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Chronicles of Avonlea

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

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Typed and Corrected by Kjell Nedrelid.
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CHRONICLES
OF
AVONLEA


by L. M. MONTGOMERY




TO THE MEMORY OF
Mrs. William A. Houston,
A DEAR FRIEND, WHO HAS GONE BEYOND







The unsung beauty hid
life's common things below.
--Whittier





Contents



   I. The Hurrying of Ludovic

  II. Old Lady Lloyd

 III. Each In His Own Tongue

  IV. Little Joscelyn

   V. The Winning of Lucinda

  VI. Old Man Shaw's Girl

 VII. Aunt Olivia's Beau

VIII. The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's

  IX. Pa Sloane's Purchase

   X. The Courting of Prissy Strong

  XI. The Miracle at Carmody

 XII. The End of a Quarrel




Chronicles
of
Avonlea




I. The Hurrying of Ludovic


Anne Shirley was curled up on the window-seat of Theodora
Dix's sitting-room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar
at some fair starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne was
visiting for a fortnight of her vacation at Echo Lodge, where
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Irving were spending the summer, and she
often ran over to the old Dix homestead to chat for awhile
with Theodora. They had had their chat out, on this particular
evening, and Anne was giving herself over to the delight of
building an air-castle. She leaned her shapely head, with its
braided coronet of dark red hair, against the window-casing,
and her gray eyes were like the moonlight gleam of shadowy
pools.

Then she saw Ludovic Speed coming down the lane. He was yet
far from the house, for the Dix lane was a long one, but
Ludovic could be recognized as far as he could be seen. No one
else in Middle Grafton had such a tall, gently-stooping,
placidly-moving figure. In every kink and turn of it there was
an individuality all Ludovic's own.

Anne roused herself from her dreams, thinking it would only be
tactful to take her departure. Ludovic was courting Theodora.
Everyone in Grafton knew that, or, if anyone were in ignorance
of the fact, it was not because he had not had time to find
out. Ludovic had been coming down that lane to see Theodora,
in the same ruminating, unhastening fashion, for fifteen
years!

When Anne, who was slim and girlish and romantic, rose to go,
Theodora, who was plump and middle-aged and practical, said,
with a twinkle in her eye:

"There isn't any hurry, child. Sit down and have your call
out. You've seen Ludovic coming down the lane, and, I suppose,
you think you'll be a crowd. But you won't. Ludovic rather
likes a third person around, and so do I. It spurs up the
conversation as it were. When a man has been coming to see you
straight along, twice a week for fifteen years, you get rather
talked out by spells."

Theodora never pretended to bashfulness where Ludovic was
concerned. She was not at all shy of referring to him and his
dilatory courtship. Indeed, it seemed to amuse her.

Anne sat down again and together they watched Ludovic coming
down the lane, gazing calmly about him at the lush clover
fields and the blue loops of the river winding in and out of
the misty valley below.

Anne looked at Theodora's placid, finely-moulded face and
tried to imagine what she herself would feel like if she were
sitting there, waiting for an elderly lover who had,
seemingly, taken so long to make up his mind. But even Anne's
imagination failed her for this.

"Anyway," she thought, impatiently, "if I wanted him I think
I'd find some way of hurrying him up. Ludovic SPEED! Was
there ever such a misfit of a name? Such a name for such a man
is a delusion and a snare."

Presently Ludovic got to the house, but stood so long on the
doorstep in a brown study, gazing into the tangled green
boskage of the cherry orchard, that Theodora finally went and
opened the door before he knocked. As she brought him into the
sitting-room she made a comical grimace at Anne over his
shoulder.

Ludovic smiled pleasantly at Anne. He liked her; she was the
only young girl he knew, for he generally avoided young girls-
-they made him feel awkward and out of place. But Anne did not
affect him in this fashion. She had a way of getting on with
all sorts of people, and, although they had not known her very
long, both Ludovic and Theodora looked upon her as an old
friend.

Ludovic was tall and somewhat ungainly, but his unhesitating
placidity gave him the appearance of a dignity that did not
otherwise pertain to him. He had a drooping, silky, brown
moustache, and a little curly tuft of imperial,--a fashion
which was regarded as eccentric in Grafton, where men had
clean-shaven chins or went full-bearded. His eyes were dreamy
and pleasant, with a touch of melancholy in their blue depths.

He sat down in the big bulgy old armchair that had belonged to
Theodora's father. Ludovic always sat there, and Anne declared
that the chair had come to look like him.

The conversation soon grew animated enough. Ludovic was a good
talker when he had somebody to draw him out. He was well read,
and frequently surprised Anne by his shrewd comments on men
and matters out in the world, of which only the faint echoes
reached Deland River. He had also a liking for religious
arguments with Theodora, who did not care much for politics or
the making of history, but was avid of doctrines, and read
everything pertaining thereto. When the conversation drifted
into an eddy of friendly wrangling between Ludovic and
Theodora over Christian Science, Anne understood that her
usefulness was ended for the time being, and that she would
not be missed.

"It's star time and good-night time," she said, and went away
quietly.

But she had to stop to laugh when she was well out of sight of
the house, in a green meadow bestarred with the white and gold
of daisies. A wind, odour-freighted, blew daintily across it.
Anne leaned against a white birch tree in the corner and
laughed heartily, as she was apt to do whenever she thought of
Ludovic and Theodora. To her eager youth, this courtship of
theirs seemed a very amusing thing. She liked Ludovic, but
allowed herself to be provoked with him.

"The dear, big, irritating goose!" she said aloud. "There
never was such a lovable idiot before. He's just like the
alligator in the old rhyme, who wouldn't go along, and
wouldn't keep still, but just kept bobbing up and down."

Two evenings later, when Anne went over to the Dix place, she
and Theodora drifted into a conversation about Ludovic.
Theodora, who was the most industrious soul alive, and had a
mania for fancy work into the bargain, was busying her smooth,
plump fingers with a very elaborate Battenburg lace centre-
piece. Anne was lying back in a little rocker, with her slim
hands folded in her lap, watching Theodora. She realized that
Theodora was very handsome, in a stately, Juno-like fashion of
firm, white flesh, large, clearly-chiselled outlines, and
great, cowey, brown eyes. When Theodora was not smiling, she
looked very imposing. Anne thought it likely that Ludovic held
her in awe.

"Did you and Ludovic talk about Christian Science ALL
Saturday evening?" she asked.

Theodora overflowed into a smile.

"Yes, and we even quarrelled over it. At least _I_ did.
Ludovic wouldn't quarrel with anyone. You have to fight air
when you spar with him. I hate to square up to a person who
won't hit back."

"Theodora," said Anne coaxingly, "I am going to be curious and
impertinent. You can snub me if you like. Why don't you and
Ludovic get married?"

Theodora laughed comfortably.

"That's the question Grafton folks have been asking for quite
a while, I reckon, Anne. Well, I'd have no objection to
marrying Ludovic. That's frank enough for you, isn't it? But
it's not easy to marry a man unless he asks you. And Ludovic
has never asked me."

"Is he too shy?" persisted Anne. Since Theodora was in the
mood, she meant to sift this puzzling affair to the bottom.

Theodora dropped her work and looked meditatively out over the
green slopes of the summer world.

"No, I don't think it is that. Ludovic isn't shy. It's just
his way--the Speed way. The Speeds are all dreadfully
deliberate. They spend years thinking over a thing before they
make up their minds to do it. Sometimes they get so much in
the habit of thinking about it that they never get over it--
like old Alder Speed, who was always talking of going to
England to see his brother, but never went, though there was
no earthly reason why he shouldn't. They're not lazy, you
know, but they love to take their time."

"And Ludovic is just an aggravated case of Speedism,"
suggested Anne.

"Exactly. He never hurried in his life. Why, he has been
thinking for the last six years of getting his house painted.
He talks it over with me every little while, and picks out the
colour, and there the matter stays. He's fond of me, and he
means to ask me to have him sometime. The only question is--
will the time ever come?"

"Why don't you hurry him up?" asked Anne impatiently.

Theodora went back to her stitches with another laugh.

"If Ludovic could be hurried up, I'm not the one to do it. I'm
too shy. It sounds ridiculous to hear a woman of my age and
inches say that, but it is true. Of course, I know it's the
only way any Speed ever did make out to get married. For
instance, there's a cousin of mine married to Ludovic's
brother. I don't say she proposed to him out and out, but,
mind you, Anne, it wasn't far from it. I couldn't do anything
like that. I DID try once. When I realized that I was
getting sere and mellow, and all the girls of my generation
were going off on either hand, I tried to give Ludovic a hint.
But it stuck in my throat. And now I don't mind. If I don't
change Dix to Speed until I take the initiative, it will be
Dix to the end of life. Ludovic doesn't realize that we are
growing old, you know. He thinks we are giddy young folks yet,
with plenty of time before us. That's the Speed failing. They
never find out they're alive until they're dead."

"You're fond of Ludovic, aren't you?" asked Anne, detecting a
note of real bitterness among Theodora's paradoxes.

"Laws, yes," said Theodora candidly. She did not think it
worth while to blush over so settled a fact. "I think the
world and all of Ludovic. And he certainly does need somebody
to look after HIM. He's neglected--he looks frayed. You can
see that for yourself. That old aunt of his looks after his
house in some fashion, but she doesn't look after him. And
he's coming now to the age when a man needs to be looked after
and coddled a bit. I'm lonesome here, and Ludovic is lonesome
up there, and it does seem ridiculous, doesn't it? I don't
wonder that we're the standing joke of Grafton. Goodness
knows, I laugh at it enough myself. I've sometimes thought
that if Ludovic could be made jealous it might spur him along.
But I never could flirt and there's nobody to flirt with if I
could. Everybody hereabouts looks upon me as Ludovic's
property and nobody would dream of interfering with him."

"Theodora," cried Anne, "I have a plan!"

"Now, what are you going to do?" exclaimed Theodora.

Anne told her. At first Theodora laughed and protested. In the
end, she yielded somewhat doubtfully, overborne by Anne's
enthusiasm.

"Well, try it, then," she said, resignedly. "If Ludovic gets
mad and leaves me, I'll be worse off than ever. But nothing
venture, nothing win. And there is a fighting chance, I
suppose. Besides, I must admit I'm tired of his dilly-
dallying."

Anne went back to Echo Lodge tingling with delight in her
plot. She hunted up Arnold Sherman, and told him what was
required of him. Arnold Sherman listened and laughed. He was
an elderly widower, an intimate friend of Stephen Irving, and
had come down to spend part of the summer with him and his
wife in Prince Edward Island. He was handsome in a mature
style, and he had a dash of mischief in him still, so that he
entered readily enough into Anne's plan. It amused him to
think of hurrying Ludovic Speed, and he knew that Theodora Dix
could be depended on to do her part. The comedy would not be
dull, whatever its outcome.

The curtain rose on the first act after prayer meeting on the
next Thursday night. It was bright moonlight when the people
came out of church, and everybody saw it plainly. Arnold
Sherman stood upon the steps close to the door, and Ludovic
Speed leaned up against a corner of the graveyard fence, as he
had done for years. The boys said he had worn the paint off
that particular place. Ludovic knew of no reason why he should
paste himself up against the church door. Theodora would come
out as usual, and he would join her as she went past the
corner.

This was what happened, Theodora came down the steps, her
stately figure outlined in its darkness against the gush of
lamplight from the porch. Arnold Sherman asked her if he might
see her home. Theodora took his arm calmly, and together they
swept past the stupefied Ludovic, who stood helplessly gazing
after them as if unable to believe his eyes.

For a few moments he stood there limply; then he started down
the road after his fickle lady and her new admirer. The boys
and irresponsible young men crowded after, expecting some
excitement, but they were disappointed. Ludovic strode on
until he overtook Theodora and Arnold Sherman, and then fell
meekly in behind them.

Theodora hardly enjoyed her walk home, although Arnold Sherman
laid himself out to be especially entertaining. Her heart
yearned after Ludovic, whose shuffling footsteps she heard
behind her. She feared that she had been very cruel, but she
was in for it now. She steeled herself by the reflection that
it was all for his own good, and she talked to Arnold Sherman
as if he were the one man in the world. Poor, deserted
Ludovic, following humbly behind, heard her, and if Theodora
had known how bitter the cup she was holding to his lips
really was, she would never have been resolute enough to
present it, no matter for what ultimate good.

When she and Arnold turned in at her gate, Ludovic had to
stop. Theodora looked over her shoulder and saw him standing
still on the road. His forlorn figure haunted her thoughts all
night. If Anne had not run over the next day and bolstered up
her convictions, she might have spoiled everything by
prematurely relenting.

Ludovic, meanwhile, stood still on the road, quite oblivious
to the hoots and comments of the vastly amused small boy
contingent, until Theodora and his rival disappeared from his
view under the firs in the hollow of her lane. Then he turned
about and went home, not with his usual leisurely amble, but
with a perturbed stride which proclaimed his inward disquiet.

He felt bewildered. If the world had come suddenly to an end
or if the lazy, meandering Grafton River had turned about and
flowed up hill, Ludovic could not have been more astonished.
For fifteen years he had walked home from meetings with
Theodora; and now this elderly stranger, with all the glamour
of "the States" hanging about him, had coolly walked off with
her under Ludovic's very nose. Worse--most unkindest cut of
all--Theodora had gone with him willingly; nay, she had
evidently enjoyed his company. Ludovic felt the stirring of a
righteous anger in his easy-going soul.

When he reached the end of his lane, he paused at his gate,
and looked at his house, set back from the lane in a crescent
of birches. Even in the moonlight, its weather-worn aspect was
plainly visible. He thought of the "palatial residence" rumour
ascribed to Arnold Sherman in Boston, and stroked his chin
nervously with his sunburnt fingers. Then he doubled up his
fist and struck it smartly on the gate-post.

"Theodora needn't think she is going to jilt me in this
fashion, after keeping company with me for fifteen years," he
said. "I'LL have something to say to it, Arnold Sherman or
no Arnold Sherman. The impudence of the puppy!"

The next morning Ludovic drove to Carmody and engaged Joshua
Pye to come and paint his house, and that evening, although he
was not due till Saturday night, he went down to see Theodora.

Arnold Sherman was there before him, and was actually sitting
in Ludovic's own prescriptive chair. Ludovic had to deposit
himself in Theodora's new wicker rocker, where he looked and
felt lamentably out of place.

If Theodora felt the situation to be awkward, she carried it
off superbly. She had never looked handsomer, and Ludovic
perceived that she wore her second best silk dress. He
wondered miserably if she had donned it in expectation of his
rival's call. She had never put on silk dresses for him.
Ludovic had always been the meekest and mildest of mortals,
but he felt quite murderous as he sat mutely there and
listened to Arnold Sherman's polished conversation.

"You should just have been here to see him glowering,"
Theodora told the delighted Anne the next day. "It may be
wicked of me, but I felt real glad. I was afraid he might stay
away and sulk. So long as he comes here and sulks I don't
worry. But he is feeling badly enough, poor soul, and I'm
really eaten up by remorse. He tried to outstay Mr. Sherman
last night, but he didn't manage it. You never saw a more
depressed-looking creature than he was as he hurried down the
lane. Yes, he actually hurried."

The following Sunday evening Arnold Sherman walked to church
with Theodora, and sat with her. When they came in Ludovic
Speed suddenly stood up in his pew under the gallery. He sat
down again at once, but everybody in view had seen him, and
that night folks in all the length and breadth of Grafton
River discussed the dramatic occurrence with keen enjoyment.

"Yes, he jumped right up as if he was pulled on his feet,
while the minister was reading the chapter," said his cousin,
Lorella Speed, who had been in church, to her sister, who had
not. "His face was as white as a sheet, and his eyes were just
glaring out of his head. I never felt so thrilled, I declare!
I almost expected him to fly at them then and there. But he
just gave a sort of gasp and set down again. I don't know
whether Theodora Dix saw him or not. She looked as cool and
unconcerned as you please."

Theodora had not seen Ludovic, but if she looked cool and
unconcerned, her appearance belied her, for she felt miserably
flustered. She could not prevent Arnold Sherman coming to
church with her, but it seemed to her like going too far.
People did not go to church and sit together in Grafton unless
they were the next thing to being engaged. What if this filled
Ludovic with the narcotic of despair instead of wakening him
up! She sat through the service in misery and heard not one
word of the sermon.

But Ludovic's spectacular performances were not yet over. The
Speeds might be hard to get started, but once they were
started their momentum was irresistible. When Theodora and Mr.
Sherman came out, Ludovic was waiting on the steps. He stood
up straight and stern, with his head thrown back and his
shoulders squared. There was open defiance in the look he cast
on his rival, and masterfulness in the mere touch of the hand
he laid on Theodora's arm.

"May I see you home, Miss Dix?" his words said. His tone said,
"I am going to see you home whether or no."

Theodora, with a deprecating look at Arnold Sherman, took his
arm, and Ludovic marched her across the green amid a silence
which the very horses tied to the storm fence seemed to share.
For Ludovic 'twas a crowded hour of glorious life.

Anne walked all the way over from Avonlea the next day to hear
the news. Theodora smiled consciously.

"Yes, it is really settled at last, Anne. Coming home last
night Ludovic asked me plump and plain to marry him,--Sunday
and all as it was. It's to be right away--for Ludovic won't be
put off a week longer than necessary."

"So Ludovic Speed has been hurried up to some purpose at
last," said Mr. Sherman, when Anne called in at Echo Lodge,
brimful with her news. "And you are delighted, of course, and
my poor pride must be the scapegoat. I shall always be
remembered in Grafton as the man from Boston who wanted
Theodora Dix and couldn't get her."

"But that won't be true, you know," said Anne comfortingly.

Arnold Sherman thought of Theodora's ripe beauty, and the
mellow companionableness she had revealed in their brief
intercourse.

"I'm not perfectly sure of that," he said, with a half sigh.





II. Old Lady Lloyd


I. The May Chapter


Spencervale gossip always said that "Old Lady Lloyd" was rich
and mean and proud. Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and
two-thirds wrong. Old Lady Lloyd was neither rich nor mean; in
reality she was pitifully poor--so poor that "Crooked Jack"
Spencer, who dug her garden and chopped her wood for her, was
opulent by contrast, for he, at least, never lacked three
meals a day, and the Old Lady could sometimes achieve no more
than one. But she WAS very proud--so proud that she would
have died rather than let the Spencervale people, among whom
she had queened it in her youth, suspect how poor she was and
to what straits was sometimes reduced. She much preferred to
have them think her miserly and odd--a queer old recluse who
never went anywhere, even to church, and who paid the smallest
subscription to the minister's salary of anyone in the
congregation.

"And her just rolling in wealth!" they said indignantly.
"Well, she didn't get her miserly ways from her parents.
THEY were real generous and neighbourly. There never was a
finer gentleman than old Doctor Lloyd. He was always doing
kindnesses to everybody; and he had a way of doing them that
made you feel as if you was doing the favour, not him. Well,
well, let Old Lady Lloyd keep herself and her money to herself
if she wants to. If she doesn't want our company, she doesn't
have to suffer it, that's all. Reckon she isn't none too happy
for all her money and pride."

No, the Old Lady was none too happy, that was unfortunately
true. It is not easy to be happy when your life is eaten up
with loneliness and emptiness on the spiritual side, and when,
on the material side, all you have between you and starvation
is the little money your hens bring you in.

The Old Lady lived "away back at the old Lloyd place," as it
was always called. It was a quaint, low-eaved house, with big
chimneys and square windows and with spruces growing thickly
all around it. The Old Lady lived there all alone and there
were weeks at a time when she never saw a human being except
Crooked Jack. What the Old Lady did with herself and how she
put in her time was a puzzle the Spencervale people could not
solve. The children believed she amused herself counting the
gold in the big black box under her bed. Spencervale children
held the Old Lady in mortal terror; some of them--the "Spencer
Road" fry--believed she was a witch; all of them would run if,
when wandering about the woods in search of berries or spruce
gum, they saw at a distance the spare, upright form of the Old
Lady, gathering sticks for her fire. Mary Moore was the only
one who was quite sure she was not a witch.

"Witches are always ugly," she said decisively, "and Old Lady
Lloyd isn't ugly. She's real pretty--she's got such a soft
white hair and big black eyes and a little white face. Those
Road children don't know what they're talking of. Mother says
they're a very ignorant crowd."

"Well, she doesn't ever go to church, and she mutters and
talks to herself all the time she's picking up sticks,"
maintained Jimmy Kimball stoutly.

The Old Lady talked to herself because she was really very
fond of company and conversation. To be sure, when you have
talked to nobody but yourself for nearly twenty years, it is
apt to grow somewhat monotonous; and there were times when the
Old Lady would have sacrificed everything but her pride for a
little human companionship. At such times she felt very bitter
and resentful toward Fate for having taken everything from
her. She had nothing to love, and that is about as unwholesome
a condition as is possible to anyone.

It was always hardest in the spring. Once upon a time the Old
Lady--when she had not been the Old Lady, but pretty, wilful,
high-spirited Margaret Lloyd--had loved springs; now she hated
them because they hurt her; and this particular spring of this
particular May chapter hurt her more than any that had gone
before. The Old Lady felt as if she could NOT endure the
ache of it. Everything hurt her--the new green tips on the
firs, the fairy mists down in the little beech hollow below
the house, the fresh smell of the red earth Crooked Jack
spaded up in her garden. The Old Lady lay awake all one
moonlit night and cried for very heartache. She even forgot
her body hunger in her soul hunger; and the Old Lady had been
hungry, more or less, all that week. She was living on store
biscuits and water, so that she might be able to pay Crooked
Jack for digging her garden. When the pale, lovely dawn-colour
came stealing up the sky behind the spruces, the Old Lady
buried her face in her pillow and refused to look at it.

"I hate the new day," she said rebelliously. "It will be just
like all the other hard, common days. I don't want to get up
and live it. And, oh, to think that long ago I reached out my
hands joyfully to every new day, as to a friend who was
bringing me good tidings! I loved the mornings then--sunny or
gray, they were as delightful as an unread book--and now I
hate them--hate them--hate them!"

But the Old Lady got up nevertheless, for she knew Crooked
Jack would be coming early to finish the garden. She arranged
her beautiful, thick, white hair very carefully, and put on
her purple silk dress with the little gold spots in it. The
Old Lady always wore silk from motives of economy. It was much
cheaper to wear a silk dress that had belonged to her mother
than to buy new print at the store. The Old Lady had plenty of
silk dresses which had belonged to her mother. She wore them
morning, noon, and night, and Spencervale people considered it
an additional evidence of her pride. As for the fashion of
them, it was, of course, just because she was too mean to have
them made over. They did not dream that the Old Lady never put
on one of the silk dresses without agonizing over its
unfashionableness, and that even the eyes of Crooked Jack cast
on her antique flounces and overskirts was almost more than
her feminine vanity could endure.

In spite of the fact that the Old Lady had not welcomed the
new day, its beauty charmed her when she went out for a walk
after her dinner--or, rather, after her mid-day biscuit. It
was so fresh, so sweet, so virgin; and the spruce woods around
the old Lloyd place were athrill with busy spring doings and
all sprinkled through with young lights and shadows. Some of
their delight found its way into the Old Lady's bitter heart
as she wandered through them, and when she came out at the
little plank bridge over the brook down under the beeches, she
felt almost gentle and tender once more. There was one big
beech there, in particular, which the Old Lady loved for
reasons best known to herself--a great, tall beech with a
trunk like the shaft of a gray marble column and a leafy
spread of branches over the still, golden-brown pool made
beneath it by the brook. It had been a young sapling in the
days that were haloed by the vanished glory of the Old Lady's
life.

The Old Lady heard childish voices and laughter afar up the
lane which led to William Spencer's place just above the
woods. William Spencer's front lane ran out to the main road
in a different direction, but this "back lane" furnished a
short cut and his children always went to school that way.

The Old Lady shrank hastily back behind a clump of young
spruces. She did not like the Spencer children because they
always seemed so afraid of her. Through the spruce screen she
could see them coming gaily down the lane--the two older ones
in front, the twins behind, clinging to the hands of a tall,
slim, young girl--the new music teacher, probably. The Old
Lady had heard from the egg pedlar that she was going to board
at William Spencer's, but she had not heard her name.

She looked at her with some curiosity as they drew near--and
then, all at once, the Old Lady's heart gave a great bound and
began to beat as it had not beaten for years, while her breath
came quickly and she trembled violently. Who--WHO could this
girl be?

Under the new music teacher's straw hat were masses of fine
chestnut hair of the very shade and wave that the Old Lady
remembered on another head in vanished years; from under those
waves looked large, violet-blue eyes with very black lashes
and brows--and the Old Lady knew those eyes as well as she
knew her own; and the new music teacher's face, with all its
beauty of delicate outline and dainty colouring and glad,
buoyant youth, was a face from the Old Lady's past--a perfect
resemblance in every respect save one; the face which the Old
Lady remembered had been weak, with all its charm; but this
girl's face possessed a fine, dominant strength compact of
sweetness and womanliness. As she passed by the Old Lady's
hiding place she laughed at something one of the children
said; and oh, but the Old Lady knew that laughter well. She
had heard it before under that very beech tree.

She watched them until they disappeared over the wooded hill
beyond the bridge; and then she went back home as if she
walked in a dream. Crooked Jack was delving vigorously in the
garden; ordinarily the Old Lady did not talk much with Crooked
Jack, for she disliked his weakness for gossip; but now she
went into the garden, a stately old figure in her purple,
gold-spotted silk, with the sunshine gleaming on her white
hair.

Crooked Jack had seen her go out and had remarked to himself
that the Old Lady was losing ground; she was pale and peaked-
looking. He now concluded that he had been mistaken. The Old
Lady's cheeks were pink and her eyes shining. Somewhere in her
walk she had shed ten years at least. Crooked Jack leaned on
his spade and decided that there weren't many finer looking
women anywhere than Old Lady Lloyd. Pity she was such an old
miser!

"Mr. Spencer," said the Old Lady graciously--she always spoke
very graciously to her inferiors when she talked to them at
all--"can you tell me the name of the new music teacher who is
boarding at Mr. William Spencer's?"

"Sylvia Gray," said Crooked Jack.

The Old Lady's heart gave another great bound. But she had
known it--she had known that girl with Leslie Gray's hair and
eyes and laugh must be Leslie Gray's daughter.

Crooked Jack spat on his hand and resumed his work, but his
tongue went faster than his spade, and the Old Lady listened
greedily. For the first time she enjoyed and blessed Crooked
Jack's garrulity and gossip. Every word he uttered was as an
apple of gold in a picture of silver to her.

He had been working at William Spencer's the day the new music
teacher had come, and what Crooked Jack couldn't find out
about any person in one whole day--at least as far as outward
life went--was hardly worth finding out. Next to discovering
things did he love telling them, and it would be hard to say
which enjoyed that ensuing half-hour more--Crooked Jack or the
Old Lady.

Crooked Jack's account, boiled down, amounted to this; both
Miss Gray's parents had died when she was a baby, she had been
brought up by an aunt, she was very poor and very ambitious.

"Wants a moosical eddication," finished up Crooked Jack, "and,
by jingo, she orter have it, for anything like the voice of
her I never heerd. She sung for us that evening after supper
and I thought 'twas an angel singing. It just went through me
like a shaft o' light. The Spencer young ones are crazy over
her already. She's got twenty pupils around here and in
Grafton and Avonlea."

When the Old Lady had found out everything Crooked Jack could
tell her, she went into the house and sat down by the window
of her little sitting-room to think it all over. She was
tingling from head to foot with excitement.

Leslie's daughter! This Old Lady had had her romance once.
Long ago--forty years ago--she had been engaged to Leslie
Gray, a young college student who taught in Spencervale for
the summer term one year--the golden summer of Margaret
Lloyd's life. Leslie had been a shy, dreamy, handsome fellow
with literary ambitions, which, as he and Margaret both firmly
believed, would one day bring him fame and fortune.

Then there had been a foolish, bitter quarrel at the end of
that golden summer. Leslie had gone away in anger, afterwards
he had written, but Margaret Lloyd, still in the grasp of her
pride and resentment, had sent a harsh answer. No more letters
came; Leslie Gray never returned; and one day Margaret wakened
to the realization that she had put love out of her life for
ever. She knew it would never be hers again; and from that
moment her feet were turned from youth to walk down the valley
of shadow to a lonely, eccentric age.

Many years later she heard of Leslie's marriage; then came
news of his death, after a life that had not fulfilled his
dreams for him. Nothing more she had heard or known--nothing
to this day, when she had seen his daughter pass her by
unseeing in the beech hollow.

"His daughter! And she might have been MY daughter,"
murmured the Old Lady. "Oh, if I could only know her and love
her--and perhaps win her love in return! But I cannot. I could
not have Leslie Gray's daughter know how poor I am--how low I
have been brought. I could not bear that. And to think she is
living so near me, the darling--just up the lane and over the
hill. I can see her go by every day--I can have that dear
pleasure, at least. But oh, if I could only do something for
her--give her some little pleasure! It would be such a
delight."

When the Old Lady happened to go into her spare room that
evening, she saw from it a light shining through a gap in the
trees on the hill. She knew that it shone from the Spencers'
spare room. So it was Sylvia's light. The Old Lady stood in
the darkness and watched it until it went out--watched it with
a great sweetness breathing in her heart, such as risen from
old rose-leaves when they are stirred. She fancied Sylvia
moving about her room, brushing and braiding her long,
glistening hair--laying aside her little trinkets and girlish
adornments--making her simple preparations for sleep. When the
light went out the Old Lady pictured a slight white figure
kneeling by the window in the soft starshine, and the Old Lady
knelt down then and there and said her own prayers in
fellowship. She said the simple form of words she had always
used; but a new spirit seemed to inspire them; and she
finished with a new petition--"Let me think of something I can
do for her, dear Father--some little, little thing that I can
do for her."

The Old Lady had slept in the same room all her life--the one
looking north into the spruces--and loved it; but the next day
she moved into the spare room without a regret. It was to be
her room after this; she must be where she could see Sylvia's
light, she put the bed where she could lie in it and look at
that earth star which had suddenly shone across the twilight
shadows of her heart. She felt very happy, she had not felt
happy for many years; but now a strange, new, dream-like
interest, remote from the harsh realities of her existence,
but none the less comforting and alluring, had entered into
her life. Besides, she had thought of something she could do
for Sylvia--"a little, little thing" that might give her
pleasure.

Spencervale people were wont to say regretfully that there
were no Mayflowers in Spencervale; the Spencervale young fry,
when they wanted Mayflowers, thought they had to go over to
the barrens at Avonlea, six miles away, for them. Old Lady
Lloyd knew better. In her many long, solitary rambles, she had
discovered a little clearing far back in the woods--a
southward-sloping, sandy hill on a tract of woodland belonging
to a man who lived in town--which in spring was starred over
with the pink and white of arbutus.

To this clearing the Old Lady betook herself that afternoon,
walking through wood lanes and under dim spruce arches like a
woman with a glad purpose. All at once the spring was dear and
beautiful to her once more; for love had entered again into
her heart, and her starved soul was feasting on its divine
nourishment.

Old Lady Lloyd found a wealth of Mayflowers on the sandy hill.
She filled her basket with them, gloating over the loveliness
which was to give pleasure to Sylvia. When she got home she
wrote on a slip of paper, "For Sylvia." It was not likely
anyone in Spencervale would know her handwriting, but, to make
sure, she disguised it, writing in round, big letters like a
child's. She carried her Mayflowers down to the hollow and
heaped them in a recess between the big roots of the old
beech, with the little note thrust through a stem on top.

Then the Old Lady deliberately hid behind the spruce clump.
She had put on her dark green silk on purpose for hiding. She
had not long to wait. Soon Sylvia Gray came down the hill with
Mattie Spencer. When she reached the bridge she saw the
Mayflowers and gave an exclamation of delight. Then she saw
her name and her expression changed to wonder. The Old Lady,
peering through the boughs, could have laughed for very
pleasure over the success of her little plot.

"For me!" said Sylvia, lifting the flowers. "CAN they really
be for me, Mattie? Who could have left them here?"

Mattie giggled.

"I believe it was Chris Stewart," she said. "I know he was
over at Avonlea last night. And ma says he's taken a notion to
you--she knows by the way he looked at you when you were
singing night before last. It would be just like him to do
something queer like this--he's such a shy fellow with the
girls."

Sylvia frowned a little. She did not like Mattie's
expressions, but she did like Mayflowers, and she did not
dislike Chris Stewart, who had seemed to her merely a nice,
modest, country boy. She lifted the flowers and buried her
face in them.

"Anyway, I'm much obliged to the giver, whoever he or she is,"
she said merrily. "There's nothing I love like Mayflowers. Oh,
how sweet they are!"

When they had passed the Old Lady emerged from her lurking
place, flushed with triumph. It did not vex her that Sylvia
should think Chris Stewart had given her the flowers; nay, it
was all the better, since she would be the less likely to
suspect the real donor. The main thing was that Sylvia should
have the delight of them. That quite satisfied the Old Lady,
who went back to her lonely house with the cockles of her
heart all in a glow.

It soon was a matter of gossip in Spencervale that Chris
Stewart was leaving Mayflowers at the beech hollow for the
music teacher every other day. Chris himself denied it, but he
was not believed. Firstly, there were no Mayflowers in
Spencervale; secondly, Chris had to go to Carmody every other
day to haul milk to the butter factory, and Mayflowers grew in
Carmody, and, thirdly, the Stewarts always had a romantic
streak in them. Was not that enough circumstantial evidence
for anybody?

As for Sylvia, she did not mind if Chris had a boyish
admiration for her and expressed it thus delicately. She
thought it very nice of him, indeed, when he did not vex her
with any other advances, and she was quite content to enjoy
his Mayflowers.

Old Lady Lloyd heard all the gossip about it from the egg
pedlar, and listened to him with laughter glimmering far down
in her eyes. The egg pedlar went away and vowed he'd never
seen the Old Lady so spry as she was this spring; she seemed
real interested in the young folk's doings.

The Old Lady kept her secret and grew young in it. She walked
back to the Mayflower hill as long as the Mayflowers lasted;
and she always hid in the spruces to see Sylvia Gray go by.
Every day she loved her more, and yearned after her more
deeply. All the long repressed tenderness of her nature
overflowed to this girl who was unconscious of it. She was
proud of Sylvia's grace and beauty, and sweetness of voice and
laughter. She began to like the Spencer children because they
worshipped Sylvia; she envied Mrs. Spencer because the latter
could minister to Sylvia's needs. Even the egg pedlar seemed a
delightful person because he brought news of Sylvia--her
social popularity, her professional success, the love and
admiration she had won already.

The Old Lady never dreamed of revealing herself to Sylvia.
That, in her poverty, was not to be thought of for a moment.
It would have been very sweet to know her--sweet to have her
come to the old house--sweet to talk to her--to enter into her
life. But it might not be. The Old Lady's pride was still far
stronger than her love. It was the one thing she had never
sacrificed and never--so she believed--could sacrifice.



II. The June Chapter


There were no Mayflowers in June; but now the Old Lady's
garden was full of blossoms and every morning Sylvia found a
bouquet of them by the beech--the perfumed ivory of white
narcissus, the flame of tulips, the fairy branches of
bleeding-heart, the pink-and-snow of little, thorny, single,
sweetbreathed early roses. The Old Lady had no fear of
discovery, for the flowers that grew in her garden grew in
every other Spencervale garden as well, including the Stewart
garden. Chris Stewart, when he was teased about the music
teacher, merely smiled and held his peace. Chris knew
perfectly well who was the real giver of those flowers. He had
made it his business to find out when the Mayflower gossip
started. But since it was evident Old Lady Lloyd did not wish
it to be known, Chris told no one. Chris had always liked Old
Lady Lloyd ever since the day, ten years before, when she had
found him crying in the woods with a cut foot and had taken
him into her house, and bathed and bound the wound, and given
him ten cents to buy candy at the store. The Old Lady went
without supper that night because of it, but Chris never knew
that.

The Old Lady thought it a most beautiful June. She no longer
hated the new days; on the contrary, she welcomed them.

"Every day is an uncommon day now," she said jubilantly to
herself--for did not almost every day bring her a glimpse of
Sylvia? Even on rainy days the Old Lady gallantly braved
rheumatism to hide behind her clump of dripping spruces and
watch Sylvia pass. The only days she could not see her were
Sundays; and no Sundays had ever seemed so long to Old Lady
Lloyd as those June Sundays did.

One day the egg pedlar had news for her.

"The music teacher is going to sing a solo for a collection
piece to-morrow," he told her.

The Old Lady's black eyes flashed with interest.

"I didn't know Miss Gray was a member of the choir," she said.

"Jined two Sundays ago. I tell you, our music is something
worth listening to now. The church'll be packed to-morrow, I
reckon--her name's gone all over the country for singing. You
ought to come and hear it, Miss Lloyd."

The pedlar said this out of bravado, merely to show he wasn't
scared of the Old Lady, for all her grand airs. The Old Lady
made no answer, and he thought he had offended her. He went
away, wishing he hadn't said it. Had he but known it, the Old
Lady had forgotten the existence of all and any egg pedlars.
He had blotted himself and his insignificance out of her
consciousness by his last sentence. All her thoughts,
feelings, and wishes were submerged in a very whirlpool of
desire to hear Sylvia sing that solo. She went into the house
in a tumult and tried to conquer that desire. She could not do
it, even thought she summoned all her pride to her aid. Pride
said:

"You will have to go to church to hear her. You haven't fit
clothes to go to church in. Think what a figure you will make
before them all."

But, for the first time, a more insistent voice than pride
spoke to her soul--and, for the first time, the Old Lady
listened to it. It was too true that she had never gone to
church since the day on which she had to begin wearing her
mother's silk dresses. The Old Lady herself thought that this
was very wicked; and she tried to atone by keeping Sunday very
strictly, and always having a little service of her own,
morning and evening. She sang three hymns in her cracked
voice, prayed aloud, and read a sermon. But she could not
bring herself to go to church in her out-of-date clothes--she,
who had once set the fashions in Spencervale, and the longer
she stayed away, the more impossible it seemed that she should
ever again go. Now the impossible had become, not only
possible, but insistent. She must go to church and hear Sylvia
sing, no matter how ridiculous she appeared, no matter how
people talked and laughed at her.

Spencervale congregation had a mild sensation the next
afternoon. Just before the opening of service Old Lady Lloyd
walked up the aisle and sat down in the long-unoccupied Lloyd
pew, in front of the pulpit.

The Old Lady's very soul was writhing within her. She recalled
the reflection she had seen in her mirror before she left--the
old black silk in the mode of thirty years agone and the queer
little bonnet of shirred black satin. She thought how absurd
she must look in the eyes of her world.

As a matter of fact, she did not look in the least absurd.
Some women might have; but the Old Lady's stately distinction
of carriage and figure was so subtly commanding that it did
away with the consideration of garmenting altogether.

The Old Lady did not know this. But she did know that Mrs.
Kimball, the storekeeper's wife, presently rustled into the
next pew in the very latest fashion of fabric and mode; she
and Mrs. Kimball were the same age, and there had been a time
when the latter had been content to imitate Margaret Lloyd's
costumes at a humble distance. But the storekeeper had
proposed, and things were changed now; and there sat poor Old
Lady Lloyd, feeling the change bitterly, and half wishing she
had not come to church at all.

Then all at once the Angel of Love touched there foolish
thoughts, born of vanity and morbid pride, and they melted
away as if they had never been. Sylvia Gray had come into the
choir, and was sitting just where the afternoon sunshine fell
over her beautiful hair like a halo. The Old Lady looked at
her in a rapture of satisfied longing and thenceforth the
service was blessed to her, as anything is blessed which comes
through the medium of unselfish love, whether human or divine.
Nay, are they not one and the same, differing in degree only,
not in kind?

The Old Lady had never had such a good, satisfying look at
Sylvia before. All her former glimpses had been stolen and
fleeting. Now she sat and gazed upon her to her hungry heart's
content, lingering delightedly over every little charm and
loveliness--the way Sylvia's shining hair rippled back from
her forehead, the sweet little trick she had of dropping
quickly her long-lashed eyelids when she encountered too bold
or curious a glance, and the slender, beautifully modelled
hands--so like Leslie Gray's hands--that held her hymn book.
She was dressed very plainly in a black skirt and a white
shirtwaist; but none of the other girls in the choir, with all
their fine feathers, could hold a candle to her--as the egg
pedlar said to his wife, going home from church.

The Old Lady listened to the opening hymns with keen pleasure.
Sylvia's voice thrilled through and dominated them all. But
when the ushers got up to take the collection, an undercurrent
of subdued excitement flowed over the congregation. Sylvia
rose and came forward to Janet Moore's side at the organ. The
next moment her beautiful voice soared through the building
like the very soul of melody--true, clear, powerful, sweet.
Nobody in Spencervale had ever listened to such a voice,
except Old Lady Lloyd herself, who, in her youth, had heard
enough good singing to enable her to be a tolerable judge of
it. She realized instantly that this girl of her heart had a
great gift--a gift that would some day bring her fame and
fortune, if it could be duly trained and developed.

"Oh, I'm so glad I came to church," thought Old Lady Lloyd.

When the solo was ended, the Old Lady's conscience compelled
her to drag her eyes and thoughts from Sylvia, and fasten them
on the minister, who had been flattering himself all through
the opening portion of the service that Old Lady Lloyd had
come to church on his account. He was newly settled, having
been in charge of the Spencervale congregation only a few
months; he was a clever little fellow and he honestly thought
it was the fame of his preaching that had brought Old Lady
Lloyd out to church.

When the service was over all the Old Lady's neighbours came
to speak to her, with kindly smile and handshake. They thought
they ought to encourage her, now that she had made a start in
the right direction; the Old Lady liked their cordiality, and
liked it none the less because she detected in it the same
unconscious respect and deference she had been wont to receive
in the old days--a respect and deference which her personality
compelled from all who approached her. The Old Lady was
surprised to find that she could command it still, in defiance
of unfashionable bonnet and ancient attire.

Janet Moore and Sylvia Gray walked home from church together.
"Did you see Old Lady Lloyd out to-day?" asked Janet. "I was
amazed when she walked in. She has never been to church in my
recollection. What a quaint old figure she is! She's very
rich, you know, but she wears her mother's old clothes and
never gets a new thing. Some people think she is mean; but,"
concluded Janet charitably, "I believe it is simply
eccentricity."

"I felt that was Miss Lloyd as soon as I saw her, although I
had never seen her before," said Sylvia dreamily. "I have been
wishing to see her--for a certain reason. She has a very
striking face. I should like to meet her--to know her."

"I don't think it's likely you ever will," said Janet
carelessly. "She doesn't like young people and she never goes
anywhere. I don't think I'd like to know her. I'd be afraid of
her--she has such stately ways and such strange, piercing
eyes."

"_I_ shouldn't be afraid of her," said Sylvia to herself, as
she turned into the Spencer lane. "But I don't expect I'll
ever become acquainted with her. If she knew who I am I
suppose she would dislike me. I suppose she never suspects
that I am Leslie Gray's daughter."

The minister, thinking it well to strike while the iron was
hot, went up to call on Old Lady Lloyd the very next
afternoon. He went in fear and trembling, for he had heard
things about Old Lady Lloyd; but she made herself so agreeable
in her high-bred fashion that he was delighted, and told his
wife when he went home that Spencervale people didn't
understand Miss Lloyd. This was perfectly true; but it is by
no means certain that the minister understood her either.

He made only one mistake in tact, but, as the Old Lady did not
snub him for it, he never knew he made it. When he was leaving
he said, "I hope we shall see you at church next Sunday, Miss
Lloyd."

"Indeed, you will," said the Old Lady emphatically.



III. The July Chapter


The first day of July Sylvia found a little birch bark boat
full of strawberries at the beech in the hollow. They were the
earliest of the season; the Old Lady had found them in one of
her secret haunts. They would have been a toothsome addition
to the Old Lady's own slender bill of fare; but she never
thought of eating them. She got far more pleasure out of the
thought of Sylvia's enjoying them for her tea. Thereafter the
strawberries alternated with the flowers as long as they
lasted, and then came blueberries and raspberries. The
blueberries grew far away and the Old Lady had many a tramp
after them. Sometimes her bones ached at night because of it;
but what cared the Old Lady for that? Bone ache is easier to
endure than soul ache; and the Old Lady's soul had stopped
aching for the first time in many year. It was being nourished
with heavenly manna.

One evening Crooked Jack came up to fix something that had
gone wrong with the Old Lady's well. The Old Lady wandered
affably out to him; for she knew he had been working at the
Spencers' all day, and there might be crumbs of information
about Sylvia to be picked up.

"I reckon the music teacher's feeling pretty blue this
evening," Crooked Jack remarked, after straining the Old
Lady's patience to the last verge of human endurance by
expatiating on William Spencer's new pump, and Mrs. Spencer's
new washing-machine, and Amelia Spencer's new young man.

"Why?" asked the Old Lady, turning very pale. Had anything
happened to Sylvia?

"Well, she's been invited to a big party at Mrs. Moore's
brother's in town, and she hasn't got a dress to go in," said
Crooked Jack. "They're great swells and everybody will be got
up regardless. Mrs. Spencer was telling me about it. She says
Miss Gray can't afford a new dress because she's helping to
pay her aunt's doctor's bills. She says she's sure Miss Gray
feels awful disappointed over it, though she doesn't let on.
But Mrs. Spencer says she knows she was crying after she went
to bed last night."

The Old Lady turned and went into the house abruptly. This was
dreadful. Sylvia must go to that party--she MUST. But how
was it to be managed? Through the Old Lady's brain passed wild
thoughts of her mother's silk dresses. But none of them would
be suitable, even if there were time to make one over. Never
had the Old Lady so bitterly regretted her vanished wealth.

"I've only two dollars in the house," she said, "and I've got
to live on that till the next day the egg pedlar comes round.
Is there anything I can sell--ANYTHING? Yes, yes, the grape jug!"

Up to this time, the Old Lady would as soon have thought of
trying to sell her head as the grape jug. The grape jug was
two hundred years old and had been in the Lloyd family ever
since it was a jug at all. It was a big, pot-bellied affair,
festooned with pink-gilt grapes, and with a verse of poetry
printed on one side, and it had been given as a wedding
present to the Old Lady's great-grandmother. As long as the
Old Lady could remember it had sat on the top shelf in the
cupboard in the sitting-room wall, far too precious ever to be
used.

Two years before, a woman who collected old china had explored
Spencervale, and, getting word of the grape jug, had boldly
invaded the old Lloyd place and offered to buy it. She never,
to her dying day, forgot the reception the Old Lady gave her;
but, being wise in her day and generation, she left her card,
saying that if Miss Lloyd ever changed her mind about selling
the jug, she would find that she, the aforesaid collector, had
not changed hers about buying it. People who make a hobby of
heirloom china must meekly overlook snubs, and this particular
person had never seen anything she coveted so much as that
grape jug.

The Old Lady had torn the card to pieces; but she remembered
the name and address. She went to the cupboard and took down
the beloved jug.

"I never thought to part with it," she said wistfully, "but
Sylvia must have a dress, and there is no other way. And,
after all, when I'm gone, who would there be to have it?
Strangers would get it then--it might as well go to them now.
I'll have to go to town to-morrow morning, for there's no time
to lose if the party is Friday night. I haven't been to town
for ten years. I dread the thought of going, more than parting
with the jug. But for Sylvia's sake!"

It was all over Spencervale by the next morning that Old Lady
Lloyd had gone to town, carrying a carefully guarded box.
Everybody wondered why she went; most people supposed she had
become too frightened to keep her money in a black box below
her bed, when there had been two burglaries over at Carmody,
and had taken it to the bank.

The Old Lady sought out the address of the china collector,
trembling with fear that she might be dead or gone. But the
collector was there, very much alive, and as keenly anxious to
possess the grape jug as ever. The Old Lady, pallid with the
pain of her trampled pride, sold the grape jug and went away,
believing that her great-grandmother must have turned over in
her grave at the moment of the transaction. Old Lady Lloyd
felt like a traitor to her traditions.

But she went unflinchingly to a big store and, guided by that
special Providence which looks after simple-minded old souls
in their dangerous excursions into the world, found a
sympathetic clerk who knew just what she wanted and got it for
her. The Old Lady selected a very dainty muslin gown, with
gloves and slippers in keeping; and she ordered it sent at
once, expressage prepaid, to Miss Sylvia Gray, in care of
William Spencer, Spencervale.

Then she paid down the money--the whole price of the jug,
minus a dollar and a half for railroad fare--with a grand,
careless air and departed. As she marched erectly down the
aisle of the store, she encountered a sleek, portly,
prosperous man coming in. As their eyes met, the man started
and his bland face flushed crimson; he lifted his hat and
bowed confusedly. But the Old Lady looked through him as if he
wasn't there, and passed on with not a sign of recognition
about her. He took one step after her, then stopped and turned
away, with a rather disagreeable smile and a shrug of his
shoulders.

Nobody would have guessed, as the Old Lady swept out, how her
heart was seething with abhorrence and scorn. She would not
have had the courage to come to town, even for Sylvia's sake,
if she had thought she would meet Andrew Cameron. The mere
sight of him opened up anew a sealed fountain of bitterness in
her soul; but the thought of Sylvia somehow stemmed the
torrent, and presently the Old Lady was smiling rather
triumphantly, thinking rightly that she had come off best in
that unwelcome encounter. SHE, at any rate, had not faltered
and coloured, and lost her presence of mind.

"It is little wonder HE did," thought the Old Lady
vindictively. It pleased her that Andrew Cameron should lose,
before her, the front of adamant he presented to the world. He
was her cousin and the only living creature Old Lady Lloyd
hated, and she hated and despised him with all the intensity
of her intense nature. She and hers had sustained grievous
wrong at his hands, and the Old Lady was convinced that she
would rather die than take any notice of his existence.

Presently, she resolutely put Andrew Cameron out of her mind.
It was desecration to think of him and Sylvia together. When
she laid her weary head on her pillow that night she was so
happy that even the thought of the vacant shelf in the room
below, where the grape jug had always been, gave her only a
momentary pang.

"It's sweet to sacrifice for one we love--it's sweet to have
someone to sacrifice for," thought the Old Lady.

Desire grows by what it feeds on. The Old Lady thought she was
content; but Friday evening came and found her in a perfect
fever to see Sylvia in her party dress. It was not enough to
fancy her in it; nothing would do the Old Lady but seeing her.

"And I SHALL see her," said the Old Lady resolutely, looking
out from her window at Sylvia's light gleaming through the
firs. She wrapped herself in a dark shawl and crept out,
slipping down to the hollow and up the wood lane. It was a
misty, moonlight night, and a wind, fragrant with the aroma of
clover fields, blew down the lane to meet her.

"I wish I could take your perfume--the soul of you--and pour
it into her life," said the Old Lady aloud to that wind.

Sylvia Gray was standing in her room, ready for the party.
Before her stood Mrs. Spencer and Amelia Spencer and all the
little Spencer girls, in an admiring semi-circle. There was
another spectator. Outside, under the lilac bush, Old Lady
Lloyd was standing. She could see Sylvia plainly, in her
dainty dress, with the pale pink roses Old Lady Lloyd had left
at the beech that day for her in her hair. Pink as they were,
they were not so pink as her cheeks, and her eyes shone like
stars. Amelia Spencer put up her hand to push back a rose that
had fallen a little out of place, and the Old Lady envied her
fiercely.

"That dress couldn't have fitted better if it had been made
for you," said Mrs. Spencer admiringly. "Ain't she lovely,
Amelia? Who COULD have sent it?"

"Oh, I feel sure that Mrs. Moore was the fairy godmother,"
said Sylvia. "There is nobody else who would. It was dear of
her--she knew I wished so much to go to the party with Janet.
I wish Aunty could see me now." Sylvia gave a little sigh in
spite of her joy. "There's nobody else to care very much."

Ah, Sylvia, you were wrong! There was somebody else--somebody
who cared very much--an Old Lady, with eager, devouring eyes,
who was standing under the lilac bush and who presently stole
away through the moonlit orchard to the woods like a shadow,
going home with a vision of you in your girlish beauty to
companion her through the watches of that summer night.



IV. The August Chapter


One day the minister's wife rushed in where Spencervale people
had feared to tread, went boldly to Old Lady Lloyd, and asked
her if she wouldn't come to their Sewing Circle, which met
fortnightly on Saturday afternoons.

"We are filling a box to send to our Trinidad missionary,"
said the minister's wife, "and we should be so pleased to have
you come, Miss Lloyd."

The Old Lady was on the point of refusing rather haughtily.
Not that she was opposed to missions--or sewing circles
either--quite the contrary, but she knew that each member of
the Circle was expected to pay ten cents a week for the
purpose of procuring sewing materials; and the poor Old Lady
really did not see how she could afford it. But a sudden
thought checked her refusal before it reached her lips.

"I suppose some of the young girls go to the Circle?" she said
craftily.

"Oh, they all go," said the minister's wife. "Janet Moore and
Miss Gray are our most enthusiastic members. It is very lovely
of Miss Gray to give her Saturday afternoons--the only ones
she has free from pupils--to our work. But she really has the
sweetest disposition."

"I'll join your Circle," said the Old Lady promptly. She was
determined she would do it, if she had to live on two meals a
day to save the necessary fee.

She went to the Sewing Circle at James Martin's the next
Saturday, and did the most beautiful hand sewing for them. She
was so expert at it that she didn't need to think about it at
all, which was rather fortunate, for all her thoughts were
taken up with Sylvia, who sat in the opposite corner with
Janet Moore, her graceful hands busy with a little boy's
coarse gingham shirt. Nobody thought of introducing Sylvia to
Old Lady Lloyd, and the Old Lady was glad of it. She sewed
finely away, and listened with all her ears to the girlish
chatter which went on in the opposite corner. One thing she
found out--Sylvia's birthday was the twentieth of August. And
the Old Lady was straightway fired with a consuming wish to
give Sylvia a birthday present. She lay awake most of the
night wondering if she could do it, and most sorrowfully
concluded that it was utterly out of the question, no matter
how she might pinch and contrive. Old Lady Lloyd worried quite
absurdly over this, and it haunted her like a spectre until
the next Sewing Circle day.

It met at Mrs. Moore's and Mrs. Moore was especially gracious
to Old Lady Lloyd, and insisted on her taking the wicker
rocker in the parlour. The Old Lady would rather have been in
the sitting-room with the young girls, but she submitted for
courtesy's sake--and she had her reward. Her chair was just
behind the parlour door, and presently Janet Moore and Sylvia
Gray came and sat on the stairs in the hall outside, where a
cool breeze blew in through the maples before the front door.

They were talking of their favourite poets. Janet, it
appeared, adored Byron and Scott. Sylvia leaned to Tennyson
and Browning.

"Do you know," said Sylvia softly, "my father was a poet? He
published a little volume of verse once; and, Janet, I've
never seen a copy of it, and oh, how I would love to! It was
published when he was at college--just a small, private
edition to give his friends. He never published any more--poor
father! I think life disappointed him. But I have such a
longing to see that little book of his verse. I haven't a
scrap of his writings. If I had it would seem as if I
possessed something of him--of his heart, his soul, his inner
life. He would be something more than a mere name to me."

"Didn't he have a copy of his own--didn't your mother have
one?" asked Janet.

"Mother hadn't. She died when I was born, you know, but Aunty
says there was no copy of father's poems among mother's books.
Mother didn't care for poetry, Aunty says--Aunty doesn't
either. Father went to Europe after mother died, and he died
there the next year. Nothing that he had with him was ever
sent home to us. He had sold most of his books before he went,
but he gave a few of his favourite ones to Aunty to keep for
me. HIS book wasn't among them. I don't suppose I shall ever
find a copy, but I should be so delighted if I only could."

When the Old Lady got home she took from her top bureau drawer
an inlaid box of sandalwood. It held a little, slim, limp
volume, wrapped in tissue paper--the Old Lady's most treasured
possession. On the fly-leaf was written, "To Margaret, with
the author's love."

The Old Lady turned the yellow leaves with trembling fingers
and, through eyes brimming with tears, read the verses,
although she had known them all by heart for years. She meant
to give the book to Sylvia for a birthday present--one of the
most precious gifts ever given, if the value of gifts is
gauged by the measure of self-sacrifice involved. In that
little book was immortal love--old laughter--old tears--old
beauty which had bloomed like a rose years ago, holding still
its sweetness like old rose leaves.
She removed the telltale fly-leaf; and late on the night
before Sylvia's birthday, the Old Lady crept, under cover of
the darkness, through byways and across fields, as if bent on
some nefarious expedition, to the little Spencervale store
where the post-office was kept. She slipped the thin parcel
through the slit in the door, and then stole home again,
feeling a strange sense of loss and loneliness. It was as if
she had given away the last link between herself and her
youth. But she did not regret it. It would give Sylvia
pleasure, and that had come to be the overmastering passion of
the Old Lady's heart.

The next night the light in Sylvia's room burned very late,
and the Old Lady watched it triumphantly, knowing the meaning
of it. Sylvia was reading her father's poems, and the Old Lady
in her darkness read them too, murmuring the lines over and
over to herself. After all, giving away the book had not
mattered so very much. She had the soul of it still--and the
fly-leaf with the name, in Leslie's writing, by which nobody
ever called her now.

The Old Lady was sitting on the Marshall sofa the next Sewing
Circle afternoon when Sylvia Gray came and sat down beside
her. The Old Lady's hands trembled a little, and one side of a
handkerchief, which was afterwards given as a Christmas
present to a little olive-skinned coolie in Trinidad, was not
quite so exquisitely done as the other three sides.

Sylvia at first talked of the Circle, and Mrs. Marshall's
dahlias, and the Old Lady was in the seventh heaven of
delight, though she took care not to show it, and was even a
little more stately and finely mannered than usual. When she
asked Sylvia how she liked living in Spencervale, Sylvia said,

"Very much. Everybody is so kind to me. Besides"--Sylvia
lowered her voice so that nobody but the Old Lady could hear
it--"I have a fairy godmother here who does the most beautiful
and wonderful things for me."

Sylvia, being a girl of fine instincts, did not look at Old
Lady Lloyd as she said this. But she would not have seen
anything if she had looked. The Old Lady was not a Lloyd for
nothing.

"How very interesting," she said, indifferently.

"Isn't it? I am so grateful to her and I have wished so much
she might know how much pleasure she has given me. I have
found lovely flowers and delicious berries on my path all
summer; I feel sure she sent me my party dress. But the
dearest gift came last week on my birthday--a little volume of
my father's poems. I can't express what I felt on receiving
them. But I longed to meet my fairy godmother and thank her."

"Quite a fascinating mystery, isn't it? Have you really no
idea who she is?"

The Old Lady asked this dangerous question with marked
success. She would not have been so successful if she had not
been so sure that Sylvia had no idea of the old romance
between her and Leslie Gray. As it was, she had a comfortable
conviction that she herself was the very last person Sylvia
would be likely to suspect.

Sylvia hesitated for an almost unnoticeable moment. Then she
said, "I haven't tried to find out, because I don't think she
wants me to know. At first, of course, in the matter of the
flowers and dress, I did try to solve the mystery; but, since
I received the book, I became convinced that it was my fairy
godmother who was doing it all, and I have respected her wish
for concealment and always shall. Perhaps some day she will
reveal herself to me. I hope so, at least."

"I wouldn't hope it," said the Old Lady discouragingly. "Fairy
godmothers--at least, in all the fairy tales I ever read--are
somewhat apt to be queer, crochety people, much more agreeable
when wrapped up in mystery than when met face to face."

"I'm convinced that mine is the very opposite, and that the
better I became acquainted with her, the more charming a
personage I should find her," said Sylvia gaily.

Mrs. Marshall came up at this juncture and entreated Miss Gray
to sing for them. Miss Gray consenting sweetly, the Old Lady
was left alone and was rather glad of it. She enjoyed her
conversation with Sylvia much more in thinking it over after
she got home than while it was taking place. When an Old Lady
has a guilty conscience, it is apt to make her nervous and
distract her thoughts from immediate pleasure. She wondered a
little uneasily if Sylvia really did suspect her. Then she
concluded that it was out of the question. Who would suspect a
mean, unsociable Old Lady, who had no friends, and who gave
only five cents to the Sewing Circle when everyone else gave
ten or fifteen, to be a fairy godmother, the donor of
beautiful party dresses, and the recipient of gifts from
romantic, aspiring young poets?



V. The September Chapter


In September the Old Lady looked back on the summer and owned
to herself that it had been a strangely happy one, with
Sundays and Sewing Circle days standing out like golden
punctuation marks in a poem of life. She felt like an utterly
different woman; and other people thought her different also.
The Sewing Circle women found her so pleasant, and even
friendly, that they began to think they had misjudged her, and
that perhaps it was eccentricity after all, and not meanness,
which accounted for her peculiar mode of living. Sylvia Gray
always came and talked to her on Circle afternoons now, and
the Old Lady treasured every word she said in her heart and
repeated them over and over to her lonely self in the watches
of the night.

Sylvia never talked of herself or her plans, unless asked
about them; and the Old Lady's self-consciousness prevented
her from asking any personal questions: so their conversation
kept to the surface of things, and it was not from Sylvia, but
from the minister's wife that the Old Lady finally discovered
what her darling's dearest ambition was.

The minister's wife had dropped in at the old Lloyd place one
evening late in September, when a chilly wind was blowing up
from the northeast and moaning about the eaves of the house,
as if the burden of its lay were "harvest is ended and summer
is gone." The Old Lady had been listening to it, as she
plaited a little basket of sweet grass for Sylvia. She had
walked all the way to Avonlea sand-hills for it the day
before, and she was very tired. And her heart was sad. This
summer, which had so enriched her life, was almost over; and
she knew that Sylvia Gray talked of leaving Spencervale at the
end of October. The Old Lady's heart felt like very lead
within her at the thought, and she almost welcomed the advent
of the minister's wife as a distraction, although she was
desperately afraid that the minister's wife had called to ask
for a subscription for the new vestry carpet, and the Old Lady
simply could not afford to give one cent.

But the minister's wife had merely dropped in on her way home
from the Spencers' and she did not make any embarrassing
requests. Instead, she talked about Sylvia Gray, and her words
fell on the Old Lady's ears like separate pearl notes of
unutterably sweet music. The minister's wife had nothing but
praise for Sylvia--she was so sweet and beautiful and winning.

"And with SUCH a voice," said the minister's wife
enthusiastically, adding with a sigh, "It's such a shame she
can't have it properly trained. She would certainly become a
great singer--competent critics have told her so. But she is
so poor she doesn't think she can ever possibly manage it--
unless she can get one of the Cameron scholarships, as they
are called; and she has very little hope of that, although the
professor of music who taught her has sent her name in."

"What are the Cameron scholarships?" asked the Old Lady.

"Well, I suppose you have heard of Andrew Cameron, the
millionaire?" said the minister's wife, serenely unconscious
that she was causing the very bones of the Old Lady's family
skeleton to jangle in their closet.

Into the Old Lady's white face came a sudden faint stain of
colour, as if a rough hand had struck her cheek.

"Yes, I've heard of him," she said.

"Well, it seems that he had a daughter, who was a very
beautiful girl, and whom he idolized. She had a fine voice,
and he was going to send her abroad to have it trained. And
she died. It nearly broke his heart, I understand. But ever
since, he sends one young girl away to Europe every year for a
thorough musical education under the best teachers--in memory
of his daughter. He has sent nine or ten already; but I fear
there isn't much chance for Sylvia Gray, and she doesn't think
there is herself."

"Why not?" asked the Old Lady spiritedly. "I am sure that
there can be few voices equal to Miss Gray's."

"Very true. But you see, these so-called scholarships are
private affairs, dependent solely on the whim and choice of
Andrew Cameron himself. Of course, when a girl has friends who
use their influence with him, he will often send her on their
recommendation. They say he sent a girl last year who hadn't
much of a voice at all just because her father had been an old
business crony of his. But Sylvia doesn't know anyone at all
who would, to use a slang term, have any 'pull' with Andrew
Cameron, and she is not acquainted with him herself. Well, I
must be going; we'll see you at the Manse on Saturday, I hope,
Miss Lloyd. The Circle meets there, you know."

"Yes, I know," said the Old Lady absently. When the minister's
wife had gone, she dropped her sweetgrass basket and sat for a
long, long time with her hands lying idly in her lap, and her
big black eyes staring unseeingly at the wall before her.

Old Lady Lloyd, so pitifully poor that she had to eat six
crackers the less a week to pay her fee to the Sewing Circle,
knew that it was in her power--HERS--to send Leslie Gray's
daughter to Europe for her musical education! If she chose to
use her "pull" with Andrew Cameron--if she went to him and
asked him to send Sylvia Gray abroad the next year--she had no
doubt whatever that it would be done. It all lay with her--if-
-if--IF she could so far crush and conquer her pride as to
stoop to ask a favour of the man who had wronged her and hers
so bitterly.

Years ago, her father, acting under the advice and urgency of
Andrew Cameron, had invested all his little fortune in an
enterprise that had turned out a failure. Abraham Lloyd lost
every dollar he possessed, and his family were reduced to
utter poverty. Andrew Cameron might have been forgiven for a
mistake; but there was a strong suspicion, amounting to almost
certainty, that he had been guilty of something far worse than
a mistake in regard to his uncle's investment. Nothing could
be legally proved; but it was certain that Andrew Cameron,
already noted for his "sharp practices," emerged with improved
finances from an entanglement that had ruined many better men;
and old Doctor Lloyd had died brokenhearted, believing that
his nephew had deliberately victimized him.

Andrew Cameron had not quite done this; he had meant well
enough by his uncle at first, and what he had finally done he
tried to justify to himself by the doctrine that a man must
look out for Number One.

Margaret Lloyd made no such excuses for him; she held him
responsible, not only for her lost fortune, but for her
father's death, and never forgave him for it. When Abraham
Lloyd had died, Andrew Cameron, perhaps pricked by his
conscience, had come to her, sleekly and smoothly, to offer
her financial aid. He would see, he told her, that she never
suffered want.

Margaret Lloyd flung his offer back in his face after a
fashion that left nothing to be desired in the way of plain
speaking. She would die, she told him passionately, before she
would accept a penny or a favour from him. He had preserved an
unbroken show of good temper, expressed his heartfelt regret
that she should cherish such an unjust opinion of him, and had
left her with an oily assurance that he would always be her
friend, and would always be delighted to render her any
assistance in his power whenever she should choose to ask for
it.

The Old Lady had lived for twenty years in the firm conviction
that she would die in the poorhouse--as, indeed, seemed not
unlikely--before she would ask a favour of Andrew Cameron. And
so, in truth, she would have, had it been for herself. But for
Sylvia! Could she so far humble herself for Sylvia's sake?

The question was not easily or speedily settled, as had been
the case in the matters of the grape jug and the book of
poems. For a whole week the Old Lady fought her pride and
bitterness. Sometimes, in the hours of sleepless night, when
all human resentments and rancours seemed petty and
contemptible, she thought she had conquered it. But in the
daytime, with the picture of her father looking down at her
from the wall, and the rustle of her unfashionable dresses,
worn because of Andrew Cameron's double dealing, in her ears,
it got the better of her again.

But the Old Lady's love for Sylvia had grown so strong and
deep and tender that no other feeling could endure finally
against it. Love is a great miracle worker; and never had its
power been more strongly made manifest than on the cold, dull
autumn morning when the Old Lady walked to Bright River
railway station and took the train to Charlottetown, bent on
an errand the very thought of which turned her soul sick
within her. The station master who sold her her ticket thought
Old Lady Lloyd looked uncommonly white and peaked--"as if she
hadn't slept a wink or eaten a bite for a week," he told his
wife at dinner time. "Guess there's something wrong in her
business affairs. This is the second time she's gone to town
this summer."

When the Old Lady reached the town, she ate her slender little
lunch and then walked out to the suburb where the Cameron
factories and warehouses were. It was a long walk for her, but
she could not afford to drive. She felt very tired when she
was shown into the shining, luxurious office where Andrew
Cameron sat at his desk.

After the first startled glance of surprise, he came forward
beamingly, with outstretched hand.

"Why, Cousin Margaret! This is a pleasant surprise. Sit down--
allow me, this is a much more comfortable chair. Did you come
in this morning? And how is everybody out in Spencervale?"

The Old Lady had flushed at his first words. To hear the name
by which her father and mother and lover had called her on
Andrew Cameron's lips seemed like profanation. But, she told
herself, the time was past for squeamishness. If she could ask
a favour of Andrew Cameron, she could bear lesser pangs. For
Sylvia's sake she shook hands with him, for Sylvia's sake she
sat down in the chair he offered. But for no living human
being's sake could this determined Old Lady infuse any
cordiality into her manner or her words. She went straight to
the point with Lloyd simplicity.

"I have come to ask a favour of you," she said, looking him in
the eye, not at all humbly or meekly, as became a suppliant,
but challengingly and defiantly, as if she dared him to
refuse.

"DE-lighted to hear it, Cousin Margaret." Never was anything
so bland and gracious as his tone. "Anything I can do for you
I shall be only too pleased to do. I am afraid you have looked
upon me as an enemy, Margaret, and I assure you I have felt
your injustice keenly. I realize that some appearances were
against me, but--"

The Old Lady lifted her hand and stemmed his eloquence by that
one gesture.

"I did not come here to discuss that matter," she said. "We
will not refer to the past, if you please. I came to ask a
favour, not for myself, but for a very dear young friend of
mine--a Miss Gray, who has a remarkably fine voice which she
wishes to have trained. She is poor, so I came to ask you if
you would give her one of your musical scholarships. I
understand her name has already been suggested to you, with a
recommendation from her teacher. I do not know what he has
said of her voice, but I do know he could hardly overrate it.
If you send her abroad for training, you will not make any
mistake."

The Old Lady stopped talking. She felt sure Andrew Cameron
would grant her request, but she did hope he would grant it
rather rudely or unwillingly. She could accept the favour so
much more easily if it were flung to her like a bone to a dog.
But not a bit of it. Andrew Cameron was suaver than ever.
Nothing could give him greater pleasure than to grant his dear
Cousin Margaret's request--he only wished it involved more
trouble on his part. Her little protege should have her
musical education assuredly--she should go abroad next year--
and he was DE-lighted--

"Thank you," said the Old Lady, cutting him short again. "I am
much obliged to you--and I ask you not to let Miss Gray know
anything of my interference. And I shall not take up any more
of your valuable time. Good afternoon."

"Oh, you mustn't go so soon," he said, with some real kindness
or clannishness permeating the hateful cordiality of his
voice--for Andrew Cameron was not entirely without the homely
virtues of the average man. He had been a good husband and
father; he had once been very fond of his Cousin Margaret; and
he was really very sorry that "circumstances" had "compelled"
him to act as he had done in that old affair of her father's
investment. "You must be my guest to-night."

"Thank you. I must return home to-night," said the Old Lady
firmly, and there was that in her tone which told Andrew
Cameron that it would be useless to urge her. But he insisted
on telephoning for his carriage to drive her to the station.
The Old Lady submitted to this, because she was secretly
afraid her own legs would not suffice to carry her there; she
even shook hands with him at parting, and thanked him a second
time for granting her request.

"Not at all," he said. "Please try to think a little more
kindly of me, Cousin Margaret."

When the Old Lady reached the station she found, to her
dismay, that her train had just gone and that she would have
to wait two hours for the evening one. She went into the
waiting-room and sat down. She was very tired. All the
excitement that had sustained her was gone, and she felt weak
and old. She had nothing to eat, having expected to get home
in time for tea; the waiting-room was chilly, and she shivered
in her thin, old, silk mantilla. Her head ached and her heart
likewise. She had won Sylvia's desire for her; but Sylvia
would go out of her life, and the Old Lady did not see how she
was to go on living after that. Yet she sat there
unflinchingly for two hours, an upright, indomitable old
figure, silently fighting her losing battle with the forces of
physical and mental pain, while happy people came and went,
and laughed and talked before her.

At eight o'clock the Old Lady got off the train at Bright
River station, and slipped off unnoticed into the darkness of
the wet night. She had two miles to walk, and a cold rain was
falling. Soon the Old Lady was wet to the skin and chilled to
the marrow. She felt as if she were walking in a bad dream.
Blind instinct alone guided her over the last mile and up the
lane to her own house. As she fumbled at her door, she
realized that a burning heat had suddenly taken the place of
her chilliness. She stumbled in over her threshold and closed
the door.



VI. The October Chapter


On the second morning after Old Lady Lloyd's journey to town,
Sylvia Gray was walking blithely down the wood lane. It was a
beautiful autumn morning, clear and crisp and sunny; the
frosted ferns, drenched and battered with the rain of
yesterday, gave out a delicious fragrance; here and there in
the woods a maple waved a gay crimson banner, or a branch of
birch showed pale golden against the dark, unchanging spruces.
The air was very pure and exhilarating. Sylvia walked with a
joyous lightness of step and uplift of brow.

At the beech in the hollow she paused for an expectant moment,
but there was nothing among the gray old roots for her. She
was just turning away when little Teddy Kimball, who lived
next door to the manse, came running down the slope from the
direction of the old Lloyd place. Teddy's freckled face was
very pale.

"Oh, Miss Gray!" he gasped. "I guess Old Lady Lloyd has gone
clean crazy at last. The minister's wife asked me to run up to
the Old Lady, with a message about the Sewing Circle--and I
knocked--and knocked--and nobody came--so I thought I'd just
step in and leave the letter on the table. But when I opened
the door, I heard an awful queer laugh in the sitting-room,
and next minute, the Old Lady came to the sitting-room door.
Oh, Miss Gray, she looked awful. Her face was red and her eyes
awful wild--and she was muttering and talking to herself and
laughing like mad. I was so scared I just turned and run."

Sylvia, without stopping for reflection, caught Teddy's hand
and ran up the slope. It did not occur to her to be
frightened, although she thought with Teddy that the poor,
lonely, eccentric Old Lady had really gone out of her mind at
last.

The Old Lady was sitting on the kitchen sofa when Sylvia
entered. Teddy, too frightened to go in, lurked on the step
outside. The Old Lady still wore the damp black silk dress in
which she had walked from the station. Her face was flushed,
her eyes wild, her voice hoarse. But she knew Sylvia and
cowered down.

"Don't look at me," she moaned. "Please go away--I can't bear
that YOU should know how poor I am. You're to go to Europe--
Andrew Cameron is going to send you--I asked him--he couldn't
refuse ME. But please go away."

Sylvia did not go away. At a glance she had seen that this was
sickness and delirium, not insanity. She sent Teddy off in hot
haste for Mrs. Spencer and when Mrs. Spencer came they induced
the Old Lady to go to bed, and sent for the doctor. By night
everybody in Spencervale knew that Old Lady Lloyd had
pneumonia.

Mrs. Spencer announced that she meant to stay and nurse the
Old Lady. Several other women offered assistance. Everybody
was kind and thoughtful. But the Old Lady did not know it. She
did not even know Sylvia Gray, who came and sat by her every
minute she could spare. Sylvia Gray now knew all that she had
suspected--the Old Lady was her fairy godmother. The Old Lady
babbled of Sylvia incessantly, revealing all her love for her,
betraying all the sacrifices she had made. Sylvia's heart
ached with love and tenderness, and she prayed earnestly that
the Old Lady might recover.

"I want her to know that I give her love for love," she
murmured.

Everybody knew now how poor the Old Lady really was. She let
slip all the jealously guarded secrets of her existence,
except her old love for Leslie Gray. Even in delirium
something sealed her lips as to that. But all else came out--
her anguish over her unfashionable attire, her pitiful
makeshifts and contrivances, her humiliation over wearing
unfashionable dresses and paying only five cents where every
other Sewing Circle member paid ten. The kindly women who
waited on her listened to her with tearfilled eyes, and
repented of their harsh judgments in the past.

"But who would have thought it?" said Mrs. Spencer to the
minister's wife. "Nobody ever dreamed that her father had lost
ALL his money, though folks supposed he had lost some in
that old affair of the silver mine out west. It's shocking to
think of the way she has lived all these years, often with not
enough to eat--and going to bed in winter days to save fuel.
Though I suppose if we had known we couldn't have done much
for her, she's so desperate proud. But if she lives, and will
let us help her, things will be different after this. Crooked
Jack says he'll never forgive himself for taking pay for the
few little jobs he did for her. He says, if she'll only let
him, he'll do everything she wants done for her after this for
nothing. Ain't it strange what a fancy she's took to Miss
Gray? Think of her doing all those things for her all summer,
and selling the grape jug and all. Well, the Old Lady
certainly isn't mean, but nobody made a mistake in calling her
queer. It all does seem desperate pitiful. Miss Gray's taking
it awful hard. She seems to think about as much of the Old
Lady as the Old Lady thinks of her. She's so worked up she
don't even seem to care about going to Europe next year. She's
really going--she's had word from Andrew Cameron. I'm awful
glad, for there never was a sweeter girl in the world; but she
says it will cost too much if the Old Lady's life is to pay
for it."

Andrew Cameron heard of the Old Lady's illness and came out to
Spencervale himself. He was not allowed to see the Old Lady,
of course; but he told all concerned that no expense or
trouble was to be spared, and the Spencervale doctor was
instructed to send his bill to Andrew Cameron and hold his
peace about it. Moreover, when Andrew Cameron went back home,
he sent a trained nurse out to wait on the Old Lady, a
capable, kindly woman who contrived to take charge of the case
without offending Mrs. Spencer--than which no higher tribute
could be paid to her tact!

The Old Lady did not die--the Lloyd constitution brought her
through. One day, when Sylvia came in, the Old Lady smiled up
at her, with a weak, faint, sensible smile, and murmured her
name, and the nurse said that the crisis was past.

The Old Lady made a marvellously patient and tractable
invalid. She did just as she was told, and accepted the
presence of the nurse as a matter of course.

But one day, when she was strong enough to talk a little, she
said to Sylvia,

"I suppose Andrew Cameron sent Miss Hayes here, did he?"
"Yes," said Sylvia, rather timidly.

The Old Lady noticed the timidity and smiled, with something
of her old humour and spirit in her black eyes.

"Time has been when I'd have packed off unceremoniously any
person Andrew Cameron sent here," she said. "But, Sylvia, I
have gone through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and I
have left pride and resentment behind me for ever, I hope. I
no longer feel as I felt towards Andrew. I can even accept a
personal favour from him now. At last I can forgive him for
the wrong he did me and mine. Sylvia, I find that I have been
letting no ends of cats out of bags in my illness. Everybody
knows now how poor I am--but I don't seem to mind it a bit.
I'm only sorry that I ever shut my neighbours out of my life
because of my foolish pride. Everyone has been so kind to me,
Sylvia. In the future, if my life is spared, it is going to be
a very different sort of life. I'm going to open it to all the
kindness and companionship I can find in young and old. I'm
going to help them all I can and let them help me. I CAN
help people--I've learned that money isn't the only power for
helping people. Anyone who has sympathy and understanding to
give has a treasure that is without money and without price.
And oh, Sylvia, you've found out what I never meant you to
know. But I don't mind that now, either."

Sylvia took the Old Lady's thin white hand and kissed it.

"I can never thank you enough for what you have done for me,
dearest Miss Lloyd," she said earnestly. "And I am so glad
that all mystery is done away with between us, and I can love
you as much and as openly as I have longed to do. I am so glad
and so thankful that you love me, dear fairy godmother."

"Do you know WHY I love you so?" said the Old Lady
wistfully. "Did I let THAT out in my raving, too?"

"No. but I think I know. It is because I am Leslie Gray's
daughter, isn't it? I know that father loved you--his brother,
Uncle Willis, told me all about it."

"I spoiled my own life because of my wicked pride," said the
Old Lady sadly. "But you will love me in spite of it all,
won't you, Sylvia? And you will come to see me sometimes? And
write me after you go away?"

"I am coming to see you every day," said Sylvia. "I am going
to stay in Spencervale for a whole year yet, just to be near
you. And next year when I go to Europe--thanks to you, fairy
godmother--I'll write you every day. We are going to be the
best of chums, and we are going to have a most beautiful year
of comradeship!"

The Old Lady smiled contentedly. Out in the kitchen, the
minister's wife, who had brought up a dish of jelly, was
talking to Mrs. Spencer about the Sewing Circle. Through the
open window, where the red vines hung, came the pungent, sun-
warm October air. The sunshine fell over Sylvia's chestnut
hair like a crown of glory and youth.

"I do feel so perfectly happy," said the Old Lady, with a
long, rapturous breath.





III. Each In His Own Tongue


The honey-tinted autumn sunshine was falling thickly over the
crimson and amber maples around old Abel Blair's door. There
was only one outer door in old Abel's house, and it almost
always stood wide open. A little black dog, with one ear
missing and a lame forepaw, almost always slept on the worn
red sandstone slab which served old Abel for a doorstep; and
on the still more worn sill above it a large gray cat almost
always slept. Just inside the door, on a bandy-legged chair of
elder days, old Abel almost always sat.

He was sitting there this afternoon--a little old man, sadly
twisted with rheumatism; his head was abnormally large,
thatched with long, wiry black hair; his face was heavily
lined and swarthily sunburned; his eyes were deep-set and
black, with occasional peculiar golden flashes in them. A
strange looking man was old Abel Blair; and as strange was he
as he looked. Lower Carmody people would have told you.

Old Abel was almost always sober in these, his later years. He
was sober to-day. He liked to bask in that ripe sunlight as
well as his dog and cat did; and in such baskings he almost
always looked out of his doorway at the far, fine blue sky
over the tops of the crowding maples. But to-day he was not
looking at the sky, instead, he was staring at the black,
dusty rafters of his kitchen, where hung dried meats and
strings of onions and bunches of herbs and fishing tackle and
guns and skins.

But old Abel saw not these things; his face was the face of a
man who beholds visions, compact of heavenly pleasure and
hellish pain, for old Abel was seeing what he might have been-
-and what he was; as he always saw when Felix Moore played to
him on the violin. And the awful joy of dreaming that he was
young again, with unspoiled life before him, was so great and
compelling that it counterbalanced the agony in the
realization of a dishonoured old age, following years in which
he had squandered the wealth of his soul in ways where Wisdom
lifted not her voice.

Felix Moore was standing opposite to him, before an untidy
stove, where the noon fire had died down into pallid,
scattered ashes. Under his chin he held old Abel's brown,
battered fiddle; his eyes, too, were fixed on the ceiling; and
he, too, saw things not lawful to be uttered in any language
save that of music; and of all music, only that given forth by
the anguished, enraptured spirit of the violin. And yet this
Felix was little more than twelve years old, and his face was
still the face of a child who knows nothing of either sorrow
or sin or failure or remorse. Only in his large, gray-black
eyes was there something not of the child--something that
spoke of an inheritance from many hearts, now ashes, which had
aforetime grieved and joyed, and struggled and failed, and
succeeded and grovelled. The inarticulate cries of their
longings had passed into this child's soul, and transmuted
themselves into the expression of his music.

Felix was a beautiful child. Carmody people, who stayed at
home, thought so; and old Abel Blair, who had roamed afar in
many lands, thought so; and even the Rev. Stephen Leonard, who
taught, and tried to believe, that favour is deceitful and
beauty is vain, thought so.

He was a slight lad, with sloping shoulders, a slim brown
neck, and a head set on it with stag-like grace and uplift.
His hair, cut straight across his brow and falling over his
ears, after some caprice of Janet Andrews, the minister's
housekeeper, was a glossy blue-black. the skin of his face and
hands was like ivory; his eyes were large and beautifully
tinted--gray, with dilating pupils; his features had the
outlines of a cameo. Carmody mothers considered him delicate,
and had long foretold that the minister would never bring him
up; but old Abel pulled his grizzled moustache when he heard
such forebodings and smiled.

"Felix Moore will live," he said positively. "You can't kill
that kind until their work is done. He's got a work to do--if
the minister'll let him do it. And if the minister don't let
him do it, then I wouldn't be in that minister's shoes when he
comes to the judgment--no, I'd rather be in my own. It's an
awful thing to cross the purposes of the Almighty, either in
your own life or anybody else's. Sometimes I think it's what's
meant by the unpardonable sin--ay, that I do!"

Carmody people never asked what old Abel meant. They had long
ago given up such vain questioning. When a man had lived as
old Abel had lived for the greater part of his life, was it
any wonder he said crazy things? And as for hinting that Mr.
Leonard, a man who was really almost too good to live, was
guilty of any sin, much less an unpardonable one--well, there
now! what use was it to be taking any account of old Abel's
queer speeches? Though, to be sure, there was no great harm in
a fiddle, and maybe Mr. Leonard was a mite too strict that way
with the child. But then, could you wonder at it? There was
his father, you see.

Felix finally lowered the violin, and came back to old Abel's
kitchen with a long sigh. Old Abel smiled drearily at him--the
smile of a man who has been in the hands of the tormentors.

"It's awful the way you play--it's awful," he said with a
shudder. "I never heard anything like it--and you that never
had any teaching since you were nine years old, and not much
practice, except what you could get here now and then on my
old, battered fiddle. And to think you make it up yourself as
you go along! I suppose your grandfather would never hear to
your studying music--would he now?"

Felix shook his head.

"I know he wouldn't, Abel. He wants me to be a minister.
Ministers are good things to be, but I'm afraid I can't be a
minister."

"Not a pulpit minister. There's different kinds of ministers,
and each must talk to men in his own tongue if he's going to
do 'em any real good," said old Abel meditatively. "YOUR
tongue is music. Strange that your grandfather can't see that
for himself, and him such a broad-minded man! He's the only
minister I ever had much use for. He's God's own if ever a man
was. And he loves you--yes, sir, he loves you like the apple
of his eye."

"And I love him," said Felix warmly. "I love him so much that
I'll even try to be a minister for his sake, though I don't
want to be."

"What do you want to be?"

"A great violinist," answered the child, his ivory-hued face
suddenly warming into living rose. "I want to play to
thousands--and see their eyes look as yours do when I play.
Sometimes your eyes frighten me, but oh, it's a splendid
fright! If I had father's violin I could do better. I remember
that he once said it had a soul that was doing purgatory for
its sins when it had lived on earth. I don't know what he
meant, but it did seem to me that HIS violin was alive. He taught
me to play on it as soon as I was big enough to hold it."

"Did you love your father?" asked old Abel, with a keen look.

Again Felix crimsoned; but he looked straightly and steadily
into his old friend's face.

"No," he said, "I didn't; but," he added, gravely and deliberately,
"I don't think you should have asked me such a question."

It was old Abel's turn to blush. Carmody people would not have
believed he could blush; and perhaps no living being could
have called that deepening hue into his weather-beaten cheek
save only this gray-eyed child of the rebuking face.

"No, I guess I shouldn't," he said. "But I'm always making
mistakes. I've never made anything else. That's why I'm
nothing more than 'Old Abel' to the Carmody people. Nobody but
you and your grandfather ever calls me 'Mr. Blair.' Yet
William Blair at the store up there, rich and respected as he
is, wasn't half as clever a man as I was when we started in
life: you mayn't believe that, but it's true. And the worst of
it is, young Felix, that most of the time I don't care whether
I'm Mr. Blair of old Abel. Only when you play I care. It makes
me feel just as a look I saw in a little girl's eyes some
years ago made me feel. Her name was Anne Shirley and she
lived with the Cuthberts down at Avonlea. We got into a
conversation at Blair's store. She could talk a blue streak to
anyone, that girl could. I happened to say about something
that it didn't matter to a battered old hulk of sixty odd like
me. She looked at me with her big, innocent eyes, a little
reproachful like, as if I'd said something awful heretical.
'Don't you think, Mr. Blair,' she says, 'that the older we get
the more things ought to matter to us?'--as grave as if she'd
been a hundred instead of eleven. 'Things matter SO much to
me now,' she says, clasping her hands thisaway, 'and I'm sure
that when I'm sixty they'll matter just five times as much to
me.' Well, the way she looked and the way she spoke made me
feel downright ashamed of myself because things had stopped
mattering with me. But never mind all that. My miserable old
feelings don't count for much. What come of your father's fiddle?"

"Grandfather took it away when I came here. I think he burned
it. And I long for it so often."

"Well, you've always got my old brown fiddle to come to when
you must."

"Yes, I know. And I'm glad for that. But I'm hungry for a
violin all the time. And I only come here when the hunger gets
too much to bear. I feel as if I oughtn't to come even then--
I'm always saying I won't do it again, because I know
grandfather wouldn't like it, if he knew."

"He has never forbidden it, has he?"

"No, but that is because he doesn't know I come here for that.
He never thinks of such a thing. I feel sure he WOULD forbid
it, if he knew. And that makes me very wretched. And yet I
HAVE to come. Mr. Blair, do you know why grandfather can't
bear to have me play on the violin? He loves music, and he
doesn't mind my playing on the organ, if I don't neglect other
things. I can't understand it, can you?"

"I have a pretty good idea, but I can't tell you. It isn't my
secret. Maybe he'll tell you himself some day. But, mark you,
young Felix, he has got good reasons for it all. Knowing what
I know, I can't blame him over much, though I think he's
mistaken. Come now, play something more for me before you go--
something that's bright and happy this time, so as to leave me
with a good taste in my mouth. That last thing you played took
me straight to heaven,--but heaven's awful near to hell, and
at the last you tipped me in."

"I don't understand you," said Felix, drawing his fine, narrow
black brows together in a perplexed frown.

"No--and I wouldn't want you to. You couldn't understand
unless you was an old man who had it in him once to do
something and be a MAN, and just went and made himself a
devilish fool. But there must be something in you that
understands things--all kinds of things--or you couldn't put
it all into music the way you do. How do you do it? How in--
how DO you do it, young Felix?"

"I don't know. But I play differently to different people. I
don't know how that is. When I'm alone with you I have to play
one way; and when Janet comes over here to listen I feel quite
another way--not so thrilling, but happier and lonelier. And
that day when Jessie Blair was here listening I felt as if I
wanted to laugh and sing--as if the violin wanted to laugh and
sing all the time."

The strange, golden gleam flashed through old Abel's sunken
eyes.

"God," he muttered under his breath, "I believe the boy can
get into other folk's souls somehow, and play out what HIS
soul sees there."

"What's that you say?" inquired Felix, petting his fiddle.

"Nothing--never mind--go on. Something lively now, young
Felix. Stop probing into my soul, where you haven't no
business to be, you infant, and play me something out of your
own--something sweet and happy and pure."

"I'll play the way I feel on sunshiny mornings, when the birds
are singing and I forget I have to be a minister," said Felix
simply.



A witching, gurgling, mirthful strain, like mingled bird and
brook song, floated out on the still air, along the path where
the red and golden maple leaves were falling very softly, one
by one. The Reverend Stephen Leonard heard it, as he came
along the way, and the Reverend Stephen Leonard smiled. Now,
when Stephen Leonard smiled, children ran to him, and grown
people felt as if they looked from Pisgah over to some fair
land of promise beyond the fret and worry of their care-dimmed
earthly lives.

Mr. Leonard loved music, as he loved all things beautiful,
whether in the material or the spiritual world, though he did
not realize how much he loved them for their beauty alone, or
he would have been shocked and remorseful. He himself was
beautiful. His figure was erect and youthful, despite seventy
years. His face was as mobile and charming as a woman's, yet
with all a man's tried strength and firmness in it, and his
dark blue eyes flashed with the brilliance of one and twenty;
even his silken silvery hair could not make an old man of him.
He was worshipped by everyone who knew him, and he was, in so
far as mortal man may be, worthy of that worship.

"Old Abel is amusing himself with his violin again," he
thought. "What a delicious thing he is playing! He has quite a
gift for the violin. But how can he play such a thing as
that,--a battered old hulk of a man who has, at one time or
another, wallowed in almost every sin to which human nature
can sink? He was on one of his sprees three days ago--the
first one for over a year--lying dead-drunk in the market
square in Charlottetown among the dogs; and now he is playing
something that only a young archangel on the hills of heaven
ought to be able to play. Well, it will make my task all the
easier. Abel is always repentant by the time he is able to
play on his fiddle."

Mr. Leonard was on the door-stone. The little black dog had
frisked down to meet him, and the gray cat rubbed her head
against his leg. Old Abel did not notice him; he was beating
time with uplifted hand and smiling face to Felix's music, and
his eyes were young again, glowing with laughter and sheer
happiness.

"Felix! what does this mean?"

The violin bow clattered from Felix's hand upon the floor; he
swung around and faced his grandfather. As he met the passion
of grief and hurt in the old man's eyes, his own clouded with
an agony of repentance.

"Grandfather--I'm sorry," he cried brokenly.

"Now, now!" Old Abel had risen deprecatingly. "It's all my
fault, Mr. Leonard. Don't you blame the boy. I coaxed him to
play a bit for me. I didn't feel fit to touch the fiddle yet
myself--too soon after Friday, you see. So I coaxed him on--
wouldn't give him no peace till he played. It's all my fault."

"No," said Felix, throwing back his head. His face was as
white as marble, yet it seemed ablaze with desperate truth and
scorn of old Abel's shielding lie. "No, grandfather, it isn't
Abel's fault. I came over here on purpose to play, because I
thought you had gone to the harbour. I have come here often,
ever since I have lived with you."

"Ever since you have lived with me you have been deceiving me
like this, Felix?"

There was no anger in Mr. Leonard's tone--only measureless
sorrow. The boy's sensitive lips quivered.

"Forgive me, grandfather," he whispered beseechingly.

"You never forbid him to come," old Abel broke in angrily. "Be
just, Mr. Leonard--be just."

"I AM just. Felix knows that he has disobeyed me, in the
spirit if not in the letter. Do you not know it, Felix?"

"Yes, grandfather, I have done wrong--I've known that I was
doing wrong every time I came. Forgive me, grandfather."

"Felix, I forgive you, but I ask you to promise me, here and
now, that you will never again, as long as you live, touch a
violin."
Dusky crimson rushed madly over the boy's face. He gave a cry
as if he had been lashed with a whip. Old Abel sprang to his
feet.

"Don't you ask such a promise of him, Mr. Leonard," he cried
furiously. "It's a sin, that's what it is. Man, man, what
blinds you? You ARE blind. Can't you see what is in the boy?
His soul is full of music. It'll torture him to death--or to
worse--if you don't let it have way."

"There is a devil in such music," said Mr. Leonard hotly.

"Ay, there may be, but don't forget that there's a Christ in
it, too," retorted old Abel in a low tense tone.

Mr. Leonard looked shocked; he considered that old Abel had
uttered blasphemy. He turned away from him rebukingly.

"Felix, promise me."

There was no relenting in his face or tone. He was merciless
in the use of the power he possessed over that young, loving
spirit. Felix understood that there was no escape; but his
lips were very white as he said,

"I promise, grandfather."

Mr. Leonard drew a long breath of relief. He knew that promise
would be kept. So did old Abel. The latter crossed the floor
and sullenly took the violin from Felix's relaxed hand.
Without a word or look he went into the little bedroom off the
kitchen and shut the door with a slam of righteous
indignation. But from its window he stealthily watched his
visitors go away. Just as they entered on the maple path Mr.
Leonard laid his hand on Felix's head and looked down at him.
Instantly the boy flung his arm up over the old man's shoulder
and smiled at him. In the look they exchanged there was
boundless love and trust--ay, and good-fellowship. Old Abel's
scornful eyes again held the golden flash.

"How those two love each other!" he muttered enviously. "And
how they torture each other!"



Mr. Leonard went to his study to pray when he got home. He
knew that Felix had run for comforting to Janet Andrews, the
little, thin, sweet-faced, rigid-lipped woman who kept house
for them. Mr. Leonard knew that Janet would disapprove of his
action as deeply as old Abel had done. She would say nothing,
she would only look at him with reproachful eyes over the
teacups at suppertime. But Mr. Leonard believed he had done
what was best and his conscience did not trouble him, though
his heart did.

Thirteen years before this, his daughter Margaret had almost
broken that heart by marrying a man of whom he could not
approve. Martin Moore was a professional violinist. He was a
popular performer, though not in any sense a great one. He met
the slim, golden-haired daughter of the manse at the house of
a college friend she was visiting in Toronto, and fell
straightway in love with her. Margaret had loved him with all
her virginal heart in return, and married him, despite her
father's disapproval. It was not to Martin Moore's profession
that Mr. Leonard objected, but to the man himself. He knew
that the violinist's past life had not been such as became a
suitor for Margaret Leonard; and his insight into character
warned him that Martin Moore could never make any woman
lastingly happy.

Margaret Leonard did not believe this. She married Martin
Moore and lived one year in paradise. Perhaps that atoned for
the three bitter years which followed--that, and her child. At
all events, she died as she had lived, loyal and
uncomplaining. She died alone, for her husband was away on a
concert tour, and her illness was so brief that her father had
not time to reach her before the end. Her body was taken home
to be buried beside her mother in the little Carmody
churchyard. Mr. Leonard wished to take the child, but Martin
Moore refused to give him up.

Six years later Moore, too, died, and at last Mr. Leonard had
his heart's desire--the possession of Margaret's son. The
grandfather awaited the child's coming with mingled feelings.
His heart yearned for him, yet he dreaded to meet a second
edition of Martin Moore. Suppose Margaret's son resembled his
handsome vagabond of a father! Or, worse still, suppose he
were cursed with his father's lack of principle, his
instability, his Bohemian instincts. Thus Mr. Leonard tortured
himself wretchedly before the coming of Felix.

The child did not look like either father or mother. Instead,
Mr. Leonard found himself looking into a face which he had put
away under the grasses thirty years before--the face of his
girl bride, who had died at Margaret's birth. Here again were
her lustrous gray-black eyes, her ivory outlines, her fine-
traced arch of brow; and here, looking out of those eyes,
seemed her very spirit again. From that moment the soul of the
old man was knit to the soul of the child, and they loved each
other with a love surpassing that of women.

Felix's only inheritance from his father was his love of
music. But the child had genius, where his father had
possessed only talent. To Martin Moore's outward mastery of
the violin was added the mystery and intensity of his mother's
nature, with some more subtle quality still, which had perhaps
come to him from the grandmother he so strongly resembled.
Moore had understood what a career was naturally before the
child, and he had trained him in the technique of his art from
the time the slight fingers could first grasp the bow. When
nine-year-old Felix came to the Carmody manse, he had mastered
as much of the science of the violin as nine out of ten
musicians acquire in a lifetime; and he brought with him his
father's violin; it was all Martin Moore had to leave his son-
-but it was an Amati, the commercial value of which nobody in
Carmody suspected. Mr. Leonard had taken possession of it and
Felix had never seen it since. He cried himself to sleep many
a night for the loss of it. Mr. Leonard did not know this, and
if Janet Andrews suspected it she held her tongue--an art in
which she excelled. She "saw no harm in a fiddle," herself,
and thought Mr. Leonard absurdly strict in the matter, though
it would not have been well for the luckless outsider who
might have ventured to say as much to her. She had connived at
Felix's visits to old Abel Blair, squaring the matter with her
Presbyterian conscience by some peculiar process known only to
herself.

When Janet heard of the promise which Mr. Leonard had exacted
from Felix she seethed with indignation; and, though she "knew
her place" better than to say anything to Mr. Leonard about
it, she made her disapproval so plainly manifest in her
bearing that the stern, gentle old man found the atmosphere of
his hitherto peaceful manse unpleasantly chill and hostile for
a time.

It was the wish of his heart that Felix should be a minister,
as he would have wished his own son to be, had one been born
to him. Mr. Leonard thought rightly that the highest work to
which any man could be called was a life of service to his
fellows; but he made the mistake of supposing the field of
service much narrower than it is--of failing to see that a man
may minister to the needs of humanity in many different but
equally effective ways.



Janet hoped that Mr. Leonard might not exact the fulfilment of
Felix's promise; but Felix himself, with the instinctive
understanding of perfect love, knew that it was vain to hope
for any change of viewpoint in his grandfather. He addressed
himself to the keeping of his promise in letter and in spirit.
He never went again to old Abel's; he did not even play on the
organ, though this was not forbidden, because any music
wakened in him a passion of longing and ecstasy which demanded
expression with an intensity not to be borne. He flung himself
grimly into his studies and conned Latin and Greek verbs with
a persistency which soon placed him at the head of all
competitors.

Only once in the long winter did he come near to breaking his
promise. One evening, when March was melting into April, and
the pulses of spring were stirring under the lingering snow,
he was walking home from school alone. As he descended into
the little hollow below the manse a lively lilt of music
drifted up to meet him. It was only the product of a mouth-
organ, manipulated by a little black-eyed, French-Canadian
hired boy, sitting on the fence by the brook; but there was
music in the ragged urchin and it came out through his simple
toy. It tingled over Felix from head to foot; and, when Leon
held out the mouth-organ with a fraternal grin of invitation,
he snatched at it as a famished creature might snatch at food.

Then, with it half-way to his lips, he paused. True, it was
only the violin he had promised never to touch; but he felt
that if he gave way ever so little to the desire that was in
him, it would sweep everything before it. If he played on Leon
Buote's mouth-organ, there in that misty spring dale, he would
go to old Abel's that evening; he KNEW he would go. To
Leon's amazement, Felix threw the mouth-organ back at him and
ran up the hill as if he were pursued. There was something in
his boyish face that frightened Leon; and it frightened Janet
Andrews as Felix rushed past her in the hall of the manse.

"Child, what's the matter with you?" she cried. "Are you sick?
Have you been scared?"

"No, no. Leave me alone, Janet," said Felix chokingly, dashing
up the stairs to his own room.

He was quite composed when he came down to tea, an hour later,
though he was unusually pale and had purple shadows under his
large eyes.

Mr. Leonard scrutinized him somewhat anxiously; it suddenly
occurred to the old minister that Felix was looking more
delicate than his wont this spring. Well, he had studied hard
all winter, and he was certainly growing very fast. When
vacation came he must be sent away for a visit.

"They tell me Naomi Clark is real sick," said Janet. "She has
been ailing all winter, and now she's fast to her bed. Mrs.
Murphy says she believes the woman is dying, but nobody dares
tell her so. She won't give in she's sick, nor take medicine.
And there's nobody to wait on her except that simple creature,
Maggie Peterson."

"I wonder if I ought to go and see her," said Mr. Leonard
uneasily.

"What use would it be to bother yourself? You know she
wouldn't see you--she'd shut the door in your face like she
did before. She's an awful wicked woman--but it's kind of
terrible to think of her lying there sick, with no responsible
person to tend her."

"Naomi Clark is a bad woman and she lived a life of shame, but
I like her, for all that," remarked Felix, in the grave,
meditative tone in which he occasionally said rather startling
things.

Mr. Leonard looked somewhat reproachfully at Janet Andrews, as
if to ask her why Felix should have attained to this dubious
knowledge of good and evil under her care; and Janet shot a
dour look back which, being interpreted, meant that if Felix
went to the district school she could not and would not be
held responsible if he learned more there than arithmetic and
Latin.

"What do you know of Naomi Clark to like or dislike?" she
asked curiously. "Did you ever see her?"

"Oh, yes," Felix replied, addressing himself to his cherry
preserve with considerable gusto. "I was down at Spruce Cove
one night last summer when a big thunderstorm came up. I went
to Naomi's house for shelter. The door was open, so I walked
right in, because nobody answered my knock. Naomi Clark was at
the window, watching the cloud coming up over the sea. She
just looked at me once, but didn't say anything, and then went
on watching the cloud. I didn't like to sit down because she
hadn't asked me to, so I went to the window by her and watched
it, too. It was a dreadful sight--the cloud was so black and
the water so green, and there was such a strange light between
the cloud and the water; yet there was something splendid in
it, too. Part of the time I watched the storm, and the other
part I watched Naomi's face. It was dreadful to see, like the
storm, and yet I liked to see it.

"After the thunder was over it rained a while longer, and
Naomi sat down and talked to me. She asked me who I was, and
when I told her she asked me to play something for her on her
violin,"--Felix shot a deprecating glance at Mr. Leonard--
"because, she said, she'd heard I was a great hand at it. She
wanted something lively, and I tried just as hard as I could
to play something like that. But I couldn't. I played
something that was terrible--it just played itself--it seemed
as if something was lost that could never be found again. And
before I got through, Naomi came at me, and tore the violin
from me, and--SWORE. And she said, 'You big-eyed brat, how
did you know THAT?' Then she took me by the arm--and she
hurt me, too, I can tell you--and she put me right out in the
rain and slammed the door."

"The rude, unmannerly creature!" said Janet indignantly.

"Oh, no, she was quite in the right," said Felix composedly.
"It served me right for what I played. You see, she didn't
know I couldn't help playing it. I suppose she thought I did
it on purpose."

"What on earth did you play, child?"

"I don't know." Felix shivered. "It was awful--it was
dreadful. It was fit to break you heart. But it HAD to be
played, if I played anything at all."

"I don't understand what you mean--I declare I don't," said
Janet in bewilderment.

"I think we'll change the subject of conversation," said Mr.
Leonard.



It was a month later when "the simple creature, Maggie"
appeared at the manse door one evening and asked for the
preached.

"Naomi wants ter see yer," she mumbled. "Naomi sent Maggie ter
tell yer ter come at onct."

"I shall go, certainly," said Mr. Leonard gently. "Is she very
ill?"

"Her's dying," said Maggie with a broad grin. "And her's awful
skeered of hell. Her just knew ter-day her was dying. Maggie
told her--her wouldn't believe the harbour women, but her
believed Maggie. Her yelled awful."

Maggie chuckled to herself over the gruesome remembrance. Mr.
Leonard, his heart filled with pity, called Janet and told her
to give the poor creature some refreshment. But Maggie shook
her head.

"No, no, preacher, Maggie must get right back to Naomi.
Maggie'll tell her the preacher's coming ter save her from
hell."

She uttered an eerie cry, and ran at full speed shoreward
through the spruce woods.

"The Lord save us!" said Janet in an awed tone. "I knew the
poor girl was simple, but I didn't know she was like THAT.
And are you going, sir?"

"Yes, of course. I pray God I may be able to help the poor
soul," said Mr. Leonard sincerely. He was a man who never
shirked what he believed to be his duty; but duty had
sometimes presented itself to him in pleasanter guise than
this summons to Naomi Clark's death-bed.

The woman had been the plague spot of Lower Carmody and
Carmody Harbour for a generation. In the earlier days of his
ministry to the congregation he had tried to reclaim her, and
Naomi had mocked and flouted him to his face. Then, for the
sake of those to whom she was a snare or a heart-break, he had
endeavoured to set the law in motion against her, and Naomi
had laughed the law to scorn. Finally, he had been compelled
to let her alone.

Yet Naomi had not always been an outcast. Her girlhood had
been innocent; but she was the possessor of a dangerous
beauty, and her mother was dead. Her father was a man
notorious for his harshness and violence of temper. When Naomi
made the fatal mistake of trusting to a false love that
betrayed and deserted, he drove her from his door with taunts
and curses.

Naomi took up her quarters in a little deserted house at
Spruce Cove. Had her child lived it might have saved her. But
it died at birth, and with its little life went her last
chance of worldly redemption. From that time forth, her feet
were set in the way that takes hold on hell.

For the past five years, however, Naomi had lived a tolerably
respectable life. When Janet Peterson had died, her idiot
daughter, Maggie, had been left with no kin in the world.
Nobody knew what was to be done with her, for nobody wanted to
be bothered with her. Naomi Clark went to the girl and offered
her a home. People said she was no fit person to have charge
of Maggie, but everybody shirked the unpleasant task of
interfering in the matter, except Mr. Leonard, who went to
expostulate with Naomi, and, as Janet said, for his pains got
her door shut in his face.

But from the day when Maggie Peterson went to live with her,
Naomi ceased to be the harbour Magdalen.



The sun had set when Mr. Leonard reached Spruce Cove, and the
harbour was veiling itself in a wondrous twilight splendour.
Afar out, the sea lay throbbing and purple, and the moan of
the bar came through the sweet, chill spring air with its
burden of hopeless, endless longing and seeking. The sky was
blossoming into stars above the afterglow; out to the east the
moon was rising, and the sea beneath it was a thing of
radiance and silver and glamour; and a little harbour boat
that went sailing across it was transmuted into an elfin
shallop from the coast of fairyland.

Mr. Leonard sighed as he turned from the sinless beauty of the
sea and sky to the threshold of Naomi Clark's house. It was
very small--one room below, and a sleeping-loft above; but a
bed had been made up for the sick woman by the down-stairs
window looking out on the harbour; and Naomi lay on it, with a
lamp burning at her head and another at her side, although it
was not yet dark. A great dread of darkness had always been
one of Naomi's peculiarities.

She was tossing restlessly on her poor couch, while Maggie
crouched on a box at the foot. Mr. Leonard had not seen her
for five years, and he was shocked at the change in her. She
was much wasted; her clear-cut, aquiline features had been of
the type which becomes indescribably witch-like in old age,
and, though Naomi Clark was barely sixty, she looked as if she
might be a hundred. Her hair streamed over the pillow in
white, uncared-for tresses, and the hands that plucked at the
bed-clothes were like wrinkled claws. Only her eyes were
unchanged; they were as blue and brilliant as ever, but now
filled with such agonized terror and appeal that Mr. Leonard's
gentle heart almost stood still with the horror of them. They
were the eyes of a creature driven wild with torture, hounded
by furies, clutched by unutterable fear.

Naomi sat up and dragged at his arm.

"Can you help me? Can you help me?" she gasped imploringly.
"Oh, I thought you'd never come! I was skeered I'd die before
you got here--die and go to hell. I didn't know before today
that I was dying. None of those cowards would tell me. Can you
help me?"

"If I cannot, God can," said Mr. Leonard gently. He felt
himself very helpless and inefficient before this awful terror
and frenzy. He had seen sad death-beds--troubled death-beds--
ay, and despairing death-beds, but never anything like this.
"God!" Naomi's voice shrilled terribly as she uttered the
name. "I can't go to God for help. Oh, I'm skeered of hell,
but I'm skeereder still of God. I'd rather go to hell a
thousand times over than face God after the life I've lived. I
tell you, I'm sorry for living wicked--I was always sorry for
it all the time. There ain't never been a moment I wasn't
sorry, though nobody would believe it. I was driven on by
fiends of hell. Oh, you don't understand--you CAN'T
understand--but I was always sorry!"

"If you repent, that is all that is necessary. God will
forgive you if you ask Him."

"No, He can't! Sins like mine can't be forgiven. He can't--and
He won't."

"He can and He will. He is a God of love, Naomi."

"No," said Naomi with stubborn conviction. "He isn't a God of
love at all. That's why I'm skeered of him. No, no. He's a God
of wrath and justice and punishment. Love! There ain't no such
thing as love! I've never found it on earth, and I don't
believe it's to be found in God."

"Naomi, God loves us like a father."

"Like MY father?" Naomi's shrill laughter, pealing through
the still room, was hideous to hear.

The old minister shuddered.

"No--no! As a kind, tender, all-wise father, Naomi--as you
would have loved your little child if it had lived."

Naomi cowered and moaned.

"Oh, I wish I could believe THAT. I wouldn't be frightened
if I could believe that. MAKE me believe it. Surely you can
make me believe that there's love and forgiveness in God if
you believe it yourself."

"Jesus Christ forgave and loved the Magdalen, Naomi."

"Jesus Christ? Oh, I ain't afraid of HIM. Yes, HE could
understand and forgive. He was half human. I tell you, it's
God I'm skeered of."

"They are one and the same," said Mr. Leonard helplessly. He
knew he could not make Naomi realize it. This anguished death-
bed was no place for a theological exposition on the mysteries
of the Trinity.

"Christ died for you, Naomi. He bore your sins in His own body
on the cross."

"We bear our own sins," said Naomi fiercely. "I've borne mine
all my life--and I'll bear them for all eternity. I can't
believe anything else. I CAN'T believe God can forgive me.
I've ruined people body and soul--I've broken hearts and
poisoned homes--I'm worse than a murderess. No--no--no,
there's no hope for me." Her voice rose again into that
shrill, intolerable shriek. "I've got to go to hell. It ain't
so much the fire I'm skeered of as the outer darkness. I've
always been so skeered of darkness--it's so full of awful
things and thoughts. Oh, there ain't nobody to help me! Man
ain't no good and I'm too skeered of God."

She wrung her hands. Mr. Leonard walked up and down the room
in the keenest anguish of spirit he had ever known. What could
he do? What could he say? There was healing and peace in his
religion for this woman as for all others, but he could
express it in no language which this tortured soul could
understand. He looked at her writhing face; he looked at the
idiot girl chuckling to herself at the foot of the bed; he
looked through the open door to the remote, starlit night--and
a horrible sense of utter helplessness overcame him. He could
do nothing--nothing! In all his life he had never known such
bitterness of soul as the realization brought home to him.

"What is the good of you if you can't help me?" moaned the
dying woman. "Pray--pray--pray!" she shrilled suddenly.

Mr. Leonard dropped on his knees by the bed. He did not know
what to say. No prayer that he had ever prayed was of use
here. The old, beautiful formulas, which had soothed and
helped the passing of many a soul, were naught save idle,
empty words to Naomi Clark. In his anguish of mind Stephen
Leonard gasped out the briefest and sincerest prayer his lips
had ever uttered.

"O, God, our Father! Help this woman. Speak to her in a tongue
which she can understand."



A beautiful, white face appeared for a moment in the light
that streamed out of the doorway into the darkness of the
night. No one noticed it, and it quickly drew back into the
shadow. Suddenly, Naomi fell back on her pillow, her lips
blue, her face horribly pinched, her eyes rolled up in her
head. Maggie started up, pushed Mr. Leonard aside, and
proceeded to administer some remedy with surprising skill and
deftness. Mr. Leonard, believing Naomi to be dying, went to
the door, feeling sick and bruised in soul.

Presently a figure stole out into the light.

"Felix, is that you?" said Mr. Leonard in a startled tone.

"Yes, sir." Felix came up to the stone step. "Janet got
frightened what you might fall on that rough road after dark,
so she made me come after you with a lantern. I've been
waiting behind the point, but at last I thought I'd better
come and see if you would be staying much longer. If you will
be, I'll go back to Janet and leave the lantern here with
you."
"Yes, that will be the best thing to do. I may not be ready to
go home for some time yet," said Mr. Leonard, thinking that
the death-bed of sin behind him was no sight for Felix's young
eyes.

"Is that your grandson you're talking to?" Naomi spoke clearly
and strongly. The spasm had passed. "If it is, bring him in. I
want to see him."

Reluctantly, Mr. Leonard signed Felix to enter. The boy stood
by Naomi's bed and looked down at her with sympathetic eyes.
But at first she did not look at him--she looked past him at
the minister.

"I might have died in that spell," she said, with sullen
reproach in her voice, "and if I had, I'd been in hell now.
You can't help me--I'm done with you. There ain't any hope for
me, and I know it now."

She turned to Felix.

"Take down that fiddle on the wall and play something for me,"
she said imperiously. "I'm dying--and I'm going to hell--and I
don't want to think of it. Play me something to take my
thoughts off it--I don't care what you play. I was always fond
of music--there was always something in it for me I never
found anywhere else."

Felix looked at his grandfather. The old man nodded, he felt
too ashamed to speak; he sat with his fine silver head in his
hands, while Felix took down and tuned the old violin, on
which so many godless lilts had been played in many a wild
revel. Mr. Leonard felt that he had failed his religion. He
could not give Naomi the help that was in it for her.

Felix drew the bow softly, perplexedly over the strings. He
had no idea what he should play. Then his eyes were caught and
held by Naomi's burning, mesmeric, blue gaze as she lay on her
crumpled pillow. A strange, inspired look came over the boy's
face. He began to play as if it were not he who played, but
some mightier power, of which he was but the passive
instrument.

Sweet and soft and wonderful was the music that stole through
the room. Mr. Leonard forgot his heartbreak and listened to it
in puzzled amazement. He had never heard anything like it
before. How could the child play like that? He looked at Naomi
and marvelled at the change in her face. The fear and frenzy
were going out of it; she listened breathlessly, never taking
her eyes from Felix. At the foot of the bed the idiot girl sat
with tears on her cheeks.

In that strange music was the joy of the innocent, mirthful
childhood, blent with the laughter of waves and the call of
glad winds. Then it held the wild, wayward dreams of youth,
sweet and pure in all their wildness and waywardness. They
were followed by a rapture of young love--all-surrendering,
all-sacrificing love.
The music changed. It held the torture of unshed tears, the
anguish of a heart deceived and desolate. Mr. Leonard almost
put his hands over his ears to shut out its intolerable
poignancy. But on the dying woman's face was only a strange
relief, as if some dumb, long-hidden pain had at last won to
the healing of utterance.

The sullen indifference of despair came next, the bitterness
of smouldering revolt and misery, the reckless casting away of
all good. There was something indescribably evil in the music
now--so evil that Mr. Leonard's white soul shuddered away in
loathing, and Maggie cowered and whined like a frightened
animal.

Again the music changed. And in it now there was agony and
fear--and repentance and a cry for pardon. To Mr. Leonard
there was something strangely familiar in it. He struggled to
recall where he had heard it before; then he suddenly knew--he
had heard it before Felix came in Naomi's terrible words! He
looked at his grandson with something like awe. Here was a
power of which he knew nothing--a strange and dreadful power.
Was it of God? Or of Satan?

For the last time the music changed. And now it was not music
at all--it was a great, infinite forgiveness, an all-
comprehending love. It was healing for a sick soul; it was
light and hope and peace. A Bible text, seemingly incongruous,
came into Mr. Leonard's mind--"This is the house of God; this
is the gate of heaven."

Felix lowered the violin and dropped wearily on a chair by the
bed. The inspired light faded from his face; once more he was
only a tired boy. But Stephen Leonard was on his knees,
sobbing like a child; and Naomi Clark was lying still, with
her hands clasped over her breast.

"I understand now," she said very softly. "I couldn't see it
before--and now it's so plain. I just FEEL it. God IS a
God of love. He can forgive anybody--even me--even me. He
knows all about it. I ain't skeered any more. He just loves me
and forgives me as I'd have loved and forgiven my baby if
she'd lived, no matter how bad she was, or what she did. The
minister told me that but I couldn't believe it. I KNOW it
now. And He sent you here to-night, boy, to tell it to me in a
way that I could feel it."



Naomi Clark died just as the dawn came up over the sea. Mr.
Leonard rose from his watch at her bedside and went to the
door. Before him spread the harbour, gray and austere in the
faint light, but afar out the sun was rending asunder the
milk-white mists in which the sea was scarfed, and under it
was a virgin glow of sparkling water.

The fir trees on the point moved softly and whispered
together. The whole world sang of spring and resurrection and
life; and behind him Naomi Clark's dead face took on the peace
that passes understanding.

The old minister and his grandson walked home together in a
silence that neither wished to break. Janet Andrews gave them
a good scolding and an excellent breakfast. Then she ordered
them both to bed; but Mr. Leonard, smiling at her, said:

"Presently, Janet, presently. But now, take this key, go up to
the black chest in the garret, and bring me what you will find
there."

When Janet had gone, he turned to Felix.

"Felix, would you like to study music as your life-work?"

Felix looked up, with a transfiguring flush on his wan face.

"Oh, grandfather! Oh, grandfather!"

"You may do so, my child. After this night I dare not hinder
you. Go with my blessing, and may God guide and keep you, and
make you strong to do His work and tell His message to
humanity in you own appointed way. It is not the way I desired
for you--but I see that I was mistaken. Old Abel spoke truly
when he said there was a Christ in your violin as well as a
devil. I understand what he meant now."

He turned to meet Janet, who came into the study with a
violin. Felix's heart throbbed; he recognized it. Mr. Leonard
took it from Janet and held it out to the boy.

"This is your father's violin, Felix. See to it that you never
make your music the servant of the power of evil--never debase
it to unworthy ends. For your responsibility is as your gift,
and God will exact the accounting of it from you. Speak to the
world in your own tongue through it, with truth and sincerity;
and all I have hoped for you will be abundantly fulfilled."





IV. Little Joscelyn


"It simply isn't to be thought of, Aunty Nan," said Mrs.
William Morrison decisively. Mrs. William Morrison was one of
those people who always speak decisively. If they merely
announce that they are going to peel the potatoes for dinner
their hearers realize that there is no possible escape for the
potatoes. Moreover, these people are always given their full
title by everybody. William Morrison was called Billy oftener
than not; but, if you had asked for Mrs. Billy Morrison,
nobody in Avonlea would have known what you meant at first
guess.

"You must see that for yourself, Aunty," went on Mrs. William,
hulling strawberries nimbly with her large, firm, white
fingers as she talked. Mrs. William always improved every
shining moment. "It is ten miles to Kensington, and just think
how late you would be getting back. You are not able for such
a drive. You wouldn't get over it for a month. You know you
are anything but strong this summer."

Aunty Nan sighed, and patted the tiny, furry, gray morsel of a
kitten in her lap with trembling fingers. She knew, better
than anyone else could know it, that she was not strong that
summer. In her secret soul, Aunty Nan, sweet and frail and
timid under the burden of her seventy years, felt with
mysterious unmistakable prescience that it was to be her last
summer at the Gull Point Farm. But that was only the more
reason why she should go to hear little Joscelyn sing; she
would never have another chance. And oh, to hear little
Joscelyn sing just once--Joscelyn, whose voice was delighting
thousands out in the big world, just as in the years gone by
it had delighted Aunty Nan and the dwellers at the Gull Point
Farm for a whole golden summer with carols at dawn and dusk
about the old place!

"Oh, I know I'm not very strong, Maria." said Aunty Nan
pleadingly, "but I am strong enough for that. Indeed I am. I
could stay at Kensington over night with George's folks, you
know, and so it wouldn't tire me much. I do so want to hear
Joscelyn sing. Oh, how I love little Joscelyn."

"It passes my understanding, the way you hanker after that
child," cried Mrs. William impatiently. "Why, she was a
perfect stranger to you when she came here, and she was here
only one summer!"

"But oh, such a summer!" said Aunty Nan softly. "We all loved
little Joscelyn. She just seemed like one of our own. She was
one of God's children, carrying love with them everywhere. In
some ways that little Anne Shirley the Cuthberts have got up
there at Green Gables reminds me of her, though in other ways
they're not a bit alike. Joscelyn was a beauty."

"Well, that Shirley snippet certainly isn't that," said Mrs.
William sarcastically. "And if Joscelyn's tongue was one third
as long as Anne Shirley's the wonder to me is that she didn't
talk you all to death out of hand."

"Little Joscelyn wasn't much of a talker," said Aunty Nan
dreamily. "She was kind of a quiet child. But you remember
what she did say. And I've never forgotten little Joscelyn."

Mrs. William shrugged her plump, shapely shoulders.

"Well, it was fifteen years ago, Aunty Nan, and Joscelyn can't
be very 'little' now. She is a famous woman, and she has
forgotten all about you, you can be sure of that."

"Joscelyn wasn't the kind that forgets," said Aunty Nan
loyally. "And, anyway, the point is, _I_ haven't forgotten
HER. Oh, Maria, I've longed for years and years just to hear
her sing once more. It seems as if I MUST hear my little
Joscelyn sing once again before I die. I've never had the
chance before and I never will have it again. Do please ask
William to take me to Kensington."

"Dear me, Aunty Nan, this is really childish," said Mrs.
William, whisking her bowlful of berries into the pantry. "You
must let other folks be the judge of what is best for you now.
You aren't strong enough to drive to Kensington, and, even if
you were, you know well enough that William couldn't go to
Kensington to-morrow night. He has got to attend that
political meeting at Newbridge. They can't do without him."

"Jordan could take me to Kensington," pleaded Aunty Nan, with
very unusual persistence.

"Nonsense! You couldn't go to Kensington with the hired man.
Now, Aunty Nan, do be reasonable. Aren't William and I kind to
you? Don't we do everything for your comfort?"

"Yes, oh, yes," admitted Aunty Nan deprecatingly.

"Well, then, you ought to be guided by our opinion. And you
must just give up thinking about the Kensington concert,
Aunty, and not worry yourself and me about it any more. I am
going down to the shore field now to call William to tea. Just
keep an eye on the baby in chance he wakes up, and see that
the teapot doesn't boil over."

Mrs. William whisked out of the kitchen, pretending not to see
the tears that were falling over Aunty Nan's withered pink
cheeks. Aunty Nan was really getting very childish, Mrs.
William reflected, as she marched down to the shore field.
Why, she cried now about every little thing! And such a
notion--to want to go to the Old Timers' concert at Kensington
and be so set on it! Really, it was hard to put up with her
whims. Mrs. William sighed virtuously.

As for Aunty Nan, she sat alone in the kitchen, and cried
bitterly, as only lonely old age can cry. It seemed to her
that she could not bear it, that she MUST go to Kensington.
But she knew that it was not to be, since Mrs. William had
decided otherwise. Mrs. William's word was law at Gull Point
Farm.

"What's the matter with my old Aunty Nan?" cried a hearty
young voice from the doorway. Jordan Sloane stood there, his
round, freckled face looking as anxious and sympathetic as it
was possible for such a very round, very freckled face to
look. Jordan was the Morrisons' hired boy that summer, and he
worshipped Aunty Nan.

"Oh, Jordan," sobbed Aunty Nan, who was not above telling her
troubles to the hired help, although Mrs. William thought she
ought to be, "I can't go to Kensington to-morrow night to hear
little Joscelyn sing at the Old Timers' concert. Maria says I
can't."

"That's too bad," said Jordan. "Old cat," he muttered after
the retreating and serenely unconscious Mrs. William. Then he
shambled in and sat down on the sofa beside Aunty Nan.

"There, there, don't cry," he said, patting her thin little
shoulder with his big, sunburned paw. "You'll make yourself
sick if you go on crying, and we can't get along without you
at Gull Point Farm."

Aunty Nan smiled wanly.

"I'm afraid you'll soon have to get on without me, Jordan. I'm
not going to be here very long now. No, I'm not, Jordan, I
know it. Something tells me so very plainly. But I would be
willing to go--glad to go, for I'm very tired, Jordan--if I
could only have heard little Joscelyn sing once more."

"Why are you so set on hearing her?" asked Jordan. "She ain't
no kin to you, is she?"

"No, but dearer to me--dearer to me than many of my own. Maria
thinks that is silly, but you wouldn't if you'd known her,
Jordan. Even Maria herself wouldn't, if she had known her. It
is fifteen years since she came here one summer to board. She
was a child of thirteen then, and hadn't any relations except
an old uncle who sent her to school in winter and boarded her
out in summer, and didn't care a rap about her. The child was
just starving for love, Jordan, and she got it here. William
and his brothers were just children then, and they hadn't any
sister. We all just worshipped her. She was so sweet, Jordan.
And pretty, oh my! like a little girl in a picture, with great
long curls, all black and purply and fine as spun silk, and
big dark eyes, and such pink cheeks--real wild rose cheeks.
And sing! My land! But couldn't she sing! Always singing,
every hour of the day that voice was ringing round the old
place. I used to hold my breath to hear it. She always said
that she meant to be a famous singer some day, and I never
doubted it a mite. It was born in her. Sunday evening she used
to sing hymns for us. Oh, Jordan, it makes my old heart young
again to remember it. A sweet child she was, my little
Joscelyn! She used to write me for three or four years after
she went away, but I haven't heard a word from her for long
and long. I daresay she has forgotten me, as Maria says.
'Twouldn't be any wonder. But I haven't forgotten her, and oh,
I want to see and hear her terrible much. She is to sing at
the Old Timers' concert to-morrow night at Kensington. The
folks who are getting the concert up are friends of hers, or,
of course, she'd never have come to a little country village.
Only sixteen miles away--and I can't go."

Jordan couldn't think of anything to say. He reflected
savagely that if he had a horse of his own he would take Aunty
Nan to Kensington, Mrs. William or no Mrs. William. Though, to
be sure, it WAS a long drive for her; and she was looking
very frail this summer.

"Ain't going to last long," muttered Jordan, making his escape
by the porch door as Mrs. William puffed in by the other. "The
sweetest old creetur that ever was created'll go when she
goes. Yah, ye old madam, I'd like to give you a piece of my
mind, that I would!"

This last was for Mrs. William, but was delivered in a prudent
undertone. Jordan detested Mrs. William, but she was a power
to be reckoned with, all the same. Meek, easy-going Billy
Morrison did just what his wife told him to.

So Aunty Nan did not get to Kensington to hear little Joscelyn
sing. She said nothing more about it but after that night she
seemed to fail very rapidly. Mrs. William said it was the hot
weather, and that Aunty Nan gave way too easily. But Aunty Nan
could not help giving way now; she was very, very tired. Even
her knitting wearied her. She would sit for hours in her
rocking chair with the gray kitten in her lap, looking out of
the window with dreamy, unseeing eyes. She talked to herself a
good deal, generally about little Joscelyn. Mrs. William told
Avonlea folk that Aunty Nan had got terribly childish and
always accompanied the remark with a sigh that intimated how
much she, Mrs. William, had to contend with.

Justice must be done to Mrs. William, however. She was not
unkind to Aunty Nan; on the contrary, she was very kind to her
in the letter. Her comfort was scrupulously attended to, and
Mrs. William had the grace to utter none of her complaints in
the old woman's hearing. If Aunty Nan felt the absence of the
spirit she never murmured at it.

One day, when the Avonlea slopes were golden-hued with the
ripened harvest, Aunty Nan did not get up. She complained of
nothing but great weariness. Mrs. William remarked to her
husband that if SHE lay in bed every day she felt tired,
there wouldn't be much done at Gull Point Farm. But she
prepared an excellent breakfast and carried it patiently up to
Aunty Nan, who ate little of it.

After dinner Jordan crept up by way of the back stairs to see
her. Aunty Nan was lying with her eyes fixed on the pale pink
climbing roses that nodded about the window. When she saw
Jordan she smiled.

"Them roses put me so much in mind of little Joscelyn," she
said softly. "She loved them so. If I could only see her! Oh,
Jordan, if I could only see her! Maria says it's terrible
childish to be always harping on that string, and mebbe it is.
But--oh, Jordan, there's such a hunger in my heart for her,
such a hunger!"

Jordan felt a queer sensation in his throat, and twisted his
ragged straw hat about in his big hands. Just then a vague
idea which had hovered in his brain all day crystallized into
decision. But all he said was:

"I hope you'll feel better soon, Aunty Nan."

"Oh, yes, Jordan dear, I'll be better soon," said Aunty Nan
with her own sweet smile. "'The inhabitant shall not say I am
sick,' you know. But if I could only see little Joscelyn
first!"

Jordan went out and hurried down-stairs. Billy Morrison was in
the stable, when Jordan stuck his head over the half-door.

"Say, can I have the rest of the day off, sir? I want to go to
Kensington."

"Well, I don't mind," said Billy Morrison amiably. "May's well
get you jaunting done 'fore harvest comes on. And here, Jord;
take this quarter and get some oranges for Aunty Nan. Needn't
mention it to headquarters."

Billy Morrison's face was solemn, but Jordan winked as he
pocketed the money.

"If I've any luck, I'll bring her something that'll do her
more good than the oranges," he muttered, as he hurried off to
the pasture. Jordan had a horse of his own now, a rather bony
nag, answering to the name of Dan. Billy Morrison had agreed
to pasture the animal if Jordan used him in the farm work, an
arrangement scoffed at by Mrs. William in no measured terms.

Jordan hitched Dan into the second best buggy, dressed himself
in his Sunday clothes, and drove off. On the road he re-read a
paragraph he had clipped from the Charlottetown Daily
Enterprise of the previous day.

"Joscelyn Burnett, the famous contralto, is spending a few
days in Kensington on her return from her Maritime concert
tour. She is the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Bromley, of The
Beeches."

"Now if I can get there in time," said Jordan emphatically.

Jordan got to Kensington, put Dan up in a livery stable, and
inquired the way to The Beeches. He felt rather nervous when
he found it, it was such a stately, imposing place, set back
from the street in an emerald green seclusion of beautiful
grounds.

"Fancy me stalking up to that front door and asking for Miss
Joscelyn Burnett," grinned Jordan sheepishly. "Mebbe they'll
tell me to go around to the back and inquire for the cook. But
you're going just the same, Jordan Sloane, and no skulking.
March right up now. Think of Aunty Nan and don't let style
down you."

A pert-looking maid answered Jordan's ring, and stared at him
when he asked for Miss Burnett.

"I don't think you can see her," she said shortly, scanning
his country cut of hair and clothes rather superciliously.
"What is your business with her?"

The maid's scorn roused Jordan's "dander," as he would have
expressed it.

"I'll tell her that when I see her," he retorted coolly. "Just
you tell her that I've a message for her from Aunty Nan
Morrison of Gull Point Farm, Avonlea. If she hain't forgot,
that'll fetch her. You might as well hurry up, if you please,
I've not overly too much time."

The pert maid decided to be civil at least, and invited Jordan
to enter. But she left him standing in the hall while she went
in search of Miss Burnett. Jordan gazed about him in
amazement. He had never been in any place like this before.
The hall was wonderful enough, and through the open doors on
either hand stretched vistas of lovely rooms that, to Jordan's
eyes, looked like those of a palace.

"Gee whiz! How do they ever move around without knocking
things over?"

Then Joscelyn Burnett came, and Jordan forgot everything else.
This tall, beautiful woman, in her silken draperies, with a
face like nothing Jordan had ever seen, or even dreamed
about,--could this be Aunty Nan's little Joscelyn? Jordan's
round, freckled countenance grew crimson. He felt horribly
tonguetied and embarrassed. What could he say to her? How
could he say it?

Joscelyn Burnett looked at him with her large, dark eyes,--the
eyes of a woman who had suffered much, and learned much, and
won through struggle to victory.

"You have come from Aunty Nan?" she said. "Oh, I am so glad to
hear from her. Is she well? Come in here and tell me all about
her."

She turned toward one of those fairy-like rooms, but Jordan
interrupted her desperately.

"Oh, not in there, ma'am. I'd never get it out. Just let me
blunder through it out here someways. Yes'm, Aunty Nan, she
ain't very well. She's--she's dying, I guess. And she's
longing for you night and day. Seems as if she couldn't die in
peace without seeing you. She wanted to get to Kensington to
hear you sing, but that old cat of a Mrs. William--begging you
pardon, ma'am--wouldn't let her come. She's always talking of
you. If you can come out to Gull Point Farm and see her, I'll
be most awful obliged to you, ma'am."

Joscelyn Burnett looked troubled. She had not forgotten Gull
Point Farm, nor Aunty Nan; but for years the memory had been
dim, crowded into the background of consciousness by the more
exciting events of her busy life. Now it came back with a
rush. She recalled it all tenderly--the peace and beauty and
love of that olden summer, and sweet Aunty Nan, so very wise
in the lore of all things simple and good and true. For the
moment Joscelyn Burnett was a lonely, hungry-hearted little
girl again, seeking for love and finding it not, until Aunty
Nan had taken her into her great mother-heart and taught her
its meaning.

"Oh, I don't know," she said perplexedly. "If you had come
sooner--I leave on the 11:30 train tonight. I MUST leave by
then or I shall not reach Montreal in time to fill a very
important engagement. And yet I must see Aunty Nan, too. I
have been careless and neglectful. I might have gone to see
her before. How can we manage it?"

"I'll bring you back to Kensington in time to catch that
train," said Jordan eagerly. "There's nothing I wouldn't do
for Aunty Nan--me and Dan. Yes, sir, you'll get back in time.
Just think of Aunty Nan's face when she sees you!"

"I will come," said the great singer, gently.

It was sunset when they reached Gull Point Farm. An arc of
warm gold was over the spruces behind the house. Mrs. William
was out in the barn-yard, milking, and the house was deserted,
save for the sleeping baby in the kitchen and the little old
woman with the watchful eyes in the up-stairs room.

"This way, ma'am," said Jordan, inwardly congratulating
himself that the coast was clear. "I'll take you right up to
her room."

Up-stairs, Joscelyn tapped at the half-open door and went in.
Before it closed behind her, Jordan heard Aunty Nan say,
"Joscelyn! Little Joscelyn!" in a tone that made him choke
again. He stumbled thankfully down-stairs, to be pounced upon
by Mrs. William in the kitchen.

"Jordan Sloane, who was that stylish woman you drove into the
yard with? And what have you done with her?"

"That was Miss Joscelyn Burnett," said Jordan, expanding
himself. This was his hour of triumph over Mrs. William. "I
went to Kensington and brung her out to see Aunty Nan. She's
up with her now."

"Dear me," said Mrs. William helplessly. "And me in my milking
rig! Jordan, for pity's sake, hold the baby while I go and put
on my black silk. You might have given a body some warning. I
declare I don't know which is the greatest idiot, you or Aunty
Nan!"

As Mrs. William flounced out of the kitchen, Jordan took his
satisfaction in a quiet laugh.

Up-stairs in the little room was a great glory of sunset and
gladness of human hearts. Joscelyn was kneeling by the bed,
with her arms about Aunty Nan; and Aunty Nan, with her face
all irradiated, was stroking Joscelyn's dark hair fondly.

"O, little Joscelyn," she murmured, "it seems too good to be
true. It seems like a beautiful dream. I knew you the minute
you opened the door, my dearie. You haven't changed a bit. And
you're a famous singer now, little Joscelyn! I always knew you
would be. Oh, I want you to sing a piece for me--just one,
won't you, dearie? Sing that piece people like to hear you
sing best. I forget the name, but I've read about it in the
papers. Sing it for me, little Joscelyn."

And Joscelyn, standing by Aunty Nan's bed, in the sunset
light, sang the song she had sung to many a brilliant audience
on many a noted concert-platform--sang it as even she had
never sung before, while Aunty Nan lay and listened
beatifically, and downstairs even Mrs. William held her
breath, entranced by the exquisite melody that floated through
the old farmhouse.

"O, little Joscelyn!" breathed Aunty Nan in rapture, when the
song ended.

Joscelyn knelt by her again and they had a long talk of old
days. One by one they recalled the memories of that vanished
summer. The past gave up its tears and its laughter. Heart and
fancy alike went roaming through the ways of the long ago.
Aunty Nan was perfectly happy. And then Joscelyn told her all
the story of her struggles and triumphs since they had parted.

When the moonlight began to creep in through the low window,
Aunty Nan put out her hand and touched Joscelyn's bowed head.

"Little Joscelyn," she whispered, "if it ain't asking too
much, I want you to sing just one other piece. Do you remember
when you were here how we sung hymns in the parlour every
Sunday night, and my favourite always was 'The Sands of Time
are Sinking?' I ain't never forgot how you used to sing that,
and I want to hear it just once again, dearie. Sing it for me,
little Joscelyn."

Joscelyn rose and went to the window. Lifting back the
curtain, she stood in the splendour of the moonlight, and sang
the grand old hymn. At first Aunty Nan beat time to it feebly
on the counterpane; but when Joscelyn came to the verse, "With
mercy and with judgment," she folded her hands over her breast
and smiled.

When the hymn ended, Joscelyn came over to the bed.

"I am afraid I must say good-bye now, Aunty Nan," she said.

Then she saw that Aunty Nan had fallen asleep. She would not
waken her, but she took from her breast the cluster of crimson
roses she wore and slipped them gently between the toil-worn
fingers.

"Good-bye, dear, sweet mother-heart," she murmured.

Down-stairs she met Mrs. William splendid in rustling black
silk, her broad, rubicund face smiling, overflowing with
apologies and welcomes, which Joscelyn cut short coldly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Morrison, but I cannot possibly stay longer.
No, thank you, I don't care for any refreshments. Jordan is
going to take me back to Kensington at once. I came out to see
Aunty Nan."
"I'm certain she'd be delighted," said Mrs. William
effusively. "She's been talking about you for weeks."

"Yes, it has made her very happy," said Joscelyn gravely. "And
it has made me happy, too. I love Aunty Nan, Mrs. Morrison,
and I owe her much. In all my life I have never met a woman so
purely, unselfishly good and noble and true."

"Fancy now," said Mrs. William, rather overcome at hearing
this great singer pronounce such an encomium on quiet, timid
old Aunty Nan.

Jordan drove Joscelyn back to Kensington; and up-stairs in her
room Aunty Nan slept, with that rapt smile on her face and
Joscelyn's red roses in her hands. Thus it was that Mrs.
William found her, going in the next morning with her
breakfast. The sunlight crept over the pillow, lighting up the
sweet old face and silver hair, and stealing downward to the
faded red roses on her breast. Smiling and peaceful and happy
lay Aunty Nan, for she had fallen on the sleep that knows no
earthy wakening, while little Joscelyn sang.





V. The Winning of Lucinda


The marriage of a Penhallow was always the signal for a
gathering of the Penhallows. From the uttermost parts of the
earth they would come--Penhallows by birth, and Penhallows by
marriage and Penhallows by ancestry. East Grafton was the
ancient habitat of the race, and Penhallow Grange, where "old"
John Penhallow lived, was a Mecca to them.

As for the family itself, the exact kinship of all its various
branches and ramifications was a hard thing to define. Old
Uncle Julius Penhallow was looked upon as a veritable wonder
because he carried it all in his head and could tell on sight
just what relation any one Penhallow was to any other
Penhallow. The rest made a blind guess at it, for the most
part, and the younger Penhallows let it go at loose
cousinship.

In this instance it was Alice Penhallow, daughter of "young"
John Penhallow, who was to be married. Alice was a nice girl,
but she and her wedding only pertain to this story in so far
as they furnish a background for Lucinda; hence nothing more
need be said of her.

On the afternoon of her wedding day--the Penhallows held to
the good, old-fashioned custom of evening weddings with a
rousing dance afterwards--Penhallow Grange was filled to
overflowing with guests who had come there to have tea and
rest themselves before going down to "young" John's. Many of
them had driven fifty miles. In the big autumnal orchard the
younger fry foregathered and chatted and coquetted. Up-stairs,
in "old" Mrs. John's bedroom, she and her married daughters
held high conclave. "Old" John had established himself with
his sons and sons-in-law in the parlour, and the three
daughters-in-law were making themselves at home in the blue
sitting-room, ear-deep in harmless family gossip. Lucinda and
Romney Penhallow were also there.

Thin Mrs. Nathaniel Penhallow sat in a rocking chair and
toasted her toes at the grate, for the brilliant autumn
afternoon was slightly chilly and Lucinda, as usual, had the
window open. She and plump Mrs. Frederick Penhallow did most
of the talking. Mrs. George Penhallow being rather out of it
by reason of her newness. She was George Penhallow's second
wife, married only a year. Hence, her contributions to the
conversation were rather spasmodic, hurled in, as it were, by
dead reckoning, being sometimes appropriate and sometimes
savouring of a point of view not strictly Penhallowesque.

Romney Penhallow was sitting in a corner, listening to the
chatter of the women, with the inscrutable smile that always
vexed Mrs. Frederick. Mrs. George wondered within herself what
he did there among the women. She also wondered just where he
belonged on the family tree. He was not one of the uncles, yet
he could not be much younger than George.

"Forty, if he is a day," was Mrs. George's mental dictum, "but
a very handsome and fascinating man. I never saw such a
splendid chin and dimple."

Lucinda, with bronze-colored hair and the whitest of skins,
defiant of merciless sunlight and revelling in the crisp air,
sat on the sill of the open window behind the crimson vine
leaves, looking out into the garden, where dahlias flamed and
asters broke into waves of purple and snow. The ruddy light of
the autumn afternoon gave a sheen to the waves of her hair and
brought out the exceeding purity of her Greek outlines.

Mrs. George knew who Lucinda was--a cousin of the second
generation, and, in spite of her thirty-five years, the
acknowledged beauty of the whole Penhallow connection.

She was one of those rare women who keep their loveliness
unmarred by the passage of years. She had ripened and matured,
but she had not grown old. The older Penhallows were still
inclined, from sheer force of habit, to look upon her as a
girl, and the younger Penhallows hailed her as one of
themselves. Yet Lucinda never aped girlishness; good taste and
a strong sense of humour preserved her amid many temptations
thereto. She was simply a beautiful, fully developed woman,
with whom Time had declared a truce, young with a mellow youth
which had nothing to do with years.

Mrs. George liked and admired Lucinda. Now, when Mrs. George
liked and admired any person, it was a matter of necessity
with her to impart her opinions to the most convenient
confidant. In this case it was Romney Penhallow to whom Mrs.
George remarked sweetly:

"Really, don't you think our Lucinda is looking remarkably
well this fall?"

It seemed a very harmless, inane, well-meant question. Poor
Mrs. George might well be excused for feeling bewildered over
the effect. Romney gathered his long legs together, stood up,
and swept the unfortunate speaker a crushing Penhallow bow of
state.

"Far be it from me to disagree with the opinion of a lady--
especially when it concerns another lady," he said, as he left
the blue room.

Overcome by the mordant satire in his tone, Mrs. George
glanced speechlessly at Lucinda. Behold, Lucinda had squarely
turned her back on the party and was gazing out into the
garden, with a very decided flush on the snowy curves of her
neck and cheek. Then Mrs. George looked at her sisters-in-law.
They were regarding her with the tolerant amusement they might
bestow on a blundering child. Mrs. George experienced that
subtle prescience whereby it is given us to know that we have
put our foot in it. She felt herself turning an uncomfortable
brick-red. What Penhallow skeleton had she unwittingly
jangled? Why, oh, why, was it such an evident breach of the
proprieties to praise Lucinda?

Mrs. George was devoutly thankful that a summons to the tea-
table rescued her from her mire of embarrassment. The meal was
spoiled for her, however; the mortifying recollection of her
mysterious blunder conspired with her curiosity to banish
appetite. As soon as possible after tea she decoyed Mrs.
Frederick out into the garden and in the dahlia walk solemnly
demanded the reason of it all.

Mrs. Frederick indulged in a laugh which put the mettle of her
festal brown silk seams to the test.

"My dear Cecilia, it was SO amusing," she said, a little
patronizingly.

"But WHY!" cried Mrs. George, resenting the patronage and
the mystery. "What was so dreadful in what I said? Or so
funny? And WHO is this Romney Penhallow who mustn't be
spoken to?"

"Oh, Romney is one of the Charlottetown Penhallows," explained
Mrs. Frederick. "He is a lawyer there. He is a first cousin of
Lucinda's and a second of George's--or is he? Oh, bother! You
must go to Uncle John if you want the genealogy. I'm in a
chronic muddle concerning Penhallow relationship. And, as for
Romney, of course you can speak to him about anything you like
except Lucinda. Oh, you innocent! To ask him if he didn't
think Lucinda was looking well! And right before her, too! Of
course he thought you did it on purpose to tease him. That was
what made him so savage and sarcastic."

"But WHY?" persisted Mrs. George, sticking tenaciously to
her point.

"Hasn't George told you?"

"No," said George's wife in mild exasperation. "George has
spent most of his time since we were married telling me odd
things about the Penhallows, but he hasn't got to that yet,
evidently."

"Why, my dear, it is our family romance. Lucinda and Romney
are in love with each other. They have been in love with each
other for fifteen years and in all that time they have never
spoken to each other once!"

"Dear me!" murmured Mrs. George, feeling the inadequacy of
mere language. Was this a Penhallow method of courtship? "But
WHY?"

"They had a quarrel fifteen years ago," said Mrs. Frederick
patiently. "Nobody knows how it originated or anything about
it except that Lucinda herself admitted it to us afterwards.
But, in the first flush of her rage, she told Romney that she
would never speak to him again as long as she lived. And HE
said he would never speak to her until she spoke first--
because, you see, as she was in the wrong she ought to make
the first advance. And they never have spoken. Everybody in
the connection, I suppose, has taken turns trying to reconcile
them, but nobody has succeeded. I don't believe that Romney
has ever so much as THOUGHT of any other woman in his whole
life, and certainly Lucinda has never thought of any other
man. You will notice she still wears Romney's ring. They're
practically engaged still, of course. And Romney said once
that if Lucinda would just say one word, no matter what it
was, even if it were something insulting, he would speak, too,
and beg her pardon for his share in the quarrel--because then,
you see, he would not be breaking his word. He hasn't referred
to the matter for years, but I presume that he is of the same
mind still. And they are just as much in love with each other
as they ever were. He's always hanging about where she is--
when other people are there, too, that is. He avoids her like
a plague when she is alone. That was why he was stuck out in
the blue room with us to-day. There doesn't seem to be a
particle of resentment between them. If Lucinda would only
speak! But that Lucinda will not do."

"Don't you think she will yet?" said Mrs. George.

Mrs. Frederick shook her crimped head sagely.

"Not now. The whole thing has hardened too long. Her pride
will never let her speak. We used to hope she would be tricked
into it by forgetfulness or accident--we used to lay traps for
her--but all to no effect. It is such a shame, too. They were
made for each other. Do you know, I get cross when I begin to
thrash the whole silly affair over like this. Doesn't it sound
as if we were talking of the quarrel of two school-children?
Of late years we have learned that it does not do to speak of
Lucinda to Romney, even in the most commonplace way. He seems
to resent it."

"HE ought to speak," cried Mrs. George warmly. "Even if she
were in the wrong ten times over, he ought to overlook it and
speak first."

"But he won't. And she won't. You never saw two such
determined mortals. They get it from their grandfather on the
mother's side--old Absalom Gordon. There is no such
stubbornness on the Penhallow side. His obstinacy was a
proverb, my dear--actually a proverb. What ever he said, he
would stick to if the skies fell. He was a terrible old man to
swear, too," added Mrs. Frederick, dropping into irrelevant
reminiscence. "He spent a long while in a mining camp in his
younger days and he never got over it--the habit of swearing,
I mean. It would have made your blood run cold, my dear, to
have heard him go on at times. And yet he was a real good old
man every other way. He couldn't help it someway. He tried to,
but he used to say that profanity came as natural to him as
breathing. It used to mortify his family terribly.
Fortunately, none of them took after him in that respect. But
he's dead--and one shouldn't speak ill of the dead. I must go
and get Mattie Penhallow to do my hair. I would burst these
sleeves clean out if I tried to do it myself and I don't want
to dress over again. You won't be likely to talk to Romney
about Lucinda again, my dear Cecilia?"

"Fifteen years!" murmured Mrs. George helplessly to the
dahlias. "Engaged for fifteen years and never speaking to each
other! Dear heart and soul, think of it! Oh, these
Penhallows!"

Meanwhile, Lucinda, serenely unconscious that her love story
was being mouthed over by Mrs. Frederick in the dahlia garden,
was dressing for the wedding. Lucinda still enjoyed dressing
for a festivity, since the mirror still dealt gently with her.
Moreover, she had a new dress. Now, a new dress--and
especially one as nice as this--was a rarity with Lucinda, who
belonged to a branch of the Penhallows noted for being
chronically hard up. Indeed, Lucinda and her widowed mother
were positively poor, and hence a new dress was an event in
Lucinda's existence. An uncle had given her this one--a
beautiful, perishable thing, such as Lucinda would never have
dared to choose for herself, but in which she revelled with
feminine delight.

It was of pale green voile--a colour which brought out
admirably the ruddy gloss of her hair and the clear brilliance
of her skin. When she had finished dressing she looked at
herself in the mirror with frank delight. Lucinda was not
vain, but she was quite well aware of the fact of her beauty
and took an impersonal pleasure in it, as if she were looking
at some finely painted picture by a master hand.

The form and face reflected in the glass satisfied her. The
puffs and draperies of the green voile displayed to perfection
the full, but not over-full, curves of her fine figure.
Lucinda lifted her arm and touched a red rose to her lips with
the hand upon which shone the frosty glitter of Romney's
diamond, looking at the graceful slope of her shoulder and the
splendid line of chin and throat with critical approval.

She noted, too, how well the gown became her eyes, bringing
out all the deeper colour in them. Lucinda had magnificent
eyes. Once Romney had written a sonnet to them in which he
compared their colour to ripe blueberries. This may not sound
poetical to you unless you know or remember just what the
tints of ripe blueberries are--dusky purple in some lights,
clear slate in others, and yet again in others the misty hue
of early meadow violets.

"You really look very well," remarked the real Lucinda to the
mirrored Lucinda. "Nobody would think you were an old maid.
But you are. Alice Penhallow, who is to be married to-night,
was a child of five when you thought of being married fifteen
years ago. That makes you an old maid, my dear. Well, it is
your own fault, and it will continue to be your own fault, you
stubborn offshoot of a stubborn breed!"

She flung her train out straight and pulled on her gloves.

"I do hope I won't get any spots on this dress to-night," she
reflected. "It will have to do me for a gala dress for a year
at least--and I have a creepy conviction that it is fearfully
spottable. Bless Uncle Mark's good, uncalculating heart! How I
would have detested it if he had given me something sensible
and useful and ugly--as Aunt Emilia would have done."

They all went to "young" John Penhallow's at early moonrise.
Lucinda drove over the two miles of hill and dale with a
youthful second cousin, by name, Carey Penhallow. The wedding
was quite a brilliant affair. Lucinda seemed to pervade the
social atmosphere, and everywhere she went a little ripple of
admiration trailed after her like a wave. She was undeniably a
belle, yet she found herself feeling faintly bored and was
rather glad than otherwise when the guests began to fray off.

"I'm afraid I'm losing my capacity for enjoyment," she
thought, a little drearily. "Yes, I must be growing old. That
is what it means when social functions begin to bore you."

It was that unlucky Mrs. George who blundered again. She was
standing on the veranda when Carey Penhallow dashed up.

"Tell Lucinda that I can't take her back to the Grange. I have
to drive Mark and Cissy Penhallow to Bright River to catch the
two o'clock express. There will be plenty of chances for her
with the others."

At this moment George Penhallow, holding his rearing horse
with difficulty, shouted for his wife. Mrs. George, all in a
flurry, dashed back into the still crowded hall. Exactly to
whom she gave her message was never known to any of the
Penhallows. But a tall, ruddy-haired girl, dressed in pale
green organdy--Anne Shirley from Avonlea--told Marilla
Cuthbert and Rachel Lynde as a joke the next morning how a
chubby little woman in a bright pink fascinator had clutched
her by the arm, and gasped out:
"Carey Penhallow can't take you--he says you're to look out
for someone else," and was gone before she could answer or
turn around.

Thus it was that Lucinda, when she came out to the veranda
step, found herself unaccountably deserted. All the Grange
Penhallows were gone; Lucinda realized this after a few
moments of bewildered seeking, and she understood that if she
were to get to the Grange that night she must walk. Plainly
there was nobody to take her.

Lucinda was angry. It is not pleasant to find yourself
forgotten and neglected. It is still less pleasant to walk
home alone along a country road, at one o'clock in the
morning, wearing a pale green voile. Lucinda was not prepared
for such a walk. She had nothing on her feet save thin-soled
shoes, and her only wraps were a flimsy fascinator and a short
coat.

"What a guy I shall look, stalking home alone in this rig,"
she thought crossly.

There was no help for it, unless she confessed her plight to
some of the stranger guests and begged a drive home. Lucinda's
pride scorned such a request and the admission of neglect it
involved. No, she would walk, since that was all there was to
it; but she would not go by the main road to be stared at by
all and sundry who might pass her. There was a short cut by
way of a lane across the fields; she knew every inch of it,
although she had not traversed it for years.

She gathered up the green voile as trimly as possible, slipped
around the house in the kindly shadows, picked her way across
the side lawn, and found a gate which opened into a birch-
bordered lane where the frosted trees shone with silvery-
golden radiance in the moonlight. Lucinda flitted down the
lane, growing angrier at every step as the realization of how
shamefully she seemed to have been treated came home to her.
She believed that nobody had thought about her at all, which
was tenfold worse than premeditated neglect.

As she came to the gate at the lower end of the lane a man who
was leaning over it started, with a quick intake of his
breath, which, in any other man than Romney Penhallow, or for
any other woman than Lucinda Penhallow, would have been an
exclamation of surprise.

Lucinda recognized him with a great deal of annoyance and a
little relief. She would not have to walk home alone. But with
Romney Penhallow! Would he think she had contrived it so
purposely?

Romney silently opened the gate for her, silently latched it
behind her, and silently fell into step beside her. Down
across a velvety sweep of field they went; the air was frosty,
calm and still; over the world lay a haze of moonshine and
mist that converted East Grafton's prosaic hills and fields
into a shimmering fairyland.
At first Lucinda felt angrier than ever. What a ridiculous
situation! How the Penhallows would laugh over it!

As for Romney, he, too, was angry with the trick impish chance
had played him. He liked being the butt of an awkward
situation as little as most men; and certainly to be obliged
to walk home over moonlit fields at one o'clock in the morning
with the woman he had loved and never spoken to for fifteen
years was the irony of fate with a vengeance. Would she think
he had schemed for it? And how the deuce did she come to be
walking home from the wedding at all?

By the time they had crossed the field and reached the wild
cherry lane beyond it, Lucinda's anger was mastered by her
saving sense of humour. She was even smiling a little
maliciously under her fascinator.

The lane was a place of enchantment--a long, moonlit colonnade
adown which beguiling wood nymphs might have footed it featly.
The moonshine fell through the arching boughs and made a
mosaic of silver light and clear-cut shadow for the unfriendly
lovers to walk in. On either side was the hovering gloom of
the woods, and around them was a great silence unstirred by
wind or murmur.

Midway in the lane Lucinda was attacked by a sentimental
recollection. She thought of the last time Romney and she had
walked home together through this very lane, from a party at
"young" John's. It had been moonlight then too, and--Lucinda
checked a sigh--they had walked hand in hand. Just here, by
the big gray beech, he had stopped her and kissed her. Lucinda
wondered if he were thinking of it, too, and stole a look at
him from under the lace border of her fascinator.

But he was striding moodily along with his hands in his
pockets, and his hat pulled down over his eyes, passing the
old beech without a glance at it. Lucinda checked another
sigh, gathered up an escaped flutter of voile, and marched on.

Past the lane a range of three silvery harvest fields sloped
down to Peter Penhallow's brook--a wide, shallow stream
bridged over in the olden days by the mossy trunk of an
ancient fallen tree. When Lucinda and Romney arrived at the
brook they gazed at the brawling water blankly. Lucinda
remembered that she must not speak to Romney just in time to
prevent an exclamation of dismay. There was no tree! There was
no bridge of any kind over the brook!

Here was a predicament! But before Lucinda could do more than
despairingly ask herself what was to be done now, Romney
answered--not in words, but in deeds. He coolly picked Lucinda
up in his arms, as if she had been a child instead of a full
grown woman of no mean avoirdupois, and began to wade with her
through the water.

Lucinda gasped helplessly. She could not forbid him and she
was so choked with rage over his presumption that she could
not have spoken in any case. Then came the catastrophe.
Romney's foot slipped on a treacherous round stone--there was
a tremendous splash--and Romney and Lucinda Penhallow were
sitting down in the middle of Peter Penhallow's brook.

Lucinda was the first to regain her feet. About her clung in
heart-breaking limpness the ruined voile. The remembrance of
all her wrongs that night rushed over her soul, and her eyes
blazed in the moonlight. Lucinda Penhallow had never been so
angry in her life.

"YOU D--D IDIOT!" she said, in a voice that literally shook
with rage.

Romney meekly scrambled up the bank after her.

"I'm awfully sorry, Lucinda," he said, striving with uncertain
success to keep a suspicious quiver of laughter out of his
tone. "It was wretchedly clumsy of me, but that pebble turned
right under my foot. Please forgive me--for that--and for
other things."

Lucinda deigned no answer. She stood on a flat stone and wrung
the water from the poor green voile. Romney surveyed her
apprehensively.

"Hurry, Lucinda," he entreated. "You will catch your death of
cold."

"I never take cold," answered Lucinda, with chattering teeth.
"And it is my dress I am thinking of--was thinking of. You
have more need to hurry. You are sopping wet yourself and you
know you are subject to colds. There--come."

Lucinda picked up the stringy train, which had been so brave
and buoyant five minutes before, and started up the field at a
brisk rate. Romney came up to her and slipped his arm through
hers in the old way. For a time they walked along in silence.
Then Lucinda began to shake with inward laughter. She laughed
silently for the whole length of the field; and at the line
fence between Peter Penhallow's land and the Grange acres she
paused, threw back the fascinator from her face, and looked at
Romney defiantly.

"You are thinking of--THAT," she cried, "and I am thinking
of it. And we will go on, thinking of it at intervals for the
rest of our lives. But if you ever mention it to me I'll never
forgive you, Romney Penhallow!"

"I never will," Romney promised. There was more than a
suspicion of laughter in his voice this time, but Lucinda did
not choose to resent it. She did not speak again until they
reached the Grange gate. Then she faced him solemnly.

"It was a case of atavism," she said. "Old Grandfather Gordon
was to blame for it."

At the Grange almost everybody was in bed. What with the
guests straggling home at intervals and hurrying sleepily off
to their rooms, nobody had missed Lucinda, each set supposing
she was with some other set. Mrs. Frederick, Mrs. Nathaniel
and Mrs. George alone were up. The perennially chilly Mrs.
Nathaniel had kindled a fire of chips in the blue room grate
to warm her feet before retiring, and the three women were
discussing the wedding in subdued tones when the door opened
and the stately form of Lucinda, stately even in the dragged
voile, appeared, with the damp Romney behind her.

"Lucinda Penhallow!" gasped they, one and all.

"I was left to walk home," said Lucinda coolly. "So Romney and
I came across the fields. There was no bridge over the brook,
and when he was carrying me over he slipped and we fell in.
That is all. No, Cecilia, I never take cold, so don't worry.
Yes, my dress is ruined, but that is of no consequence. No,
thank you, Cecilia, I do not care for a hot drink. Romney, do
go and take off those wet clothes of yours immediately. No,
Cecilia, I will NOT take a hot footbath. I am going straight
to bed. Good night."

When the door closed on the pair the three sisters-in-law
stared at each other. Mrs. Frederick, feeling herself
incapable of expressing her sensations originally, took refuge
in a quotation:


"'Do I sleep, do I dream, do I wonder and doubt?
Is things what they seem, or is visions about?'"


"There will be another Penhallow wedding soon," said Mrs.
Nathaniel, with a long breath. "Lucinda has spoken to Romney
AT LAST."

"Oh, WHAT do you suppose she said to him?" cried Mrs. George.

"My dear Cecilia," said Mrs. Frederick, "we shall never know."

They never did know.





VI. Old Man Shaw's Girl


"Day after to-morrow--day after to-morrow," said Old Man Shaw,
rubbing his long slender hands together gleefully. "I have to
keep saying it over and over, so as to really believe it. It
seems far too good to be true that I'm to have Blossom again.
And everything is ready. Yes, I think everything is ready,
except a bit of cooking. And won't this orchard be a surprise
to her! I'm just going to bring her out here as soon as I can,
never saying a word. I'll fetch her through the spruce lane,
and when we come to the end of the path I'll step back casual-
like, and let her go out from under the trees alone, never
suspecting. It'll be worth ten times the trouble to see her
big, brown eyes open wide and hear her say, 'Oh, daddy! Why,
daddy!'"

He rubbed his hands again and laughed softly to himself. He
was a tall, bent old man, whose hair was snow white, but whose
face was fresh and rosy. His eyes were a boy's eyes, large,
blue and merry, and his mouth had never got over a youthful
trick of smiling at any provocation--and, oft-times, at no
provocation at all.

To be sure, White Sands people would not have given you the
most favourable opinion in the world of Old Man Shaw. First
and foremost, they would have told you that he was
"shiftless," and had let his bit of a farm run out while he
pottered with flowers and bugs, or rambled aimlessly about in
the woods, or read books along the shore. Perhaps it was true;
but the old farm yielded him a living, and further than that
Old Man Shaw had no ambition. He was as blithe as a pilgrim on
a pathway climbing to the west. He had learned the rare secret
that you must take happiness when you find it--that there is
no use in marking the place and coming back to it at a more
convenient season, because it will not be there then. And it
is very easy to be happy if you know, as Old Man Shaw most
thoroughly knew, how to find pleasure in little things. He
enjoyed life, he had always enjoyed life and helped others to
enjoy it; consequently his life was a success, whatever White
Sands people might think of it. What if he had not "improved"
his farm? There are some people to whom life will never be
anything more than a kitchen garden; and there are others to
whom it will always be a royal palace with domes and minarets
of rainbow fancy.

The orchard of which he was so proud was as yet little more
than the substance of things hoped for--a flourishing
plantation of young trees which would amount to something
later on. Old Man Shaw's house was on the crest of a bare,
sunny hill, with a few staunch old firs and spruces behind it-
-the only trees that could resist the full sweep of the winds
that blew bitterly up from the sea at times. Fruit trees would
never grow near it, and this had been a great grief to Sara.

"Oh, daddy, if we could just have an orchard!" she had been
wont to say wistfully, when other farmhouses in White Sands
were smothered whitely in apple bloom. And when she had gone
away, and her father had nothing to look forward to save her
return, he was determined she should find an orchard when she
came back.

Over the southward hill, warmly sheltered by spruce woods and
sloping to the sunshine, was a little field, so fertile that
all the slack management of a life-time had not availed to
exhaust it. Here Old Man Shaw set out his orchard and saw it
flourish, watching and tending it until he came to know each
tree as a child and loved it. His neighbours laughed at him,
and said that the fruit of an orchard so far away from the
house would all be stolen. But as yet there was no fruit, and
when the time came for bearing there would be enough and to
spare.

"Blossom and me'll get all we want, and the boys can have the
rest, if they want 'em worse'n they want a good conscience,"
said that unworldly, unbusinesslike Old Man Shaw.

On his way back home from his darling orchard he found a rare
fern in the woods and dug it up for Sara--she had loved ferns.
He planted it at the shady, sheltered side of the house and
then sat down on the old bench by the garden gate to read her
last letter--the letter that was only a note, because she was
coming home soon. He knew every word of it by heart, but that
did not spoil the pleasure of re-reading it every half-hour.

Old Man Shaw had not married until late in life, and had, so
White Sands people said, selected a wife with his usual
judgment--which, being interpreted, meant no judgment at all;
otherwise, he would never have married Sara Glover, a mere
slip of a girl, with big brown eyes like a frightened wood
creature's, and the delicate, fleeting bloom of a spring
Mayflower.

"The last woman in the world for a farmer's wife--no strength
or get-up about her."

Neither could White Sands folk understand what on earth Sara
Glover had married him for.

"Well, the fool crop was the only one that never failed."

Old Man Shaw--he was Old Man Shaw even then, although he was
only forty--and his girl bride had troubled themselves not at
all about White Sands opinions. They had one year of perfect
happiness, which is always worth living for, even if the rest
of life be a dreary pilgrimage, and then Old Man Shaw found
himself alone again, except for little Blossom. She was
christened Sara, after her dead mother, but she was always
Blossom to her father--the precious little blossom whose
plucking had cost the mother her life.

Sara Glover's people, especially a wealthy aunt in Montreal,
had wanted to take the child, but Old Man Shaw grew almost
fierce over the suggestion. He would give his baby to no one.
A woman was hired to look after the house, but it was the
father who cared for the baby in the main. He was as tender
and faithful and deft as a woman. Sara never missed a mother's
care, and she grew up into a creature of life and light and
beauty, a constant delight to all who knew her. She had a way
of embroidering life with stars. She was dowered with all the
charming characteristics of both parents, with a resilient
vitality and activity which had pertained to neither of them.
When she was ten years old she had packed all hirelings off,
and kept house for her father for six delightful years--years
in which they were father and daughter, brother and sister,
and "chums." Sara never went to school, but her father saw to
her education after a fashion of his own. When their work was
done they lived in the woods and fields, in the little garden
they had made on the sheltered side of the house, or on the
shore, where sunshine and storm were to them equally lovely
and beloved. Never was comradeship more perfect or more wholly
satisfactory.

"Just wrapped up in each other," said White Sands folk, half-
enviously, half-disapprovingly.

When Sara was sixteen Mrs. Adair, the wealthy aunt aforesaid,
pounced down on White Sands in a glamour of fashion and
culture and outer worldliness. She bombarded Old Man Shaw with
such arguments that he had to succumb. It was a shame that a
girl like Sara should grow up in a place like White Sands,
"with no advantages and no education," said Mrs. Adair
scornfully, not understanding that wisdom and knowledge are
two entirely different things.

"At least let me give my dear sister's child what I would have
given my own daughter if I had had one," she pleaded
tearfully. "Let me take her with me and send her to a good
school for a few years. Then, if she wishes, she may come back
to you, of course."

Privately, Mrs. Adair did not for a moment believe that Sara
would want to come back to White Sands, and her queer old
father, after three years of the life she would give her.

Old Man Shaw yielded, influenced thereto not at all by Mrs.
Adair's readily flowing tears, but greatly by his conviction
that justice to Sara demanded it. Sara herself did not want to
go; she protested and pleaded; but her father, having become
convinced that it was best for her to go, was inexorable.
Everything, even her own feelings, must give way to that. But
she was to come back to him without let or hindrance when her
"schooling" was done. It was only on having this most clearly
understood that Sara would consent to go at all. Her last
words, called back to her father through her tears as she and
her aunt drove down the lane, were,

"I'll be back, daddy. In three years I'll be back. Don't cry,
but just look forward to that."

He had looked forward to it through the three long, lonely
years that followed, in all of which he never saw his darling.
Half a continent was between them and Mrs. Adair had vetoed
vacation visits, under some specious pretense. But every week
brought its letter from Sara. Old Man Shaw had every one of
them, tied up with one of her old blue hair ribbons, and kept
in her mother's little rose-wood work-box in the parlour. He
spent every Sunday afternoon re-reading them, with her
photograph before him. He lived alone, refusing to be pestered
with kind help, but he kept the house in beautiful order.

"A better housekeeper than farmer," said White Sands people.
He would have nothing altered. When Sara came back she was not
to be hurt by changes. It never occurred to him that she might
be changed herself.

And now those three interminable years were gone, and Sara was
coming home. She wrote him nothing of her aunt's pleadings and
reproaches and ready, futile tears; she wrote only that she
would graduate in June and start for home a week later.
Thenceforth Old Man Shaw went about in a state of beatitude,
making ready for her homecoming. As he sat on the bench in the
sunshine, with the blue sea sparkling and crinkling down at
the foot of the green slope, he reflected with satisfaction
that all was in perfect order. There was nothing left to do
save count the hours until that beautiful, longed-for day
after to-morrow. He gave himself over to a reverie, as sweet
as a day-dream in a haunted valley.

The red roses were out in bloom. Sara had always loved those
red roses--they were as vivid as herself, with all her own
fullness of life and joy of living. And, besides these, a
miracle had happened in Old Man Shaw's garden. In one corner
was a rose-bush which had never bloomed, despite all the
coaxing they had given it--"the sulky rose-bush," Sara had
been wont to call it. Lo! this summer had flung the hoarded
sweetness of years into plentiful white blossoms, like shallow
ivory cups with a haunting, spicy fragrance. It was in honour
of Sara's home-coming--so Old Man Shaw liked to fancy. All
things, even the sulky rose-bush, knew she was coming back,
and were making glad because of it.

He was gloating over Sara's letter when Mrs. Peter Blewett
came. She told him she had run up to see how he was getting
on, and if he wanted anything seen to before Sara came.

"No'm, thank you, ma'am. Everything is attended to. I couldn't
let anyone else prepare for Blossom. Only to think, ma'am,
she'll be home the day after to-morrow. I'm just filled clear
through, body, soul, and spirit, with joy to think of having
my little Blossom at home again."

Mrs. Blewett smiled sourly. When Mrs. Blewett smiled it
foretokened trouble, and wise people had learned to have
sudden business elsewhere before the smile could be translated
into words. But Old Man Shaw had never learned to be wise
where Mrs. Blewett was concerned, although she had been his
nearest neighbour for years, and had pestered his life out
with advice and "neighbourly turns."

Mrs. Blewett was one with whom life had gone awry. The effect
on her was to render happiness to other people a personal
insult. She resented Old Man Shaw's beaming delight in his
daughter's return, and she "considered it her duty" to rub the
bloom off straightway.

"Do you think Sary'll be contented in White Sands now?" she
asked.

Old Man Shaw looked slightly bewildered.

"Of course she'll be contented," he said slowly. "Isn't it her
home? And ain't I here?"

Mrs. Blewett smiled again, with double distilled contempt for
such simplicity.

"Well, it's a good thing you're so sure of it, I suppose. If
'twas my daughter that was coming back to White Sands, after
three years of fashionable life among rich, stylish folks, and
at a swell school, I wouldn't have a minute's peace of mind.
I'd know perfectly well that she'd look down on everything
here, and be discontented and miserable."

"YOUR daughter might," said Old Man Shaw, with more sarcasm
than he had supposed he had possessed, "but Blossom won't."

Mrs. Blewett shrugged her sharp shoulders.

"Maybe not. It's to be hoped not, for both your sakes, I'm
sure. But I'd be worried if 'twas me. Sary's been living among
fine folks, and having a gay, exciting time, and it stands to
reason she'll think White Sands fearful lonesome and dull.
Look at Lauretta Bradley. She was up in Boston for just a
month last winter and she's never been able to endure White
Sands since."

"Lauretta Bradley and Sara Shaw are two different people,"
said Sara's father, trying to smile.

"And your house, too," pursued Mrs. Blewett ruthlessly. "It's
such a queer, little, old place. What'll she think of it after
her aunt's? I've heard tell Mrs. Adair lives in a perfect
palace. I'll just warn you kindly that Sary'll probably look
down on you, and you might as well be prepared for it. Of
course, I suppose she kind of thinks she has to come back,
seeing she promised you so solemn she would. But I'm certain
she doesn't want to, and I don't blame her either."

Even Mrs. Blewett had to stop for breath, and Old Man Shaw
found his opportunity. He had listened, dazed and shrinking,
as if she were dealing him physical blows, but now a swift
change swept over him. His blue eyes flashed ominously,
straight into Mrs. Blewett's straggling, ferrety gray orbs.

"If you're said your say, Martha Blewett, you can go," he said
passionately. "I'm not going to listen to another such word.
Take yourself out of my sight, and your malicious tongue out
of my hearing!"

Mrs. Blewett went, too dumfounded by such an unheard-of
outburst in mild Old Man Shaw to say a word of defence or
attack. When she had gone Old Man Shaw, the fire all faded
from his eyes, sank back on his bench. His delight was dead;
his heart was full of pain and bitterness. Martha Blewett was
a warped and ill-natured woman, but he feared there was
altogether too much truth in what she said. Why had he never
thought of it before? Of course White Sands would seem dull
and lonely to Blossom; of course the little gray house where
she was born would seem a poor abode after the splendours of
her aunt's home. Old Man Shaw walked through his garden and
looked at everything with new eyes. How poor and simple
everything was! How sagging and weather-beaten the old house!
He went in, and up-stairs to Sara's room. It was neat and
clean, just as she had left it three years ago. But it was
small and dark; the ceiling was discoloured, the furniture
old-fashioned and shabby; she would think it a poor, mean
place. Even the orchard over the hill brought him no comfort
now. Blossom would not care for orchards. She would be ashamed
of her stupid old father and the barren farm. She would hate
White Sands, and chafe at the dull existence, and look down on
everything that went to make up his uneventful life.

Old Man Shaw was unhappy enough that night to have satisfied
even Mrs. Blewett had she known. He saw himself as he thought
White Sands folk must see him--a poor, shiftless, foolish old
man, who had only one thing in the world worthwhile, his
little girl, and had not been of enough account to keep her.

"Oh, Blossom, Blossom!" he said, and when he spoke her name it
sounded as if he spoke the name of one dead.

After a little the worst sting passed away. He refused to
believe long that Blossom would be ashamed of him; he knew she
would not. Three years could not so alter her loyal nature--
no, nor ten times three years. But she would be changed--she
would have grown away from him in those three busy, brilliant
years. His companionship could no longer satisfy her. How
simple and childish he had been to expect it! She would be
sweet and kind--Blossom could never be anything else. She
would not show open discontent or dissatisfaction; she would
not be like Lauretta Bradley; but it would be there, and he
would divine it, and it would break his heart. Mrs. Blewett
was right. When he had given Blossom up he should not have
made a half-hearted thing of his sacrifice--he should not have
bound her to come back to him.

He walked about in his little garden until late at night,
under the stars, with the sea crooning and calling to him down
the slope. When he finally went to bed he did not sleep, but
lay until morning with tear-wet eyes and despair in his heart.
All the forenoon he went about his usual daily work absently.
Frequently he fell into long reveries, standing motionless
wherever he happened to be, and looking dully before him. Only
once did he show any animation. When he saw Mrs. Blewett
coming up the lane he darted into the house, locked the door,
and listened to her knocking in grim silence. After she had
gone he went out, and found a plate of fresh doughnuts,
covered with a napkin, placed on the bench at the door. Mrs.
Blewett meant to indicate thus that she bore him no malice for
her curt dismissal the day before; possibly her conscience
gave her some twinges also. But her doughnuts could not
minister to the mind she had diseased. Old Man Shaw took them
up; carried them to the pig-pen, and fed them to the pigs. It
was the first spiteful thing he had done in his life, and he
felt a most immoral satisfaction in it.

In mid-afternoon he went out to the garden, finding the new
loneliness of the little house unbearable. The old bench was
warm in the sunshine. Old Man Shaw sat down with a long sigh,
and dropped his white head wearily on his breast. He had
decided what he must do. He would tell Blossom that she might
go back to her aunt and never mind about him--he would do very
well by himself and he did not blame her in the least.

He was still sitting broodingly there when a girl came up the
lane. She was tall and straight, and walked with a kind of
uplift in her motion, as if it would be rather easier to fly
than not. She was dark, with a rich dusky sort of darkness,
suggestive of the bloom on purple plums, or the glow of deep
red apples among bronze leaves. Her big brown eyes lingered on
everything in sight, and little gurgles of sound now and again
came through her parted lips, as if inarticulate joy were thus
expressing itself.

At the garden gate she saw the bent figure on the old bench,
and the next minute she was flying along the rose walk.

"Daddy!" she called, "daddy!"

Old Man Shaw stood up in hasty bewilderment; then a pair of
girlish arms were about his neck, and a pair of warm red lips
were on his; girlish eyes, full of love, were looking up into
his, and a never-forgotten voice, tingling with laughter and
tears blended into one delicious chord, was crying,

"Oh, daddy, is it really you? Oh, I can't tell you how good it
is to see you again!"

Old Man Shaw held her tightly in a silence of amazement and
joy too deep for wonder. Why, this was his Blossom--the very
Blossom who had gone away three years ago! A little taller, a
little more womanly, but his own dear Blossom, and no
stranger. There was a new heaven and a new earth for him in
the realization.

"Oh, Baby Blossom!" he murmured, "Little Baby Blossom!"

Sara rubbed her cheek against the faded coat sleeve.

"Daddy darling, this moment makes up for everything, doesn't
it?"

"But--but--where did you come from?" he asked, his senses
beginning to struggle out of their bewilderment of surprise.
"I didn't expect you till to-morrow. You didn't have to walk
from the station, did you? And your old daddy not there to
welcome you!"

Sara laughed, swung herself back by the tips of her fingers
and danced around him in the childish fashion of long ago.

"I found I could make an earlier connection with the C.P.A.
yesterday and get to the Island last night. I was in such a
fever to get home that I jumped at the chance. Of course I
walked from the station--it's only two miles and every step
was a benediction. My trunks are over there. We'll go after
them to-morrow, daddy, but just now I want to go straight to
every one of the dear old nooks and spots at once."

"You must get something to eat first," he urged fondly. "And
there ain't much in the house, I'm afraid. I was going to bake
to-morrow morning. But I guess I can forage you out something,
darling."

He was sorely repenting having given Mrs. Blewett's doughnuts
to the pigs, but Sara brushed all such considerations aside
with a wave of her hand.

"I don't want anything to eat just now. By and by we'll have a
snack; just as we used to get up for ourselves whenever we
felt hungry. Don't you remember how scandalized White Sands
folks used to be at our irregular hours? I'm hungry; but it's
soul hunger, for a glimpse of all the dear old rooms and
places. Come--there are four hours yet before sunset, and I
want to cram into them all I've missed out of these three
years. Let us begin right here with the garden. Oh, daddy, by
what witchcraft have you coaxed that sulky rose-bush into
bloom?"

"No witchcraft at all--it just bloomed because you were coming
home, baby," said her father.

They had a glorious afternoon of it, those two children. They
explored the garden and then the house. Sara danced through
every room, and then up to her own, holding fast to her
father's hand.

"Oh, it's lovely to see my little room again, daddy. I'm sure
all my old hopes and dreams are waiting here for me."

She ran to the window and threw it open, leaning out.

"Daddy, there's no view in the world so beautiful as that
curve of sea between the headlands. I've looked at magnificent
scenery--and then I'd shut my eyes and conjure up that
picture. Oh, listen to the wind keening in the trees! How I've
longed for that music!"

He took her to the orchard and followed out his crafty plan of
surprise perfectly. She rewarded him by doing exactly what he
had dreamed of her doing, clapping her hands and crying out:

"Oh, daddy! Why, daddy!"

They finished up with the shore, and then at sunset they came
back and sat down on the old garden bench. Before them a sea
of splendour, burning like a great jewel, stretched to the
gateways of the west. The long headlands on either side were
darkly purple, and the sun left behind him a vast, cloudless
arc of fiery daffodil and elusive rose. Back over the orchard
in a cool, green sky glimmered a crystal planet, and the night
poured over them a clear wine of dew from her airy chalice.
The spruces were rejoicing in the wind, and even the battered
firs were singing of the sea. Old memories trooped into their
hearts like shining spirits.

"Baby Blossom," said Old Man Shaw falteringly, "are you quite
sure you'll be contented here? Out there"--with a vague sweep
of his hand towards horizons that shut out a world far removed
from White Sands--"there's pleasure and excitement and all
that. Won't you miss it? Won't you get tired of your old
father and White Sands?"

Sara patted his hand gently.

"The world out there is a good place," she said thoughtfully,
"I've had three splendid years and I hope they'll enrich my
whole life. There are wonderful things out there to see and
learn, fine, noble people to meet, beautiful deeds to admire;
but," she wound her arm about his neck and laid her cheek
against his--"there is no daddy!"

And Old Man Shaw looked silently at the sunset--or, rather,
through the sunset to still grander and more radiant
splendours beyond, of which the things seen were only the pale
reflections, not worthy of attention from those who had the
gift of further sight.





VII. Aunt Olivia's Beau


Aunt Olivia told Peggy and me about him on the afternoon we
went over to help her gather her late roses for pot-pourri. We
found her strangely quiet and preoccupied. As a rule she was
fond of mild fun, alert to hear East Grafton gossip, and given
to sudden little trills of almost girlish laughter, which for
the time being dispelled the atmosphere of gentle old-
maidishness which seemed to hang about her as a garment. At
such moments we did not find it hard to believe--as we did at
other times--that Aunt Olivia had once been a girl herself.

This day she picked the roses absently, and shook the fairy
petals into her little sweet-grass basket with the air of a
woman whose thoughts were far away. We said nothing, knowing
that Aunt Olivia's secrets always came our way in time. When
the rose-leaves were picked, we carried them in and upstairs
in single file, Aunt Olivia bringing up the rear to pick up
any stray rose-leaf we might drop. In the south-west room,
where there was no carpet to fade, we spread them on
newspapers on the floor. Then we put our sweet-grass baskets
back in the proper place in the proper closet in the proper
room. What would have happened to us, or to the sweet-grass
baskets, if this had not been done I do not know. Nothing was
ever permitted to remain an instant out of place in Aunt
Olivia's house.

When we went downstairs, Aunt Olivia asked us to go into the
parlour. She had something to tell us, she said, and as she
opened the door a delicate pink flush spread over her face. I
noted it, with surprise, but no inkling of the truth came to
me--for nobody ever connected the idea of possible lovers or
marriage with this prim little old maid, Olivia Sterling.

Aunt Olivia's parlour was much like herself--painfully neat.
Every article of furniture stood in exactly the same place it
had always stood. Nothing was ever suffered to be disturbed.
The tassels of the crazy cushion lay just so over the arm of
the sofa, and the crochet antimacassar was always spread at
precisely the same angel over the horsehair rocking chair. No
speck of dust was ever visible; no fly ever invaded that
sacred apartment.

Aunt Olivia pulled up a blind, to let in what light could sift
finely through the vine leaves, and sat down in a high-backed
old chair that had appertained to her great-grandmother. She
folded her hands in her lap, and looked at us with shy appeal
in her blue-gray eyes. Plainly she found it hard to tell us
her secret, yet all the time there was an air of pride and
exultation about her; somewhat, also, of a new dignity. Aunt
Olivia could never be self-assertive, but if it had been
possible that would have been her time for it.

"Have you ever heard me speak of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson?"
asked Aunt Olivia.

We had never heard her, or anybody else, speak of Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson; but volumes of explanation could not have told us
more about him than did Aunt Olivia's voice when she
pronounced his name. We knew, as if it had been proclaimed to
us in trumpet tones, that Mr. Malcolm MacPherson must be Aunt
Olivia's beau, and the knowledge took away our breath. We even
forgot to be curious, so astonished were we.

And there sat Aunt Olivia, proud and shy and exulting and
shamefaced, all at once!

"He is a brother of Mrs. John Seaman's across the bridge,"
explained Aunt Olivia with a little simper. "Of course you
don't remember him. He went out to British Columbia twenty
years ago. But he is coming home now--and--and--tell your
father, won't you--I--I--don't like to tell him--Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson and I are going to be married."

"Married!" gasped Peggy. And "married!" I echoed stupidly.

Aunt Olivia bridled a little.

"There is nothing unsuitable in that, is there?" she asked,
rather crisply.

"Oh, no, no," I hastened to assure her, giving Peggy a
surreptitious kick to divert her thoughts from laughter. "Only
you must realize, Aunt Olivia, that this is a very great
surprise to us."
"I thought it would be so," said Aunt Olivia complacently.
"But your father will know--he will remember. I do hope he
won't think me foolish. He did not think Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson was a fit person for me to marry once. But that was
long ago, when Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was very poor. He is in
very comfortable circumstances now."

"Tell us about it, Aunt Olivia," said Peggy. She did not look
at me, which was my salvation. Had I caught Peggy's eye when
Aunt Olivia said "Mr. Malcolm MacPherson" in that tone I must
have laughed, willy-nilly.

"When I was a girl the MacPhersons used to live across the
road from here. Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was my beau then. But
my family--and your father especially--dear me, I do hope he
won't be very cross--were opposed to his attentions and were
very cool to him. I think that was why he never said anything
to me about getting married then. And after a time he went
away, as I have said, and I never heard anything from him
directly for many a year. Of course, his sister sometimes gave
me news of him. But last June I had a letter from him. He said
he was coming home to settle down for good on the old Island,
and he asked me if I would marry him. I wrote back and said I
would. Perhaps I ought to have consulted your father, but I
was afraid he would think I ought to refuse Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson."

"Oh, I don't think father will mind," said Peggy reassuringly.

"I hope not, because, of course, I would consider it my duty
in any case to fulfil the promise I have given to Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson. He will be in Grafton next week, the guest of his
sister, Mrs. John Seaman, across the bridge."

Aunt Olivia said that exactly as if she were reading it from
the personal column of the Daily Enterprise.

"When is the wedding to be?" I asked.

"Oh!" Aunt Olivia blushed distressfully. "I do not know the
exact date. Nothing can be definitely settled until Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson comes. But it will not be before September,
at the earliest. There will be so much to do. You will tell
your father, won't you?"

We promised that we would, and Aunt Olivia arose with an air
of relief. Peggy and I hurried over home, stopping, when we
were safely out of earshot, to laugh. The romances of the
middle-aged may be to them as tender and sweet as those of
youth, but they are apt to possess a good deal of humour for
onlookers. Only youth can be sentimental without being mirth-
provoking. We loved Aunt Olivia and were glad for her late,
new-blossoming happiness; but we felt amused over it also. The
recollection of her "Mr. Malcolm MacPherson" was too much for
us every time we thought of it.

Father pooh-poohed incredulously at first, and, when we had
convinced him, guffawed with laughter. Aunt Olivia need not
have dreaded any more opposition from her cruel family.

"MacPherson was a good fellow enough, but horribly poor," said
father. "I hear he has done very well out west, and if he and
Olivia have a notion of each other they are welcome to marry
as far as I am concerned. Tell Olivia she mustn't take a spasm
if he tracks some mud into her house once in a while."

Thus it was all arranged, and, before we realized it at all,
Aunt Olivia was mid-deep in marriage preparations, in all of
which Peggy and I were quite indispensable. She consulted us
in regard to everything, and we almost lived at her place in
those days preceding the arrival of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson.

Aunt Olivia plainly felt very happy and important. She had
always wished to be married; she was not in the least strong-
minded and her old-maidenhood had always been a sore point
with her. I think she looked upon it as somewhat of a
disgrace. And yet she was a born old maid; looking at her, and
taking all her primness and little set ways into
consideration, it was quite impossible to picture her as the
wife of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson, or anybody else.

We soon discovered that, to Aunt Olivia, Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson represented a merely abstract proposition--the man
who was to confer on her the long-withheld dignity of
matronhood. Her romance began and ended there, although she
was quite unconscious of this herself, and believed that she
was deeply in love with him.

"What will be the result, Mary, when he arrives in the flesh
and she is compelled to deal with 'Mr. Malcolm MacPherson' as
a real, live man, instead of a nebulous 'party of the second
part' in the marriage ceremony?" queried Peggy, as she hemmed
table-napkins for Aunt Olivia, sitting on her well-scoured
sandstone steps, and carefully putting all thread-clippings
and ravellings into the little basket which Aunt Olivia had
placed there for that purpose.

"It may transform her from a self-centered old maid into a
woman for whom marriage does not seem such an incongruous
thing," I said.

The day on which Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was expected Peggy and
I went over. We had planned to remain away, thinking that the
lovers would prefer their first meeting to be unwitnessed, but
Aunt Olivia insisted on our being present. She was plainly
nervous; the abstract was becoming concrete. Her little house
was in spotless, speckless order from top to bottom. Aunt
Olivia had herself scrubbed the garret floor and swept the
cellar steps that very morning with as much painstaking care
as if she expected that Mr. Malcolm MacPherson would hasten to
inspect each at once and she must stand or fall by his opinion
of them.

Peggy and I helped her to dress. She insisted on wearing her
best black silk, in which she looked unnaturally fine. Her
soft muslin became her much better, but we could not induce
her to wear it. Anything more prim and bandboxy than Aunt
Olivia when her toilet was finished it has never been my lot
to see. Peggy and I watched her as she went downstairs, her
skirt held stiffly up all around her that it might not brush
the floor.

"'Mr. Malcolm MacPherson' will be inspired with such awe that
he will only be able to sit back and gaze at her," whispered
Peggy. "I wish he would come and have it over. This is getting
on my nerves."

Aunt Olivia went into the parlour, settled herself in the old
carved chair, and folded her hands. Peggy and I sat down on
the stairs to await his coming in a crisping suspense. Aunt
Olivia's kitten, a fat, bewhiskered creature, looking as if it
were cut out of black velvet, shared our vigil and purred in
maddening peace of mind.

We could see the garden path and gate through the hall window,
and therefore supposed we should have full warning of the
approach of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson. It was no wonder,
therefore, that we positively jumped when a thunderous knock
crashed against the front door and re-echoed through the
house. Had Mr. Malcolm MacPherson dropped from the skies?

We afterwards discovered that he had come across lots and
around the house from the back, but just then his sudden
advent was almost uncanny. I ran downstairs and opened the
door. On the step stood a man about six feet two in height,
and proportionately broad and sinewy. He had splendid
shoulders, a great crop of curly black hair, big, twinkling
blue eyes, and a tremendous crinkly black beard that fell over
his breast in shining waves. In brief, Mr. Malcolm MacPherson
was what one would call instinctively, if somewhat tritely, "a
magnificent specimen of manhood."

In one hand he carried a bunch of early goldenrod and smoke-
blue asters.

"Good afternoon," he said in a resonant voice which seemed to
take possession of the drowsy summer afternoon. "Is Miss
Olivia Sterling in? And will you please tell her that Malcolm
MacPherson is here?"

I showed him into the parlour. Then Peggy and I peeped through
the crack of the door. Anyone would have done it. We would
have scorned to excuse ourselves. And, indeed, what we saw
would have been worth several conscience spasms if we had felt
any.

Aunt Olivia arose and advanced primly, with outstretched hand.

"Mr. MacPherson, I am very glad to see you," she said
formally.

"It's yourself, Nillie!" Mr. Malcolm MacPherson gave two
strides.

He dropped his flowers on the floor, knocked over a small
table, and sent the ottoman spinning against the wall. Then he
caught Aunt Olivia in his arms and--smack, smack, smack! Peggy
sank back upon the stair-step with her handkerchief stuffed in
her mouth. Aunt Olivia was being kissed!

Presently, Mr. Malcolm MacPherson held her back at arm's
length in his big paws and looked her over. I saw Aunt
Olivia's eyes roam over his arm to the inverted table and the
litter of asters and goldenrod. Her sleek crimps were all
ruffled up, and her lace fichu twisted half around her neck.
She looked distressed.

"It's not a bit changed you are, Nillie," said Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson admiringly. "And it's good I'm feeling to see you
again. Are you glad to see me, Nillie?"

"Oh, of course," said Aunt Olivia.

She twisted herself free and went to set up the table. Then
she turned to the flowers, but Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had
already gathered them up, leaving a goodly sprinkling of
leaves and stalks on the carpet.

"I picked these for you in the river field, Nillie," he said.
"Where will I be getting something to stick them in? Here,
this will do."

He grasped a frail, painted vase on the mantel, stuffed the
flowers in it, and set it on the table. The look on Aunt
Olivia's face was too much for me at last. I turned, caught
Peggy by the shoulder and dragged her out of the house.

"He will horrify the very soul out of Aunt Olivia's body if he
goes on like this," I gasped. "But he's splendid--and he
thinks the world of her--and, oh, Peggy, did you EVER hear
such kisses? Fancy Aunt Olivia!"

It did not take us long to get well acquainted with Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson. He almost haunted Aunt Olivia's house, and
Aunt Olivia insisted on our staying with her most of the time.
She seemed to be very shy of finding herself alone with him.
He horrified her a dozen times in an hour; nevertheless, she
was very proud of him, and liked to be teased about him, too.
She was delighted that we admired him.

"Though, to be sure, he is very different in his looks from
what he used to be," she said. "He is so dreadfully big! And I
do not like a beard, but I have not the courage to ask him to
shave it off. He might be offended. He has bought the old
Lynde place in Avonlea and wants to be married in a month.
But, dear me, that is too soon. It--it would be hardly
proper."

Peggy and I liked Mr. Malcolm MacPherson very much. So did
father. We were glad that he seemed to think Aunt Olivia
perfection. He was as happy as the day was long; but poor Aunt
Olivia, under all her surface pride and importance, was not.
Amid all the humour of the circumstances Peggy and I snuffed
tragedy compounded with the humour.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson could never be trained to old-
maidishness, and even Aunt Olivia seemed to realize this. He
never stopped to clear his boots when he came in, although she
had an ostentatiously new scraper put at each door for his
benefit. He seldom moved in the house without knocking some of
Aunt Olivia's treasures over. He smoked cigars in her parlour
and scattered the ashes over the floor. He brought her flowers
every day and stuck them into whatever receptacle came
handiest. He sat on her cushions and rolled her antimacassars
up into balls. He put his feet on her chair rungs--and all
with the most distracting unconsciousness of doing anything
out of the way. He never noticed Aunt Olivia's fluttering
nervousness at all. Peggy and I laughed more than was good for
us those days. It was so funny to see Aunt Olivia hovering
anxiously around, picking up flower stems, and smoothing out
tidies, and generally following him about to straighten out
things. Once she even got a wing and dustpan and swept the
cigar ashes under his very eyes.

"Now don't be worrying yourself over that, Nillie," he
protested. "Why, I don't mind a litter, bless you!"

How good and jolly he was, that Mr. Malcolm MacPherson! Such
songs as he sang, such stories as he told, such a breezy,
unconventional atmosphere as he brought into that prim little
house, where stagnant dullness had reigned for years! He
worshipped Aunt Olivia, and his worship took the concrete form
of presents galore. He brought her a present almost every
visit--generally some article of jewelry. Bracelets, rings,
chains, ear-drops, lockets, bangles, were showered upon our
precise little aunt; she accepted them deprecatingly, but
never wore them. This hurt him a little, but she assured him
she would wear them all sometimes.

"I am not used to jewelry, Mr. MacPherson," she would tell
him.

Her engagement ring she did wear--it was a rather "loud"
combination of engraved gold and opals. Sometimes we caught
her turning it on her finger with a very troubled face.

"I would be sorry for Mr. Malcolm MacPherson if he were not so
much in love with her," said Peggy. "But as he thinks that she
is perfection he doesn't need sympathy."

"I am sorry for Aunt Olivia," I said. "Yes, Peggy, I am. Mr.
MacPherson is a splendid man, but Aunt Olivia is a born old
maid, and it is outraging her very nature to be anything else.
Don't you see how it's hurting her? His big, splendid man-ways
are harrowing her very soul up--she can't get out of her
little, narrow groove, and it is killing her to be pulled
out."

"Nonsense!" said Peggy. Then she added with a laugh,

"Mary, did you ever see anything so funny as Aunt Olivia
sitting on 'Mr. Malcolm MacPherson's' knee?"

It WAS funny. Aunt Olivia thought it very unbecoming to sit
there before us, but he made her do it. He would say, with his
big, jolly laugh, "Don't be minding the little girls," and
pull her down on his knee and hold her there. To my dying day
I shall never forget the expression on the poor little woman's
face.

But, as the days went by and Mr. Malcolm MacPherson began to
insist on a date being set for the wedding, Aunt Olivia grew
to have a strangely disturbed look. She became very quiet, and
never laughed except under protest. Also, she showed signs of
petulance when any of us, but especially father, teased her
about her beau. I pitied her, for I think I understood better
than the others what her feelings really were. But even I was
not prepared for what did happen. I would not have believed
that Aunt Olivia could do it. I thought that her desire for
marriage in the abstract would outweigh the disadvantages of
the concrete. But one can never reckon with real, bred-in-the-
bone old-maidism.

One morning Mr. Malcolm MacPherson told us all that he was
coming up that evening to make Aunt Olivia set the day. Peggy
and I laughingly approved, telling him that it was high time
for him to assert his authority, and he went off in great good
humour across the river field, whistling a Highland
strathspey. But Aunt Olivia looked like a martyr. She had a
fierce attack of housecleaning that day, and put everything in
flawless order, even to the corners.

"As if there was going to be a funeral in the house," sniffed
Peggy.

Peggy and I were up in the south-west room at dusk that
evening, piecing a quilt, when we heard Mr. Malcolm MacPherson
shouting out in the hall below to know if anyone was home. I
ran out to the landing, but as I did so Aunt Olivia came out
of her room, brushed past me, and flitted downstairs.

"Mr. MacPherson," I heard her say with double-distilled
primness, "will you please come into the parlour? I have
something to say to you."

They went in, and I returned to the south-west room.

"Peg, there's trouble brewing," I said. "I'm sure of it by
Aunt Olivia's face, it was GRAY. And she has gone down
ALONE--and shut the door."

"I am going to hear what she says to him," said Peggy
resolutely. "It is her own fault--she has spoiled us by always
insisting that we should be present at their interviews. That
poor man has had to do his courting under our very eyes. Come
on, Mary."

The south-west room was directly over the parlour and there
was an open stovepipe-hole leading up therefrom. Peggy removed
the hat box that was on it, and we both deliberately and
shamelessly crouched down and listened with all our might.

It was easy enough to hear what Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was
saying.

"I've come up to get the date settled, Nillie, as I told you.
Come now, little woman, name the day."

SMACK!

"Don't, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt Olivia. She spoke as a
woman who has keyed herself up to the doing of some very
distasteful task and is anxious to have it over and done with
as soon as possible. "There is something I must say to you. I
cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson."

There was a pause. I would have given much to have seen the
pair of them. When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson spoke his voice was
that of blank, uncomprehending amazement.

"Nillie, what is it you are meaning?" he said.

"I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson," repeated Aunt Olivia.

"Why not?" Surprise was giving way to dismay.

"I don't think you will understand, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt
Olivia, faintly. "You don't realize what it means for a woman
to give up everything--her own home and friends and all her
past life, so to speak, and go far away with a stranger."

"Why, I suppose it will be rather hard. But, Nillie, Avonlea isn't
very far away--not more than twelve miles, if it will be that."

"Twelve miles! It might as well be at the other side of the
world to all intents and purposes," said Aunt Olivia obstinately.
"I don't know a living soul there, except Rachel Lynde."

"Why didn't you say so before I bought the place, then? But
it's not too late. I can be selling it and buying right here
in East Grafton if that will please you--though there isn't
half as nice a place to be had. But I'll fix it up somehow!"

"No, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt Olivia firmly, "that doesn't
cover the difficulty. I knew you would not understand. My ways
are not your ways and I cannot make them over. For--you track
mud in--and--and--you don't care whether things are tidy or not."

Poor Aunt Olivia had to be Aunt Olivia; if she were being
burned at the stake I verily believe she would have dragged
some grotesqueness into the tragedy of the moment.

"The devil!" said Mr. Malcolm MacPherson--not profanely or
angrily, but as in sheer bewilderment. Then he added, "Nillie,
you must be joking. It's careless enough I am--the west isn't
a good place to learn finicky ways--but you can teach me.
You're not going to throw me over because I track mud in!"

"I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt Olivia again.

"You can't be meaning it!" he exclaimed, because he was
beginning to understand that she did mean it, although it was
impossible for his man mind to understand anything else about
the puzzle. "Nillie, it's breaking my heart you are! I'll do
anything--go anywhere--be anything you want--only don't be
going back on me like this."

"I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson," said Aunt Olivia for the
fourth time.

"Nillie!" exclaimed Mr. Malcolm MacPherson. There was such
real agony in his tone that Peggy and I were suddenly stricken
with contrition. What were we doing? We had no right to be
listening to this pitiful interview. The pain and protest in
his voice had suddenly banished all the humour from it, and
left naught but the bare, stark tragedy. We rose and tiptoed
out of the room, wholesomely ashamed of ourselves.

When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had gone, after an hour of useless
pleading, Aunt Olivia came up to us, pale and prim and
determined, and told us that there was to be no wedding. We
could not pretend surprise, but Peggy ventured a faint
protest.

"Oh, Aunt Olivia, do you think you have done right?"

"It was the only thing I could do," said Aunt Olivia stonily.
"I could not marry Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and I told him so.
Please tell your father--and kindly say nothing more to me
about the matter."

Then Aunt Olivia went downstairs, got a broom, and swept up
the mud Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had tracked over the steps.

Peggy and I went home and told father. We felt very flat, but
there was nothing to be done or said. Father laughed at the
whole thing, but I could not laugh. I was sorry for Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson and, though I was angry with her, I was
sorry for Aunt Olivia, too. Plainly she felt badly enough over
her vanished hopes and plans, but she had developed a strange
and baffling reserve which nothing could pierce.

"It's nothing but a chronic case of old-maidism," said father
impatiently.

Things were very dull for a week. We saw no more of Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson and we missed him dreadfully. Aunt Olivia
was inscrutable, and worked with fierceness at superfluous
tasks.

One evening father came home with some news.
"Malcolm MacPherson is leaving on the 7:30 train for the
west," he said. "He has rented the Avonlea place and he's off.
They say he is mad as a hatter at the trick Olivia played on
him."

After tea Peggy and I went over to see Aunt Olivia, who had
asked our advice about a wrapper. She was sewing as for dear
life, and her face was primmer and colder than ever. I
wondered if she knew of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson's departure.
Delicacy forbade me to mention it but Peggy had no such
scruples.

"Well, Aunt Olivia, your beau is off," she announced
cheerfully. "You won't be bothered with him again. He is
leaving on the mail train for the west."

Aunt Olivia dropped her sewing and stood up. I have never seen
anything like the transformation that came over her. It was so
thorough and sudden as to be almost uncanny. The old maid
vanished completely, and in her place was a woman, full to the
lips with primitive emotion and pain.

"What shall I do?" she cried in a terrible voice. "Mary--
Peggy--what shall I do?"

It was almost a shriek. Peggy turned pale.

"Do you care?" she said stupidly.

"Care! Girls, I shall DIE if Malcolm MacPherson goes away! I
have been mad--I must have been mad. I have almost died of
loneliness since I sent him away. But I thought he would come
back! I must see him--there is time to reach the station
before the train goes if I go by the fields."

She took a wild step towards the door, but I caught her back
with a sudden mind-vision of Aunt Olivia flying bareheaded and
distraught across the fields.

"Wait a moment, Aunt Olivia. Peggy, run home and get father to
harness Dick in the buggy as quickly as he can. We'll drive
Aunt Olivia to the station. We'll get you there in time,
Aunty."

Peggy flew, and Aunt Olivia dashed upstairs. I lingered behind
to pick up her sewing, and when I got to her room she had her
hat and cape on. Spread out on the bed were all the boxes of
gifts which Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had brought her, and Aunt
Olivia was stringing their contents feverishly about her
person. Rings, three brooches, a locket, three chains and a
watch all went on--anyway and anyhow. A wonderful sight it was
to see Aunt Olivia bedizened like that!

"I would never wear them before--but I'll put them all on now
to show him I'm sorry," she gasped, with trembling lips.

When the three of us crowded into the buggy, Aunt Olivia
grasped the whip before we could prevent her and, leaning out,
gave poor Dick such a lash as he had never felt in his life
before. He went tearing down the steep, stony, fast-darkening
road in a fashion which made Peggy and me cry out in alarm.
Aunt Olivia was usually the most timid of women, but now she
didn't seem to know what fear was. She kept whipping and
urging poor Dick the whole way to the station, quite oblivious
to our assurances that there was plenty of time. The people
who met us that night must have thought we were quite mad. I
held on the reins, Peggy gripped the swaying side of the
buggy, and Aunt Olivia bent forward, hat and hair blowing back
from her set face with its strangely crimson cheeks, and plied
the whip. In such a guise did we whirl through the village and
over the two-mile station road.

When we drove up to the station, where the train was shunting
amid the shadows, Aunt Olivia made a flying leap from the
buggy and ran along the platform, with her cape streaming
behind her and all her brooches and chains glittering in the
lights. I tossed the reins to a boy standing near and we
followed. Just under the glare of the station lamp we saw Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson, grip in hand. Fortunately no one else was
very near, but it would have been all the same had they been
the centre of a crowd. Aunt Olivia fairly flung herself
against him.

"Malcolm," she cried, "don't go--don't go--I'll marry you--
I'll go anywhere--and I don't care how much mud you bring in!"

That truly Aunt Olivia touch relieved the tension of the
situation a little. Mr. MacPherson put his arm about her and
drew her back into the shadows.

"There, there," he soothed. "Of course I won't be going. Don't
cry, Nillie-girl."

"And you'll come right back with me now?" implored Aunt
Olivia, clinging to him as if she feared he would be whisked
away from her yet if she let go for a moment.

"Of course, of course," he said.

Peggy got a chance home with a friend, and Aunt Olivia and Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson and I drove back in the buggy. Mr.
MacPherson held Aunt Olivia on his knee because there was no
room, but she would have sat there, I think, had there been a
dozen vacant seats. She clung to him in the most barefaced
fashion, and all her former primness and reserve were swept
away completely. She kissed him a dozen times or more and told
him she loved him--and I did not even smile, nor did I want
to. Somehow, it did not seem in the least funny to me then,
nor does it now, although it doubtless will to others. There
was too much real intensity of feeling in it all to leave any
room for the ridiculous. So wrapped up in each other were they
that I did not even feel superfluous.

I set them safely down in Aunt Olivia's yard and turned
homeward, completely forgotten by the pair. But in the
moonlight, which flooded the front of the house, I saw
something that testified eloquently to the transformation in
Aunt Olivia. It had rained that afternoon and the yard was
muddy. Nevertheless, she went in at her front door and took
Mr. Malcolm MacPherson in with her without even a glance at
the scraper!





VIII. The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's


I refused to take that class in Sunday School the first time I
was asked. It was not that I objected to teaching in the
Sunday School. On the contrary I rather liked the idea; but it
was the Rev. Mr. Allan who asked me, and it had always been a
matter of principle with me never to do anything a man asked
me to do if I could help it. I was noted for that. It saves a
great deal of trouble and it simplifies everything
beautifully. I had always disliked men. It must have been born
in me, because, as far back as I can remember, an antipathy to
men and dogs was one of my strongest characteristics. I was
noted for that. My experiences through life only served to
deepen it. The more I saw of men, the more I liked cats.

So, of course, when the Rev. Allan asked me if I would consent
to take a class in Sunday School, I said no in a fashion
calculated to chasten him wholesomely. If he had sent his wife
the first time, as he did the second, it would have been
wiser. People generally do what Mrs. Allan asks them to do
because they know it saves time.

Mrs. Allan talked smoothly for half an hour before she
mentioned the Sunday School, and paid me several compliments.
Mrs. Allan is famous for her tact. Tact is a faculty for
meandering around to a given point instead of making a bee-
line. I have no tact. I am noted for that. As soon as Mrs.
Allan's conversation came in sight of the Sunday School, I,
who knew all along whither it was tending, said, straight out,

"What class do you want me to teach?"

Mrs. Allan was so surprised that she forgot to be tactful, and
answered plainly for once in her life,

"There are two classes--one of boys and one of girls--needing
a teacher. I have been teaching the girls' class, but I shall
have to give it up for a little time on account of the baby's
health. You may have your choice, Miss MacPherson."

"Then I shall take the boys," I said decidedly. I am noted for
my decision. "Since they have to grow up to be men it's well
to train them properly betimes. Nuisances they are bound to
become under any circumstances; but if they are taken in hand
young enough they may not grow up to be such nuisances as they
otherwise would and that will be some unfortunate woman's
gain."
Mrs. Allan looked dubious. I knew she had expected me to
choose the girls.

"They are a very wild set of boys," she said.

"I never knew boys who weren't," I retorted.

"I--I--think perhaps you would like the girls best," said Mrs.
Allan hesitatingly. If it had not been for one thing--which I
would never in this world have admitted to Mrs. Allan--I might
have liked the girls' class best myself. But the truth was,
Anne Shirley was in that class; and Anne Shirley was the one
living human being that I was afraid of. Not that I disliked
her. But she had such a habit of asking weird, unexpected
questions, which a Philadelphia lawyer couldn't answer. Miss
Rogerson had that class once and Anne routed her, horse, foot
and artillery. _I_ wasn't going to undertake a class with a
walking interrogation point in it like that. Besides, I
thought Mrs. Allan required a slight snub. Ministers' wives
are rather apt to think they can run everything and everybody,
if they are not wholesomely corrected now and again.

"It is not what _I_ like best that must be considered, Mrs.
Allan," I said rebukingly. "It is what is best for those boys.
I feel that _I_ shall be best for THEM."

"Oh, I've no doubt of that, Miss MacPherson," said Mrs. Allan
amiably. It was a fib for her, minister's wife though she was.
She HAD doubt. She thought I would be a dismal failure as
teacher of a boys' class.

But I was not. I am not often a dismal failure when I make up
my mind to do a thing. I am noted for that.

"It is wonderful what a reformation you have worked in that
class, Miss MacPherson--wonderful," said the Rev. Mr. Allan
some weeks later. He didn't mean to show how amazing a thing
he thought it that an old maid noted for being a man hater
should have managed it, but his face betrayed him.

"Where does Jimmy Spencer live?" I asked him crisply. "He came
one Sunday three weeks ago and hasn't been back since. I mean
to find out why."

Mr. Allan coughed.

"I believe he is hired as handy boy with Alexander Abraham
Bennett, out on the White Sands road," he said.

"Then I am going out to Alexander Abraham Bennett's on the
White Sands road to see why Jimmy Spencer doesn't come to
Sunday school," I said firmly.

Mr. Allan's eyes twinkled ever so slightly. I have always
insisted that if that man were not a minister he would have a
sense of humour.

"Possibly Mr. Bennett will not appreciate your kind interest!
He has--ah--a singular aversion to your sex, I understand. No
woman has ever been known to get inside of Mr. Bennett's house
since his sister died twenty years ago."

"Oh, he is the one, is he?" I said, remembering. "He is the woman
hater who threatens that if a woman comes into his yard he'll
chase her out with a pitch-fork. Well, he will not chase ME out!"

Mr. Allan gave a chuckle--a ministerial chuckle, but still a
chuckle. It irritated me slightly, because it seemed to imply
that he thought Alexander Abraham Bennett would be one too
many for me. But I did not show Mr. Allan that he annoyed me.
It is always a great mistake to let a man see that he can vex you.

The next afternoon I harnessed my sorrel pony to the buggy and
drove down to Alexander Abraham Bennett's. As usual, I took
William Adolphus with me for company. William Adolphus is my
favourite among my six cats. He is black, with a white dicky
and beautiful white paws. He sat up on the seat beside me and
looked far more like a gentleman than many a man I've seen in
a similar position.

Alexander Abraham's place was about three miles along the
White Sands road. I knew the house as soon as I came to it by
its neglected appearance. It needed paint badly; the blinds
were crooked and torn; weeds grew up to the very door.
Plainly, there was no woman about THAT place. Still, it was
a nice house, and the barns were splendid. My father always
said that when a man's barns were bigger than his house it was
a sign that his income exceeded his expenditure. So it was all
right that they should be bigger; but it was all wrong that
they should be trimmer and better painted. Still, thought I,
what else could you expect of a woman hater?

"But Alexander Abraham evidently knows how to run a farm, even
it he is a woman hater," I remarked to William Adolphus as I
got out and tied the pony to the railing.

I had driven up to the house from the back way and now I was
opposite a side door opening on the veranda. I thought I might
as well go to it, so I tucked William Adolphus under my arm
and marched up the path. Just as I was half-way up, a dog
swooped around the front corner and made straight for me. He
was the ugliest dog I had ever seen; and he didn't even bark--
just came silently and speedily on, with a business-like eye.

I never stop to argue matters with a dog that doesn't bark. I
know when discretion is the better part of valour. Firmly
clasping William Adolphus, I ran--not to the door, because the
dog was between me and it, but to a big, low-branching cherry
tree at the back corner of the house. I reached it in time and
no more. First thrusting William Adolphus on to a limb above
my head, I scrambled up into that blessed tree without
stopping to think how it might look to Alexander Abraham if he
happened to be watching.

My time for reflection came when I found myself perched half
way up the tree with William Adolphus beside me. William
Adolphus was quite calm and unruffled. I can hardly say with
truthfulness what I was. On the contrary, I admit that I felt
considerably upset.

The dog was sitting on his haunches on the ground below,
watching us, and it was quite plain to be seen, from his
leisurely manner, that it was not his busy day. He bared his
teeth and growled when he caught my eye.

"You LOOK like a woman hater's dog," I told him. I meant it
for an insult; but the beast took it for a compliment.

Then I set myself to solving the question, "How am I to get
out of this predicament?"

It did not seem easy to solve it.

"Shall I scream, William Adolphus?" I demanded of that
intelligent animal. William Adolphus shook his head. This is a
fact. And I agreed with him.

"No, I shall not scream, William Adolphus," I said. "There is
probably no one to hear me except Alexander Abraham, and I
have my painful doubts about his tender mercies. Now, it is
impossible to go down. Is it, then, William Adolphus, possible
to go up?"

I looked up. Just above my head was an open window with a
tolerably stout branch extending right across it.

"Shall we try that way, William Adolphus?" I asked.

William Adolphus, wasting no words, began to climb the tree. I
followed his example. The dog ran in circles about the tree
and looked things not lawful to be uttered. It probably would
have been a relief to him to bark if it hadn't been so against
his principles.

I got in by the window easily enough, and found myself in a
bedroom the like of which for disorder and dust and general
awfulness I had never seen in all my life. But I did not pause
to take in details. With William Adolphus under my arm I
marched downstairs, fervently hoping I should meet no one on
the way.

I did not. The hall below was empty and dusty. I opened the
first door I came to and walked boldly in. A man was sitting
by the window, looking moodily out. I should have known him
for Alexander Abraham anywhere. He had just the same uncared-
for, ragged appearance that the house had; and yet, like the
house, it seemed that he would not be bad looking if he were
trimmed up a little. His hair looked as if it had never been
combed, and his whiskers were wild in the extreme.

He looked at me with blank amazement in his countenance.

"Where is Jimmy Spencer?" I demanded. "I have come to see
him."

"How did he ever let you in?" asked the man, staring at me.

"He didn't let me in," I retorted. "He chased me all over the
lawn, and I only saved myself from being torn piecemeal by
scrambling up a tree. You ought to be prosecuted for keeping
such a dog! Where is Jimmy?"

Instead of answering Alexander Abraham began to laugh in a
most unpleasant fashion.

"Trust a woman for getting into a man's house if she has made
up her mind to," he said disagreeably.

Seeing that it was his intention to vex me I remained cool and
collected.

"Oh, I wasn't particular about getting into your house, Mr.
Bennett," I said calmly. "I had but little choice in the
matter. It was get in lest a worse fate befall me. It was not
you or your house I wanted to see--although I admit that it is
worth seeing if a person is anxious to find out how dirty a
place CAN be. It was Jimmy. For the third and last time--
where is Jimmy?"

"Jimmy is not here," said Mr. Bennett gruffly--but not quite
so assuredly. "He left last week and hired with a man over at
Newbridge."

"In that case," I said, picking up William Adolphus, who had
been exploring the room with a disdainful air, "I won't
disturb you any longer. I shall go."

"Yes, I think it would be the wisest thing," said Alexander
Abraham--not disagreeably this time, but reflectively, as if
there was some doubt about the matter. "I'll let you out by
the back door. Then the--ahem!--the dog will not interfere
with you. Please go away quietly and quickly."

I wondered if Alexander Abraham thought I would go away with a
whoop. But I said nothing, thinking this the most dignified
course of conduct, and I followed him out to the kitchen as
quickly and quietly as he could have wished. Such a kitchen!

Alexander Abraham opened the door--which was locked--just as a
buggy containing two men drove into the yard.

"Too late!" he exclaimed in a tragic tone. I understood that
something dreadful must have happened, but I did not care,
since, as I fondly supposed, it did not concern me. I pushed
out past Alexander Abraham--who was looking as guilty as if he
had been caught burglarizing--and came face to face with the
man who had sprung from the buggy. It was old Dr. Blair, from
Carmody, and he was looking at me as if he had found me
shoplifting.

"My dear Peter," he said gravely, "I am VERY sorry to see
you here--very sorry indeed."

I admit that this exasperated me. Besides, no man on earth,
not even my own family doctor, has any right to "My dear
Peter" me!

"There is no loud call for sorrow, doctor," I said loftily.
"If a woman, forty-eight years of age, a member of the
Presbyterian church in good and regular standing, cannot call
upon one of her Sunday School scholars without wrecking all
the proprieties, how old must she be before she can?"

The doctor did not answer my question. Instead, he looked
reproachfully at Alexander Abraham.

"Is this how you keep your word, Mr. Bennett?" he said. "I
thought that you promised me that you would not let anyone
into the house."

"I didn't let her in," growled Mr. Bennett. "Good heavens,
man, she climbed in at an upstairs window, despite the
presence on my grounds of a policeman and a dog! What is to be
done with a woman like that?"

"I do not understand what all this means," I said addressing
myself to the doctor and ignoring Alexander Abraham entirely,
"but if my presence here is so extremely inconvenient to all
concerned, you can soon be relieved of it. I am going at
once."

"I am very sorry, my dear Peter," said the doctor
impressively, "but that is just what I cannot allow you to do.
This house is under quarantine for smallpox. You will have to
stay here."

Smallpox! For the first and last time in my life, I openly
lost my temper with a man. I wheeled furiously upon Alexander
Abraham.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I cried.

"Tell you!" he said, glaring at me. "When I first saw you it
was too late to tell you. I thought the kindest thing I could
do was to hold my tongue and let you get away in happy
ignorance. This will teach you to take a man's house by storm,
madam!"

"Now, now, don't quarrel, my good people," interposed the
doctor seriously--but I saw a twinkle in his eye. "You'll have
to spend some time together under the same roof and you won't
improve the situation by disagreeing. You see, Peter, it was
this way. Mr. Bennett was in town yesterday--where, as you are
aware, there is a bad outbreak of smallpox--and took dinner in
a boarding-house where one of the maids was ill. Last night
she developed unmistakable symptoms of smallpox. The Board of
Health at once got after all the people who were in the house
yesterday, so far as they could locate them, and put them
under quarantine. I came down here this morning and explained
the matter to Mr. Bennett. I brought Jeremiah Jeffries to
guard the front of the house and Mr. Bennett gave me his word
of honour that he would not let anyone in by the back way
while I went to get another policeman and make all the
necessary arrangements. I have brought Thomas Wright and have
secured the services of another man to attend to Mr. Bennett's
barn work and bring provisions to the house. Jacob Green and
Cleophas Lee will watch at night. I don't think there is much
danger of Mr. Bennett's taking the smallpox, but until we are
sure you must remain here, Peter."

While listening to the doctor I had been thinking. It was the
most distressing predicament I had ever got into in my life,
but there was no sense in making it worse.

"Very well, doctor," I said calmly. "Yes, I was vaccinated a
month ago, when the news of the smallpox first came. When you
go back through Avonlea kindly go to Sarah Pye and ask her to
live in my house during my absence and look after things,
especially the cats. Tell her to give them new milk twice a
day and a square inch of butter apiece once a week. Get her to
put my two dark print wrappers, some aprons, and some changes
of underclothing in my third best valise and have it sent down
to me. My pony is tied out there to the fence. Please take him
home. That is all, I think."

"No, it isn't all," said Alexander Abraham grumpily. "Send
that cat home, too. I won't have a cat around the place--I'd
rather have smallpox."

I looked Alexander Abraham over gradually, in a way I have,
beginning at his feet and traveling up to his head. I took my
time over it; and then I said, very quietly.

"You may have both. Anyway, you'll have to have William
Adolphus. He is under quarantine as well as you and I. Do you
suppose I am going to have my cat ranging at large through
Avonlea, scattering smallpox germs among innocent people? I'll
have to put up with that dog of yours. You will have to endure
William Adolphus."

Alexander Abraham groaned, but I could see that the way I had
looked him over had chastened him considerably.

The doctor drove away, and I went into the house, not choosing
to linger outside and be grinned at by Thomas Wright. I hung
my coat up in the hall and laid my bonnet carefully on the
sitting-room table, having first dusted a clean place for it
with my handkerchief. I longed to fall upon that house at once
and clean it up, but I had to wait until the doctor came back
with my wrapper. I could not clean house in my new suit and a
silk shirtwaist.

Alexander Abraham was sitting on a chair looking at me.
Presently he said,

"I am NOT curious--but will you kindly tell me why the
doctor called you Peter?"

"Because that is my name, I suppose," I answered, shaking up a
cushion for William Adolphus and thereby disturbing the dust
of years.

Alexander Abraham coughed gently.

"Isn't that--ahem!--rather a peculiar name for a woman?"

"It is," I said, wondering how much soap, if any, there was in
the house.

"I am NOT curious," said Alexander Abraham, "but would you
mind telling me how you came to be called Peter?"

"If I had been a boy my parents intended to call me Peter in
honour of a rich uncle. When I--fortunately--turned out to be
a girl my mother insisted that I should be called Angelina.
They gave me both names and called me Angelina, but as soon as
I grew old enough I decided to be called Peter. It was bad
enough, but not so bad as Angelina."

"I should say it was more appropriate," said Alexander
Abraham, intending, as I perceived, to be disagreeable.

"Precisely," I agreed calmly. "My last name is MacPherson, and
I live in Avonlea. As you are NOT curious, that will be all
the information you will need about me."

"Oh!" Alexander Abraham looked as if a light had broken in on
him. "I've heard of you. You--ah--pretend to dislike men."

Pretend! Goodness only knows what would have happened to
Alexander Abraham just then if a diversion had not taken
place. But the door opened and a dog came in--THE dog. I
suppose he had got tired waiting under the cherry tree for
William Adolphus and me to come down. He was even uglier
indoors than out.

"Oh, Mr. Riley, Mr. Riley, see what you have let me in for,"
said Alexander Abraham reproachfully.

But Mr. Riley--since that was the brute's name--paid no
attention to Alexander Abraham. He had caught sight of William
Adolphus curled up on the cushion, and he started across the
room to investigate him. William Adolphus sat up and began to
take notice.

"Call off that dog," I said warningly to Alexander Abraham.

"Call him off yourself," he retorted. "Since you've brought
that cat here you can protect him."

"Oh, it wasn't for William Adolphus' sake I spoke," I said
pleasantly. "William Adolphus can protect himself."

William Adolphus could and did. He humped his back, flattened
his ears, swore once, and then made a flying leap for Mr.
Riley. William Adolphus landed squarely on Mr. Riley's
brindled back and promptly took fast hold, spitting and
clawing and caterwauling.

You never saw a more astonished dog than Mr. Riley. With a
yell of terror he bolted out to the kitchen, out of the
kitchen into the hall, through the hall into the room, and so
into the kitchen and round again. With each circuit he went
faster and faster, until he looked like a brindled streak with
a dash of black and white on top. Such a racket and commotion
I never heard, and I laughed until the tears came into my
eyes. Mr. Riley flew around and around, and William Adolphus
held on grimly and clawed. Alexander Abraham turned purple
with rage.

"Woman, call off that infernal cat before he kills my dog," he
shouted above the din of yelps and yowls.

"Oh, he won't kill min," I said reassuringly, "and he's going
too fast to hear me if I did call him. If you can stop the
dog, Mr. Bennett, I'll guarantee to make William Adolphus
listen to reason, but there's no use trying to argue with a
lightning flash."

Alexander Abraham made a frantic lunge at the brindled streak
as it whirled past him, with the result that he overbalanced
himself and went sprawling on the floor with a crash. I ran to
help him up, which only seemed to enrage him further.

"Woman," he spluttered viciously, "I wish you and your fiend
of a cat were in--in--"

"In Avonlea," I finished quickly, to save Alexander Abraham
from committing profanity. "So do I, Mr. Bennett, with all my
heart. But since we are not, let us make the best of it like
sensible people. And in future you will kindly remember that
my name is Miss MacPherson, NOT Woman!"

With this the end came and I was thankful, for the noise those
two animals made was so terrific that I expected the policeman
would be rushing in, smallpox or no smallpox, to see if
Alexander Abraham and I were trying to murder each other. Mr.
Riley suddenly veered in his mad career and bolted into a dark
corner between the stove and the wood-box, William Adolphus
let go just in time.

There never was any more trouble with Mr. Riley after that. A
meeker, more thoroughly chastened dog you could not find.
William Adolphus had the best of it and he kept it.

Seeing that things had calmed down and that it was five
o'clock I decided to get tea. I told Alexander Abraham that I
would prepare it, if he would show me where the eatables were.

"You needn't mind," said Alexander Abraham. "I've been in the
habit of getting my own tea for twenty years."

"I daresay. But you haven't been in the habit of getting
mine," I said firmly. "I wouldn't eat anything you cooked if I
starved to death. If you want some occupation, you'd better
get some salve and anoint the scratches on that poor dog's
back."

Alexander Abraham said something that I prudently did not
hear. Seeing that he had no information to hand out I went on
an exploring expedition into the pantry. The place was awful
beyond description, and for the first time a vague sentiment
of pity for Alexander Abraham glimmered in my breast. When a
man had to live in such surroundings the wonder was, not that
he hated women, but that he didn't hate the whole human race.

But I got up a supper somehow. I am noted for getting up
suppers. The bread was from the Carmody bakery and I made good
tea and excellent toast; besides, I found a can of peaches in
the pantry which, as they were bought, I wasn't afraid to eat.

That tea and toast mellowed Alexander Abraham in spite of
himself. He ate the last crust, and didn't growl when I gave
William Adolphus all the cream that was left. Mr. Riley did
not seem to want anything. He had no appetite.

By this time the doctor's boy had arrived with my valise.
Alexander Abraham gave me quite civilly to understand that
there was a spare room across the hall and that I might take
possession of it. I went to it and put on a wrapper. There was
a set of fine furniture in the room, and a comfortable bed.
But the dust! William Adolphus had followed me in and his paws
left marks everywhere he walked.

"Now," I said briskly, returning to the kitchen, "I'm going to
clean up and I shall begin with this kitchen. You'd better
betake yourself to the sitting-room, Mr. Bennett, so as to be
out of the way."

Alexander Abraham glared at me.

"I'm not going to have my house meddled with," he snapped. "It
suits me. If you don't like it you can leave it."

"No, I can't. That is just the trouble," I said pleasantly.
"If I could leave it I shouldn't be here for a minute. Since I
can't, it simply has to be cleaned. I can tolerate men and
dogs when I am compelled to, but I cannot and will not
tolerate dirt and disorder. Go into the sitting-room."

Alexander Abraham went. As he closed the door, I heard him
say, in capitals, "WHAT AN AWFUL WOMAN!"

I cleared that kitchen and the pantry adjoining. It was ten
o'clock when I got through, and Alexander Abraham had gone to
bed without deigning further speech. I locked Mr. Riley in one
room and William Adolphus in another and went to bed, too. I
had never felt so dead tired in my life before. It had been a
hard day.

But I got up bright and early the next morning and got a
tiptop breakfast, which Alexander Abraham condescended to eat.
When the provision man came into the yard I called to him from
the window to bring me a box of soap in the afternoon, and
then I tackled the sitting-room.

It took me the best part of a week to get that house in order,
but I did it thoroughly. I am noted for doing things
thoroughly. At the end of the time it was clean from garret to
cellar. Alexander Abraham made no comments on my operations,
though he groaned loud and often, and said caustic things to
poor Mr. Riley, who hadn't the spirit to answer back after his
drubbing by William Adolphus. I made allowances for Alexander
Abraham because his vaccination had taken and his arm was real
sore; and I cooked elegant meals, not having much else to do,
once I had got things scoured up. The house was full of
provisions--Alexander Abraham wasn't mean about such things, I
will say that for him. Altogether, I was more comfortable than
I had expected to be. When Alexander Abraham wouldn't talk I
let him alone; and when he would I just said as sarcastic
things as he did, only I said them smiling and pleasant. I
could see he had a wholesome awe for me. But now and then he
seemed to forget his disposition and talked like a human
being. We had one or two real interesting conversations.
Alexander Abraham was an intelligent man, though he had got
terribly warped. I told him once I thought he must have been
nice when he was a boy.

One day he astonished me by appearing at the dinner table with
his hair brushed and a white collar on. We had a tiptop dinner
that day, and I had made a pudding that was far too good for a
woman hater. When Alexander Abraham had disposed of two large
platefuls of it, he sighed and said,

"You can certainly cook. It's a pity you are such a detestable
crank in other respects."

"It's kind of convenient being a crank," I said. "People are
careful how they meddle with you. Haven't you found that out
in your own experience?"

"I am NOT a crank," growled Alexander Abraham resentfully.
"All I ask is to be let alone."

"That's the very crankiest kind of crank," I said. "A person
who wants to be let alone flies in the face of Providence, who
decreed that folks for their own good were not to be let
alone. But cheer up, Mr. Bennett. The quarantine will be up on
Tuesday and then you'll certainly be let alone for the rest of
your natural life, as far as William Adolphus and I are
concerned. You may then return to your wallowing in the mire
and be as dirty and comfortable as of yore."

Alexander Abraham growled again. The prospect didn't seem to
cheer him up as much as I should have expected. Then he did an
amazing thing. He poured some cream into a saucer and set it
down before William Adolphus. William Adolphus lapped it up,
keeping one eye on Alexander Abraham lest the latter should
change his mind. Not to be outdone, I handed Mr. Riley a bone.

Neither Alexander Abraham nor I had worried much about the
smallpox. We didn't believe he would take it, for he hadn't
even seen the girl who was sick. But the very next morning I
heard him calling me from the upstairs landing.

"Miss MacPherson," he said in a voice so uncommonly mild that
it gave me an uncanny feeling, "what are the symptoms of
smallpox?"

"Chills and flushes, pain in the limbs and back, nausea and
vomiting," I answered promptly, for I had been reading them up
in a patent medicine almanac.

"I've got them all," said Alexander Abraham hollowly.

I didn't feel as much scared as I should have expected. After
enduring a woman hater and a brindled dog and the early
disorder of that house--and coming off best with all three--
smallpox seemed rather insignificant. I went to the window and
called to Thomas Wright to send for the doctor.

The doctor came down from Alexander Abraham's room looking
grave.

"It's impossible to pronounce on the disease yet," he said.
"There is no certainty until the eruption appears. But, of
course, there is every likelihood that it is the smallpox. It
is very unfortunate. I am afraid that it will be difficult to
get a nurse. All the nurses in town who will take smallpox
cases are overbusy now, for the epidemic is still raging
there. However, I'll go into town to-night and do my best.
Meanwhile, at present, you must not go near him, Peter."

I wasn't going to take orders from any man, and as soon as the
doctor had gone I marched straight up to Alexander Abraham's
room with some dinner for him on a tray. There was a lemon
cream I thought he could eat even if he had the smallpox.

"You shouldn't come near me," he growled. "You are risking
your life."

"I am not going to see a fellow creature starve to death, even
if he is a man," I retorted.

"The worst of it all," groaned Alexander Abraham, between
mouthfuls of lemon cream, "is that the doctor says I've got to
have a nurse. I've got so kind of used to you being in the
house that I don't mind you, but the thought of another woman
coming here is too much. Did you give my poor dog anything to
eat?"

"He has had a better dinner than many a Christian," I said
severely.

Alexander Abraham need not have worried about another woman
coming in. The doctor came back that night with care on his
brow.

"I don't know what is to be done," he said. "I can't get a
soul to come here."

"_I_ shall nurse Mr. Bennett," I said with dignity. "It is my
duty and I never shirk my duty. I am noted for that. He is a
man, and he has smallpox, and he keeps a vile dog; but I am
not going to see him die for lack of care for all that."

"You're a good soul, Peter," said the doctor, looking
relieved, manlike, as soon as he found a woman to shoulder the
responsibility.

I nursed Alexander Abraham through the smallpox, and I didn't
mind it much. He was much more amiable sick than well, and he
had the disease in a very mild form. Below stairs I reigned
supreme and Mr. Riley and William Adolphus lay down together
like the lion and the lamb. I fed Mr. Riley regularly, and
once, seeing him looking lonesome, I patted him gingerly. It
was nicer than I thought it would be. Mr. Riley lifted his
head and looked at me with an expression in his eyes which
cured me of wondering why on earth Alexander Abraham was so
fond of the beast.

When Alexander Abraham was able to sit up, he began to make up
for the time he'd lost being pleasant. Anything more sarcastic
than that man in his convalescence you couldn't imagine. I
just laughed at him, having found out that that could be
depended on to irritate him. To irritate him still further I
cleaned the house all over again. But what vexed him most of
all was that Mr. Riley took to following me about and wagging
what he had of a tail at me.

"It wasn't enough that you should come into my peaceful home
and turn it upside down, but you have to alienate the
affections of my dog," complained Alexander Abraham.

"He'll get fond of you again when I go home," I said
comfortingly. "Dogs aren't very particular that way. What they
want is bones. Cats now, they love disinterestedly. William
Adolphus has never swerved in his allegiance to me, although
you do give him cream in the pantry on the sly."

Alexander Abraham looked foolish. He hadn't thought I knew
that.

I didn't take the smallpox and in another week the doctor came
out and sent the policeman home. I was disinfected and William
Adolphus was fumigated, and then we were free to go.

"Good-bye, Mr. Bennett," I said, offering to shake hands in a
forgiving spirit. "I've no doubt that you are glad to be rid
of me, but you are no gladder than I am to go. I suppose this
house will be dirtier than ever in a month's time, and Mr.
Riley will have discarded the little polish his manners have
taken on. Reformation with men and dogs never goes very deep."

With this Parthian shaft I walked out of the house, supposing
that I had seen the last of it and Alexander Abraham.

I was glad to get back home, of course; but it did seem queer
and lonesome. The cats hardly knew me, and William Adolphus
roamed about forlornly and appeared to feel like an exile. I
didn't take as much pleasure in cooking as usual, for it
seemed kind of foolish to be fussing over oneself. The sight
of a bone made me think of poor Mr. Riley. The neighbours
avoided me pointedly, for they couldn't get rid of the fear
that I might erupt into smallpox at any moment. My Sunday
School class had been given to another woman, and altogether I
felt as if I didn't belong anywhere.

I had existed like this for a fortnight when Alexander Abraham
suddenly appeared. He walked in one evening at dusk, but at
first sight I didn't know him he was so spruced and barbered
up. But William Adolphus knew him. Will you believe it,
William Adolphus, my own William Adolphus, rubbed up against
that man's trouser leg with an undisguised purr of
satisfaction.

"I had to come, Angelina," said Alexander Abraham. "I couldn't
stand it any longer."

"My name is Peter," I said coldly, although I was feeling
ridiculously glad about something.

"It isn't," said Alexander Abraham stubbornly. "It is Angelina
for me, and always will be. I shall never call you Peter.
Angelina just suits you exactly; and Angelina Bennett would
suit you still better. You must come back, Angelina. Mr. Riley
is moping for you, and I can't get along without somebody to
appreciate my sarcasms, now that you have accustomed me to the
luxury."

"What about the other five cats?" I demanded.

Alexander Abraham sighed.

"I suppose they'll have to come too," he sighed, "though no
doubt they'll chase poor Mr. Riley clean off the premises. But
I can live without him, and I can't without you. How soon can
you be ready to marry me?"

"I haven't said that I was going to marry you at all, have I?"
I said tartly, just to be consistent. For I wasn't feeling
tart.

"No, but you will, won't you?" said Alexander Abraham
anxiously. "Because if you won't, I wish you'd let me die of
the smallpox. Do, dear Angelina."

To think that a man should dare to call me his "dear
Angelina!" And to think that I shouldn't mind!

"Where I go, William Adolphus goes," I said, "but I shall give
away the other five cats for--for the sake of Mr. Riley."




IX. Pa Sloane's Purchase


"I guess the molasses is getting low, ain't it?" said Pa
Sloane insinuatingly. "S'pose I'd better drive up to Carmody
this afternoon and get some more."

"There's a good half-gallon of molasses in the jug yet," said
ma Sloane ruthlessly.

"That so? Well, I noticed the kerosene demijohn wasn't very
hefty the last time I filled the can. Reckon it needs
replenishing."

"We have kerosene enough to do for a fortnight yet." Ma
continued to eat her dinner with an impassive face, but a
twinkle made itself apparent in her eye. Lest Pa should see
it, and feel encouraged thereby, she looked immovably at her
plate.

Pa Sloane sighed. His invention was giving out.

"Didn't I hear you say day before yesterday that you were out
of nutmegs?" he queried, after a few moments' severe
reflection.

"I got a supply of them from the egg-pedlar yesterday,"
responded Ma, by a great effort preventing the twinkle from
spreading over her entire face. She wondered if this third
failure would squelch Pa. But Pa was not to be squelched.

"Well, anyway," he said, brightening up under the influence of
a sudden saving inspiration. "I'll have to go up to get the
sorrel mare shod. So, if you've any little errands you want
done at the store, Ma, just make a memo of them while I hitch
up."

The matter of shoeing the sorrel mare was beyond Ma's
province, although she had her own suspicions about the sorrel
mare's need of shoes.

"Why can't you give up beating about the bush, Pa?" she
demanded, with contemptuous pity. "You might as well own up
what's taking you to Carmody. _I_ can see through your design.
You want to get away to the Garland auction. That is what is
troubling you, Pa Sloane."

"I dunno but what I might step over, seeing it's so handy. But
the sorrel mare really does need shoeing, Ma," protested Pa.

"There's always something needing to be done if it's
convenient," retorted Ma. "Your mania for auctions will be the
ruin of you yet, Pa. A man of fifty-five ought to have grown
out of such a hankering. But the older you get the worse you
get. Anyway, if _I_ wanted to go to auctions, I'd select them
as was something like, and not waste my time on little one-
horse affairs like this of Garland's."

"One might pick up something real cheap at Garland's," said Pa
defensively.

"Well, you are not going to pick up anything, cheap or
otherwise, Pa Sloane, because I'm going with you to see that
you don't. I know I can't stop you from going. I might as well
try to stop the wind from blowing. But I shall go, too, out of
self-defence. This house is so full now of old clutter and
truck that you've brought home from auctions that I feel as if
I was made up out of pieces and left overs."

Pa Sloane sighed again. It was not exhilarating to attend an
auction with Ma. She would never let him bid on anything. But
he realized that Ma's mind was made up beyond the power of
mortal man's persuasion to alter it, so he went out to hitch
up.

Pa Sloane's dissipation was going to auctions and buying
things that nobody else would buy. Ma Sloane's patient
endeavours of over thirty years had been able to effect only a
partial reform. Sometimes Pa heroically refrained from going
to an auction for six months at a time; then he would break
out worse than ever, go to all that took place for miles
around, and come home with a wagonful of misfits. His last
exploit had been to bid on an old dasher churn for five
dollars--the boys "ran things up" on Pa Sloane for the fun of
it--and bring it home to outraged Ma, who had made her butter
for fifteen years in the very latest, most up-to-date barrel
churn. To add insult to injury this was the second dasher
churn Pa had bought at auction. That settled it. Ma decreed
that henceforth she would chaperon Pa when he went to
auctions.

But this was the day of Pa's good angel. When he drove up to
the door where Ma was waiting, a breathless, hatless imp of
ten flew into the yard, and hurled himself between Ma and the
wagon-step.

"Oh, Mrs. Sloane, won't you come over to our house at once?"
he gasped. "The baby, he's got colic, and ma's just wild, and
he's all black in the face."

Ma went, feeling that the stars in their courses fought
against a woman who was trying to do her duty by her husband.
But first she admonished Pa.

"I shall have to let you go alone. But I charge you, Pa, not
to bid on anything--on ANYTHING, do you hear?"

Pa heard and promised to heed, with every intention of keeping
his promise. Then he drove away joyfully. On any other
occasion Ma would have been a welcome companion. But she
certainly spoiled the flavour of an auction.

When Pa arrived at the Carmody store, he saw that the little
yard of the Garland place below the hill was already full of
people. The auction had evidently begun; so, not to miss any
more of it, Pa hurried down. The sorrel mare could wait for
her shoes until afterwards.

Ma had been within bounds when she called the Garland auction
a "one-horse affair." It certainly was very paltry, especially
when compared to the big Donaldson auction of a month ago,
which Pa still lived over in happy dreams.

Horace Garland and his wife had been poor. When they died
within six weeks of each other, one of consumption and one of
pneumonia, they left nothing but debts and a little furniture.
The house had been a rented one.

The bidding on the various poor articles of household gear put
up for sale was not brisk, but had an element of resigned
determination. Carmody people knew that these things had to be
sold to pay the debts, and they could not be sold unless they
were bought. Still, it was a very tame affair.

A woman came out of the house carrying a baby of about
eighteen months in her arms, and sat down on the bench beneath
the window.

"There's Marthy Blair with the Garland Baby," said Robert
Lawson to Pa. "I'd like to know what's to become of that poor
young one!"

"Ain't there any of the father's or mother's folks to take
him?" asked Pa.

"No. Horace had no relatives that anybody ever heard of. Mrs.
Horace had a brother; but he went to Mantioba years ago, and
nobody knows where he is now. Somebody'll have to take the
baby and nobody seems anxious to. I've got eight myself, or
I'd think about it. He's a fine little chap."

Pa, with Ma's parting admonition ringing in his ears, did not
bid on anything, although it will never be known how great was
the heroic self-restraint he put on himself, until just at the
last, when he did bid on a collection of flower-pots, thinking
he might indulge himself to that small extent. But Josiah
Sloane had been commissioned by his wife to bring those
flower-pots home to her; so Pa lost them.

"There, that's all," said the auctioneer, wiping his face, for
the day was very warm for October.

"There's nothing more unless we sell the baby."

A laugh went through the crowd. The sale had been a dull
affair, and they were ready for some fun. Someone called out,
"Put him up, Jacob." The joke found favour and the call was
repeated hilariously.

Jacob Blair took little Teddy Garland out of Martha's arms and
stood him up on the table by the door, steadying the small
chap with one big brown hand. The baby had a mop of yellow
curls, and a pink and white face, and big blue eyes. He
laughed out at the men before him and waved his hands in
delight. Pa Sloane thought he had never seen so pretty a baby.

"Here's a baby for sale," shouted the auctioneer. "A genuine
article, pretty near as good as brand-new. A real live baby,
warranted to walk and talk a little. Who bids? A dollar? Did I
hear anyone mean enough to bid a dollar? No, sir, babies don't
come as cheap as that, especially the curly-headed brand."

The crowd laughed again. Pa Sloane, by way of keeping on the
joke, cried, "Four dollars!"

Everybody looked at him. The impression flashed through the
crowd that Pa was in earnest, and meant thus to signify his
intention of giving the baby a home. He was well-to-do, and
his only son was grown up and married.

"Six," cried out John Clarke from the other side of the yard.
John Clarke lived at White Sands and he and his wife were
childless.

That bid of John Clarke's was Pa's undoing. Pa Sloane could
not have an enemy; but a rival he had, and that rival was John
Clarke. Everywhere at auctions John Clarke was wont to bid
against Pa. At the last auction he had outbid Pa in
everything, not having the fear of his wife before his eyes.
Pa's fighting blood was up in a moment; he forgot Ma Sloane;
he forgot what he was bidding for; he forgot everything except
a determination that John Clarke should not be victor again.

"Ten," he called shrilly.

"Fifteen," shouted Clarke.

"Twenty," vociferated Pa.

"Twenty-five," bellowed Clarke.

"Thirty," shrieked Pa. He nearly bust a blood-vessel in his
shrieking, but he had won. Clarke turned off with a laugh and
a shrug, and the baby was knocked down to Pa Sloane by the
auctioneer, who had meanwhile been keeping the crowd in roars
of laughter by a quick fire of witticisms. There had not been
such fun at an auction in Carmody for many a long day.

Pa Sloane came, or was pushed, forward. The baby was put into
his arms; he realized that he was expected to keep it, and he
was too dazed to refuse; besides, his heart went out to the
child.

The auctioneer looked doubtfully at the money which Pa laid
mutely down.

"I s'pose that part was only a joke," he said.

"Not a bit of it," said Robert Lawson. "All the money won't
bee too much to pay the debts. There's a doctor's bill, and
this will just about pay it."

Pa Sloane drove back home, with the sorrel mare still unshod,
the baby, and the baby's meager bundle of clothes. The baby
did not trouble him much; it had become well used to strangers
in the past two months, and promptly fell asleep on his arm;
but Pa Sloane did not enjoy that drive; at the end of it; he
mentally saw Ma Sloane.

Ma was there, too, waiting for him on the back door-step as he
drove into the yard at sunset. Her face, when she saw the
baby, expressed the last degree of amazement.

"Pa Sloane," she demanded, "whose is that young one, and there
did you get it?"

"I--I--bought it at the auction, Ma," said Pa feebly. Then he
waited for the explosion. None came. This last exploit of Pa's
was too much for Ma.

With a gasp she snatched the baby from Pa's arms, and ordered
him to go out and put the mare in. When Pa returned to the
kitchen Ma had set the baby on the sofa, fenced him around
with chairs so that he couldn't fall off and given him a
molassed cooky.

"Now, Pa Sloane, you can explain," she said.

Pa explained. Ma listened in grim silence until he had
finished. Then she said sternly:

"Do you reckon we're going to keep this baby?"

"I--I--dunno," said Pa. And he didn't.

"Well, we're NOT. I brought up one boy and that's enough. I
don't calculate to be pestered with any more. I never was much
struck on children _as_ children, anyhow. You say that Mary
Garland had a brother out in Mantioba? Well, we shall just
write to him and tell him he's got to look out for his nephew."

"But how can you do that, Ma, when nobody knows his address?"
objected Pa, with a wistful look at that delicious, laughing baby.

"I'll find out his address if I have to advertise in the
papers for him," retorted Ma. "As for you, Pa Sloane, you're
not fit to be out of a lunatic asylum. The next auction you'll
be buying a wife, I s'pose?"

Pa, quite crushed by Ma's sarcasm, pulled his chair in to
supper. Ma picked up the baby and sat down at the head of the
table. Little Teddy laughed and pinched her face--Ma's face!
Ma looked very grim, but she fed him his supper as skilfully
as if it had not been thirty years since she had done such a
thing. But then, the woman who once learns the mother knack
never forgets it.

After tea Ma despatched Pa over to William Alexander's to
borrow a high chair. When Pa returned in the twilight, the
baby was fenced in on the sofa again, and Ma was stepping
briskly about the garret. She was bringing down the little cot
bed her own boy had once occupied, and setting it up in their
room for Teddy. Then she undressed the baby and rocked him to
sleep, crooning an old lullaby over him. Pa Sloane sat quietly
and listened, with very sweet memories of the long ago, when
he and Ma had been young and proud, and the bewhiskered
William Alexander had been a curly-headed little fellow like
this one.

Ma was not driven to advertising for Mrs. Garland's brother.
That personage saw the notice of his sister's death in a home
paper and wrote to the Carmody postmaster for full
information. The letter was referred to Ma and Ma answered it.

She wrote that they had taken in the baby, pending further
arrangements, but had no intention of keeping it; and she
calmly demanded of its uncle what was to be done with it. Then
she sealed and addressed the letter with an unfaltering hand;
but, when it was done, she looked across the table at Pa
Sloane, who was sitting in the armchair with the baby on his
knee. They were having a royal good time together. Pa had
always been dreadfully foolish about babies. He looked ten
years younger. Ma's keen eyes softened a little as she watched
them.

A prompt answer came to her letter. Teddy's uncle wrote that
he had six children of his own, but was nevertheless willing
and glad to give his little nephew a home. But he could not
come after him. Josiah Spencer, of White Sands, was going out
to Manitoba in the spring. If Mr. and Mrs. Sloane could only
keep the baby till then he could be sent out with the
Spencers. Perhaps they would see a chance sooner.

"There'll be no chance sooner," said Pa Sloane in a tone of
satisfaction.

"No, worse luck!" retorted Ma crisply.

The winter passed by. Little Teddy grew and throve, and Pa
Sloane worshipped him. Ma was very good to him, too, and Teddy
was just as fond of her as of Pa.

Nevertheless, as the spring drew near, Pa became depressed.
Sometimes he sighed heavily, especially when he heard casual
references to the Josiah Spencer emigration.

One warm afternoon in early May Josiah Spencer arrived. He
found Ma knitting placidly in the kitchen, while Pa nodded
over his newspaper and the baby played with the cat on the
floor.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Sloane," said Josiah with a flourish. "I
just dropped in to see about this young man here. We are going
to leave next Wednesday; so you'd better send him down to our
place Monday or Tuesday, so that he can get used to us, and--"

"Oh, Ma," began Pa, rising imploringly to his feet.

Ma transfixed him with her eye.

"Sit down, Pa," she commanded.

Unhappy Pa sat.

Then Ma glared at the smiling Josiah, who instantly felt as
guilty as if he had been caught stealing sheep red-handed.

"We are much obliged to you, Mr. Spencer," said Ma icily, "but
this baby is OURS. We bought him, and we paid for him. A
bargain is a bargain. When I pay cash down for babies, I
propose to get my money's worth. We are going to keep this
baby in spite of any number of uncles in Manitoba. Have I made
this sufficiently clear to your understanding, Mr. Spencer?"

"Certainly, certainly," stammered the unfortunate man, feeling
guiltier than ever, "but I thought you didn't want him--I
thought you'd written to his uncle--I thought--"

"I really wouldn't think quite so much if I were you," said Ma
kindly. "It must be hard on you. Won't you stay and have tea
with us?"

But, no, Josiah would not stay. He was thankful to make his
escape with such rags of self-respect as remained to him.

Pa Sloane arose and came around to Ma's chair. He laid a
trembling hand on her shoulder.

"Ma, you're a good woman," he said softly.

"Go 'long, Pa," said Ma.





X. The Courting of Prissy Strong


I WASN'T able to go to prayer meeting that evening because I
had neuralgia in my face; but Thomas went, and the minute he
came home I knew by the twinkle in his eye that he had some news.

"Who do you s'pose Stephen Clark went home with from meeting
to-night?" he said, chuckling.

"Jane Miranda Blair," I said promptly. Stephen Clark's wife
had been dead for two years and he hadn't taken much notice of
anybody, so far as was known. But Carmody had Jane Miranda all
ready for him, and really I don't know why she didn't suit
him, except for the reason that a man never does what he is
expected to do when it comes to marrying.

Thomas chuckled again.

"Wrong. He stepped up to Prissy Strong and walked off with
her. Cold soup warmed over."

"Prissy Strong!" I just held up my hands. Then I laughed. "He
needn't try for Prissy," I said. "Emmeline nipped that in the
bud twenty years ago, and she'll do it again."

"Em'line is an old crank," growled Thomas. He detested
Emmeline Strong, and always did.

"She's that, all right," I agreed, "and that is just the
reason she can turn poor Prissy any way she likes. You mark my
words, she'll put her foot right down on this as soon as she
finds it out."

Thomas said that I was probably right. I lay awake for a long
time after I went to bed that night, thinking of Prissy and
Stephen. As a general rule, I don't concern my head about
other people's affairs, but Prissy was such a helpless
creature I couldn't get her off my mind.

Twenty years ago Stephen Clark had tried to go with Prissy
Strong. That was pretty soon after Prissy's father had died.
She and Emmeline were living alone together. Emmeline was
thirty, ten years older than Prissy, and if ever there were
two sisters totally different from each other in every way,
those two were Emmeline and Prissy Strong.

Emmeline took after her father; she was big and dark and
homely, and she was the most domineering creature that ever
stepped on shoe leather. She simply ruled poor Prissy with a
rod of iron.

Prissy herself was a pretty girl--at least most people thought
so. I can't honestly say I ever admired her style much myself.
I like something with more vim and snap to it. Prissy was slim
and pink, with soft, appealing blue eyes, and pale gold hair
all clinging in baby rings around her face. She was just as
meek and timid as she looked and there wasn't a bit of harm in
her. I always liked Prissy, even if I didn't admire her looks
as much as some people did.

Anyway, it was plain her style suited Stephen Clark. He began
to drive her, and there wasn't a speck of doubt that Prissy
liked him. Then Emmeline just put a stopper on the affair. It
was pure cantankerousness in her. Stephen was a good match and
nothing could be said against him. But Emmeline was just
determined that Prissy shouldn't marry. She couldn't get
married herself, and she was sore enough about it.

Of course, if Prissy had had a spark of spirit she wouldn't
have given in. But she hadn't a mite; I believe she would have
cut off her nose if Emmeline had ordered her to do it. She was
just her mother over again. If ever a girl belied her name,
Prissy Strong did. There wasn't anything strong about her.

One night, when prayer meeting came out, Stephen stepped up to
Prissy as usual and asked if he might see her home. Thomas and
I were just behind--we weren't married ourselves then--and we
heard it all. Prissy gave one scared, appealing look at
Emmeline and then said, "No, thank you, not to-night."

Stephen just turned on his heel and went. He was a high-
spirited fellow and I knew he would never overlook a public
slight like that. If he had had as much sense as he ought to
have had he would have known that Emmeline was at the bottom
of it; but he didn't, and he began going to see Althea Gillis,
and they were married the next year. Althea was a rather nice
girl, though giddy, and I think she and Stephen were happy
enough together. In real life things are often like that.

Nobody ever tried to go with Prissy again. I suppose they were
afraid of Emmeline. Prissy's beauty soon faded. She was always
kind of sweet looking, but her bloom went, and she got shyer
and limper every year of her life. She wouldn't have dared put
on her second best dress without asking Emmeline's permission.
She was real fond of cats and Emmeline wouldn't let her keep
one. Emmeline even cut the serial out of the religious weekly
she took before she would give it to Prissy, because she
didn't believe in reading novels. It used to make me furious
to see it all. They were my next door neighbours after I
married Thomas, and I was often in and out. Sometimes I'd feel
real vexed at Prissy for giving in the way she did; but, after
all, she couldn't help it--she was born that way.

And now Stephen was going to try his luck again. It certainly
did seem funny.

Stephen walked home with Prissy from prayer meeting four
nights before Emmeline found it out. Emmeline hadn't been
going to prayer meeting all that summer because she was mad at
Mr. Leonard. She had expressed her disapproval to him because
he had buried old Naomi Clark at the harbour "just as if she
was a Christian," and Mr. Leonard had said something to her
she couldn't get over for a while. I don't know what it was,
but I know that when Mr. Leonard WAS roused to rebuke anyone
the person so rebuked remembered it for a spell.

All at once I knew she must have discovered about Stephen and
Prissy, for Prissy stopped going to prayer meeting.

I felt real worried about it, someway, and although Thomas
said for goodness' sake not to go poking my fingers into other
people's pies, I felt as if I ought to do something. Stephen
Clark was a good man and Prissy would have a beautiful home;
and those two little boys of Althea's needed a mother if ever
boys did. Besides, I knew quite well that Prissy, in her
secret soul, was hankering to be married. So was Emmeline,
too--but nobody wanted to help HER to a husband.

The upshot of my meditations was that I asked Stephen down to
dinner with us from church one day. I had heard a rumour that
he was going to see Lizzie Pye over at Avonlea, and I knew it
was time to be stirring, if anything were to be done. If it
had been Jane Miranda I don't know that I'd have bothered; but
Lizzie Pye wouldn't have done for a stepmother for Althea's
boys at all. She was too bad-tempered, and as mean as second
skimmings besides.

Stephen came. He seemed dull and moody, and not much inclined
to talk. After dinner I gave Thomas a hint. I said,

"You go to bed and have your nap. I want to talk to Stephen."

Thomas shrugged his shoulders and went. He probably thought I
was brewing up lots of trouble for myself, but he didn't say
anything. As soon as he was out of the way I casually remarked
to Stephen that I understood that he was going to take one of
my neighbours away and that I couldn't be sorry, though she
was an excellent neighbour and I would miss her a great deal.

"You won't have to miss her much, I reckon," said Stephen
grimly. "I've been told I'm not wanted there."

I was surprised to hear Stephen come out so plump and plain
about it, for I hadn't expected to get at the root of the
matter so easily. Stephen wasn't the confidential kind. But it
really seemed to be a relief to him to talk about it; I never
saw a man feeling so sore about anything. He told me the whole
story.

Prissy had written him a letter--he fished it out of his
pocket and gave it to me to read. It was in Prissy's prim,
pretty little writing, sure enough, and it just said that his
attentions were "unwelcome," and would he be "kind enough to
refrain from offering them." Not much wonder the poor man went
to see Lizzie Pye!

"Stephen, I'm surprised at you for thinking that Prissy Strong
wrote that letter," I said.

"It's in her handwriting," he said stubbornly.

"Of course it is. 'The hand is the hand of Esau, but the voice
is the voice of Jacob,'" I said, though I wasn't sure whether
the quotation was exactly appropriate. "Emmeline composed that
letter and made Prissy copy it out. I know that as well as if
I'd seen her do it, and you ought to have known it, too."

"If I thought that I'd show Emmeline I could get Prissy in
spite of her," said Stephen savagely. "But if Prissy doesn't
want me I'm not going to force my attentions on her."

Well, we talked it over a bit, and in the end I agreed to
sound Prissy, and find out what she really thought about it. I
didn't think it would be hard to do; and it wasn't. I went
over the very next day because I saw Emmeline driving off to
the store. I found Prissy alone, sewing carpet rags. Emmeline
kept her constantly at that--because Prissy hated it I
suppose. Prissy was crying when I went in, and in a few
minutes I had the whole story.

Prissy wanted to get married--and she wanted to get married to
Stephen--and Emmeline wouldn't let her.

"Prissy Strong," I said in exasperation, "you haven't the
spirit of a mouse! Why on earth did you write him such a
letter?"

"Why, Emmeline made me," said Prissy, as if there couldn't be
any appeal from that; and I knew there couldn't--for Prissy. I
also knew that if Stephen wanted to see Prissy again Emmeline
must know nothing of it, and I told him so when he came down
the next evening--to borrow a hoe, he said. It was a long way
to come for a hoe.

"Then what am I to do?" he said. "It wouldn't be any use to
write, for it would likely fall into Emmeline's hands. She
won't let Prissy go anywhere alone after this, and how am I to
know when the old cat is away?"

"Please don't insult cats," I said. "I'll tell you what we'll
do. You can see the ventilator on our barn from your place,
can't you? You'd be able to make out a flag or something tied
to it, wouldn't you, through that spy-glass of yours?"

Stephen thought he could.

"Well, you take a squint at it every now and then," I said.
"Just as soon as Emmeline leaves Prissy alone I'll hoist the
signal."

The chance didn't come for a whole fortnight. Then, one
evening, I saw Emmeline striding over the field below our
house. As soon as she was out of sight I ran through the birch
grove to Prissy.

"Yes, Em'line's gone to sit up with Jane Lawson to-night,"
said Prissy, all fluttered and trembling.

"Then you put on your muslin dress and fix your hair," I said.
"I'm going home to get Thomas to tie something to that
ventilator."

But do you think Thomas would do it? Not he. He said he owed
something to his position as elder in the church. In the end I
had to do it myself, though I don't like climbing ladders. I
tied Thomas' long red woollen scarf to the ventilator, and
prayed that Stephen would see it. He did, for in less than an
hour he drove down our lane and put his horse in our barn. He
was all spruced up, and as nervous and excited as a schoolboy.
He went right over to Prissy, and I began to tuft my new
comfort with a clear conscience. I shall never know why it
suddenly came into my head to go up to the garret and make
sure that the moths hadn't got into my box of blankets; but I
always believed that it was a special interposition of
Providence. I went up and happened to look out of the east
window; and there I saw Emmeline Strong coming home across our
pond field.

I just flew down those garret stairs and out through the
birches. I burst into the Strong kitchen, where Stephen and
Prissy were sitting as cozy as you please.

"Stephen, come quick! Emmeline's nearly here," I cried.

Prissy looked out of the window and wrung her hands.

"Oh, she's in the lane now," she gasped. "He can't get out of
the house without her seeing him. Oh, Rosanna, what shall we
do?

I really don't know what would have become of those two people
if I hadn't been in existence to find ideas for them.

"Take Stephen up to the garret and hide him there, Prissy," I
said firmly, "and take him quick."

Prissy took him quick, but she had barely time to get back to
the kitchen before Emmeline marched in--mad as a wet hen
because somebody had been ahead of her offering to sit up with
Jane Lawson, and so she lost the chance of poking and prying
into things while Jane was asleep. The minute she clapped eyes
on Prissy she suspected something. It wasn't any wonder, for
there was Prissy, all dressed up, with flushed cheeks and
shining eyes. She was all in a quiver of excitement, and
looked ten years younger.

"Priscilla Strong, you've been expecting Stephen Clark here
this evening!" burst out Emmeline. "You wicked, deceitful,
underhanded, ungrateful creature!"

And she went on storming at Prissy, who began to cry, and
looked so weak and babyish that I was frightened she would
betray the whole thing.

"This is between you and Prissy, Emmeline," I struck in, "and
I'm not going to interfere. But I want to get you to come over
and show me how to tuft my comfort that new pattern you
learned in Avonlea, and as it had better be done before dark I
wish you'd come right away."

"I s'pose I'll go," said Emmeline ungraciously, "but Priscilla
shall come, too, for I see that she isn't to be trusted out of
my sight after this."

I hoped Stephen would see us from the garret window and make
good his escape. But I didn't dare trust to chance, so when I
got Emmeline safely to work on my comfort I excused myself and
slipped out. Luckily my kitchen was on the off side of the
house, but I was a nervous woman as I rushed across to the
Strong place and dashed up Emmeline's garret stairs to
Stephen. It was fortunate I had come, for he didn't know we
had gone. Prissy had hidden him behind the loom and he didn't
dare move for fear Emmeline would hear him on that creaky
floor. He was a sight with cobwebs.

I got him down and smuggled him into our barn, and he stayed
there until it was dark and the Strong girls had gone home.
Emmeline began to rage at Prissy the moment they were outside
my door.

Then Stephen came in and we talked things over. He and Prissy
had made good use of their time, short as it had been. Prissy
had promised to marry him, and all that remained was to get
the ceremony performed.

"And that will be no easy matter," I warned him. "Now that
Emmeline's suspicions are aroused she'll never let Prissy out
of her sight until you're married to another woman, if it's
years. I know Emmeline Strong. And I know Prissy. If it was
any other girl in the world she'd run away, or manage it
somehow, but Prissy never will. She's too much in the habit of
obeying Emmeline. You'll have an obedient wife, Stephen--if
you ever get her."

Stephen looked as if he thought that wouldn't be any drawback.
Gossip said that Althea had been pretty bossy. I don't know.
Maybe it was so.

"Can't you suggest something, Rosanna?" he implored. "You've
helped us so far, and I'll never forget it."

"The only thing I can think of is for you to have the license
ready, and speak to Mr. Leonard, and keep an eye on our
ventilator," I said. "I'll watch here and signal whenever
there's an opening."

Well, I watched and Stephen watched, and Mr. Leonard was in
the plot, too. Prissy was always a favourite of his, and he
would have been more than human, saint as he is, if he'd had
any love for Emmeline, after the way she was always trying to
brew up strife in the church.

But Emmeline was a match for us all. She never let Prissy out
of her sight. Everywhere she went she toted Prissy, too. When
a month had gone by, I was almost in despair. Mr. Leonard had
to leave for the Assembly in another week and Stephen's
neighbours were beginning to talk about him. They said that a
man who spent all his time hanging around the yard with a
spyglass, and trusting everything to a hired boy, couldn't be
altogether right in his mind.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Emmeline driving
away one day alone. As soon as she was out of sight I whisked
over, and Anne Shirley and Diana Barry went with me.

They were visiting me that afternoon. Diana's mother was my
second cousin, and, as we visited back and forth frequently,
I'd often seen Diana. But I'd never seen her chum, Anne
Shirley, although I'd heard enough about her to drive anyone
frantic with curiosity. So when she came home from Redmond
College that summer I asked Diana to take pity on me and bring
her over some afternoon.

I wasn't disappointed in her. I considered her a beauty,
though some people couldn't see it. She had the most
magnificent red hair and the biggest, shiningest eyes I ever
saw in a girl's head. As for her laugh, it made me feel young
again to hear it. She and Diana both laughed enough that
afternoon, for I told them, under solemn promise of secrecy,
all about poor Prissy's love affair. So nothing would do them
but they must go over with me.

The appearance of the house amazed me. All the shutters were
closed and the door locked. I knocked and knocked, but there
was no answer. Then I walked around the house to the only
window that hadn't shutters--a tiny one upstairs. I knew it
was the window in the closet off the room where the girls
slept. I stopped under it and called Prissy. Before long
Prissy came and opened it. She was so pale and woe-begone
looking that I pitied her with all my heart.

"Prissy, where has Emmeline gone?" I asked.

"Down to Avonlea to see the Roger Pyes. They're sick with
measles, and Emmeline couldn't take me because I've never had
measles."

Poor Prissy! She had never had anything a body ought to have.

"Then you just come and unfasten a shutter, and come right
over to my house," I said exultantly. "We'll have Stephen and
the minister here in no time."

"I can't--Em'line has locked me in here," said Prissy
woefully.

I was posed. No living mortal bigger than a baby could have
got in or out of that closet window.

"Well," I said finally, "I'll put the signal up for Stephen
anyhow, and we'll see what can be done when he gets here."

I didn't know how I was ever to get the signal up on that
ventilator, for it was one of the days I take dizzy spells;
and if I took one up on the ladder there'd probably be a
funeral instead of a wedding. But Anne Shirley said she'd put
it up for me, and she did. I had never seen that girl before,
and I've never seen her since, but it's my opinion that there
wasn't much she couldn't do if she made up her mind to do it.

Stephen wasn't long in getting there and he brought the
minister with him. Then we all, including Thomas--who was
beginning to get interested in the affair in spite of himself-
-went over and held council of war beneath the closet window.

Thomas suggested breaking in doors and carrying Prissy off
boldly, but I could see that Mr. Leonard looked very dubious
over that, and even Stephen said he thought it could only be
done as a last resort. I agreed with him. I knew Emmeline
Strong would bring an action against him for housebreaking as
likely as not. She'd be so furious she'd stick at nothing if
we gave her any excuse. Then Anne Shirley, who couldn't have
been more excited if she was getting married herself, came to
the rescue again.

"Couldn't you put a ladder up to the closet window," she said,
"And Mr. Clark can go up it and they can be married there.
Can't they, Mr. Leonard?"

Mr. Leonard agreed that they could. He was always the most
saintly looking man, but I know I saw a twinkle in his eye.

"Thomas, go over and bring our little ladder over here," I
said.

Thomas forgot he was an elder, and he brought the ladder as
quick as it was possible for a fat man to do it. After all it
was too short to reach the window, but there was no time to go
for another. Stephen went up to the top of it, and he reached
up and Prissy reached down, and they could just barely clasp
hands so. I shall never forget the look of Prissy. The window
was so small she could only get her head and one arm out of
it. Besides, she was almost frightened to death.

Mr. Leonard stood at the foot of the ladder and married them.
As a rule, he makes a very long and solemn thing of the
marriage ceremony, but this time he cut out everything that
wasn't absolutely necessary; and it was well that he did, for
just as he pronounced them man and wife, Emmeline drove into
the lane.

She knew perfectly well what had happened when she saw the
minister with his blue book in his hand. Never a word said
she. She marched to the front door, unlocked it, and strode
upstairs. I've always been convinced it was a mercy that
closet window was so small, or I believe that she would have
thrown Prissy out of it. As it was, she walked her downstairs
by the arm and actually flung her at Stephen.

"There, take your wife," she said, "and I'll pack up every
stitch she owns and send it after her; and I never want to see
her or you again as long as I live."

Then she turned to me and Thomas.

"As for you that have aided and abetted that weakminded fool
in this, take yourselves out of my yard and never darken my
door again."

"Goodness, who wants to, you old spitfire?" said Thomas.

It wasn't just the thing for him to say, perhaps, but we are
all human, even elders.

The girls didn't escape. Emmeline looked daggers at them.

"This will be something for you to carry back to Avonlea," she
said. "You gossips down there will have enough to talk about
for a spell. That's all you ever go out of Avonlea for--just
to fetch and carry tales."

Finally she finished up with the minister.

"I'm going to the Baptist church in Spencervale after this,"
she said. Her tone and look said a hundred other things. She
whirled into the house and slammed the door.

Mr. Leonard looked around on us with a pitying smile as
Stephen put poor, half-fainting Prissy into the buggy.

"I am very sorry," he said in that gently, saintly way of his,
"for the Baptists."





XI. The Miracle at Carmody


Salome looked out of the kitchen window, and a pucker of
distress appeared on her smooth forehead.

"Dear, dear, what has Lionel Hezekiah been doing now?" she
murmured anxiously.

Involuntarily she reached out for her crutch; but it was a
little beyond her reach, having fallen on the floor, and
without it Salome could not move a step.

"Well, anyway, Judith is bringing him in as fast as she can,"
she reflected. "He must have been up to something terrible
this time; for she looks very cross, and she never walks like
that unless she is angry clear through. Dear me, I am
sometimes tempted to think that Judith and I made a mistake in
adopting the child. I suppose two old maids don't know much
about bringing up a boy properly. But he is NOT a bad child,
and it really seems to me that there must be some way of
making him behave better if we only knew what it was."

Salome's monologue was cut short by the entrance of her sister
Judith, holding Lionel Hezekiah by his chubby wrist with a
determined grip.

Judith Marsh was ten years older than Salome, and the two
women were as different in appearance as night and day.
Salome, in spite of her thirty-five years, looked almost
girlish. She was small and pink and flower-like, with little
rings of pale golden hair clustering all over her head in a
most unspinster-like fashion, and her eyes were big and blue,
and mild as a dove's. Her face was perhaps a weak one, but it
was very sweet and appealing.

Judith Marsh was tall and dark, with a plain, tragic face and
iron-gray hair. Her eyes were black and sombre, and every
feature bespoke unyielding will and determination. Just now
she looked, as Salome had said, "angry clear through," and the
baleful glances she cast on the small mortal she held would
have withered a more hardened criminal than six happy-go-lucky
years had made of Lionel Hezekiah.

Lionel Hezekiah, whatever his shortcomings, did not look bad.
Indeed, he was as engaging an urchin as ever beamed out on a
jolly good world through a pair of big, velvet-brown eyes. He
was chubby and firm-limbed, with a mop of beautiful golden
curls, which were the despair of his heart and the pride and
joy of Salome's; and his round face was usually a lurking-
place for dimples and smiles and sunshine.

But just now Lionel Hezekiah was under a blight; he had been
caught red-handed in guilt, and was feeling much ashamed of
himself. He hung his head and squirmed his toes under the
mournful reproach in Salome's eyes. When Salome looked at him
like that, Lionel Hezekiah always felt that he was paying more
for his fun than it was worth.

"What do you suppose I caught him doing this time?" demanded
Judith.

"I--I don't know," faltered Salome.

"Firing--at--a--mark--on--the--henhouse--door--with--new-laid-
-eggs," said Judith with measured distinctness. "He has broken
every egg that was laid to-day except three. And as for the
state of that henhouse door--"

Judith paused, with an indignant gesture meant to convey that
the state of the henhouse door must be left to Salome's
imagination, since the English language was not capable of
depicting it.

"O Lionel Hezekiah, why will you do such things?" said Salome
miserably.

"I--didn't know it was wrong," said Lionel Hezekiah, bursting
into prompt tears. "I--I thought it would be bully fun.
Seems's if everything what's fun 's wrong."

Salome's heart was not proof against tears, as Lionel Hezekiah
very well knew. She put her arm about the sobbing culprit, and
drew him to her side.

"He didn't know it was wrong," she said defiantly to Judith.

"He's got to be taught, then," was Judith's retort. "No, you
needn't try to beg him off, Salome. He shall go right to bed
without supper, and stay there till to-morrow morning."

"Oh! not without his supper," entreated Salome. "You--you
won't improve the child's morals by injuring his stomach,
Judith."

"Without his supper, I say," repeated Judith inexorably.
"Lionel Hezekiah, go up-stairs to the south room, and go to
bed at once."

Lionel Hezekiah went up-stairs, and went to bed at once. He
was never sulky or disobedient. Salome listened to him as he
stumped patiently up-stairs with a sob at every step, and her
own eyes filled with tears.

"Now don't for pity's sake go crying, Salome," said Judith
irritably. "I think I've let him off very easily. He is enough
to try the patience of a saint, and I never was that," she
added with entire truth.

"But he isn't bad," pleaded Salome. "You know he never does
anything the second time after he has been told it was wrong,
never."

"What good does that do when he is certain to do something new
and twice as bad? I never saw anything like him for
originating ideas of mischief. Just look at what he has done
in the past fortnight--in one fortnight, Salome. He brought in
a live snake, and nearly frightened you into fits; he drank up
a bottle of liniment, and almost poisoned himself; he took
three toads to bed with him; he climbed into the henhouse
loft, and fell through on a hen and killed her; he painted his
face all over with your water-colours; and now comes THIS
exploit. And eggs at twenty-eight cents a dozen! I tell you,
Salome, Lionel Hezekiah is an expensive luxury."

"But we couldn't do without him," protested Salome.

"_I_ could. But as you can't, or think you can't, we'll have
to keep him, I suppose. But the only way to secure any peace
of mind for ourselves, as far as I can see, is to tether him
in the yard, and hire somebody to watch him."

"There must be some way of managing him," said Salome
desperately. She thought Judith was in earnest about the
tethering. Judith was generally so terribly in earnest in all
she said. "Perhaps it is because he has no other employment
that he invents so many unheard-of things. If he had anything
to occupy himself with--perhaps if we sent him to school--"

"He's too young to go to school. Father always said that no
child should go to school until it was seven, and I don't mean
Lionel Hezekiah shall. Well, I'm going to take a pail of hot
water and a brush, and see what I can do to that henhouse
door. I've got my afternoon's work cut out for me."

Judith stood Salome's crutch up beside her, and departed to
purify the henhouse door. As soon as she was safely out of the
way, Salome took her crutch, and limped slowly and painfully
to the foot of the stairs. She could not go up and comfort
Lionel Hezekiah as she yearned to do, which was the reason
Judith had sent him up-stairs. Salome had not been up-stairs
for fifteen years. Neither did she dare to call him out on the
landing, lest Judith return. Besides, of course he must be
punished; he had been very naughty.

"But I wish I could smuggle a bit of supper up to him," she
mused, sitting down on the lowest step and listening. "I don't
hear a sound. I suppose he has cried himself to sleep, poor,
dear baby. He certainly is dreadfully mischievous; but it
seems to me that it shows an investigating turn of mind, and
if it could only be directed into the proper channels--I wish
Judith would let me have a talk with Mr. Leonard about Lionel
Hezekiah. I wish Judith didn't hate ministers so. I don't mind
so much her not letting me go to church, because I'm so lame
that it would be painful anyhow; but I'd like to talk with Mr.
Leonard now and then about some things. I can never believe
that Judith and father were right; I am sure they were not.
There is a God, and I'm afraid it's terribly wicked not to go
to church. But there, nothing short of a miracle would
convince Judith; so there is no use in thinking about it. Yes,
Lionel Hezekiah must have gone to sleep."

Salome pictured him so, with his long, curling lashes brushing
his rosy, tear-stained cheek and his chubby fists clasped
tightly over his breast as was his habit; her heart grew warm
and thrilling with the maternity the picture provoked.

A year previously Lionel Hezekiah's parents, Abner and Martha
Smith, had died, leaving a houseful of children and very
little else. The children were adopted into various Carmody
families, and Salome Marsh had amazed Judith by asking to be
allowed to take the five-year-old "baby." At first Judith had
laughed at the idea; but, when she found that Salome was in
earnest, she yielded. Judith always gave Salome her own way
except on one point.

"If you want the child, I suppose you must have him," she said
finally. "I wish he had a civilized name, though. Hezekiah is
bad, and Lionel is worse; but the two in combination, and
tacked on to Smith at that, is something that only Martha
Smith could have invented. Her judgment was the same clear
through, from selecting husbands to names."

So Lionel Hezekiah came into Judith's home and Salome's heart.
The latter was permitted to love him all she pleased, but
Judith overlooked his training with a critical eye. Possibly
it was just as well, for Salome might otherwise have ruined
him with indulgence. Salome, who always adopted Judith's
opinions, no matter how ill they fitted her, deferred to the
former's decrees meekly, and suffered far more than Lionel
Hezekiah when he was punished.

She sat on the stairs until she fell asleep herself, her head
pillowed on her arm. Judith found her there when she came in,
severe and triumphant, from her bout with the henhouse door.
Her face softened into marvelous tenderness as she looked at
Salome.

"She's nothing but a child herself in spite of her age," she
thought pityingly. "A child that's had her whole life thwarted
and spoiled through no fault of her own. And yet folks say
there is a God who is kind and good! If there is a God, he is
a cruel, jealous tyrant, and I hate Him!"

Judith's eyes were bitter and vindictive. She thought she had
many grievances against the great Power that rules the
universe, but the most intense was Salome's helplessness--
Salome, who fifteen years before had been the brightest,
happiest of maidens, light of heart and foot, bubbling over
with harmless, sparkling mirth and life. If Salome could only
walk like other women, Judith told herself that she would not
hate the great tyrannical Power.

Lionel Hezekiah was subdued and angelic for four days after
that affair of the henhouse door. Then he broke out in a new
place. One afternoon he came in sobbing, with his golden curls
full of burrs. Judith was not in, but Salome dropped her
crochet-work and gazed at him in dismay.

"Oh, Lionel Hezekiah, what have you gone and done now?"

"I--I just stuck the burrs in 'cause I was playing I was a
heathen chief," sobbed Lionel Hezekiah. "It was great fun
while it lasted; but, when I tried to take them out, it hurt
awful."

Neither Salome nor Lionel Hezekiah ever forgot the harrowing
hour that followed. With the aid of comb and scissors, Salome
eventually got the burrs out of Lionel Hezekiah's crop of
curls. It would be impossible to decide which of them suffered
more in the process. Salome cried as hard as Lionel Hezekiah
did, and every snip of the scissors or tug at the silken floss
cut into her heart. She was almost exhausted when the
performance was over; but she took the tired Lionel Hezekiah
on her knee, and laid her wet cheek against his shining head.

"Oh, Lionel Hezekiah, what does make you get into mischief so
constantly?" she sighed.

Lionel Hezekiah frowned reflectively.

"I don't know," he finally announced, "unless it's because you
don't send me to Sunday school."

Salome started as if an electric shock had passed through her
frail body.

"Why, Lionel Hezekiah," she stammered, "what put such and idea
into your head?"

"Well, all the other boys go," said Lionel Hezekiah defiantly;
"and they're all better'n me; so I guess that must be the
reason. Teddy Markham says that all little boys should go to
Sunday school, and that if they don't they're sure to go to
the bad place. I don't see how you can 'spect me to behave
well when you won't send me to Sunday school.

"Would you like to go?" asked Salome, almost in a whisper.

"I'd like it bully," said Lionel Hezekiah frankly and
succinctly.

"Oh, don't use such dreadful words," sighed Salome helplessly.
"I'll see what can be done. Perhaps you can go. I'll ask your
Aunt Judith."

"Oh, Aunt Judith won't let me go," said Lionel Hezekiah
despondingly. "Aunt Judith doesn't believe there is any God or
any bad place. Teddy Markham says she doesn't. He says she's
an awful wicked woman 'cause she never goes to church. So you
must be wicked too, Aunt Salome, 'cause you never go. Why
don't you?"

"Your--your Aunt Judith won't let me go," faltered Salome,
more perplexed than she had ever been before in her life.

"Well, it doesn't seem to me that you have much fun on
Sundays," remarked Lionel Hezekiah ponderingly. "I'd have more
if I was you. But I s'pose you can't 'cause you're ladies. I'm
glad I'm a man. Look at Abel Blair, what splendid times he has
on Sundays. He never goes to church, but he goes fishing, and
has cock-fights, and gets drunk. When I grow up, I'm going to
do that on Sundays too, since I won't be going to church. I
don't want to go to church, but I'd like to go to Sunday
school."

Salome listened in agony. Every word of Lionel Hezekiah's
stung her conscience unbearably. So this was the result of her
weak yielding to Judith; this innocent child looked upon her
as a wicked woman, and, worse still, regarded old, depraved
Abel Blair as a model to be imitated. Oh! was it too late to
undo the evil? When Judith returned, Salome blurted out the
whole story. "Lionel Hezekiah must go to Sunday school," she
concluded appealingly.

Judith's face hardened until it was as if cut in stone.

"No, he shall not," she said stubbornly. "No one living in my
household shall ever go to church or Sunday school. I gave in
to you when you wanted to teach him to say his prayers, though
I knew it was only foolish superstition, but I sha'n't yield
another inch. You know exactly how I feel on this subject,
Salome; I believe just as father did. You know he hated
churches and churchgoing. And was there ever a better, kinder,
more lovable man?"

"Mother believed in God; mother always went to church,"
pleaded Salome.

"Mother was weak and superstitious, just as you are," retorted
Judith inflexibly. "I tell you, Salome, I don't believe there
is a God. But, if there is, He is cruel and unjust, and I hate
Him."

"Judith!" gasped Salome, aghast at the impiety. She half
expected to see her sister struck dead at her feet.

"Don't 'Judith' me!" said Judith passionately, in the strange
anger that any discussion of the subject always roused in her.
"I mean every word I say. Before you got lame I didn't feel
much about it one way or another; I'd just as soon have gone
with mother as with father. But, when you were struck down
like that, I knew father was right."

For a moment Salome quailed. She felt that she could not, dare
not, stand out against Judith. For her own sake she could not
have done so, but the thought of Lionel Hezekiah nerved her to
desperation. She struck her thin, bleached little hands wildly
together.

"Judith, I'm going to church to-morrow," she cried. "I tell
you I am, I won't set Lionel Hezekiah a bad example one day
longer. I'll not take him; I won't go against you in that, for
it is your bounty feeds and clothes him; but I'm going
myself."

"If you do, Salome Marsh, I'll never forgive you," said
Judith, her harsh face dark with anger; and then, not trusting
herself to discuss the subject any longer, she went out.

Salome dissolved into her ready tears, and cried most of the
night. But her resolution did not fail. Go to church she
would, for that dear baby's sake.

Judith would not speak to her at breakfast, and this almost
broke Salome's heart; but she dared not yield. After
breakfast, she limped painfully into her room, and still more
painfully dressed herself. When she was ready, she took a
little old worn Bible out of her box. It had been her
mother's, and Salome read a chapter in it every night,
although she never dared to let Judith see her doing it.

When she limped out into the kitchen, Judith looked up with a
hard face. A flame of sullen anger glowed in her dark eyes,
and she went into the sitting-room and shut the door, as if by
that act she were shutting her sister for evermore out of her
heart and life. Salome, strung up to the last pitch of nervous
tension, felt intuitively the significance of that closed
door. For a moment she wavered--oh, she could not go against
Judith! She was all but turning back to her room when Lionel
Hezekiah came running in, and paused to look at her
admiringly.

"You look just bully, Aunt Salome," he said. "Where are you
going?"

"Don't use that word, Lionel Hezekiah," pleaded Salome. "I'm
going to church."

"Take me with you," said Lionel Hezekiah promptly. Salome
shook her head.

"I can't, dear. Your Aunt Judith wouldn't like it. Perhaps she
will let you go after a while. Now do be a good boy while I am
away, won't you? Don't do any naughty things."
"I won't do them if I know they're naughty," conceded Lionel
Hezekiah. "But that's just the trouble; I don't know what's
naughty and what ain't. Prob'ly if I went to Sunday school I'd
find out."

Salome limped out of the yard and down the lane bordered by
its asters and goldenrod. Fortunately the church was just
outside the lane, across the main road; but Salome found it
hard to cover even that short distance. She felt almost
exhausted when she reached the church and toiled painfully up
the aisle to her mother's old pew. She laid her crutch on the
seat, and sank into the corner by the window with a sigh of
relief.

She had elected to come early so that she might get there
before the rest of the people. The church was as yet empty,
save for a class of Sunday school children and their teacher
in a remote corner, who paused midway in their lesson to stare
with amazement at the astonishing sigh of Salome Marsh limping
into church.

The big building, shadowy from the great elms around it, was
very still. A faint murmur came from the closed room behind
the pulpit where the rest of the Sunday school was assembled.
In front of the pulpit was a stand bearing tall white
geraniums in luxuriant blossom. The light fell through the
stained-glass window in a soft tangle of hues upon the floor.
Salome felt a sense of peace and happiness fill her heart.
Even Judith's anger lost its importance. She leaned her head
against the window-sill, and gave herself up to the flood of
tender old recollections that swept over her.

Memory went back to the years of her childhood when she had
sat in this pew every Sunday with her mother. Judith had come
then, too, always seeming grown up to Salome by reason of her
ten years' seniority. Her tall, dark, reserved father never
came. Salome knew that the Carmody people called him an
infidel, and looked upon him as a very wicked man. But he had
not been wicked; he had been good and kind in his own odd way.

The gently little mother had died when Salome was ten years
old, but so loving and tender was Judith's care that the child
did not miss anything out of her life. Judith Marsh loved her
little sister with an intensity that was maternal. She herself
was a plain, repellent girl, liked by few, sought after by no
man; but she was determined that Salome should have everything
that she had missed--admiration, friendship, love. She would
have a vicarious youth in Salome's.

All went according to Judith's planning until Salome was
eighteen, and then trouble after trouble came. Their father,
whom Judith had understood and passionately loved, died;
Salome's young lover was killed in a railroad accident; and
finally Salome herself developed symptoms of the hip-disease
which, springing from a trifling injury, eventually left her a
cripple. Everything possible was done for her. Judith, falling
heir to a snug little fortune by the death of the old aunt for
whom she was named, spared nothing to obtain the best medical
skill, and in vain. One and all, the great doctors failed.

Judith had borne her father's death bravely enough in spite of
her agony of grief; she had watched her sister pining and
fading with the pain of her broken heart without growing
bitter; but when she knew at last that Salome would never walk
again save as she hobbled painfully about on her crutch, the
smouldering revolt in her soul broke its bounds, and
overflowed her nature in a passionate rebellion against the
Being who had sent, or had failed to prevent, these
calamities. She did not rave or denounce wildly; that was not
Judith's way; but she never went to church again, and it soon
became an accepted fact in Carmody that Judith Marsh was as
rank an infidel as her father had been before her; nay, worse,
since she would not even allow Salome to go to church, and
shut the door in the minister's face when he went to see her.

"I should have stood out against her for conscience' sake,"
reflected Salome in her pew self-reproachfully. "But, O dear,
I'm afraid she'll never forgive me, and how can I live if she
doesn't? But I must endure it for Lionel Hezekiah's sake; my
weakness has perhaps done him great harm already. They say
that what a child learns in the first seven years never leaves
him; so Lionel Hezekiah has only another year to get set right
about these things. Oh, if I've left it till too late!"

When the people began to come in, Salome felt painfully the
curious glances directed at her. Look where she would, she met
them, unless she looked out of the window; so out of the
window she did look unswervingly, her delicate little face
burning crimson with self-consciousness. She could see her
home and its back yard plainly, with Lionel Hezekiah making
mud-pies joyfully in the corner. Presently she saw Judith come
out of the house and stride away to the pine wood behind it.
Judith always betook herself to the pines in time of mental
stress and strain.

Salome could see the sunlight shining on Lionel Hezekiah's
bare head as he mixed his pies. In the pleasure of watching
him she forgot where she was and the curious eyes turned on
her.

Suddenly Lionel Hezekiah ceased concocting pies, and betook
himself to the corner of the summer kitchen, where he
proceeded to climb up to the top of the storm-fence and from
there to mount the sloping kitchen roof. Salome clasped her
hands in agony. What if the child should fall? Oh! why had
Judith gone away and left him alone? What if--what if--and
then, while her brain with lightning-like rapidity pictured
forth a dozen possible catastrophes, something really did
happen. Lionel Hezekiah slipped, sprawled wildly, slid down,
and fell off the roof, in a bewildering whirl of arms and
legs, plump into the big rain-water hogshead under the spout,
which was generally full to the brim with rain-water, a
hogshead big and deep enough to swallow up half a dozen small
boys who went climbing kitchen roofs on a Sunday.

Then something took place that is talked of in Carmody to this
day, and even fiercely wrangled over, so many and conflicting
are the opinions on the subject. Salome Marsh, who had not
walked a step without assistance for fifteen years, suddenly
sprang to her feet with a shriek, ran down the aisle, and out
of the door!

Every man, woman, and child in the Carmody church followed
her, even to the minister, who had just announced his text.
When they got out, Salome was already half-way up her lane,
running wildly. In her heart was room for but one agonized
thought. Would Lionel Hezekiah be drowned before she reached
him?

She opened the gate of the yard, and panted across it just as
a tall, grim-faced woman came around the corner of the house
and stood rooted to the ground in astonishment at the sight
that met her eyes.

But Salome saw nobody. She flung herself against the hogshead
and looked in, sick with terror at what she might see. What
she did see was Lionel Hezekiah sitting on the bottom of the
hogshead in water that came only to his waist. He was looking
rather dazed and bewildered, but was apparently quite
uninjured.

The yard was full of people, but nobody had as yet said a
word; awe and wonder held everybody in spellbound silence.
Judith was the first to speak. She pushed through the crowd to
Salome. Her face was blanched to a deadly whiteness; and her
eyes, as Mrs. William Blair afterwards declared, were enough
to give a body the creeps.

"Salome," she said in a high, shrill, unnatural voice, "where
is your crutch?"

Salome came to herself at the question. For the first time,
she realized that she had walked, nay, run, all that distance
from the church alone and unaided. She turned pale, swayed,
and would have fallen if Judith had not caught her.

Old Dr. Blair came forward briskly.

"Carry her in," he said, "and don't all of you come crowding
in, either. She wants quiet and rest for a spell."

Most of the people obediently returned to the church, their
sudden loosened tongues clattering in voluble excitement. A
few women assisted Judith to carry Salome in and lay her on
the kitchen lounge, followed by the doctor and the dripping
Lionel Hezekiah, whom the minister had lifted out of the
hogshead and to whom nobody now paid the slightest attention.

Salome faltered out her story, and her hearers listened with
varying emotions.

"It's a miracle," said Sam Lawson in an awed voice.

Dr. Blair shrugged his shoulders.
"There is no miracle about it," he said bluntly. "It's all
perfectly natural. The disease in the hip has evidently been
quite well for a long time; Nature does sometimes work cures
like that when she is let alone. The trouble was that the
muscles were paralyzed by long disuse. That paralysis was
overcome by the force of a strong and instinctive effort.
Salome, get up and walk across the kitchen."

Salome obeyed. She walked across the kitchen and back, slowly,
stiffly, falteringly, now that the stimulus of frantic fear
was spent; but still she walked. The doctor nodded his
satisfaction.

"Keep that up every day. Walk as much as you can without
tiring yourself, and you'll soon be as spry as ever. No more
need of crutches for you, but there's no miracle in the case."

Judith Marsh turned to him. She had not spoken a word since
her question concerning Salome's crutch. Now she said
passionately:

"It WAS a miracle. God has worked it to prove His existence
for me, and I accept the proof."

The old doctor shrugged his shoulders again. Being a wise man,
he knew when to hold his tongue.

"Well, put Salome to bed, and let her sleep the rest of the
day. She's worn out. And for pity's sake let some one take
that poor child and put some dry clothes on him before he
catches his death of cold."

That evening, as Salome Marsh lay in her bed in a glory of
sunset light, her heart filled with unutterable gratitude and
happiness, Judith came into the room. She wore her best hat
and dress, and she held Lionel Hezekiah by the hand. Lionel
Hezekiah's beaming face was scrubbed clean, and his curls fell
in beautiful sleekness over the lace collar of his velvet
suit.

"How do you feel now, Salome?" asked Judith gently.

"Better. I've had a lovely sleep. But where are you going,
Judith?"

"I am going to church," said Judith firmly, "and I am going to
take Lionel Hezekiah with me."





XII. The End of a Quarrel


Nancy Rogerson sat down on Louisa Shaw's front doorstep and
looked about her, drawing a long breath of delight that seemed
tinged with pain. Everything was very much the same; the
square garden was as charming bodge-podge of fruit and
flowers, and goose-berry bushes and tiger lilies, a gnarled
old apple tree sticking up here and there, and a thick cherry
copse at the foot. Behind was a row of pointed firs, coming
out darkly against the swimming pink sunset sky, not looking a
day older than they had looked twenty years ago, when Nancy
had been a young girl walking and dreaming in their shadows.
The old willow to the left was as big and sweeping and, Nancy
thought with a little shudder, probably as caterpillary, as
ever. Nancy had learned many things in her twenty years of
exile from Avonlea, but she had never learned to conquer her
dread of caterpillars.

"Nothing is much changed, Louisa," she said, propping her chin
on her plump white hands, and sniffing at the delectable odour
of the bruised mint upon which Louisa was trampling. "I'm
glad; I was afraid to come back for fear you would have
improved the old garden out of existence, or else into some
prim, orderly lawn, which would have been worse. It's as
magnificently untidy as ever, and the fence still wobbles. It
CAN'T be the same fence, but it looks exactly like it. No,
nothing is much changed. Thank you, Louisa."

Louisa had not the faintest idea what Nancy was thanking her
for, but then she had never been able to fathom Nancy, much as
she had always liked her in the old girlhood days that now
seemed much further away to Louisa than they did to Nancy.
Louisa was separated from them by the fulness of wifehood and
motherhood, while Nancy looked back only over the narrow gap
that empty years make.

"You haven't changed much yourself, Nancy," she said, looking
admiringly at Nancy's trim figure, in the nurse's uniform she
had donned to show Louisa what it was like, her firm, pink-
and-white face and the the glossy waves of her golden brown
hair. "You've held your own wonderfully well."

"Haven't I?" said Nancy complacently. "Modern methods of
massage and cold cream have kept away the crowsfeet, and
fortunately I had the Rogerson complexion to start with. You
wouldn't think I was really thirty-eight, would you? Thirty-
eight! Twenty years ago I thought anybody who was thirty-eight
was a perfect female Methuselah. And now I feel so horribly,
ridiculously young, Louisa. Every morning when I get up I have
to say solemnly to myself three times, 'You're an old maid,
Nancy Rogerson,' to tone myself down to anything like a
becoming attitude for the day."

"I guess you don't mind being an old maid much," said Louisa,
shrugging her shoulders. She would not have been an old maid
herself for anything; yet she inconsistently envied Nancy her
freedom, her wide life in the world, her unlined brow, and
care-free lightness of spirit.

"Oh, but I do mind," said Nancy frankly. "I hate being an old
maid."

"Why don't you get married, then?" asked Louisa, paying an
unconscious tribute to Nancy's perennial chance by her use of
the present tense.

Nancy shook her head.

"No, that wouldn't suit me either. I don't want to be married.
Do you remember that story Anne Shirley used to tell long ago
of the pupil who wanted to be a widow because 'if you were
married your husband bossed you and if you weren't married
people called you an old maid?' Well, that is precisely my
opinion. I'd like to be a widow. Then I'd have the freedom of
the unmarried, with the kudos of the married. I could eat my
cake and have it, too. Oh, to be a widow!"

"Nancy!" said Louisa in a shocked tone.

Nancy laughed, a mellow gurgle that rippled through the garden
like a brook.

"Oh, Louisa, I can shock you yet. That was just how you used
to say 'Nancy' long ago, as if I'd broken all the commandments
at once."

"You do say such queer things," protested Louisa, "and half
the time I don't know what you mean."

"Bless you, dear coz, half the time I don't myself. Perhaps
the joy of coming back to the old spot has slightly turned my
brain, I've found my lost girlhood here. I'm NOT thirty-
eight in this garden--it is a flat impossibility. I'm sweet
eighteen, with a waist line two inches smaller. Look, the sun
is just setting. I see he has still his old trick of throwing
his last beams over the Wright farmhouse. By the way, Louisa,
is Peter Wright still living there?"

"Yes." Louisa threw a sudden interested glance at the
apparently placid Nancy.

"Married, I suppose, with half a dozen children?" said Nancy
indifferently, pulling up some more sprigs of mint and pinning
them on her breast. Perhaps the exertion of leaning over to do
it flushed her face. There was more than the Rogerson colour
in it, anyhow, and Louisa, slow though her mental processes
might be in some respects, thought she understood the meaning
of a blush as well as the next one. All the instinct of the
matchmaker flamed up in her.

"Indeed he isn't," she said promptly. "Peter Wright has never
married. He has been faithful to your memory, Nancy."

"Ugh! You make me feel as if I were buried up there in the
Avonlea cemetery and had a monument over me with a weeping
willow carved on it," shivered Nancy. "When it is said that a
man has been faithful to a woman's memory it generally means
that he couldn't get anyone else to take him."

"That isn't the case with Peter," protested Louisa. "He is a
good match, and many a woman would have been glad to take him,
and would yet. He's only forty-three. But he's never taken the
slightest interest in anyone since you threw him over, Nancy."

"But I didn't. He threw me over," said Nancy, plaintively,
looking afar over the low-lying fields and a feathery young
spruce valley to the white buildings of the Wright farm,
glowing rosily in the sunset light when all the rest of
Avonlea was scarfing itself in shadows. There was laughter in
her eyes. Louisa could not pierce beneath that laughter to
find if there were anything under it.

"Fudge!" said Louisa. "What on earth did you and Peter quarrel
about?" she added, curiously.

"I've often wondered," parried Nancy.

"And you've never seen him since?" reflected Louisa.

"No. Has he changed much?"

"Well, some. He is gray and kind of tired-looking. But it
isn't to be wondered at--living the life he does. He hasn't
had a housekeeper for two years--not since his old aunt died.
He just lives there alone and cooks his own meals. I've never
been in the house, but folks say the disorder is something
awful."

"Yes, I shouldn't think Peter was cut out for a tidy
housekeeper," said Nancy lightly, dragging up more mint. "Just
think, Louisa, if it hadn't been for that old quarrel I might
be Mrs. Peter Wright at this very moment, mother to the
aforesaid supposed half dozen, and vexing my soul over Peter's
meals and socks and cows."

"I guess you are better off as you are," said Louisa.

"Oh, I don't know." Nancy looked up at the white house on the
hill again. "I have an awfully good time out of life, but it
doesn't seem to satisfy, somehow. To be candid--and oh,
Louisa, candour is a rare thing among women when it comes to
talking of the men--I believe I'd rather be cooking Peter's
meals and dusting his house. I wouldn't mind his bad grammar
now. I've learned one or two valuable little things out
yonder, and one is that it doesn't matter if a man's grammar
is askew, so long as he doesn't swear at you. By the way, is
Peter as ungrammatical as ever?"

"I--I don't know," said Louisa helplessly. "I never knew he
WAS ungrammatical."

"Does he still say, 'I seen,' and 'them things'?" demanded Nancy.

"I never noticed," confessed Louisa.

"Enviable Louisa! Would that I had been born with that blessed
faculty of never noticing! It stands a woman in better stead
than beauty or brains. _I_ used to notice Peter's mistakes.
When he said 'I seen,' it jarred on me in my salad days. I
tried, oh, so tactfully, to reform him in that respect. Peter
didn't like being reformed--the Wrights always had a fairly
good opinion of themselves, you know. It was really over a
question of syntax we quarrelled. Peter told me I'd have to
take him as he was, grammar and all, or go without him. I went
without him--and ever since I've been wondering if I were
really sorry, or if it were merely a pleasantly sentimental
regret I was hugging to my heart. I daresay it's the latter.
Now, Louisa, I see the beginning of the plot far down in those
placid eyes of yours. Strangle it at birth, dear Louisa. There
is no use in your trying to make up a match between Peter and
me now--no, nor in slyly inviting him up here to tea some
evening, as you are even this moment thinking of doing."

"Well, I must go and milk the cows," gasped Louisa, rather
glad to make her escape. Nancy's power of thought-reading
struck her as uncanny. She felt afraid to remain with her
cousin any longer, lest Nancy should drag to light all the
secrets of her being.

Nancy sat long on the steps after Louisa had gone--sat until
the night came down, darkly and sweetly, over the garden, and
the stars twinkled out above the firs. This had been her home
in girlhood. Here she had lived and kept house for her father.
When he died, Curtis Shaw, newly married to her cousin Louisa,
bought the farm from her and moved in. Nancy stayed on with
them, expecting soon to go to a home of her own. She and Peter
Wright were engaged.

Then came their mysterious quarrel, concerning the cause of
which kith and kin on both sides were left in annoying
ignorance. Of the results they were not ignorant. Nancy
promptly packed up and left Avonlea seven hundred miles behind
her. She went to a hospital in Montreal and studied nursing.
In the twenty years that followed she had never even revisited
Avonlea. Her sudden descent on it this summer was a whim born
of a moment's homesick longing for this same old garden. She
had not thought about Peter. In very truth, she had thought
little about Peter for the last fifteen years. She supposed
that she had forgotten him. But now, sitting on the old
doorstep, where she had often sat in her courting days, with
Peter lounging on a broad stone at her feet, something tugged
at her heartstrings. She looked over the valley to the light
in the kitchen of the Wright farmhouse, and pictured Peter
sitting there, lonely and uncared for, with naught but the
cold comfort of his own providing.

"Well, he should have got married," she said snappishly. "I am
not going to worry because he is a lonely old bachelor when
all these years I have supposed him a comfy Benedict. Why
doesn't he hire him a housekeeper, at least? He can afford it;
the place looks prosperous. Ugh! I've a fat bank account, and
I've seen almost everything in the world worth seeing; but
I've got several carefully hidden gray hairs and a horrible
conviction that grammar isn't one of the essential things in
life after all. Well, I'm not going to moon out here in the
dew any longer. I'm going in to read the smartest, frilliest,
frothiest society novel in my trunk."

In the week that followed Nancy enjoyed herself after her own
fashion. She read and swung in the garden, having a hammock
hung under the firs. She went far afield, in rambles to woods
and lonely uplands.

"I like it much better than meeting people," she said, when
Louisa suggested going to see this one and that one,
"especially the Avonlea people. All my old chums are gone, or
hopelessly married and changed, and the young set who have
come up know not Joseph, and make me feel uncomfortably
middle-aged. It's far worse to feel middle-aged than old, you
know. Away there in the woods I feel as eternally young as
Nature herself. And oh, it's so nice not having to fuss with
thermometers and temperatures and other people's whims. Let me
indulge my own whims, Louisa dear, and punish me with a cold
bite when I come in late for meals. I'm not even going to
church again. It was horrible there yesterday. The church is
so offensively spick-and-span brand new and modern."

"It's thought to be the prettiest church in these parts,"
protested Louisa, a little sorely.

"Churches shouldn't be pretty--they should at least be fifty
years old and mellowed into beauty. New churches are an
abomination."

"Did you see Peter Wright in church?" asked Louisa. She had
been bursting to ask it.

Nancy nodded.

"Verily, yes. He sat right across from me in the corner pew. I
didn't think him painfully changed. Iron-gray hair becomes
him. But I was horribly disappointed in myself. I had expected
to feel at least a romantic thrill, but all I felt was a
comfortable interest, such as I might have taken in any old
friend. Do my utmost, Louisa, I couldn't compass a thrill."

"Did he come to speak to you?" asked Louisa, who hadn't any
idea what Nancy meant by her thrills.

"Alas, no. It wasn't my fault. I stood at the door outside
with the most amiable expression I could assume, but Peter
merely sauntered away without a glance in my direction. It
would be some comfort to my vanity if I could believe it was
on account of rankling spite or pride. But the honest truth,
dear Weezy, is that it looked to me exactly as if he never
thought of it. He was more interested in talking about the hay
crop with Oliver Sloane--who, by the way, is more Oliver
Sloaneish than ever."

"If you feel as you said you did the other night, why didn't
you go and speak to him?" Louisa wanted to know.

"But I don't feel that way now. That was just a mood. You
don't know anything about moods, dearie. You don't know what
it is to yearn desperately one hour for something you wouldn't
take if it were offered you the next."

"But that is foolishness," protested Louisa.

"To be sure it is--rank foolishness. But oh, it is so
delightful to be foolish after being compelled to be
unbrokenly sensible for twenty years. Well, I'm going picking
strawberries this afternoon, Lou. Don't wait tea for me. I
probably won't be back till dark. I've only four more days to
stay and I want to make the most of them."

Nancy wandered far and wide in her rambles that afternoon.
When she had filled her jug she still roamed about with
delicious aimlessness. Once she found herself in a wood lane
skirting a field wherein a man was mowing hay. The man was
Peter Wright. Nancy walked faster when she discovered this,
with never a roving glance, and presently the green, ferny
depths of the maple woods swallowed her up.

From old recollections, she knew that she was on Peter
Morrison's land, and calculated that if she kept straight on
she would come out where the old Morrison house used to be.
Her calculations proved correct, with a trifling variation.
She came out fifty yards south of the old deserted Morrison
house, and found herself in the yard of the Wright farm!

Passing the house--the house where she had once dreamed of
reigning as mistress--Nancy's curiosity overcame her. The
place was not in view of any other near house. She
deliberately went up to it intending--low be it spoken--to
peep in at the kitchen window. But, seeing the door wide open,
she went to it instead and halted on the step, looking about
her keenly.

The kitchen was certainly pitiful in its disorder. The floor
had apparently not been swept for a fortnight. On the bare
deal table were the remnants of Peter's dinner, a meal that
could not have been very tempting at its best.

"What a miserable place for a human being to live in!" groaned
Nancy. "Look at the ashes on that stove! And that table! Is it
any wonder that Peter has got gray? He'll work hard haymaking
all the afternoon--and then come home to THIS!"

An idea suddenly darted into Nancy's brain. At first she
looked aghast. Then she laughed and glanced at her watch.

"I'll do it--just for fun and a little pity. It's half-past
two, and Peter won't be home till four at the earliest. I'll
have a good hour to do it in, and still make my escape in good
time. Nobody will ever know; nobody can see me here."

Nancy went in, threw off her hat, and seized a broom. The
first thing she did was to give the kitchen a thorough
sweeping. Then she kindled a fire, put a kettle full of water
on to heat, and attacked the dishes. From the number of them
she rightly concluded that Peter hadn't washed any for at
least a week.

"I suppose he just uses the clean ones as long as they hold
out, and then has a grand wash-up," she laughed. "I wonder
where he keeps his dish-towels, if he has any."

Evidently Peter hadn't any. At least, Nancy couldn't find any.
She marched boldly into the dusty sitting-room and explored
the drawers of an old-fashioned sideboard, confiscating a
towel she found there. As she worked, she hummed a song; her
steps were light and her eyes bright with excitement. Nancy
was enjoying herself thoroughly, there was no doubt of that.
The spice of mischief in the adventure pleased her mightily.

The dishes washed, she hunted up a clean, but yellow and
evidently long unused tablecloth out of the sideboard, and
proceeded to set the table and get Peter's tea. She found
bread and butter in the pantry, a trip to the cellar furnished
a pitcher of cream, and Nancy recklessly heaped the contents
of her strawberry jug on Peter's plate. The tea was made and
set back to keep warm. And, as a finishing touch, Nancy
ravaged the old neglected garden and set a huge bowl of
crimson roses in the centre of the table.

"Now I must go," she said aloud. "Wouldn't it be fun to see
Peter's face when he comes in, though? Ha-hum! I've enjoyed
doing this--but why? Nancy Rogerson, don't be asking yourself
conundrums. Put on your hat and proceed homeward, constructing
on your way some reliable fib to account to Louisa for the
absence of your strawberries."

Nancy paused a moment and looked around wistfully. She had
made the place look cheery and neat and homelike. She felt
that queer tugging at her heart-strings again. Suppose she
belonged here, and was waiting for Peter to come home to tea.
Suppose--Nancy whirled around with a sudden horrible
prescience of what she was going to see! Peter Wright was
standing in the doorway.

Nancy's face went crimson. For the first time in her life she
had not a word to say for herself. Peter looked at her and
then at the table, with its fruit and flowers.

"Thank you," he said politely.

Nancy recovered herself. With a shame-faced laugh, she held
out her hand.

"Don't have me arrested for trespass, Peter. I came and looked
in at your kitchen out of impertinent curiosity, and just for
fun I thought I'd come in and get your tea. I thought you'd be
so surprised--and I meant to go before you came home, of
course."

"I wouldn't have been surprised," said Peter, shaking hands.
"I saw you go past the field and I tied the horses and
followed you down through the woods. I've been sitting on the
fence back yonder, watching your comings and goings."
"Why didn't you come and speak to me at church yesterday,
Peter?" demanded Nancy boldly.

"I was afraid I would say something ungrammatical," answered
Peter drily.

The crimson flamed over Nancy's face again. She pulled her
hand away.

"That's cruel of you, Peter."

Peter suddenly laughed. There was a note of boyishness in the
laughter.

"So it is," he said, "but I had to get rid of the accumulated
malice and spite of twenty years somehow. It's all gone now,
and I'll be as amiable as I know how. But since you have gone
to the trouble of getting my supper for me, Nancy, you must
stay and help me eat it. Them strawberries look good. I
haven't had any this summer--been too busy to pick them."

Nancy stayed. She sat at the head of Peter's table and poured
his tea for him. She talked to him wittily of the Avonlea
people and the changes in their old set. Peter followed her
lead with an apparent absence of self-consciousness, eating
his supper like a man whose heart and mind were alike on good
terms with him. Nancy felt wretched--and, at the same time,
ridiculously happy. It seemed the most grotesque thing in the
world that she should be presiding there at Peter's table, and
yet the most natural. There were moments when she felt like
crying--other moments when her laughter was as ready and
spontaneous as a girl's. Sentiment and humour had always waged
an equal contest in Nancy's nature.

When Peter had finished his strawberries he folded his arms on
the table and looked admiringly at Nancy.

"You look well at the head of a table, Nancy," he said
critically. "How is it that you haven't been presiding at one
of your own long before this? I thought you'd meet a lots of
men out in the world that you'd like--men who talked good
grammar."

"Peter, don't!" said Nancy, wincing. "I was a goose."

"No, you were quite right. I was a tetchy fool. If I'd had any
sense, I'd have felt thankful you thought enough of me to want
to improve me, and I'd have tried to kerrect my mistakes
instead of getting mad. It's too late now, I suppose."

"Too late for what?" said Nancy, plucking up heart of grace at
something in Peter's tone and look.

"For--kerrecting mistakes."

"Grammatical ones?"

"Not exactly. I guess them mistakes are past kerrecting in an
old fellow like me. Worse mistakes, Nancy. I wonder what you
would say if I asked you to forgive me, and have me after all."

"I'd snap you up before you'd have time to change your mind,"
said Nancy brazenly. She tried to look Peter in the face, but
her blue eyes, where tears and mirth were blending, faltered
down before his gray ones.

Peter stood up, knocking over his chair, and strode around the
table to her.

"Nancy, my girl!" he said.




End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Chronicles of Avonlea

