sharp voice cries, "Guineas it is!"

"Better than guineas!" answered back Mrs. Sandy Bruce, quick as a flash;and in the same second cries Archie, from the front seat, with a saucylaugh, "And as long as she lives, Mr. Dalgetty!"

The Captain of the "Heather Bell". 

You might have known he was a Scotchman by the name of his littlesteamer; and if you had not known it by that, you would have known it assoon as you looked at him. Scotch, pure, unmitigated, unmistakableScotch, was Donald Mackintosh, from the crown of his auburn head down tothe soles of his big awkward feet. Six feet two inches in his stockingshe stood, and so straight that he looked taller even than that;blue-gray eyes full of a canny twinkle; freckles, --yes, freckles thatwere really past the bounds of belief, for up into his hair they ran, and to the rims of his eyes, --no pale, dull, equivocal freckles, such asmight be mistaken for dingy spots of anything else, but brilliant, golden-brown freckles, almost auburn like his hair. Once seen, never tobe forgotten were Donald Mackintosh's freckles. All this does not soundlike the description of a handsome man; but we are not through yet withwhat is to be said about Donald Mackintosh's looks. We have said nothingof his straight massive nose, his tawny curling beard, which shaded upto yellow around a broad and laughing mouth, where were perpetuallyflashing teeth of an even ivory whiteness a woman might have coveted. No, not handsome, but better than handsome, was Donald Mackintosh; hewas superb. Everybody said so: nobody could have been found to disputeit, --nobody but Donald himself; he thought, honestly thought, he washideous. All that he could see on the rare occasions when he looked in aglass was an expanse of fiery red freckles, topped off with what hewould have called a shock of red hair. Uglier than anything he had everseen in his life, he said to himself many a time, and grew shyer andshyer and more afraid of women each time he said it; and all this whilethere was not a girl in Charlottetown that did not know him in herthoughts, if indeed she did not openly speak of him, as that "splendidDonald Mackintosh, " or "the handsome 'Heather Bell' captain. "

But nothing could have made Donald believe this, which was in one way apity, though in another way not. If he had known how women admired him, he would have inevitably been more or less spoiled by it, wasted histime, and not have been so good a sailor. On the other hand, it was apity to see him, --forty years old, and alone in the world, --not a chicknor a child of his own, nor any home except such miserable makeshifts asa sailor finds in inns or boarding-houses. 

It was a wonder that the warm-hearted fellow had kept a cheery natureand face all these years living thus. But the "Heather Bell" stood tohim in place of wife, children, home. There is no passion in life solike the passion of a man for a woman as the passion of a sailor for hiscraft; and this passion Donald had to the full. It was odd how he cameto be a born sailor. His father and his father's fathers, as far back asthey knew, had been farmers--three generations of them--on the PrinceEdward Island farm where Donald was born; and still more generations ofthem in old Scotland. Pure Scotch on both sides of the house forhundreds of years were the Mackintoshes, and the Gaelic tongue wasto-day freer spoken in their houses than English. 

The Mackintosh farm on Prince Edward Island was in the parish of OrwellHead, and Donald's earliest transgressions and earliest pleasures wererunaway excursions to the wharves of that sleepy shore. To him SpruceWharf was a centre of glorious maritime adventure. The small sloops thatplied up and down the coast of the island, running in at the inlets, andstopping to gather up the farmers' produce and take it to Charlottetownmarkets, seemed to him as grand as Indiamen; and when, in his twelfthyear, he found himself launched in life as a boy-of-all-work on one ofthese sloops, whose captain was a friend of his father's, he felt thathis fortune was made. And so it was. He was in the line of promotion byvirtue of his own enthusiasm. No plank too small for the born sailor toswim by. Before Donald was twenty-five he himself commanded one of theselittle coasting-vessels. From this he took a great stride forward, andbecame first officer on the iron-clad steamer plying betweenCharlottetown and the mainland. The winter service on this boat wasterrible, --ploughing and cutting through nearly solid ice for long daysand nights of storm. Donald did not like it. He felt himself lost out inthe wild channel. His love was for the water near shore, --for the bays, inlets, and river-mouths he had known since he was a child. 

He began to think he was not so much of a sailor as he had supposed, --sogreat a shrinking grew up in him winter after winter from the perils andhardships of the mail-steamer's route. But he persevered and bided histime, and in ten years had the luck to become owner and master of a trimlittle coasting-steamer which had been known for years as the "SallyWright, " making two trips a week from Charlottetown to OrwellHead, --known as the "Sally Wright" no longer, however; for the firstthing Donald did was to repaint her, from stem to stern, white, withgreen and pink stripes, on her prow a cluster of pink heather blossoms, and "Heather Bell" in big letters on the side. 

When he was asked where he got this fancy name, he said, lightly, hedid not know; it was a good Scotch name. This was not true. Donald knewvery well. On the window-sill in his mother's kitchen had stood always apot of pink heather. Come summer, come winter, the place was neverwithout a young heather growing; and the dainty pink bells were still toDonald the man, as they had been to Donald the child, the loveliestflowers in the world. But he would not for the profits of many a triphave told his comrade captains why he had named his boat the "HeatherBell. " He had a sentiment about the name which he himself hardlyunderstood. It seemed out of all proportion to the occasion; but a daywas coming when it would seem more like a prophecy than a meresentiment. He had builded better than he knew when he chose that namefor the thing nearest his heart. 

Charlottetown is not a gay place; its standards and methods of amusementare simple and primitive. Among the summer pleasures of the young peoplepicnics still rank high, and picnic excursions by steamboat or sloophighest of all. Through June and July hardly a daily newspaper can befound which does not contain the advertisement of one or more of theseexcursions. After Donald made his little boat so fresh and gay with thepink and green colors, and gave her the winning new name, she came to bein great demand for these occasions. 

How much the captain's good looks had to do with the "Heather Bell's"popularity as a pleasure-boat it would not do to ask; but there wasreason enough for her being liked aside from that. Sweet and fresh inand out, with white deck, the chairs and settees all painted green, anda gay streamer flying, --white, with three green bars, --and "DonaldMackintosh, Captain, " in green letters, and below these a spray of pinkheather, she looked more like a craft for festive sailing than forcruising about from one farm-landing to another, picking up odds andends of farm produce, --eggs and butter, and oats and wool, --with now andthen a passenger. Donald liked this slow cruising and the market-workbest; but the picnic parties were profitable, and he took them wheneverhe could. He kept apart, however, from the merry-makers as much aspossible, and was always glad at night when he had landed his noisycargo safe back at the Charlottetown piers. 

This disposition on his part to hold himself aloof was greatlyirritating to the Charlottetown girls, and to no one of them so much asto pretty Katie McCloud, who, because she was his second cousin and hadknown him all her life, felt, and not without reason, that he ought topay her something in the shape or semblance of attention when she was onboard his boat, even if she were a member of a large and gay party, mostof whom were strangers to him. There was another reason, too; but Katiehad kept it so long locked in the bottom of her heart that she hardlyrealized its force and cogency, and, if she had, would have laughed, andput it as far from her thoughts as she could. 

The truth was, Katie had been in love with Donald ever since she was tenyears old and he was twenty, --a long time, seeing that she was nowthirty and he forty; and never once, either in their youth or theirmiddle age, had there been a word of love-making between them. All thesame, deep in her heart the good little Katie had kept the image ofDonald in sacred tenderness by itself. No other man's love-making, however earnest, --and Katie had been by no means without lovers, --had somuch as touched this sentiment. She judged them all by this secretstandard, and found them all wanting. She did not pine, neither did shetake a step of forwardness, or even coquettish advance, to Donald. Shewas too full of Scotch reticence for that. The only step she did take, in hope of bringing him nearer to her, was the going to Charlottetown tolearn the milliner's trade. 

Poor Katie! if she had but known she threw away her last chance when shedid it. She reasoned that Donald was in Charlottetown far more than hewas anywhere else; that if she stayed at home on the farm she could seehim only by glimpses, when the "Heather Bell" ran in at theirlanding, --in and out and off again in an hour. What was that? And maybea Sunday once or twice a year, and at a Christmas gathering. No wonderKatie thought that in the town where his business lay and he sleptthree nights a week she would have a far better chance; that he would beglad to come and see her in her tidy little shop. But when Donald heardwhat she had done, he said gruffly: "Just like the rest; all for ribbonsand laces and silly gear. I thought Katie'd more sense. Why didn't shestay at home on the farm?" And he said as much to her when he first sawher in her new quarters. She tried to explain to him that she wanted tosupport herself, and she could not do it on the farm. 

"No need, --no need, " said her relentless cousin; "there was plenty forall on the farm. " And all the while he stood glowering at the counterspread with gay ribbons and artificial flowers, and Katie was ready tocry. This was in the first year of her life in Charlottetown. She wasonly twenty-two then. In the eight years since then matters had quieteddown with Katie. It seemed certain that Donald would never marry. Everybody said so. And if a man had lived till forty without it, whatelse could be expected? If Katie had seen him seeking other women, herquiet and unrewarded devotion would no doubt have flamed up in jealouspain. But she knew that he gave to her as much as he gave toany, --occasional and kindly courtesy, no less, no more. 

So the years slipped by, and in her patient industry Katie forgot howold she was growing, until suddenly, on her thirtieth birthday, something--the sight of a deepened line on her face, perhaps, or a pangof memory of the old childish past, such as birthdays alwaysbring--something smote her with a sudden consciousness that life itselfwas slipping away, and she was alone. No husband, no child, no home, except as she earned each month, by fashioning bonnets and caps for theCharlottetown women, money enough to pay the rent of the two small roomsin which she slept, cooked, and plied her trade. Some tears rolled downKatie's face as she sat before her looking-glass thinking theseunwelcome thoughts. 

"I'll go to the Orwell Head picnic to-morrow, " she said to herself. "It's so near the old place perhaps Donald'll walk over home with me. It's long since he's seen the farm, I'll be bound. "

Now, Katie did not say to herself in so many words, "It will be likeold times when we were young, and it may be something will stir inDonald's heart for me at the sight of the fields. " Not only did she notsay this; she did not know that she thought it; but it was there, allthe same, a lurking, newly revived, vague, despairing sort of hope. Andbecause it was there she spent half the day retrimming a bonnet andwashing and ironing a gown to wear to the picnic; and after long andanxious pondering of the matter, she deliberately took out of her bestbox of artificial flowers a bunch of white heather, and added it to thebonnet trimming. It did not look overmuch like heather, and it did notsuit the bonnet, of which Katie was dimly aware; but she wanted to sayto Donald, "See, I put a sprig of heather in my bonnet in honor of yourboat to-day. " Simple little Katie!

It was a large and noisy picnic, of the very sort Donald most disliked, and he kept himself out of sight until the last moment, just before theyswung round at Spruce Wharf. Then, as he stood on the upper deck givingorders about the flinging out of the ropes, Katie looked up at him frombelow, and called, in a half-whisper: "Oh, Donald, I was thinking I'dwalk over home instead of staying here to the dance. Wouldn't ye begoin' with me, Donald? They'd be glad to see ye. "

"Ay, Katie, " answered Donald; "that will I, and be glad to be out ofthis. " And as soon as the boat was safely moored, he gave his orders tohis mate for the day, and leaping down joined the glad Katie; and beforethe picnickers had even missed them they were well out of sight, walkingaway briskly over the brown fields. 

Katie was full of happiness. As she glanced up into Donald's face shefound it handsomer and kinder than she had seen it, she thought, formany years. 

"It was for this I came, Donald, " she said merrily. "When I heard thedance was to be in the Spruce Grove I made up my mind to come andsurprise the folks. It's nigh six months since I've been home. "

"Pity ye ever left it, my girl, " said Donald, gravely. "The home's theplace for women. " But he said it in a pleasant tone, and his eyes restedaffectionately on Katie's face. 

"Eh, but ye're bonny to-day, Katie; do ye know it?" he continued, hisglance lingering on her fresh color and her smiling face. In his hearthe was saying: "An' what is it makes her so young-looking to-day? It wasan old face she had on the last time I saw her. "

Happiness, Donald, happiness! Even those few minutes of it had workedthe change. 

Encouraged by this praise, Katie said, pointing to the flowers in herbonnet, "It's the heather ye're meanin', maybe, Donald, an' not me?"

"An' it's not, " he replied earnestly, almost angrily, with a scornfulglance at the flowers. "Ye'll not be callin' that heather. Did ye neversee true heather, Katie? It's no more like the stalks ye've on yer headthan a barrow's like my boat yonder. "

Which was not true: the flowers were of the very best ever imported intoCharlottetown, and were a better representation of heather than mostartificial flowers are of the blossoms whose names they bear. Donald wasnot a judge; and if he had been, it was a cruel thing to say. Katie'seyes drooped: she had made a serious sacrifice in putting so dear abunch of flowers on her bonnet, --a bunch that she had, in her own mind, been sure Lady Gownas, of Gownas House, would buy for her summer bonnet. She had made this sacrifice purely to please Donald, and this was whathad come of it. Poor Katie! However, nothing could trouble her longto-day, with Donald by her side in the sunny, bright fields; and shewould have him to herself till four in the afternoon. 

As they drew near the farm-house a strange sound fell on their ears; itwas as if a million of beehives were in full blast of buzzing in theair. At the same second both Donald and Katie paused, listening. "Whatcan that be, now?" exclaimed Donald. Before the words had left his lips, Katie cried, "It's a bee!--Elspie's spinning-bee. "

The spinning-bees are great fêtes among the industrious maidens ofPrince Edward Island. After the spring shearings are over, the woolwashed and carded and made into rolls, there begin to circulateinvitations to spinning-bees at the different farm-houses. Each girlcarries her spinning-wheel on her shoulder. By eight o'clock in themorning all are gathered and at work: some of them have walked ten milesor more, and barefoot too, their shoes slung over the shoulder with thewheel. Once arrived, they waste no time. The rolls of wool are piledhigh in the corners of the rooms, and it is the ambition of each one tospin all she can before dark. At ten o'clock cakes and lemonade areserved; at twelve, the dinner, --thick soup, roast meat, vegetables, coffee and tea, and a pudding. All are seated at a long table, and thehostesses serve; at six o'clock comes supper, and then the day's work isdone; after that a little chat or a ramble over the farm, and at eighto'clock all are off for home. No young men, no games, no dances; yet thegirls look forward to the bees as their greatest spring pleasures, andno one grudges the time or the strength they take. 

It was, indeed, a big bee that Elspie McCloud was having this Junemorning. Twenty young girls, all in long white aprons, were spinningaway as if on a wager when Donald and Katie appeared at the door. Thedoor opened directly into the large room where they were. Katie wentfirst, Donald hanging back behind. "I think I'll not go in, " he wasshamefacedly saying, and halting on the step, when above all thewheel-whirring and yarn-singing came a glad cry, --

"Why, there's Katie--Katie McCloud! and Donald Mackintosh! For pity'ssake!" (the Prince Edward Islander's strongest ejaculation. ) "Come in!come in!" And in a second more a vision, it seemed to the dazedDonald, --but it was not a vision at all, only a buxom young girl in ablue homespun gown, --had seized him with one hand and Katie with theother, and drawn them both into the room, into the general whir and_mêlée_ of wheels, merry faces, and still merrier voices. 

It was Elspie, Katie's youngest sister, --Katie's special charge and carewhen she was a baby, and now her special pet. The greatest desire ofKatie's heart was to have Elspie with her in Charlottetown, but thefather and mother would not consent. 

Donald stood like a man in a dream. He did not know it; but from themoment his eyes first fell on Elspie's face they had followed it as ironfollows the magnet. Were there ever such sweet gray eyes in the world?and such a pink and white skin? and hair yellow as gold? And what, oh, what did she wear tucked in at the belt of her white apron but a sprigof heather! Pink heather, --true, genuine, actual pink heather, such asDonald had not seen for many a year. No wonder the eyes of the captainof the "Heather Bell" followed that spray of pink heather wherever itwent flitting about from place to place, never long in one, --for it wasnow time for dinner, and Donald and the old people were soon seated at asmall table by themselves, not to embarrass the young girls, and Elspieand Katie together served the dinner; and though Elspie never once cameto the small table, yet did Donald see every motion she made and hearevery note of her lark's voice. He did not mistake what had happened tohim. Middle-aged, inexperienced, sober-souled man as he was, he knewthat at last he had got a wound, --a life wound, if it were nothealed, --and the consciousness of it struck him more and more dumb, tillhis presence was like a damper on the festivities; so much so, that whenat three in the afternoon he and Katie took their departure, the doorhad no more than closed on them before Elspie exclaimed pettishly: "An'indeed I wish Katie'd left Cousin Donald behind. I don't know what it isshe thinks so much of him for. She's always sayin' there's none likehim; an' it's lucky it's true. The great glowerin' steeple o' a man, with no word in his mouth!" And the young maidens all agreed with her. It was a strange thing for a man to come and go like that, with nothingto say for himself, they said, and he so handsome too. 

"Handsome!" cried Elspie; "is it handsome, --the face all a spatter withthe color of the hair? He's nice eyes of his own, but his skin'sdeesgustin'. " Which speech, if Donald had overheard it, would havecaused that there should never have been this story to tell. But luckilyDonald did not. All that he bore away from the McCloud farm-house thatJune morning was a picture of a face and flitting figure, and the soundin his ears of a voice, --a picture and a sound which he was destined tosee and hear all his life. 

He scarcely spoke on his way back to the boat, and Katie perplexedherself vainly trying to account for his silence. It must be, shethought, that he had been vexed by the sight of so many girls and thesound of their idle chatter. He would have liked it better if nobody butthe family had been at home. What a shame for a man to live alone as hedid, and get into such unsocial ways! He grew more and more averse tosociety each year. Now, if he were only married, and had a bright home, where people came and went, with a bit of a tea now and then, how goodit would be for him, --take the stiffness out of his ways, and make himmore as he used to be fifteen, or even ten years ago! And so the goodKatie went on in her placid mind, trotting along silently by his side, waiting for him to speak. 

"Where did she get the heather?"

"What!" exclaimed Katie. The irrelevant question sounded like the speechof one talking in his sleep. "Oh, " she continued, "ye mean Elspie!"

"Ay, " said Donald. "She'd a bit of heather in her belt, --the trueheather, not sticks like yon, " pointing a contemptuous finger towardKatie's bonnet. "Where did she get it?"

"Mother's always the heather growing in the house, " answered Katie. "Shesays she's homesick unless she sees it. It was grandmother brought itover in the first, and it's never been let die out. "

"My mother the same, " said Donald. "It's the first blossom I remember, an' I'm thinking it will be the last, " he continued, gazing at Katieabsently; but his face did not look as if it were absently he gazed. There was a glow on his cheeks, and an intense expression in his eyeswhich Katie had never seen there. They warmed her heart. 

"Yes, " she said, "one can never forget what one has loved in the youth. "

"True, Katie, true. There's nothing like one's own and earliest, "replied Donald, full of his new and thrilling emotion; and as he said ithe reached out his hand and took hold of Katie's, as if they were boyand girl together. "Many's the time I've raced wi' ye this way, Katie, "he said affectionately. 

"Ay, when I was a wee thing; an' ye always let go my hand at last, andpretended I could outrin ye, " laughed Katie, blissful tears filling hereyes. 

What a happy day was this! Had it not been an inspiration to bringDonald back to the old farm-house? Katie was sure it had. She was filledwith sweet reveries; and so silent on the way home that her merryfriends joked her unmercifully about her long walk inland with theCaptain. 

It was late in the night, or rather it was early the next morning, whenthe "Heather Bell" reached her wharf. 

"I'll go up with ye, Katie, " said Donald. "It's not decent for ye to goalone. "

And when he bade her good-night he looked half-wistfully in her face, and said: "But it's a lonely house for ye to come to, Katie, an' not asoul but yourself in it. " And he held her hand in his affectionately, asa cousin might. 

Katie's heart beat like a hammer in her bosom at these words, but sheanswered gravely: "Yes, it was sorely lonely at first, an' I weariedmyself out to get them to give me Elspie to learn the business wi' me;but I'm more used to it now. "

"That is what I was thinkin', " said Donald, "that if the two o' ye werehere together, ye'd not be so lonely. Would she not like to come?"

"Ay, that would she, " replied the unconscious Katie; "she pines to bewith me. I'm more her mother than the mother herself; but they'll neverconsent. "

"She's bonny, " said Donald. I'd not seen her since she was little. "

"She's as good as she is bonny, " said Katie, warmly; and that was thelast word between Katie and Donald that night. 

"As good as she is bonny. " It rang in Donald's ears like a refrain ofheavenly music as he strode away. "As good as she is bonny;" and howgood must that be? She could not be as good as she was bonny, for shewas the bonniest lass that ever drew breath. Gray eyes and golden hairand pink cheeks and pink heather all mingled in Donald's dreams thatnight in fantastic and impossible combinations; and more than once hewaked in terror, with the sweat standing on his forehead from somenightmare fancy of danger to the "Heather Bell" and to Elspie, bothbeing inextricably entangled together in his vision. 

The visions did not fade with the day. They pursued Donald, and hauntedhis down-sitting and his uprising. He tried to shake them off, drivethem away; for when he came to think the thing over soberly, he calledhimself an old fool to be thus going daft about a child like Elspie. 

"Barely twenty at the most, and me forty. She'd not look at an oldfellow like me, and maybe't would be like a sin if she did, " said Donaldto himself over and over again. But it did no good. "As good as she isbonny, bonny, bonny, " rang in his ears, and the blue eyes and goldenhair and merry smile floated before his eyes. There was no help for it. Since the world began there have been but two roads out of this sort ofmystic maze in which Donald now found himself lost, --but two roads, onebright with joy, one dark with sorrow. And which road should it beDonald's fate to travel must be for the child Elspie to say. After a fewdays of bootless striving with himself, during which time he had spentmore hours with Katie than he had for a year before, --it was such acomfort to him to see in her face the subtle likeness to Elspie, and tohear her talk about plans of bringing her to Charlottetown for a visitif nothing more, --after a few days of this, Captain Donald, one Saturdayafternoon, sailing past Orwell Head, suddenly ran into the inlet wherehe had taken the picnic party, and, mooring the "Heather Bell" at SpruceWharf, announced to his astonished mate that he should lie by there tillMonday. 

It was a bold step of Captain Donald's. But he was not a man forhalf-and-half ways in anything; and he had said grimly to himself thatthis matter must be ended one way or the other, --either he would win thechild or lose her. He would know which. Girls had loved men twenty yearsolder than themselves, and girls might again. 

The Sunday passed off better than his utmost hopes. Everybody exceptElspie was cordially glad to see him. Visitors were not so common at theOrwell Head farm-houses that they could fail of welcome. The McCloudboys were thankful to hear all that Donald had to tell, and with the oldfather and mother he had always been a prime favorite. It had been asore disappointment to them, as year after year went by, to see thatthere seemed no likelihood of his becoming Katie's husband. As the daywore on, even Elspie relaxed a little from her indifferent attention tohim, and began to perceive that, spite of the odious freckles, he was, as the girls had said, a handsome man. 

Partly because of this, and partly from innate coquetry, she said, whenhe was taking leave, "Ye'll not be comin' again for another year, maybe?"

"Ye'll see, then!" laughed Donald, with a sudden wise impulse to refrainfrom giving the reply which sprang to his lips, --"To-morrow, if ye'd askme!"

And from the same wise, strangely wise impulse he curbed his desire togo again the next Sunday and the next. Not until three weeks had passeddid he go; and then Elspie was clearly and unmistakably glad to see him. This was all Donald wanted. "I'll win her, the bonny thing!" he said tohimself. "An' I'll not be long, either. "

And he was right. A girl would have been hard indeed that would nothave been touched by the beaming, tender face which Donald wore, nowthat hope lighted it up. His masterful bearing, too, was a pleasure tothe spirited Elspie, who had no liking for milksops, and had sent offmore than one lover because he came crawling too humbly to her feet. Elspie had none of the gentle, quiet blood which ran in Katie's veins. She had even been called Firebrand in her younger, childish days, so hotwas her temper, so hasty her tongue. But the firm rule of the Scottishhousehold and the pressure of the stern Scotch Calvinism preached intheir kirk had brought her well under her own control. 

"Eh, but the bonny lass has hersel' well in hand, " thought the admiringDonald more than once, as he saw her in some family discussion orcontroversy keep silence, with flushing cheeks, when sharp words rose toher tongue. 

All this time Katie was plodding away at her millinery, inexpressiblycheered by Donald's new friendliness. He came often to see her, and toldher with the greatest frankness of his visits at the farm. He would takeher some day, he said; the trouble was, he could never be surebeforehand when it would answer for him to stop there. Katie sunnedherself in this new familiar intercourse, and the thought of Donaldrunning up to the old farm of a Sunday as if he were one of the brothersgoing home. In the contentment of these thoughts she grew younger andprettier, --began to look as she did at twenty. And Donald, gazingscrutinizingly in her face one day, seeking, as he was always doing, forstray glimpses of resemblance to Elspie, saw this change, andimpulsively told her of it. 

"But ye're growin' young, Katie--d'ye know it?--young and bonny, mygirl. "

And Katie listened to the words with such sweet joy she feared her facewould tell too much, and put up her hands to hide it, crying: "Ah, ye'retryin' to make me silly, you Donald, with such flatterin'. We're gettin'old, Donald, you an' me, " she added, with a guilty little undercurrentof thought in her mind. "D'ye mind that I was thirty last month?"

"Ay, " replied Donald, gloomily, his face darkening, --"ay; I mind, by thesame token, I'm forty. It's no need ye have to be callin' yersel' old. But I'm old, an' no mistake. " The thought, as Katie had put it, had beengall and wormwood to him. If Katie thought him old, what must he seem toElspie!

It was early in June that Elspie had had the spinning-bee to which Katiehad brought the unwelcome Donald. The summer sped past, but a fastersummer than any reckoned on the calendar of months and days was speedingin Elspie's heart. Such great love as Donald's reaches and warms itsobject as inevitably as the heat of a fire warms those near it. Early inJune the spinning-bee, and before the last flax was pulled, early inSeptember, Elspie knew that she was restless till Donald came, glad whenhe was by her side, and strangely sorry when he went away. Still, shewas not ready to admit to herself that it was anything more than hernatural liking for any pleasant friend who broke in on the lonelymonotony of the farm life. 

The final drying of the flax, which is an important crop on most of thePrince Edward Island farms, is put off until autumn. After its firstdrying in the fields where it grew, it is stored in bundles under covertill all the other summer work is done, and autumn brings leisure. Thenthe flax camp, as it is called, is built, --a big house of spruce boughs;walls, flat roof, all of the green spruce boughs, thick enough to keepout rain. This is usually in the heart of a spruce grove. Thither thebundles of flax are carried and stacked in piles. In the centre of theinclosure a slow fire is lighted, and above this on a frame of slats thestalks of flax are laid for their last drying. It is a difficult anddangerous process to keep the fire hot enough and not too hot, to shiftand turn and lift the flax at the right moment. Sometimes only a suddenflinging of moist earth upon the fire saves it from blazing up into theflax, and sometimes one careless second's oversight loses thewhole, --flax, spruce-bough house, all, in a light blaze, and gone in abreath. 

The McClouds' flax camp had been built in the edge of the spruce grovewhere the picnickers had held their dance and merry-making on that Juneday, memorable to Donald and Elspie and Katie. It was well filled withflax, in the drying of which nobody was more interested than Elspie. Shehad big schemes for spinning and weaving in the coming winter. A wholepiece of linen she had promised to Katie, and a piece for herself, and, as Elspie thought it over, maybe a good many more pieces than one shemight require for herself before spring. Who knew?

It was October now, and many a Sunday evening had Elspie walked withDonald alone down to Spruce Wharf, and lingered there watching the lastcurl of steam from the "Heather Bell" as she rounded the point, bearingDonald away. Elspie could not doubt why Donald came. Soon she wouldwonder why he came and went so many times silent; that is, silent inwords, eloquent of eye and hand, --even the touch of his hand was like apromise. 

No one was defter and more successful in this handling of the flax overthe fire than Elspie. It had sometimes happened that she, with the helpof one brother, had dried the whole crop. It was not thought safe forone person to work at it alone for fear of accident with the fire. Butit fell out on this October afternoon, a Saturday, that Elspie, feelingsure of Donald's being on his way to spend the Sunday with her, hadwalked down to the wharf to meet him. Seeing no signs of the boat, shewent back to the flax camp, lighted the fire, and began to spread theflax on the slats. There was not much more left to be dried, --"not morethan three hours' work in all, " she said to herself. "Eh, but I'd liketo have done with it before the Sabbath!" And she fell to work with awill, so briskly to work that she did not realize how time wasflying, --did not, strangest of all, hear the letting off of steam whenthe "Heather Bell" moored at the wharf; and she was still busily turningand lifting and separating the stalks of flax, bending low over theframe, heated, hurrying, her whole heart in her work, when Donald camestriding up the field from the wharf, --striding at his greatest pace, for he was disturbed at not finding Elspie at the landing to meet him. He turned his head toward the spruce grove, thinking vaguely of the Junepicnic, and what had come of his walking away from the dance thatmorning, when suddenly a great column of smoke and fire rolled up fromthe grove, and in the same second came piercing shrieks in Elspie'svoice. The grove was only a few rods away, but it seemed to Donald aneternity before he reached the spot, to see not only the spruce boughsand flax on fire, but Elspie tossing up her arms like one crazed, hergown all ablaze. The brave, foolish girl, at the first blazing of thestalks on the slats, had darted into the corner of the house andsnatched an armful of the piled flax there to save it; but as she passedthe flaming centre the whole sheaf she carried had caught fire also, andin a twinkling of an eye had blazed up around her head, and when shedropped it, had blazed up again fiercer than ever around her feet. 

With a groan Donald seized her. The flames leaped on him, too, as if towrestle with him; his brown beard crackled, his hair, but he foughtthrough it all. Throwing Elspie on the ground, he rolled her over andover, crying aloud, "Oh, my darlin', if I break your sweet bones, it isbetter than the fire!" And indeed it seemed as if it must break herbones, so fiercely he rolled her over and over, tearing off his woollencoat to smother the fire; beating it with his tartan cap, stamping itwith his knees and feet "Oh, my darlin'! make yourself easy. I'll saveye! I'll save ye if I die for it, " he cried. 

And through the smoke and the fire and the terror Elspie answered back:"I'll not leave ye, my Donald. We're gettin' it under. " And with her ownscorched hands she pulled the coat-flaps down over the smouldering bitsof flax, and tore off her burning garments. 

Not a coward thread in her whole body had little Elspie, and in lesstime than the story could ever be told, all was over, and safely; andthere they sat on the ground, the two, locked in each other'sarms, --Donald's beard gone, and much of his hair; Elspie's pretty goldenhair also blackened, burned. It was the first thing Donald saw after hemade sure danger was past. Laying his hand on her head, he said, with ahalf-sob, --he was hysterical now there was nothing more to be done: "Oh, your bonny hair, my darlin'! It's all scorched away. "

"It'll grow!" said Elspie, looking up in his eyes archly. Her head wason his shoulder, and she nestled closer; then she burst into tears andlaughter together, crying: "Oh, Donald, it was for you I was callin'. Did ye hear me? I said to myself when the fire took hold, 'O God, sendDonald to save me!'"

"An' he sent me, my darlin', " answered Donald. "Ye are my own darlin';say it, Elspie, say it!" he continued. "Oh, ye bonny bairn, but I'veloved ye like death since the first day I set eyes on your bonny face!Say ye're my darlin'!"

But he knew it without her saying a word; and the whispered "Yes, Donald, I'm your darlin' if you want me, " did not make him any surer. 

There was a great outcrying and trembling of hearts at the farm-housewhen Donald and Elspie appeared in this sorry plight of torn and burnedclothes, blackened faces, scorched and singed hair. But thankfulnesssoon swept away all other emotions, --thankfulness and a great joy, too;for Donald's second word was, turning to the old father: "An' it is myown that I've saved; she's gien hersel' to me for all time, an' we'llask for your blessin' on us without any waitin'!" Tears filled themother's eyes. She thought of another daughter. A dire instinct smoteher of woe to Katie. 

"Ay, Donald, " she said, "it's a good day to us to see ye enter thehouse as a son; but I never thought o'--" She stopped. 

Donald's quick consciousness imagined part of what she had on her mind. "No, " he said, half sad in the midst of his joy, "o' course ye didn't;an' I wonder at mysel'. It's like winter weddin' wi' spring, ye'll besayin'. But I'll keep young for her sake. Ye'll see she's no old man fora husband. There's nothing in a' the world I'll not do for the bairn. It's no light love I bear her. "

"Ye'll be tellin' Katie on the morrow?" said the unconscious Elspie. 

"Ay, ay, " replied the equally unconscious Donald; "an' she'll be mainglad o' 't. It's a hundred times in the summer that she's been sayin'how she longed to have you in the town wi' her. An' now ye're comin', comin' soon, oh, my bonny. I'll make a good home for ye both. Katie'sthe same's my own, too, for always. "

The mother gazed earnestly at Donald. Could it be that he was so unawareof Katie's heart? "Donald, " she said suddenly, "I'll go down wi' ye ifye'll take me. I've been wantin' to go. There's a many things I've todo in the town. "

It had suddenly occurred to her that she might thus save Katie the shockof hearing the news first from Donald's lips. 

It was well she did. When, with stammering lips and she hardly knew inwhat words, she finally broke it to Katie that Donald had asked Elspieto be his wife, and that Elspie loved him, and they would soon bemarried, Katie stared into her face for a moment with wide, vacant eyes, as if paralyzed by some vision of terror. Then, turning white, shegasped out, "Mother!" No word more. None was necessary. 

"Ay, my bairn, I know, " said the mother, with a trembling voice; "an' Icame mysel' that no other should tell ye. "

A long silence followed, broken only by an occasional shuddering sighfrom Katie; not a tear in her eyes, and her cheeks as scarlet as theyhad been white a few moments before. The look on her face wasterrifying. 

"Will it kill ye, bairn?" sobbed the mother at last. "Don't look so. Itmust be borne, my bairn; it must be borne. "

It was a shrill voice, unlike Katie's, which replied: "Ay, I'll bearit; it must be borne. There's none knows it but you, mother, " she added, with a shade of relief in the tone. 

"An' never will if ye're brave, bairn, " answered the mother. 

"It was the day of the picnic, " cried Katie; "was't not? I remember hesaid she was bonny. "

"Ay, 'twas then, " replied the mother, so sorely torn between her lovefor the two daughters, between whom had fallen this terrible sword. "Ay, it was then. He says she has not been out of his mind by the night or bythe day since it. "

Katie shivered. "And it was I brought him, " she said, with a tearlesssob bitterer than any loud weeping. "Ye'll be goin' back the night?" sheadded drearily. 

"I'll bide if ye want me, " said the mother. 

"I'm better alone, mother, " said Katie, her voice for the first timefaltering. "I'll bear it. Never fear me, mother; but I'm best alone fora bit. Ye'll give my warm love to Elspie, an' send her down here to meto stay till she's married. I'll help her best if she's here. There'llbe much to be done. I'll do 't, mother; never fear me. "

"Are ye countin' too much on yer strength, bairn?" asked the now weepingmother. "I'd rather see ye give way like. "

"No, no, " cried Katie, impatiently. "Each one has his own way, mother;let me have mine. I'll work for Donald and Elspie all I can. Ye know shewas always like my own bairn more than a sister. The quicker she comesthe better for me, mother. It'll be all over then. Eh, but she'll be abonny bride!" And at these words Katie's tears at last flowed. 

"There, there, bairn! Have out the tears; they're healin' to grief, "exclaimed her mother, folding her arms tight around her and drawing herhead down on her shoulder as she had done in her babyhood. 

Katie was right. When she had Elspie by her side, and was busily at workin helping on all the preparations for the wedding, the worst was over. There was a strange blending of pang and pleasure in the work. Katiewondered at herself; but it grew clearer and clearer to her each daythat since Donald could not be hers she was glad he was Elspie's. "Ifhe'd married a stranger it would ha' broke my heart far worse, farworse, " she said many a time to herself as she sat patiently stitching, stitching, on Elspie's bridal clothes. "He's my own in a way, after a', so long's he's my brother. There's nobody can rob me o' that. " And thesweet light of unselfish devotion beamed more and more in hercountenance, till even the mother that bore her was deceived, and saidin her heart that Katie could not have been so very much in love withDonald after all. 

There was one incident which for a few moments sorely tested Katie'sself-control. The spray of white heather blossom which she had worn tothe June picnic she had on the next day put back in her box of flowersfor sale, hoping that she might yet find a customer for it. The delicatebells were not injured either in shape or color. It was a shame to loseit for one day's wear, thought the thrifty Katie; and most surely sheherself would never wear it again. She could not even see it without aflush of mortification as she recalled Donald's contempt for it. Theprivileged Elspie, rummaging among all Katie's stores, old and new, spied this white heather cluster one day, and snatching it up exclaimed:"The very thing for my weddin' bonnet, Katie! I'll have it in. The brideo' the master o' the 'Heather Bell' should be wed with the heather bloomon her. "

Katie's face flushed. "It's been worn, Elspie, " she said; "I had it in abonnet o' my own. Don't ye remember I wore it to the picnic? an' then itdidna suit, an' I put it back in the box. It's not fit for ye. I've abunch o' lilies o' the valley, better. "

"No; I'll have this, " pursued Elspie. "It's as white's the driven snow, an' not hurt at all. I'm sure Donald'll like it better than all theother flowers i' the town. "

"Indeed, then, he won't, " said Katie, sharply; on which Elspie turnedupon her with a flashing eye, and said, --

"An' which 'll be knowin' best, do ye think? What is it ye mean?"

"Nothing, " said Katie, meekly; "only he said, that day I'd the bonneton, it was no more than sticks, an' not like the true heather at all. "

"All he knows, then! Ye'll see he'll not say it looks like sticks whenit's on the bonnet I'm goin' to church in, " retorted Elspie, dancing tothe looking-glass, and holding the white heather bells high up againsther golden curls. "It's the only flower in all yer boxes I want, Katie, and ye'll not grudge it to me, will ye, dear?" And the sparkling Elspiethrew herself on the floor by Katie, and flung her arms across herknees, looking up into her face with a wilful, loving smile. 

"No wonder Donald loves her so, --the bonny thing!" thought Katie. "Godknows I'd grudge ye nothing on earth, Elspie, " she said, in a voice soearnest that Elspie looked wonderingly at her. 

"Is it a very dear flower, sister?" she said penitently. "Does it costtoo much money for Elspie?"

"No, bairn, it's not too dear, " said Katie, herself again. "The lilieswere dearer. But ye'll have the heather an' welcome, if ye will; an' Idoubt not it'll look all right in Donald's eyes when he sees it thistime. "

It was indeed a good home that Donald made for his wife and her sister. He was better to do in worldly goods than they had supposed. His longyears of seclusion from society had been years of thrift and prosperity. No more milliner-work for Katie. Donald would not hear of it. So she wasdriven to busy herself with the house, keeping from Elspie's willing andeager hands all the harder tasks, and laying up stores of fine-spunlinen and wool for future use in the family. It was a marvel how contentKatie found herself as the winter flew by. The wedding had taken placeat Christmas, and the two sisters and Donald had gone together from thechurch to Donald's new house, where, in a day or two, everything hadsettled into peaceful grooves of simple, industrious habit, as if theyhad been there all their lives. 

Donald's happiness was of the deep and silent kind. Elspie did notrealize the extent of it. A freer-spoken, more demonstrative lover wouldhave found heartier response and more appreciation from her. But she wasa loyal, loving, contented little wife, and there could not have beenfound in all Charlottetown a happier household, to the eye, than wasDonald's for the first three months after his marriage. 

Then a cloud settled on it. For some inexplicable reason the bloomingElspie, who had never had a day's illness in her life, drooped in thefirst approach of the burden of motherhood. A strange presentiment alsoseized her. After the first brief gladness at the thought of holding achild of her own in her arms, she became overwhelmed with a melancholycertainty of her own death. 

"I'll never live to see it, Katie, " she said again and again. "It'll beyour bairn, an' not mine. Ye'll never give it up, Katie?--promise me. Ye'll take care of it all your life?--promise. " And Katie, terrified byher earnestness, promised everything she asked, all the while strivingto reassure her that her fears were needless. 

No medicines did Elspie good; mind and body alike reacted on each other;she failed hour by hour till the last; and when her time of trial came, the sad presentiment fulfilled itself, and she died in giving birth toher babe. 

When Katie brought the child to the stunned and stricken Donald, saying, "Will ye not look at him, Donald? it is as fine a man-child'swas ever seen, " he pushed her away, saying in a hoarse whisper, --

"Never let me see its face. She said it was to be your bairn and nothers. Take it and go. I'll never look on it. "

Donald was out of his reason when he spoke these words, and for longafter. They bore with him tenderly and patiently, and did as they couldfor the best; Katie, the wan and grief-stricken Katie, being the chiefadviser and planner of all. 

Elspie's body was carried home and buried near the spruce grove, in alittle copse of young spruces which Donald pointed out. This was theonly wish he expressed about anything. Katie took the baby with her tothe old homestead. She dared not try to rear it without her mothershelp. 

It was many months before Donald came to the farm. This seemed strangeto all except Katie. To her it seemed the most natural thing, and shegrew impatient with all who thought otherwise. 

"I'd feel that way mysel', " she repeated again and again. "He'll comewhen he can, but it'll be long first. Ye none of ye know what a love itwas he'd in his heart for Elspie. "

When at last Donald came, the child, the little Donald, was just able tocreep, --a chubby, blue-eyed, golden-haired little creature, alreadybearing the stamp and likeness of his mother's beauty. 

At the first sight of his face Donald staggered, buried his head in hishands, and turned away. Then, looking again, he stretched out his arms, took the baby in them, and kissed him convulsively over and over. Katiestood by, looking on, silently weeping. "He's like her, " she said. 

"Ay, " said Donald. 

The healing had begun. "A little child shall lead them, " is of all theBible prophecies the one oftenest fulfilled. It soon grew to be Donald'schiefest pleasure to be with his boy, and he found more and more irksomethe bonds of business which permitted him so few intervals of leisure tovisit the farm. At last one day he said to Katie, --

"Katie, couldn't ye make your mind up to come up to Charlottetown? I'dget ye a good house, an' ye could have who ye'd like to live wi' ye. I'mlike one hungry all the time I'm out o' reach o' the little lad. "

Katie's eyes fell. She did not know what to reply. 

"I do not know, Donald, " she faltered. "It's hard for you having himaway, but this is my home now, Donald. I've a dread o' leavin' it. Andthere is nobody I know who could come to live with me. "

A strange thought shot through Donald's brain. "Katie, " he said, thenpaused. Something in the tone startled Katie. She lifted her eyes; readin his the thought which had made the tone so significant to her ear. 

Unconsciously she cried out at the sight, "Oh, Donald!"

"Ay, Katie, " he said slowly, with a grave tenderness, "why might not Icome and live wi' ye? Are ye not the mother o' my child? Did she notgive him to ye with her own lips? An' how could ye have him without me?I think she must ha' meant it so. Let me come, Katie. "

It was an unimpassioned wooing; but any other would have repelledKatie's sense of loyalty and truth. 

"Have ye love for me, Donald?" she said searchingly. 

"All the love left in me is for the little lad and for you, Katie, "answered Donald. "I'll not deceive you, Katie. It's but a broken man Iam; but I've always loved ye, Katie. I'll be a good man t' ye, lass. Come and be the little lad's mother, and let me live wi' my own oncemore. Will ye come?" As he said these words, he stretched out his armstoward Katie; and she, trembling, afraid to be glad, shadowed by the sadpast, yet trusting in the future, crept into them, and was folded closeto the heart she had so faithfully loved all her life. 

"I promised Elspie, " she whispered, "that I'd never, never give him toanother. "

"Ay, " said Donald, as he kissed her. "He's your bairn, my Katie. Ye'llbe content wi' me, Katie?"

"Yes, Donald, if I make you content, " she replied; and a look ofheavenly peace spread over her face. 

The next morning Katie went alone to Elspie's grave. It seemed to herthat only there could she venture to look her new future in the face. Asshe knelt by the low mound, her tears falling fast, she murmured, --

"Eh, my bonny Elspie, ye'd the best o' his love. But it's me that'll bedoin' for him till I die, an' that's better than a' the love. "

Dandy Steve. 

Everything in this world is relative, and nothing more so than thesignificance of the same word in different localities. If Dandy Stevehad walked Broadway in the same clothes which he habitually wore in theAdirondack wilderness, not only would nobody have called him a dandy, but every one would have smiled sarcastically at the suggestion of thatepithet's being applied to him. Nevertheless, "Dandy Steve" was the nameby which he was familiarly known all through the Saranac region; andjudging by the wilderness standard, the adjective was not undeserved. Nosuch flannel shirts, no such jaunty felt hats, no such neckties, hadever been worn by Adirondack guides as Dandy Steve habitually wore. Andas for his buck-skin trousers, they would not have disgraced a Siouxchief, --always of the softest and yellowest skins, always daintily made, the seams set full of leather fringes, and sometimes marked by lines ofdelicate embroidery in white quills. There were those who said thatDandy Steve had an Indian wife somewhere on the Upper Saranac, butnobody knew; and it would have been a bold man who asked an intrusivequestion of Dandy Steve, or ventured on any impertinent jesting abouthis private affairs. Certain it was that none but Indian handsembroidered the fine buckskins he wore; but, then, there were suchbuckskins for sale, --perhaps he bought them. A man who would spend themoney he did for neckties and fine flannel shirts would not stop at anyextravagance in the price of trousers. The buckskins, however, were notthe only evidence in this case. There was a well-authenticated tale of abrilliant red shawl--a woman's shawl--and a pair of silver bangles onceseen in Dandy Steve's cabin. A man had gone in upon him suddenly oneevening without the formality of knocking. Such foolishconventionalities were not in vogue on the Saranac; this was beforeSteve took to guiding. It was in the first year after he appeared inthat region, while he was living like a hermit alone, or supposed to bealone, in a tiny log cabin on an island not much bigger than his cabin. 

This man--old Ben, the oldest guide there--having been hindered at someof the portages, and finding himself too late to reach his destinationthat night, seeing the glimmer of light from Steve's cabin, had rowed tothe island, landed, and, with the thoughtless freedom of the country, walked in at the half-open door. 

He was fond of telling the story of his reception; and as he told it, ithad a suspicious sound, and no mistake. Steve was sitting in a bigarm-chair before his table; over the arm of the chair was flung the redshawl. On the table lay an open book and the silver bangles in it, as ifsome one had just thrown them off. At sound of entering footsteps Stevesprang up, with an angry oath, and hastily closing the book threw it andthe bangles into the chair from which he had risen, then crowded theshawl down upon them into as small a compass as possible. 

"His eyes blazed like lightnin', or sharper, " said old Ben, "an' Ideclare t' ye I was skeered. Fur a minut I thought he was a loonatic, sure's death. But in a minut more he was all right, an' there couldn'tnobody treat a feller handsomer than he did me that night an' the nextmornin'; but I took notice that the fust thing he done was to heave abig blanket kind o' careless like into the chair, an' cover the thingsclean up; an' then in a little while he says, a-sweepin' the wholebundle up in his arms, 'I'll just clear up this little mess, an' give yea comfortable chair to sit in;' an' he carried it all--blanket, book, bracelets, shawl, an' all--into the next room, an' throwed 'em on thefloor in a pile in one corner. There wa'n't but them two rooms to thecabin, so that wa'n't any place for her to be hid, if so be 's there wasany woman 'round; an' he said he was livin' alone, an' had been eversince he come. An' it was nigh a year then since he come, so I neverknow'd what to make on 't, an' I don't suppose there's anybody doos knowany more 'n I do; but if them wa'n't women's gear he had out there thatnight I hain't never seen any women's gear, that's all! Whose'omeeverthey was, I hain't no idea, nor how they got there; but they was women'sgear. Dandy's Steve is he couldn't ha' had any use for sech a shawl'sthat, let alone sayin' what he'd wanted o' bracelets on his arms!"

"That's so, " was the universal ejaculation of Ben's audience when hereached this point in his narrative, and there seemed to be little moreto be said on either side. This was all there was of the story. It muststand in each man's mind for what it was worth, according to hisindividual bias of interpretation. But it had become an old story longbefore the time at which our later narrative of Dandy Steve's historybegan; so old, in fact, that it had not been mentioned for years, untilthe events now about to be chronicled revived it in the minds of Steve'sassociates and fellow-guides. 

Before the end of Steve's first year in his wilderness retreat he hadbecome as conversant with every nook and corner of its labyrinthianrecesses as the oldest guides in the region. Not a portage, not a shortcut unfamiliar to him; not a narrow winding brook wide enough for acanoe to float in that he did not know. He had spent all his days andmany of his nights in these solitary wanderings. Visitors to the regiongrew wonted to the sight of the comely figure in the slight birch canoe, shooting suddenly athwart their track, or found lying idly in some darkand shaded stream-bed. On the approach of strangers he would instantlyaway, lifting his hat courteously if there were ladies in the boats hepassed, otherwise taking no more note of the presence of human beingsthan of that of the deer, or the wild fowl on the water. He was not ahandsome man, but there was a something in his face at which all lookedtwice, --men as well as women. It was an unfathomable look, --partly ofpain, partly of antagonism. His eyes habitually sought the sky, yet theydid not seem to perceive what they gazed upon; it was as if they wouldpierce beyond it. 

"What a strange face!" was a common ejaculation on the part of thosethus catching glimpses of his upturned countenance. More than onceefforts were made by hunters who encountered him to form hisacquaintance; but they were always courteously repelled. Finally hecame to be spoken of as the "hermit;" and it was with astonishment, almost incredulity, that, in the spring of his third year in theAdirondacks, he was found at "Paul Smith's" offering his services asguide to a party of gentlemen who, their guide having fallen suddenlyill, were in sore straits for some one to take them down again throughthe lakes. 

Whether it was that he had grown suddenly weary of his isolation andsolitude, or whether need had driven him to this means of earning money, no one knew, and he did not say. But once having entered on the life ofa guide, he threw himself into it as heartily as if it had been hislife-long avocation, and speedily became one of the best guides in theregion. It was observed, however, that whenever he could do so heavoided taking parties in which there were ladies. Sometimes for a wholeseason it would happen that he had not once been seen in charge of sucha party. Sometimes, when it was difficult, in fact impossible, for himto assign any reason for refusing to go with parties containing membersof the obnoxious sex, he would at the last moment privately entreat someother guide to take his place, and, voluntarily relinquishing all theprofits of the engagement, disappear and be lost for several days. During these absences it was often said, "Steve's gone to see his wife, "or, "Off with that Indian wife o' his up North;" and these vague, idle, gossiping conjectures slowly crystallized into a positive rumor which noone could either trace or gainsay. 

And so the years went on, --one, two, three, four, --and Dandy Steve hadbecome one of the most popular and best-known guides in the Adirondackcountry. His seeming effeminacy of attire had been long proved to markno effeminacy of nature, no lack of strength. There was not a bettershot, a stronger rower, on the list of summer guides; nor a better cookand provider. Every party which went out under his care returned withwarm praise for Steve, with a friendly feeling also, which would in manyinstances have warmed into familiar acquaintance if Steve would havepermitted it. But with all his cheerfulness and obliging good-will henever lost a certain quantity of reserve. Even the men whose servant hewas for the time being were insensibly constrained to respect this, andto keep the distance he, not they, determined. There remained alwayssomething they could not, as the phrase was, "make out" about him. Hisaversion to women was well known; so much so that it had come to be atacitly understood thing that parties of which women were members neednot waste their time trying to induce Dandy Steve to take them incharge. 

But fate had not lost sight of Steve yet. He had had his period ofsolitary independence, of apparent absolute control of his owndestinies. His seven years were up. If he had supposed that he wasserving them, like Jacob of old, for that best-beloved mistress, Freedom, he was mistaken. The seven years were up. How little he dreamedwhat the eighth would bring him!

It was midsummer, and one of Steve's best patrons, Richard Cravath, ofPhiladelphia, had not yet appeared. For three summers Mr. Cravath andtwo or three of his friends had spent a month in the Adirondackshunting, fishing, camping under Steve's guidance. They were all richmen, and generous, and, what was to Steve of far more worth than theliberal pay, considerate of his feelings, tolerant of his reticence; nota man of them but respected their queer, silent guide's individuality asmuch as if he had been a man of their own sphere of life. Steve hadlearned, by some unpleasant experience, that this delicate considerationdid not always obtain between employers and employed. It takes anorganization finer than the ordinary to perceive, and live up to theperception, that the fact that you have hired a man for a certain sum ofmoney per month to cook your food or drive your horses gives you noright to ask him in regard to his private, personal affairs pryingquestions which you would not dare to put to common acquaintances insociety. 

As week after week went by and no news came from Mr. Cravath, Stevefound himself really saddened at the thought of not seeing him. He hadnot realized how large a part of his summer's pleasure, as well asprofit, came from the month's sport with this Philadelphia party. Wistfully he scrutinized the lists of arrivals at the different housesday after day, for the familiar names; but they were not to be found. Atlast, after he had given over looking for them, he was electrified, oneevening in September, by having his name called from the piazza of oneof the hotels, --"Steve, is that you? You're just the man I want; I wasafraid we were too late to get you!"

It was Mr. Cravath, and with him the two friends whom Steve had likedbest of all who had been in Mr. Cravath's parties. It was the joy of thesudden surprise which prevented Steve's giving his customary closeattention to Mr. Cravath's somewhat vague description of the party hehad brought this time. 

"You must arrange for eight, Steve, " he said. "There may not be quite somany. One or two of the fellows I hoped for have not arrived, and it istoo late to wait long for any one. If they are not here by day afterto-morrow we will start. --And oh, Steve, " he continued, with an affectedcareless ease, but all the while eying Steve's face anxiously, "Iforgot to mention that I have brought my wife along this time. Shepositively refused to let me off. She said she was tired of hearing somuch about the Adirondacks! She was coming this time to see for herself. You needn't have the least fear about having her along! She's as good atraveller as I am, every bit; I've had her in training at it for thirtyyears, and I tell her, old as we are, we are better campers than most ofthe young people. "

"That's so, Mr. Cravath, " replied Steve, his countenance clouded and hisvoice less joyous, "I'll answer for it with you; but do you think, sir, any lady could go where we went last year?"

In his heart Steve was saying to himself: "The idea of bringing an oldwoman out here! I wouldn't do it for anybody in the world but Mr. Cravath. "

"My wife can go anywhere and do anything that I can, Steve, " said Mr. Cravath. "You need not begin to look blue, Steve; and if you back out, or serve us any of your woman-hating tricks, such as I've heard of, I'llnever speak to you again, --never. "

"I wouldn't serve you any trick, Mr. Cravath, you know that, " repliedSteve, proudly; "and I haven't the least idea of backing out. But I amafraid Mrs. Cravath will be disappointed, " he added, as he went down thesteps, and luckily did not turn his head to see Mr. Cravath's facecovered with the laughter he had been restraining during the last fewmoments. 

"Caught him, by Jove!" he said, turning to his companion, a talldark-faced man, --"caught him, by Jove, Randall! He never once thought toask of what sex the other members of the party might be. He took it forgranted my wife was to be the only woman. "

"Do you think that was quite fair, Cravath?" replied Mr. Randall. "Hewould never have taken us in the world if he had known there were threewomen in the party. "

"Pshaw!" laughed Mr. Cravath. "Good enough for him for having such acrotchet in his head. We'll take it out of him this trip. "

"Or set it stronger than ever, " said Mr. Randall. "My mind misgives me. We shall wish we had not done it. He may turn sulky and unmanageable onour hands when he finds himself trapped. "

"I'll risk it, " said Mr. Cravath, confidently. "If I can't bring himaround, Helen Wingate will. I never saw the man, woman, child, or dumbbeast yet that could resist her. "

Mr. Randall sighed. "Poor child!" he said. "Isn't her gayety somethingwonderful? One would not think to look at her that she had ever had anhour's sorrow; but my wife tells me that she cannot speak of thathusband of hers yet without the most passionate weeping!"

"I know it! It's a shame, " replied Mr. Cravath, "to see a glorious womanlike that throwing her life away on a memory. I did have a hope at onetime that she would marry again; but I've given it up. If she would havemarried any one, it would have been George Walton last winter. No onehas ever come so near her as he did; but she sent him off at last, likeall the rest. "

The "two fellows" on whom Mr. Cravath was counting to make up his partyof eight did not appear; and on the second morning after the aboveconversations Steve received orders to have his boats in readiness atten o'clock to start with the Cravath party, only six in number. 

Old Ben was on the wharf as Steve was making his final arrangements. 

"Wall, Steve, " he said, shifting his quid of tobacco in a leisurelymanner from one side of his mouth to the other, "you've got a soft thingagain. You're a damned lucky fellow, Steve; dunno whether you know it ornot. "

"No, I don't know it, " replied Steve, curtly; "and what's more, I don'tbelieve in luck. "

"Don't yer?" said Ben, reflectively. "Wall, I do; an' Lord knows 'tain't because I've seen so much of it. Say, Steve, " he added, "how'd yecome to take on such a lot o' women folks, this trip?"

"Lot o' women folks! what d' ye mean?" shouted Steve. "There's nowomenkind going except one, --Mr. Cravath's wife; and I wish to thunderhe'd left her behind. "

"Oh, is that all?" said Ben, half innocently, half mischievously, --hewas not quite sure of his ground; "be the rest on 'em goin' to stayhere? There's three women in the party. Mr. Randall he's got his wife, and there's a widder along, too; mighty fine-lookin' she is; aren'tnothin' old about her, I can tell yer!"

A flash shot from Steve's eyes. A half-smothered ejaculation came fromhis lips as he turned fiercely towards Ben. 

"There they be, now, all a-comin' down the steps, " continued Ben, chuckling. "I reckon ye got took in for onst; but it's too late now. "

"Yes, " thought Steve, angrily, as he looked at the smiling party comingtowards the landing, --three men and three women. 

"It's too late now. If it had been a half-hour sooner 'twould have beenearly enough. But it's the last time I'm caught in any such way. What ablamed fool I was not to ask who they were! Never thought of the Cravathset lumbering themselves up with women!" And a very unpromisingsternness settled down on Steve's expressive features as he stooped downto readjust some of the smaller packages in the boat. 

Meantime the members of the approaching party were not wholly at easein their minds. Mr. Cravath had confessed his suppression of the truth, and Mr. Randall's evident misgiving as to the success of the experimenthad proved contagious. "If he's as queer as you say, " murmured Mrs. Cravath, "he can make it awfully disagreeable for us. I am almost afraidto go. "

"Nonsense!" cried Helen Wingate, merrily. "I'll take that out of himbefore night. Who ever heard of a man's really disliking women! It isonly some particular woman he's disliked. He won't dislike us! Hesha'n't dislike me! I'm going to take him by storm! Let me run ahead andjump in first. " And she danced on in advance of the rest. 

"Wait, Mrs. Wingate!" cried Mr. Cravath, hurrying after her. "Let mecome with you. "

But he was too late; she ran on, and as she reached the shore, spranglightly on the plank, calling out: "Oh, there are all our things inalready! Guide, guide, please give me your hand, quick! I want to be thefirst one in the boat. "

Steve rose slowly, --turned. At the first glimpse of his face HelenWingate uttered a shriek which rang in the air, and fell backwards onthe sand insensible. 

"Good God! she lost her footing!" exclaimed Mr. Cravath. 

"She is killed!" cried the others, as they hurried breathlessly to thespot. But when they reached it, there knelt Dandy Steve on the ground byher side, his face whiter than hers, his eyes streaming with tears, hisarms around her, calling, "Helen! Helen!"

At the sound of footsteps and voices he looked up, and, instantlyseeking Mr. Cravath's face, gasped: "She is my wife, Mr. Cravath!"

The dumbness of unutterable astonishment fell on the whole party atthese words; but in another second, rallying from the shock; they kneltaround the seemingly lifeless woman, trying to arouse her. Presently sheopened her eyes, and, seeing Mrs. Randall's face bending above her, saidfaintly: "It's Stephen! I always knew I should find him somewhere. " Thenshe sank away again into unconsciousness. 

The party for the lakes must be postponed; that was evident. Neitherwould it go out under the guidance of Dandy Steve, nor would Mrs. Wingate go with it; those two things were equally evident. 

Which facts, revolving slowly in Old Ben's brain, led him to seathimself on the shore and abide the course of events. When, about noon, Mr. Cravath appeared, coming to look after their hastily abandonedeffects, Old Ben touched his hat civilly, and said: "Good-day, sir; Ithought maybe I'd get this job o' guidin' now. Leastways, I'd stay byyer truck here till somebody come to look it up. "

Old Ben was the guide of all others Mr. Cravath would have chosen, nextto Dandy Steve. 

"By Jove, Ben, " he said, "this is luck! Can you go off with us at once?Steve has got other business on hand. That lady is his wife, from whomhe has been separated many years. "

"So I heerd him say, sir, when he was a-pickin' her up, " answered Ben, composedly, as if such things were a daily occurrence in theAdirondacks. 

"Can you go with us at once?" continued Mr. Cravath. 

"In an hour, sir, " said Ben. 

And in an hour they were off, a bewildered but on the whole a relievedand happier party than they had been in the morning. Helen Wingate'slong sorrow in the mysterious disappearance of her husband had ennobledand purified her character, and greatly endeared her to her friends; butthat which had seemed to them to be explainable only by the fact of hisdeath or his unworthiness she knew was explainable by her own folly andpride. 

The end of the story is best told in Old Ben's words. He was never tiredof telling it. 

"I never heered exactly the hull partikelers, " he said, "for they'd gonelong before we got back, and the folks she was with wa'n't the kind thattalks much; but I could see they set a store by her. They'd always likedSteve, too, up here's a guide. They niver know'd him while he wasa-livin' with her, else they'd ha' know'd him here; but he hadn't livedwith her but a mighty little while's near's I could make out. Yer see, she was powerful rich, an' he hadn't but little; 'n' for all she was somuch in love with him, she couldn't help a-throwin' it up to him, sorto', an' he couldn't stan' it. So he jest lit out; an' he'd never ha'gone back to her, --never under the shining sun. He'd got jest that gritin him. She'd been a-huntin' everywhere, they said, --all over Europe, 'n' Azhay, 'n' Africa, till she'd given up huntin'; an' he was rightclose tu hum all the time. He was a first-rate feller, 'n' we was allglad when his luck come ter him 't last. I wished I could ha' seen himto 've asked him if he didn't b'leeve in luck now! Me 'n' him wastalkin' about luck that very mornin' while she was a-steppin' down thelandin' towards him's fast 's ever she could go! My eyes! how that womandid come a runnin', an' a-callin', 'Guide! guide!' I sha'n't neverforgit it. I asked some o' the fellers how she looked when they wentoff, an' they said her eyes was shinin' like stars; but there wasn't anymore of her face to be seen, for she was rolled up in a big red shawl, It gits hoppin' cold here in September. I've always thought't was thatsame red shawl he had in his cabin; but I dunno's 'twas. "

"Wall, I bet they had a fust-rate time on that weddin' journey o'theirn, " said one of Ben's rougher cronies one day at the end of thenarrative; "'t ain't every feller gets the chance o' two honeymoons withthe same woman. "

Old Ben looked at him attentively. "Youngster, " said he, "'t ain'tstrange, I suppose, young's you be, th't ye should look at it that way;but ye're off, crony. Ye don't seem ter recolleck 'bout all them yearsthey'd lost out of their lives. I tell ye, it's kind o' harrowin' terme. Old's I am, and hain't never felt no call ter be married nuther, it's kind o' harrowin' ter me yit ter think o' that woman's yell shegiv' when she seed Steve's face. If thar warn't jest a hull lifetime o'misery in't, 'sides the joy o' findin' him, I ain't no jedge. I haven'tnever felt no call ter marry, 's I sed; but if I had I wouldn't ha' beencaught cuttin' up no sech didos's that, --a-throwin' away years o' timethey might ha' hed together 'z well's not! Ther' ain't any too much o'this life, anyhow; 't kinder looks ter you youngsters's ef 't 'd lastforever. I know how 'tis. I hain't forgot nothin', old's I am. But Itell you, when ye're old's I am, 'n' look back on 't, ye'll be s'prisedter see how short 'tis, an' ye'll reelize more what a fool a man is, ora woman too, --an' I do s'pose they're the foolishest o' ther two, --terwaste a minnit out on 't on querrils, or any other kind o' foolin'. "

The Prince's Little Sweetheart. 

She was very young. No man had ever made love to her before. Shebelonged to the people, --the common people. Her parents were poor, andcould not buy any wedding trousseau for her. But that did not make anydifference. A carriage was sent from the Court for her, and she wascarried away "just as she was, " in her stuff gown, --the gown the Princefirst saw her in. He liked her best in that, he said; and, moreover, what odds did it make about clothes? Were there not rooms upon rooms inthe palace, full of the most superb clothes for Princes' Sweethearts?

It was into one of these rooms that she was taken first. On all sides ofit were high glass cases reaching up to the ceiling, and filled withgowns and mantles and laces and jewels; everything a woman could wearwas there, and all of the very finest. What satins, what velvets, whatfeathers and flowers! Even down to shoes and stockings, --every shade andcolor of stockings of the daintiest silk. The Little Sweetheart gazedbreathless at them all. But she did not have time to wonder, for in amoment more she was met by attendants, some young, some old, all dressedgayly. She did not dream at first that they were servants, till theybegan, all together, asking her what she would like to put on. Would shehave a lace gown, or a satin? Would she like feathers or flowers? Andone ran this way, and one that; and among them all, the LittleSweetheart was so flustered she did not know if she were really aliveand on the earth, or had been transported to some fairy land. And beforeshe fairly realized what was being done, they had her clad in the mostbeautiful gown that was ever seen, --white satin with gold butterflies onit, and a white lace mantle embroidered in gold butterflies. All whiteand gold she was, from top to toe, all but one foot; and there wassomething very odd about that. She heard one of the women whispering tothe other, behind her back: "It is too bad there isn't any mate to thisslipper! Well, she will have to wear this pink one. It is too big; butif we pin it up at the heel she can keep it on. The Prince really mustget some more slippers. "

And then they put on her left foot a pink satin slipper, which was somuch too big it had to be pinned up in plaits at each side, and thepearl buckle on the top hid her foot quite out of sight. But the LittleSweetheart did not care. In fact, she had no time to think, for theQueen came sailing in and spoke to her, and crowds of ladies in dressesso bright and beautiful that they dazzled her eyes; and the Prince wasthere kissing her, and in a minute they were married, and went floatingoff in a dance, which was so swift it did not feel so much like dancingas it did like being carried through the air by a gentle wind. 

Through room after room, --there seemed no end to the rooms, and each onemore beautiful than the last, --from garden to garden, --some full oftrees, some with beautiful lakes in them, some full of solid beds offlowers, --they went, sometimes dancing, sometimes walking, sometimes, itseemed to the Little Sweetheart, floating. Every hour there was some newbeautiful thing to see, some new beautiful thing to do. And the Princenever left her for more than a few minutes; and when he came back hebrought her gifts and kissed her. Gifts upon gifts he kept bringing, till the Little Sweetheart's hands were so full she had to lay thethings down on tables or window-sills, wherever she could find place forthem, --which was not easy, for all the rooms were so full of beautifulthings that it was difficult to move about without knocking somethingdown. 

The hours flew by like minutes. The sun came up high in the heavens, butnobody seemed tired; nobody stopped, --dance, dance, whirl, whirl, songand laughter and ceaseless motion. That was all that was to be seen orheard in this wonderful Court to which the Little Sweetheart had beenbrought. 

Noon came, but nothing stopped. Nobody left off dancing, and themusicians played faster than ever. 

And so it was all the long afternoon and through the twilight; and assoon as it was really dark, all the rooms and the gardens and the lakesblazed out with millions of lamps, till it was lighter far than day; andthe ladies' dresses, as they danced back and forth, shone and sparkledlike butterflies' wings. 

At last the lamps began, one by one, to go out, and by degrees a softsort of light, like moonlight, settled down on the whole place; and thefine-dressed servants that had robed the Little Sweetheart in her whitesatin gown took it off, and put her to bed in a gold bedstead, withgolden silk sheets. 

"Oh, " thought the Little Sweetheart, "I shall never go to sleep in theworld, and I'm sure I don't want to! I shall just keep my eyes open allnight, and see what happens next. "

All the beautiful clothes she had taken off were laid on a sofa near thebed, --the white satin dress at top, and the big pink satin slipper, withits huge pearl buckle, on the floor in plain sight. "Where is theother?" thought the Little Sweetheart. "I do believe I lost it off. That's the way they come to have so many odd ones. But how queer! I lostoff the tight one! But the big one was pinned to my foot, " she said, speaking out loud before she thought; "that was what kept it on. "

"You are talking in your sleep, my love, " said the Prince, who was closeby her side, kissing her. 

"Indeed, I am not asleep at all! I haven't shut my eyes, " said theLittle Sweetheart. 

And the next thing she knew it was broad daylight, the sun streaminginto her room, and the air resounding in all directions with music andlaughter, and flying steps of dancers, just as it had been yesterday. 

The Little Sweetheart sat up in bed and looked around her. She thoughtit very strange that she was all alone! the Prince gone, --no one thereto attend to her. In a few moments more she noticed that all her clotheswere gone, too. 

"Oh, " she thought, "I suppose one never wears the same clothes twice inthis Court, and they will bring me others! I hope there will be twoslippers alike, to-day. "

Presently she began to grow impatient; but, being a timid littlecreature, and having never before seen the inside of a Court or been aPrince's sweetheart, she did not venture to stir, or to make anysound, --only sat still in her bed, waiting to see what would happen. Atlast she could not bear the sounds of the dancing and laughing andplaying and singing any longer. So she jumped up, and, rolling one ofthe golden silk sheets around her, looked out of the window. There theyall were, the crowds of gay people, just as they had been the day beforewhen she was among them, whirling, dancing, laughing, singing. The tearscame into the Little Sweetheart's eyes as she gazed. What could it meanthat she was deserted in this way, --not even her clothes left for her?She was as much a prisoner in her room as if the door had been locked. 

As hour after hour passed, a new misery began to oppress her. She washungry, --seriously, distressingly hungry. She had been too happy to eatthe day before! Though she had sipped and tasted many deliciousbeverages and viands, which the Prince had pressed upon her, she had nottaken any substantial food, and now she began to feel faint for thewant of it. As noon drew near, --the time at which she was accustomed inher father's house to eat dinner, --the pangs of her hunger grewunbearable. 

"I can't bear it another minute, " she said to herself. "I must, and Iwill, have something to eat! I will slip down by some back way to thekitchen. There must be a kitchen, I suppose. "

So saying, she opened one of the doors, and timidly peered into the nextroom. It chanced to be the room with the great glass cases, full of finegowns and laces, where she had been dressed by the obsequious attendantson the previous day. No one was in the room. Glancing fearfully in alldirections, she rolled the golden silk sheet tightly around her, andflew, rather than ran, across the floor, and took hold of the handle ofone of the glass doors. Alas! it was locked. She tried another, --another;all were locked. In despair she turned to fly back to her bedroom, whensuddenly she spied on the floor, in a corner close by the case where hungher beautiful white satin dress, a little heap of what looked like brownrags. She darted toward it, snatched it from the floor, and in a secondmore was safe back in her room; it was her own old stuff gown. 

"What luck!" said the Little Sweetheart; "nobody will ever know me inthis. I'll put it on, and creep down the back stairs, and beg a mouthfulof food from some of the servants, and they'll never know who I am; andthen I'll go back to bed, and stay there till the Prince comes to fetchme. Of course, he will come before long; and if he comes and finds megone, I hope he will be frightened half to death, and think I have beencarried off by robbers!"

Poor foolish Little Sweetheart! It did not take her many seconds to slipinto the ragged old stuff gown; then she crept out, keeping close to thewalls, so that she could hide behind the furniture if any one saw her. 

She listened cautiously at each door before she opened it, and turnedaway from some where she heard sounds of merry talking and laughing. Inthe third room that she entered she saw a sight that arrested herinstantly and made her cry out in astonishment, --a girl who looked somuch like her that she might have been her own sister, and, what wasstranger, wore a brown stuff gown exactly like her own, was busily atwork in this room with a big broom killing spiders! As the LittleSweetheart appeared in the doorway, this girl looked up, and said: "Oh, ho! there you are, are you? I thought you'd be out before long. " Andthen she laughed unpleasantly. 

"Who are you?" said the Little Sweetheart, beginning to tremble allover. 

"Oh, I'm a Prince's Sweetheart!" said the girl, laughing still moreunpleasantly; and, leaning on her broom, she stared at the LittleSweetheart from top to toe. 

"But--" began the Little Sweetheart. 

"Oh, we're all Princes' Sweethearts!" interrupted several voices, comingall at once from different corners of the big room; and, before theLittle Sweetheart could get out another word, she found herselfsurrounded by half a dozen or more girls and women, all carrying brooms, and all laughing unpleasantly as they looked at her. 

"What!" she gasped, as she gazed at their stuff gowns and their brooms. "You were all of you Princes' Sweethearts? Is it only for one day, then?"

"Only for one day, " they all replied. 

"And always after that do you have to kill spiders?" she cried. 

"Yes; that or nothing, " they said. "You see it is a great deal of workto keep all the rooms in this Court clean. "

"Isn't it very dull work to kill spiders?" said the Little Sweetheart. 

"Yes, very, " they said, all speaking at once. "But it's better thansitting still, doing nothing. "

"Don't the Princes ever speak to you?" sobbed the Little Sweetheart. 

"Yes, sometimes, " they answered. 

Just then the Little Sweetheart's own Prince came hurrying by, all inarmor from head to foot, --splendid shining armor, that clinked as hewalked. 

"Oh, there he is!" cried the Little Sweetheart, springing forward; thensuddenly she recollected her stuff gown, and shrunk back into the group. But the Prince had seen her. 

"Oh, how d' do!" he said kindly. "I was wondering what had become ofyou. Good-bye! I'm off for the grand review to-day. Don't tire yourselfout over the spiders. Good-bye!" And he was gone. 

"I hate him!" cried the Little Sweetheart, her eyes flashing, and hercheeks scarlet. 

"Oh no, you don't!" exclaimed all the spider-sweepers. "That's the worstof it. You may think you do; but you don't. You love him all the timeafter you've once begun. "

"I'll go home!" said the Little Sweetheart. 

"You can't, " said the others. "It is not permitted. "

"Is it always just like this in this Court?" she asked. 

"Yes; always the same. One day just like another, --all whirl and dancefrom morning till night, and new people coming and going all the time, and spiders most of all. You can't think how fast brooms wear out inthis Court!"

"I'll die!" said the Little Sweetheart. 

"Oh no, you won't!" they said. "There are some of us, in some of therooms here, that are wrinkled and gray-haired. The most of theSweethearts live to be old. "

"Do they?" said the Little Sweetheart, and burst into tears. 

"Heavens!" cried I, "what a dream!" as I opened my eyes. There stood theLittle Sweetheart in my room, vanishing away, so vivid had been thedream. "A most extraordinary dream!" said I. "I will write it out. Someof the Princes may read it!"