TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:--

1. Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. 

2. Printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained except the following: Pg. 117, Ch. VII: Changed comma to period in (relation to life, ) Pg. 255, Ch. XVI: Removed ending quote in (the highest sense. ")

 THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE

 WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

 THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE

 AND OTHER THINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE

 W. D. HOWELLS

 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON

 Copyright, 1915, 1916, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published April, 1916

 CONTENTS

 PAGE I. THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE 3 II. A PRESENTIMENT 45 III. CAPTAIN DUNLEVY'S LAST TRIP 67 IV. THE RETURN TO FAVOR 81 V. SOMEBODY'S MOTHER 93 VI. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW 107 VII. AN EXPERIENCE 117 VIII. THE BOARDERS 127 IX. BREAKFAST IS MY BEST MEAL 141 X. THE MOTHER-BIRD 151 XI. THE AMIGO 161 XII. BLACK CROSS FARM 173 XIII. THE CRITICAL BOOKSTORE 185 XIV. A FEAST OF REASON 227 XV. CITY AND COUNTRY IN THE FALL 243 XVI. TABLE TALK 253 XVII. THE ESCAPADE OF A GRANDFATHER 269 XVIII. SELF-SACRIFICE: A FARCE-TRAGEDY 285 XIX. THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 319

 THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE

 I

They were getting some of their things out to send into the country, and Forsyth had left his work to help his wife look them over anddecide which to take and which to leave. The things were mostly trunksthat they had stored the fall before; there were some tables andColonial bureaus inherited from his mother, and some mirrors anddecorative odds and ends, which they would not want in the furnishedhouse they had taken for the summer. There were some canvases whichForsyth said he would paint out and use for other subjects, but which, when he came to look at again, he found really not so bad. The rest, literally, was nothing but trunks; there were, of course, two or threeboxes of books. When they had been packed closely into the five-dollarroom, with the tables and bureaus and mirrors and canvases anddecorative odds and ends put carefully on top, the Forsyths thoughtthe effect very neat, and laughed at themselves for being proud of it. 

They spent the winter in Paris planning for the summer in America, andnow it had come May, a month which in New York is at its best, and inthe Constitutional Storage Safe-Deposit Warehouse is by no means atits worst. The Constitutional Storage is no longer new, but when theForsyths were among the first to store there it was up to the latestmoment in the modern perfections of a safe-deposit warehouse. It wasstrictly fire-proof; and its long, white, brick-walled, iron-dooredcorridors, with their clean concrete floors, branching from a centralavenue to the tall windows north and south, offered perspectivessculpturesquely bare, or picturesquely heaped with arriving ordeparting household stuff. 

When the Forsyths went to look at it a nice young fellow from theoffice had gone with them; running ahead and switching on rows ofelectrics down the corridors, and then, with a wire-basketed electriclamp, which he twirled about and held aloft and alow, showing thedustless, sweet-smelling spaciousness of a perfect five-dollar room. He said it would more than hold their things; and it really held them. 

Now, when the same young fellow unlocked the iron door and set itwide, he said he would get them a man, and he got Mrs. Forsyth a giltarmchair from some furniture going into an adjoining twenty-dollarroom. She sat down in it, and "Of course, " she said, "the pieces Iwant will be at the very back and the very bottom. Why don't you getyourself a chair, too, Ambrose? What are you looking at?"

With his eyes on the neighboring furniture he answered, "Seems to bethe wreck of a millionaire's happy home; parlor and kitchen utensilsand office furniture all in white and gold. "

"Horrors, yes!" Mrs. Forsyth said, without turning her head fromstudying her trunks, as if she might divine their contents from theiroutside. 

"Tata and I, " her husband said, "are more interested in themillionaire's things. " Tata, it appeared, was not a dog, but a child;the name was not the diminutive of her own name, which was Charlotte, but a generic name for a doll, which Tata had learned from her Italiannurse to apply to all little girls and had got applied to herself byher father. She was now at a distance down the corridor, playing adrama with the pieces of millionaire furniture; as they stretched awayin variety and splendor they naturally suggested personages ofprincely quality, and being touched with her little forefinger tipwere capable of entering warmly into Tata's plans for them. 

Her mother looked over her shoulder toward the child. "Come here, Tata, " she called, and when Tata, having enjoined some tall mirrors tosecrecy with a frown and a shake of the head, ran to her, Mrs. Forsythhad forgotten why she had called her. "Oh!" she said, recollecting, "do you know which your trunk is, Tata? Can you show mamma? Can youput your hand on it?"

The child promptly put her hand on the end of a small box just withinher tiptoe reach, and her mother said, "I do believe she knowseverything that's in it, Ambrose! That trunk has got to be opened thevery first one!"

The man that the young fellow said he would send showed at the far endof the corridor, smaller than human, but enlarging himself to theaverage Irish bulk as he drew near. He was given instructions andobeyed with caressing irony Mrs. Forsyth's order to pull out Tata'strunk first, and she found the key in a large tangle of keys, andopened it, and had the joy of seeing everything recognized by theowner: doll by doll, cook-stove, tin dishes, small brooms, woodenanimals on feet and wheels, birds of various plumage, a toy piano, adust-pan, alphabet blocks, dog's-eared linen Mother Goose books, andthe rest. Tata had been allowed to put the things away herself, andshe took them out with no apparent sense of the time passed since shesaw them last. In the changing life of her parents all times andplaces were alike to her. She began to play with the things in thestorage corridor as if it were yesterday when she saw them last in theflat. Her mother and father left her to them in the distraction oftheir own trunks. Mrs. Forsyth had these spread over the space towardthe window and their lids lifted and tried to decide about them. Inthe end she had changed the things in them back and forth till shecandidly owned that she no longer knew where anything at all was. 

As she raised herself for a moment's respite from the problem she sawat the far end of the corridor a lady with two men, who increased insize like her own man as they approached. The lady herself seemed todecrease, though she remained of a magnificence to match thefurniture, and looked like it as to her dress of white picked out ingold when she arrived at the twenty-dollar room next the Forsyths'. Inher advance she had been vividly played round by a little boy, who ranforward and back and easily doubled the length of the corridor beforehe came to a stand and remained with his brown eyes fixed on Tata. Tata herself had blue eyes, which now hovered dreamily above thethings in her trunk. 

The two mothers began politely to ignore each other. She of thetwenty-dollar room directed the men who had come with her, and in avoice of authority and appeal at once commanded and consulted them inthe disposition of her belongings. At the sound of the mixed tonesMrs. Forsyth signaled to her husband, and, when he came withinwhispering, murmured: "Pittsburg, _or_ Chicago. Did you _ever_ hearsuch a Mid-Western accent!" She pretended to be asking him aboutrepacking the trunk before her, but the other woman was not deceived. She was at least aware of criticism in the air of her neighbors, andshe put on greater severity with the workmen. The boy came up andcaught her skirt. "What?" she said, bending over. "No, certainly not. I haven't time to attend to you. Go off and play. Don't I tell you no?Well, there, then! Will you get that trunk out where I can open it?That small one there, " she said to one of the men, while the otherrested for both. She stooped to unlock the trunk and flung up the lid. "Now if you bother me any more I will surely--" But she lost herselfshort of the threat and began again to seek counsel and issue orders. 

The boy fell upon the things in the trunk, which were the things of aboy, as those in Tata's trunk were the things of a girl, and to runwith them, one after another, to Tata and to pile them in gift on thefloor beside her trunk. He did not stop running back and forth as fastas his short, fat legs could carry him till he had reached the bottomof his box, chattering constantly and taking no note of the effectwith Tata. Then, as she made no response whatever to his munificence, he began to be abashed and to look pathetically from her to herfather. 

"Oh, really, young man, " Forsyth said, "we can't let you impoverishyourself at this rate. What have you said to your benefactor, Tata?What are you going to give _him_?"

The children did not understand his large words, but they knew he wasaffectionately mocking them. 

"Ambrose, " Mrs. Forsyth said, "you mustn't let him. "

"I'm trying to think how to hinder him, but it's rather late, " Forsythanswered, and then the boy's mother joined in. 

"Indeed, indeed, if you can, it's more than I can. You're justworrying the little girl, " she said to the boy. 

"Oh no, he isn't, dear little soul, " Mrs. Forsyth said, leaving herchair and going up to the two children. She took the boy's hand inhers. "What a kind boy! But you know my little girl mustn't take allyour playthings. If you'll give her _one_ she'll give _you_ one, andthat will be enough. You can both play with them all for the present. "She referred her suggestion to the boy's mother, and the two ladiesmet at the invisible line dividing the five-dollar room from thetwenty-dollar room. 

"Oh yes, indeed, " the Mid-Westerner said, willing to meet theNew-Yorker half-way. "You're taking things out, I see. I hardly knowwhich is the worst: taking out or putting in. "

"Well, we are just completing the experience, " Mrs. Forsyth said. "Ishall be able to say better how I feel in half an hour. "

"You don't mean this is the first time you've stored? I suppose_we've_ been in and out of storage twenty times. Not in this warehouseexactly; we've never been here before. "

"It seems very nice, " Mrs. Forsyth suggested. 

"They all do at the beginning. I suppose if we ever came to the endthey would seem nicer still. Mr. Bream's business is always taking himaway" (it appeared almost instantly that he was the internationalinspector of a great insurance company's agencies in Europe and SouthAmerica), "and when I don't go with him it seems easier to break upand go into a hotel than to go on housekeeping. I don't know that itis, though, " she questioned. "It's so hard to know what to do with thechild in a hotel. "

"Yes, but he seems the sort that you could manage with anywhere, " Mrs. Forsyth agreed and disagreed. 

His mother looked at him where he stood beaming upon Tata and againjoyfully awaiting some effect with her. But the child sat back uponher small heels with her eyes fixed on the things in her trunk andmade no sign of having seen the heaps of his gifts. 

The Forsyths had said to each other before this that their little girlwas a queer child, and now they were not so much ashamed of herapparent selfishness or rude indifference as they thought they were. They made a joke of it with the boy's mother, who said she did notbelieve Tata was anything but shy. She said she often told Mr. Breamthat she did wish Peter--yes, that was his name; she didn't like itmuch, but it was his grandfather's; was Tata a Christian name? Oh, just a pet name! Well, it _was_ pretty--could be broken of _his_ridiculous habit; most children--little boys, that was--held ontotheir things so. 

Forsyth would have taken something from Tata and given it to Peter;but his wife would not let him; and he had to content himself withgiving Peter a pencil of his own that drew red at one end and blue atthe other, and that at once drew a blue boy, that looked like Peter, on the pavement. He told Peter not to draw a boy now, but wait till hegot home, and then be careful not to draw a blue boy with the red end. He helped him put his things back into his trunk, and Peter seemed toenjoy that, too. 

Tata, without rising from her seat on her heels, watched therestitution with her dreamy eyes; she paid no attention to the blueboy on the pavement; pictures from her father were nothing new to her. The mothers parted with expressions of mutual esteem in spite of theirdifference of accent and fortune. Mrs. Forsyth asked if she might notkiss Peter, and did so; he ran to his mother and whispered to her;then he ran back and gave Tata so great a hug that she fell over fromit. 

Tata did not cry, but continued as if lost in thought which she couldnot break from, and that night, after she had said her prayers withher mother, her mother thought it was time to ask her: "Tata, dear, why did you act so to that boy to-day? Why didn't you give himsomething of yours when he brought you all his things? Why did you actso oddly?"

Tata said something in a voice so low that her mother could not makeit out. 

"What did you say?"

"I couldn't tell which, " the child still whispered; but now hermother's ear was at her lips. 

"How, which?"

"To give him. The more I looked, " and the whisper became a quiveringbreath, "the more I couldn't tell which. And I wanted to give them_all_ to him, but I couldn't tell whether it would be right, becauseyou and papa gave them to me for birthday and Christmas, " and thequivering breath broke into a sobbing grief, so that the mother had tocatch the child up to her heart. 

"Dear little tender conscience!" she said, still wiping her eyes whenshe told the child's father, and they fell into a sweet, serious talkabout her before they slept. "And I was ashamed of her before thatwoman! I know she misjudged her; but _we_ ought to have remembered howfine and precious she is, and _known_ how she must have suffered, trying to decide. "

"Yes, conscience, " the father said. "And temperament, the temperamentto which decision is martyrdom. "

"And she will always have to be deciding! She'll have to decide foryou, some day, as I do now; you are very undecided, Ambrose--she getsit from you. "

 II

The Forsyths were afraid that Tata might want to offer Peter some giftin reparation the next morning, and her father was quite ready, if shesaid so, to put off their leaving town, and go with her to theConstitutional Storage, which was the only address of Mrs. Bream thathe knew. But the child had either forgotten or she was contented withher mother's comforting, and no longer felt remorse. 

One does not store the least of one's personal or household gearwithout giving a hostage to storage, a pledge of allegiance impossibleto break. No matter how few things one puts in, one never takeseverything out; one puts more things in. Mrs. Forsyth went to thewarehouse with Tata in the fall before they sailed for another winterin Paris, and added some old bits she had picked up at farm-houses intheir country drives, and they filled the room quite to the top. Shetold her husband how Tata had entered into the spirit of putting backher trunk of playthings with the hope of seeing it again in thespring; and she added that she had now had to take a seven-fifty roomwithout consulting him, or else throw away the things they had broughthome. 

During the ten or twelve years that followed, the Forsyths sometimesspent a whole winter in a hotel; sometimes they had a flat; sometimesthey had a separate dwelling. If their housing was ample, they tookalmost everything out of storage; once they got down to a two-dollarbin, and it seemed as if they really were leaving the storagealtogether. Then, if they went into a flat that was nearly all studio, their furniture went back in a cataclysmal wave to the warehouse, where a ten-dollar room, a twelve-dollar room, would not dam theoverflow. 

Tata, who had now outgrown her pet name, and was called Charlottebecause her mother felt she ought to be, always went with her to thestorage to help look the things over, to see the rooms emptied down toa few boxes, or replenished to bursting. In the first years she playedabout, close to her mother; as she grew older she ventured further, and began to make friends with other little girls who had come withtheir mothers. It was quite safe socially to be in the ConstitutionalStorage; it gave standing; and Mrs. Forsyth fearlessly chancedacquaintance with these mothers, who would sometimes be there wholelong mornings or afternoons, taking trunks out or putting them in. With the trunks set into the corridors and opened for them, they wouldspend the hours looking the contents over, talking to their neighbors, or rapt in long silences when they hesitated with things held off orup, and, after gazing absently at them, putting them back again. Sometimes they varied the process by laying things aside for sendinghome, and receipting for them at the office as "goods selected. "

They were mostly hotel people or apartment people, as Mrs. Forsythoftenest was herself, but sometimes they were separate-house people. Among these there was one family, not of great rank or wealth, butdistinguished, as lifelong New-Yorkers, in a world of comers and goersof every origin. Mrs. Forsyth especially liked them for a certainquality, but what this quality was she could not very well say. Theywere a mother with two daughters, not quite old maids, but on the wayto it, and there was very intermittently the apparently bachelorbrother of the girls; at the office Mrs. Forsyth verified herconjecture that he was some sort of minister. One could see they wereall gentlefolks, though the girls were not of the last cry of fashion. They were very nice to their mother, and you could tell that they musthave been coming with her for years. 

At this point in her study of them for her husband's amusement sherealized that Charlotte had been coming to the storage with her nearlyall her life, and that more and more the child had taken charge of theuneventual inspection of the things. She was shocked to think that shehad let this happen, and now she commanded her husband to say whetherCharlotte would grow into a storage old maid like those good girls. 

Forsyth said, Probably not before her time; but he allowed it was apoint to be considered. 

Very well, then, Mrs. Forsyth said, the child should never go again;that was all. She had strongly confirmed herself in this resolutionwhen one day she not only let the child go again, but she let her goalone. The child was now between seventeen and eighteen, rather tall, grave, pretty, with the dull brown hair that goes so well withdreaming blue eyes, and of a stiff grace. She had not come out yet, because she had always been out, handing cakes at her father's studioteas long before she could remember not doing it, and later pouringfor her mother with rather a quelling air as she got toward fifteen. During these years the family had been going and coming between Europeand America; they did not know perfectly why, except that it waseasier than not. 

More and more there was a peculiarity in the goods selected byCharlotte for sending home, which her mother one day noted. "How isit, Charlotte, that you always send exactly the things I want, andwhen you get your own things here you don't know whether they are whatyou wanted or not?"

"Because I don't know when I send them. I don't choose them; I can't. "

"But you choose the right things for me?"

"No, I don't, mother. I just take what comes first, and you alwayslike it. "

"Now, that is nonsense, Charlotte. I can't have you telling me such athing as that. It's an insult to my intelligence. Do you think I don'tknow my own mind?"

"I don't know _my_ mind, " the girl said, so persistently, obstinately, stubbornly, that her mother did not pursue the subject for fear ofworse. 

She referred it to her husband, who said: "Perhaps it's like poetsnever being able to remember their own poetry. I've heard it's becausethey have several versions in their minds when they write and can'tremember which they've written. Charlotte has several choices in hermind, and can't choose between her choices. "

"Well, we ought to have broken her of her indecision. Some day it willmake her very unhappy. "

"Pretty hard to break a person of her temperament, " Forsyth suggested. 

"I know it!" his wife admitted, with a certain pleasure in realizingthe fact. "I don't know what we _shall_ do. "

 III

Storage society was almost wholly feminine; in rare instances therewas a man who must have been sent in dearth of women or in an hour oftheir disability. Then the man came hastily, with a porter, and eitherpulled all the things out of the rooms so that he could honestly sayhe had seen them, and that the thing wanted was not there; or elsemerely had the doors opened, and after a glance inside resolved towait till his wife, or mother, or daughter could come. He agreed inguilty eagerness with the workmen that this was the only way. 

The exception to the general rule was a young man who came one brightspring morning when all nature suggested getting one's stuff out andgoing into the country, and had the room next the Forsyths' originalfive-dollar room opened. As it happened, Charlotte was at the momentvisiting this room upon her mother's charge to see whether certain oldscrim sash-curtains, which they had not needed for ages but at lastsimply _must_ have, were not lurking there in a chest of generalcurtainings. The Forsyths now had rooms on other floors, but theirmain room was at the end of the corridor branching northward from thatwhere the five-dollar room was. Near this main room that nice New Yorkfamily had their rooms, and Charlotte had begun the morning in theirfriendly neighborhood, going through some chests that might perhapshave the general curtainings in them and the scrim curtains among therest. It had not, and she had gone to what the Forsyths called theirold ancestral five-dollar room, where that New York family continuedto project a sort of wireless chaperonage over her. But the young manhad come with a porter, and, with her own porter, Charlotte could notfeel that even a wireless chaperonage was needed, though the young manapproached with the most beaming face she thought she had ever seen, and said he hoped he should not be in her way. She answered with asort of helpless reverberation of his glow, Not at all; she shouldonly be a moment. She wanted to say she hoped she would not be in_his_ way, but she saved herself in time, while, with her own eyesintent upon the façade of her room and her mind trying to lose itselfin the question which curtain-trunk the scrims might be in, she keptthe sense of his sweet eyes, the merriest eyes she had ever seen, effulgent with good-will and apology and reverent admiration. Sheblushed to think it admiration, though she liked to think it so, andshe did not snub him when the young man jumped about, neglecting hisown storage, and divining the right moments for his offers of help. She saw that he was a little shorter than herself, that he was verylight and quick on his feet, and had a round, brown face, clean-shaven, and a round, brown head, close shorn, from which in thezeal of his attentions to her he had shed his straw hat onto thewindow-sill. He formed a strong contrast to the contents of hisstore-room, which was full, mainly, of massive white furniture pickedout in gold, and very blond. He said casually that it had been there, off and on, since long before he could remember, and at these words animpression, vague, inexplicable, deepened in Charlotte's mind. 

"Mother, " she said, for she had now disused the earlier "mamma" indeference to modern usage, "how old was I when we first took thatfive-dollar room?"

She asked this question after she had shown the scrim curtains she hadfound and brought home with her. 

"Why? I don't know. Two or three; three or four. I should have tocount up. What makes you ask?"

"Can a person recollect what happened when they were three or four?"

"I should say not, decidedly. "

"Or recollect a face?"

"Certainly not. "

"Then of course it wasn't. Mother, do you remember ever telling mewhat the little boy was like who gave me all his playthings and Icouldn't decide what to give him back?"

"What a question! Of course not! He was very brown and funny, with thebeamingest little face in the world. Rather short for his age, Ishould say, though I haven't the least idea what his age was. "

"Then it was the very same little boy!" Charlotte said. 

"Who was the very same little boy?" her mother demanded. 

"The one that was there to-day; the young man, I mean, " Charlotteexplained, and then she told what had happened with a want of fullnesswhich her mother's imagination supplied. 

"Did he say who he was? Is he coming back to-morrow or this afternoon?Did you inquire who he was or where?"

"What an idea, mother!" Charlotte said, grouping the severalimpossibilities under one head in her answer. 

"You had a perfect right to know, if you thought he was the one. "

"But I didn't _think_ he was the one, and I don't _know_ that he isnow; and if he was, what could I do about it?"

"That is true, " Mrs. Forsyth owned. "But it's very disappointing. I'vealways felt as if they ought to know it was your undecidedness and notungenerousness. "

Charlotte laughed a little forlornly, but she only said, "Really, mother!"

Mrs. Forsyth was still looking at the curtains. "Well, these are notthe scrims I wanted. You must go back. I believe I will go with you. The sooner we have it over the better, " she added, and she left theundecided Charlotte to decide whether she meant the scrim curtains orthe young man's identity. 

It was very well, for one reason, that she decided to go withCharlotte that afternoon. The New-Yorkers must have completed theinspection of their trunks, for they had not come back. Their failureto do so was the more important because the young man had come backand was actively superintending the unpacking of his room. Thepalatial furniture had all been ranged up and down the corridor, andas fast as a trunk was got out and unlocked he went through it withthe help of the storage-men, listed its contents in a note-book with anumber, and then transferred the number and a synopsis of the recordto a tag and fastened it to the trunk, which he had put back into theroom. 

When the Forsyths arrived with the mistaken scrim curtains, heinterrupted himself with apologies for possibly being in their way;and when Mrs. Forsyth said he was not at all in their way, he gotwhite-and-gold arm-chairs for her and Charlotte and put them soconveniently near the old ancestral room that Mrs. Forsyth scarcelyneeded to move hand or foot in letting Charlotte restore the wrongcurtains and search the chests for the right ones. His politeness madeway for conversation and for the almost instant exchange ofconfidences between himself and Mrs. Forsyth, so that Charlotte wasfree to enjoy the silence to which they left her in her labors. 

"Before I say a word, " Mrs. Forsyth said, after saying some hundredsin their mutual inculpation and exculpation, "I want to ask something, and I hope you will excuse it to an old woman's curiosity and notthink it rude. "

At the words "old woman's" the young man gave a protesting "Oh!" andat the word "rude" he said, "Not at all. "

"It is simply this: how long have your things been here? I ask becausewe've had this room thirteen or fourteen years, and I've never seenyour room opened in that whole time. "

The young man laughed joyously. "Because it hasn't been opened in thatwhole time. I was a little chap of three or four bothering round herewhen my mother put the things in; I believe it was a great frolic forme, but I'm afraid it wasn't for her. I've been told that myactivities contributed to the confusion of the things and the thingsin them that she's been in ever since, and I'm here now to make whatreparation I can by listing them. "

"She'll find it a great blessing, " Mrs. Forsyth said. "I wish we hadours listed. I suppose you remember it all very vividly. It must havebeen a great occasion for you seeing the things stored at that age. "

The young man beamed upon her. "Not so great as now, I'm afraid. Thefact is, I don't remember anything about it. But I've been told that Iembarrassed with my personal riches a little girl who was looking overher doll's things. "

"Oh, indeed!" Mrs. Forsyth said, stiffly, and she turned rathersnubbingly from him and said, coldly, to Charlotte: "I think they arein that green trunk. Have you the key?" and, stooping as her daughterstooped, she whispered, "Really!" in condemnation and contempt. 

Charlotte showed no signs of sharing either, and Mrs. Forsyth couldnot very well manage them alone. So when Charlotte said, "No, Ihaven't the key, mother, " and the young man burst in with, "Oh, do letme try my master-key; it will unlock anything that isn't a Yale, " Mrs. Forsyth sank back enthroned and the trunk was thrown open. 

She then forgot what she had wanted it opened for. Charlotte said, "They're not here, mother, " and her mother said, "No, I didn't supposethey were, " and began to ask the young man about his mother. Itappeared that his father had died twelve years before, and since thenhis mother and he had been nearly everywhere except at home, thoughmostly in England; now they had come home to see where they should gonext or whether they should stay. 

"That would never suit my daughter, " Mrs. Forsyth lugged in, partlybecause the talk had gone on away from her family as long as she couldendure, and partly because Charlotte's indecision always amused her. "She can't bear to choose. "

"Really?" the young man said. "I don't know whether I like it or not, but I have had to do a lot of it. You mustn't think, though, that Ichose this magnificent furniture. My father bought an Italian palaceonce, and as we couldn't live in it or move it we brought thefurniture here. "

"It _is_ magnificent, " Mrs. Forsyth said, looking down the longstretches of it and eying and fingering her specific throne. "I wishmy husband could see it--I don't believe he remembers it from fourteenyears ago. It looks--excuse me!--very studio. "

"Is he a painter? Not Mr. Forsyth the painter?"

"Yes, " Mrs. Forsyth eagerly admitted, but wondering how he should knowher name, without reflecting that a score of trunk-tags proclaimed itand that she had acquired his by like means. 

"I like his things so much, " he said. "I thought his three portraitswere the best things in the Salon last year. "

"Oh, you _saw_ them?" Mrs. Forsyth laughed with pleasure and pride. "Then, " as if it necessarily followed, "you must come to us someSunday afternoon. You'll find a number of his new portraits and someof the subjects; they like to see themselves framed. " She tried for acard in her hand-bag, but she had none, and she said, "Have you oneof my cards, my dear?" Charlotte had, and rendered it up with aseverity lost upon her for the moment. She held it toward him. "It'sMr. _Peter_ Bream?" she smiled upon him, and he beamed back. 

"Did you remember it from our first meeting?"

In their cab Mrs. Forsyth said, "I don't know whether he's what youcall rather fresh or not, Charlotte, and I'm not sure that I've beenvery wise. But he is so nice, and he looked so _glad_ to be asked. "

Charlotte did not reply at once, and her silent severity came to thesurface of her mother's consciousness so painfully that it was rathera relief to have her explode, "Mother, I will thank you not to discussmy temperament with people. "

She gave Mrs. Forsyth her chance, and her mother was so happy in beingable to say, "I won't--your _temper_, my dear, " that she could addwith sincere apology: "I'm sorry I vexed you, and I won't do itagain. "

 IV

The next day was Sunday; Peter Bream took it for some Sunday, and cameto the tea on Mrs. Forsyth's generalized invitation. She pulled hermouth down and her eyebrows up when his card was brought in, but ashe followed hard she made a lightning change to a smile and gave him ahand of cordial welcome. Charlotte had no choice but to welcome him, too, and so the matter was simple for her. She was pouring, as usual, for her mother, who liked to eliminate herself from set duties andwalk round among the actual portraits in fact and in frame and talkabout them to the potential portraits. Peter, qualified by longsojourn in England, at once pressed himself into the service ofhanding about the curate's assistant; Mrs. Forsyth electricallyexplained that it was one of the first brought to New York, and thatshe had got it at the Stores in London fifteen years before, and ithad often been in the old ancestral room, and was there on top of thetrunks that first day. She did not recur to the famous instance ofCharlotte's infant indecision, and Peter was safe from a snub when hesat down by the girl's side and began to make her laugh. At the end, when her mother asked Charlotte what they had been laughing about, shecould not tell; she said she did not know they were laughing. 

The next morning Mrs. Forsyth was paying for her Sunday tea with aMonday headache, and more things must be got out for the country. Charlotte had again no choice but to go alone to the storage, and yetagain no choice but to be pleasant to Peter when she found him nextdoor listing the contents of his mother's trunks and tagging them asbefore. He dropped his work and wanted to help her. Suddenly theyseemed strangely well acquainted, and he pretended to be asked whichpieces she should put aside as goods selected, and chose them for her. She hinted that he was shirking his own work; he said it was anall-summer's job, but he knew her mother was in a hurry. He found thelittle old trunk of her playthings, and got it down and opened it andtook out some toys as goods selected. She made him put them back, butfirst he catalogued everything in it and synopsized the list on a tagand tagged the trunk. He begged for a broken doll which he had notlisted, and Charlotte had so much of her original childish difficultyin parting with that instead of something else that she refused it. 

It came lunch-time, and he invited her to go out to lunch with him;and when she declined with dignity he argued that if they went to theWoman's Exchange she would be properly chaperoned by the genius of theplace; besides, it was the only place in town where you got realstrawberry shortcake. She was ashamed of liking it all; he besoughther to let him carry her hand-bag for her, and, as he already had it, she could not prevent him; she did not know, really, how far shemight successfully forbid him in anything. At the street door of theapartment-house they found her mother getting out of a cab, and sheasked Peter in to lunch; so that Charlotte might as well have lunchedwith him at the Woman's Exchange. 

At all storage warehouses there is a season in autumn when thecorridors are heaped with the incoming furniture of people who havedecided that they cannot pass another winter in New York and arebreaking up housekeeping to go abroad indefinitely. But in the spring, when the Constitutional Safe-Deposit offered ample space forthoughtful research, the meetings of Charlotte and Peter could recurwithout more consciousness of the advance they were making toward thefated issue than in so many encounters at tea or luncheon or dinner. Mrs. Forsyth was insisting on rather a drastic overhauling of herstorage that year. Some of the things, by her command, were shifted toand fro between the more modern rooms and the old ancestral room, andCharlotte had to verify the removals. In deciding upon goods selectedfor the country she had the help of Peter, and she helped him byinterposing some useful hesitations in the case of things he had putaside from his mother's possessions to be sold for her by thewarehouse people. 

One day he came late and told Charlotte that his mother had suddenlytaken her passage for England, and they were sailing the next morning. He said, as if it logically followed, that he had been in love withher from that earliest time when she would not give him the least ofher possessions, and now he asked her if she would not promise him thegreatest. She did not like what she felt "rehearsed" in his proposal;it was not her idea of a proposal, which ought to be spontaneous andunpremeditated in terms; at the same time, she resented hisprecipitation, which she could not deny was inevitable. 

She perceived that they were sitting side by side on two of thosewhite-and-gold thrones, and she summoned an indignation with theabsurdity in refusing him. She rose and said that she must go; thatshe must be going; that it was quite time for her to go; and she wouldnot let him follow her to the elevator, as he made some offer ofdoing, but left him standing among his palatial furniture like aprince in exile. 

By the time she reached home she had been able to decide that she musttell her mother at once. Her mother received the fact of Peter'sproposal with such transport that she did not realize the fact ofCharlotte's refusal. When this was connoted to her she could scarcelykeep her temper within the bounds of maternal tenderness. She saidshe would have nothing more to do with such a girl; that there was butone such pearl as Peter in the universe, and for Charlotte to throwhim away like that! Was it because she could not decide? Well, itappeared that she could decide wrong quickly enough when it came tothe point. Would she leave it now to her mother?

That Charlotte would not do, but what she did do was to write a letterto Peter taking him back as much as rested with her; but delaying solong in posting it, when it was written, that it reached him among theletters sent on board and supplementarily delivered by his roomsteward after all the others when the ship had sailed. The best Petercould do in response was a jubilant Marconigram of unequaled cost andcomprehensiveness. 

His mother had meant to return in the fall, after her custom, to findout whether she wished to spend the winter in New York or not. Beforethe date for her sailing she fell sick, and Peter came sadly homealone in the spring. Mrs. Bream's death brought Mrs. Forsyth a vainregret; she was sorry now that she had seen so little of Mrs. Bream;Peter's affection for her was beautiful and spoke worlds for both ofthem; and they, the Forsyths, must do what they could to comfort him. 

Charlotte felt the pathos of his case peculiarly when she went to makeprovision for goods selected for the summer from the old ancestralroom, and found him forlorn among his white-and-gold furniture nextdoor. He complained that he had no association with it except thetouching fact of his mother's helplessness with it, which he had nowinherited. The contents of the trunks were even less intimately of hisexperience; he had performed a filial duty in listing their contents, which long antedated him, and consisted mostly of palatial bric-à-bracand the varied spoils of travel. 

He cheered up, however, in proposing to her that they should buy aCastle in Spain and put them into it. The fancy pleased her, butvisibly she shrank from a step which it involved, so that he was, asit were, forced to say, half jokingly, half ruefully, "I can imagineyour not caring for this rubbish or what became of it, Charlotte, butwhat about the owner?"

"The owner?" she asked, as it were somnambulantly. 

"Yes. Marrying him, say, sometime soon. "

"Oh, Peter, I couldn't. "

"Couldn't? You know that's not playing the game exactly. "

"Yes; but not--not right away?"

"Well, I don't know much about it in my own case, but isn't it usualto fix some approximate date? When should you think?"

"Oh, Peter, I _can't_ think. "

"Will you let me fix it? I must go West and sell out and pull up, youknow, preparatory to never going again. We can fix the day now or wecan fix it when I come back. "

"Oh, when you come back, " she entreated so eagerly that Peter said:

"Charlotte, let me ask you one thing. Were you ever sorry you wrote methat taking-back letter?"

"Why, Peter, you know how I am. When I have decided something I haveundecided it. That's all. "

From gay he turned to grave. "I ought to have thought. I haven't beenfair; _I_ haven't played the game. I ought to have given you anotherchance; and I haven't, have I?"

"Why, I suppose a girl can always change, " Charlotte said, suggestively. 

"Yes, but you won't always be a girl. I've never asked you if youwanted to change. I ask you now. Do you?"

"How can I tell? Hadn't we better let it go as it is? Only not hurryabout--about--marrying?"

"Certainly not hurry about marrying. I've wondered that a girl couldmake up her mind to marry any given man. Haven't you ever wished thatyou had not made up your mind about me?"

"Hundreds of times. But I don't know that I meant anything by it. "

He took her hand from where it lay in her lap as again she sat on oneof the white-and-gold thrones beside him and gently pressed it. "Well, then, let's play we have never been engaged. I'm going West to-nightto settle things up for good, and I won't be back for three or fourmonths, and when I come back we'll start new. I'll ask you, and youshall say yes or no just as if you had never said either before. "

"Peter, when you talk like that!" She saw his brown, round face dimlythrough her wet eyes, and she wanted to hug him for pity of him andpride in him, but she could not decide to do it. They went out tolunch at the Woman's Exchange, and the only regret Peter had was thatit was so long past the season of strawberry shortcake, and thatCharlotte seemed neither to talk nor to listen; she ought to have doneone or the other. 

They had left the Vaneckens busy with their summer trunks at the farend of the northward corridor, where their wireless station had beenre-established for Charlotte's advantage, though she had not thoughtof it the whole short morning long. When she came back from lunch theVaneckens were just brushing away the crumbs of theirs, which the sonand brother seemed to have brought in for them in a paper box; at anyrate, he was now there, making believe to help them. 

Mrs. Forsyth had promised to come, but she came so late in theafternoon that she owned she had been grudgingly admitted at theoffice, and she was rather indignant about it. By this time, withouthaving been West for three months, Peter had asked a question whichhad apparently never been asked before, and Charlotte had as newlyanswered it. "And now, mother, " she said, while Mrs. Forsyth passedfrom indignant to exultant, "I want to be married right away, beforePeter changes his mind about taking me West with him. Let us go homeat once. You always said I should have a home wedding. "

"What a ridiculous idea!" Mrs. Forsyth said, more to gain time thananything else. She added, "Everything is at sixes and sevens in theflat. There wouldn't be standing-room. " A sudden thought flashed uponher, which, because it was sudden and in keeping with her character, she put into tentative words. "You're more at home _here_ thananywhere else. You were almost born here. You've played about hereever since you were a child. You first met Peter here. He proposed toyou here, and you rejected him here. He's proposed here again, andyou've accepted him, you say--"

"Mother!" Charlotte broke in terribly upon her. "Are you suggestingthat I should be married in a storage warehouse? Well, I haven'tfallen quite so low as that yet. If I can't have a _home_ wedding, Iwill have a _church_ wedding, and I will wait till doomsday for it ifnecessary. "

"I don't know about doomsday, " Mrs. Forsyth said, "but as far asto-day is concerned, it's too late for a church wedding. Peter, isn'tthere something about canonical hours? And isn't it past them?"

"That's in the Episcopal Church, " Peter said, and then he asked, verypolitely, "Will you excuse me for a moment?" and walked away as if hehad an idea. It was apparently to join the Vaneckens, who stood in agroup at the end of their corridor, watching the restoration of thetrunks which they had been working over the whole day. He came backwith Mr. Vanecken and Mr. Vanecken's mother. He was smiling radiantly, and they amusedly. 

"It's all right, " he explained. "Mr. Vanecken is a Presbyterianminister, and he will marry us now. "

"But not here!" Charlotte cried, feeling herself weaken. 

"No, certainly not, " the dominie reassured her. "I know a church inthe next block that I can borrow for the occasion. But what about thelicense?"

It was in the day before the parties must both make application inperson, and Peter took a paper from his breast pocket. "I thought itmight be needed, sometime, and I got it on the way up, this morning. "

"Oh, how thoughtful of you, Peter!" Mrs. Forsyth moaned in admirationotherwise inexpressible, and the rest laughed, even Charlotte, wholaughed hysterically. At the end of the corridor they met the MissesVanecken waiting for them, unobtrusively expectant, and they all wentdown in the elevator together. Just as they were leaving the building, which had the air of hurrying them out, Mrs. Forsyth had aninspiration. "Good heavens!" she exclaimed, and then, in deference toMr. Vanecken, said, "Good gracious, I _mean_. My husband! Peter, goright into the office and telephone Mr. Forsyth. "

"Perhaps, " Mr. Vanecken said, "I had better go and see about having myfriend's church opened, in the meanwhile, and--"

"By all means!" Mrs. Forsyth said from her mood of universalapprobation. 

But Mr. Vanecken came back looking rather queer and crestfallen. "Ifind my friend has gone into the country for a few days; and I don'tquite like to get the sexton to open the church without his authority, and-- But New York is full of churches, and we can easily find another, with a little delay, if--"

He looked at Peter, who looked at Charlotte, who burst out withunprecedented determination. "No, we can't wait. I shall never marryPeter if we do. Mother, you are right. But _must_ it be in the oldancestral five-dollar room?"

They all laughed except Charlotte, who was more like crying. 

"Certainly not, " Mr. Vanecken said. "I've no doubt the manager--"

He never seemed to end his sentences, and he now left this one brokenoff while he penetrated the railing which fenced in the manager aloneamong a group of vacated desks, frowning impatient. At some murmuredwords from the dominie, he shouted, "_What!_" and then came outradiantly smiling, and saying, "Why, certainly. " He knew all the groupas old storers in the Constitutional, and called them each by name ashe shook them each by the hand. "Everything else has happened here, and I don't see why this shouldn't. Come right into thereception-room. "

With some paintings of biblical subjects, unclaimed from the storage, on the walls, the place had a religious effect, and the managersignificantly looked out of it a lingering stenographer, who wasstanding before a glass with two hatpins crossed in her mouthpreparatory to thrusting them through the straw. She withdrew, visiblycurious and reluctant, and then the manager offered to withdrawhimself. 

"No, " Charlotte said, surprisingly initiative in these junctures, "Idon't know how it is in Mr. Vanecken's church, but, if father doesn'tcome, perhaps you'll have to give me away. At any rate, you're an oldfriend of the family, and I should be hurt if you didn't stay. "

She laid her hand on the manager's arm, and just as he hadprotestingly and politely consented, her father arrived in a taxicab, rather grumbling from having been obliged to cut short a sitting. Whenit was all over, and the Vaneckens were eliminated, when, in fact, theBreams had joined the Forsyths at a wedding dinner which the bride'sfather had given them at Delmonico's and had precipitated themselvesinto a train for Niagara ("So banal, " Mrs. Forsyth said, "but Isuppose they had to go somewhere, and _we_ went to Niagara, come tothink of it, and it's on their way West"), the bride's mother remainedup late talking it all over. She took credit to herself for the wholeaffair, and gave herself a great deal of just praise. But when shesaid, "I do believe, if it hadn't been for me, at the last, Charlottewould never have made up her mind, " Forsyth demurred. 

"I should say Peter had a good deal to do with making up her mind forher. "

"Yes, you might say that. "

"And for once in her life Charlotte seems to have had her mind readyfor making up. "

"Yes, you might say that, too. I believe she is going to turn out adecided character, after all. I _never_ saw anybody so determined notto be married in a storage warehouse. "

 II

 A PRESENTIMENT

Over our coffee in the Turkish room Minver was usually a censor of ourseveral foibles rather than a sharer in our philosophic speculationsand metaphysical conjectures. He liked to disable me as oneprofessionally vowed to the fabulous, and he had unfailing fun withthe romantic sentimentality of Rulledge, which was in fact so littlein keeping with the gross super-abundance of his person, his habitualgluttony, and his ridiculous indolence. Minver knew very well thatRulledge was a good fellow withal, and would willingly do any kindaction that did not seriously interfere with his comfort, or make tooheavy a draft upon his pocket. His self-indulgence, which was quiteblameless, unless surfeit is a fault, was the basis of an interest inoccult themes, which was the means of even higher diversion to Minver. He liked to have Rulledge approach Wanhope from this side, in theinvincible persuasion that the psychologist would be interested inthese themes by the law of his science, though he had been assuredagain and again that in spite of its misleading name psychology didnot deal with the soul as Rulledge supposed the soul; and Minver'seyes lighted up with a prescience of uncommon pleasure when, late onenight, after we had vainly tried to hit it off in talk, now of this, now of that, Rulledge asked Wanhope, abruptly as if it followed fromsomething before:

"Wasn't there a great deal more said about presentiments forty orfifty years ago than there is now?"

Wanhope had been lapsing deeper and deeper into the hollow of hischair; but he now pulled himself up, and turned quickly towardRulledge. "What made you think of that?" he asked. 

"I don't know. Why?"

"Because I was thinking of it myself. " He glanced at me, and I shookmy head. 

"Well, " Minver said, "if it will leave Acton out in the cold, I'll ownthat I was thinking of it, too. I was going back in my mind, for noreason that I know of, to my childhood, when I first heard of such athing as a presentiment, and when I was afraid of having one. I hadthe notion that presentiments ran in the family. "

"Why had you that notion?" Rulledge demanded. 

"I don't know that I proposed telling, " the painter said, givinghimself to his pipe. 

"Perhaps you didn't have it, " Rulledge retaliated. 

"Perhaps, " Minver assented. 

Wanhope turned from the personal aspect of the matter. "It's rathercurious that we should all three have had the same thing in mind justnow; or, rather, it is not very curious. Such coincidences are reallyvery common. Something must have been said at dinner which suggestedit to all of us. "

"All but Acton, " Minver demurred. 

"I mightn't have heard what was said, " I explained. "I suppose thepassing of all that sort of sub-beliefs must date from the generallapse of faith in personal immortality. "

"Yes, no doubt, " Wanhope assented. "It is very striking how sudden thelapse was. Everyone who experienced it in himself could date it to ayear, if not to a day. The agnosticism of scientific men was of courseall the time undermining the fabric of faith, and then it fell inabruptly, reaching one believer after another as fast as the groundwas taken wholly or partly from under his feet. I can remember howpeople once disputed whether there were such beings as guardianspirits or not. That minor question was disposed of when it wasdecided that there were no spirits at all. "

"Naturally, " Minver said. "And the decay of the presentiment must havebeen hastened by the failure of so many presentiments to make good. "

"The great majority of them have failed to make good, from thebeginning of time, " Wanhope replied. 

"There are two kinds of presentiments, " Rulledge suggested, with aphilosophic air. "The true and the untrue. "

"Like mushrooms, " Minver said. "Only, the true presentiment kills, andthe true mushroom nourishes. Talking of mushrooms, they have a way inSwitzerland of preserving them in walnut oil, and they fill you withthe darkest forebodings, after you've filled yourself with themushrooms. There's some occult relation between the two. Think it out, Rulledge!"

Rulledge ignored him in turning to Wanhope. "The trouble is how todistinguish the true from the untrue presentiment. "

"It would be interesting, " Wanhope began, but Minver broke in upon himmaliciously. 

"To know how much the dyspepsia of our predecessors had to with theprevalence of presentimentalism? I agree with you, that a better diethas a good deal to do with the decline of the dark foreboding amongus. What I can't understand is, how a gross and reckless feeder, likeRulledge here, doesn't go about like ancestral voices prophesying allsorts of dreadful things. "

"That's rather cheap talk, even for you, Minver, " Rulledge said. "Whydid you think presentiments ran in _your_ family?"

"Well, there you have me, Rulledge. That's where my theory fails. Ican remember, " Minver continued soberly, "the talk there used to beabout them among my people. They were serious people in an unreligiousway, or rather an unecclesiastical way. They were never spiritualists, but I don't think there was one of them who doubted that he shouldlive hereafter; he might doubt that he was living here, but there wasno question of the other thing. I must say it gave a dignity to theirconversation which, when they met, as they were apt to do at oneanother's houses on Sunday nights, was not of common things. One of myuncles was a merchant, another a doctor; my father was aportrait-painter by profession, and a sign-painter by practice. Isuppose that's where I got my knack, such as it is. The merchant wasan invalid, rather, though he kept about his business, and our peoplemerely recognized him as being out of health. He was what we couldcall, for that day and region--the Middle West of the early fifties--aman of unusual refinement. I suppose this was temperamental with himlargely; but he had cultivated tastes, too. I remember him as apeculiarly gentle person, with a pensive cast of face, and themelancholy accomplishment of playing the flute. "

"I wonder why nobody plays the flute nowadays, " I mused aloud. 

"Yes, it's quite obsolete, " Minver said. "They only play the flute inthe orchestras now. I always look at the man who plays it and think ofmy uncle. He used to be very nice to me as a child; and he was veryfond of my father, in a sort of filial way; my father was so mucholder. I can remember my young aunt; and how pretty she was as she satat the piano, and sang and played to his fluting. When she lookedforward at the music, her curls fell into her neck; they wore curlsthen, grown-up women; and though I don't think curls are beautiful, myaunt's beauty would have been less without them; in fact, I can'tthink of her without them. 

"She was delicate, too; they were really a pair of invalids; but shehad none of his melancholy. They had had several children, who died, one after another, and there was only one left at the time I amspeaking of. I rather wonder, now, that the thought of those poorlittle ghost-cousins didn't make me uncomfortable. I was a verysuperstitious boy, but I seem not to have thought of them. I playedwith the little girl who was left, and I liked going to my uncle'sbetter than anywhere else. I preferred going in the daytime and in thesummer-time. Then my cousin and I sat in a nook of the garden andfought violets, as we called it; hooked the wry necks of the flowerstogether and twitched to see which blossom would come off first. Shewas a sunny little thing, like her mother, and she had curls, likeher. I can't express the feeling I had for my aunt; she seemed theembodiment of a world that was at once very proud and very good. Isuppose she dressed fashionably, as things went then and there; andher style as well as her beauty fascinated me. I would have doneanything to please her, far more than to please my cousin. With her Iused to squabble, and sometimes sent her crying to her mother. Then Ialways ran off home, but when I sneaked back, or was sent for to comeand play with my cousin, I was not scolded for my wickedness. 

"My uncle was more prosperous than his brothers; he lived in a muchbetter house than ours, and I used to be quite awe-struck by itsmagnificence. He went East, as we said, twice a year to buy goods, and he had things sent back for his house such as we never sawelsewhere; those cask-shaped seats of blue china for the verandas, andbamboo chairs. There were cane-bottom chairs in the sitting-room, suchas we had in our best room; in the parlor the large pieces were ofmahogany veneer, upholstered in black hair-cloth; they held me in awe. The piano filled half the place; the windows came down to the ground, and had Venetian blinds and lace curtains. 

"We all went in there after the Sunday night supper, and then thefathers and mothers were apt to begin talking of those occult thingsthat gave me the creeps. It was after the Rochester Knockings, as theywere called, had been exposed, and so had spread like an infectioneverywhere. It was as if people were waiting to have the fraud shownup in order to believe in it. "

"That sort of thing happens, " Wanhope agreed. "It's as if the seeds ofthe ventilated imposture were carried atmospherically into the humanmind broadcast and a universal crop of self-delusion sprang up. "

"At any rate, " Minver resumed, "instead of the gift being confined toa few persons--a small sisterhood with detonating knee-joints--therewere rappings in every well-regulated household; all the tablestipped; people went to sleep to the soft patter of raps on theheadboards of their beds; and girls who could not spell were occupiedin delivering messages from Socrates, Ben Franklin and Shakespeare. Besides the physical demonstrations, there were all sorts of psychicalintimations from the world which we've now abolished. "

"Not permanently, perhaps, " I suggested. 

"Well, that remains to be seen, " Minver said. "It was this sort ofthing which my people valued above the other. Perhaps they wereexclusive in their tastes, and did not care for an occultism which thecrowd could share with them; though this is a conjecture too longafter the fact to have much value. As far as I can now remember, theyused to talk of the double presence of living persons, like theirbeing where they greatly wished to be as well as where they reallywere; of clairvoyance; of what we call mind-transference, now; ofweird coincidences of all kinds; of strange experiences of their ownand of others; of the participation of animals in these experiences, like the testimony of cats and dogs to the presence of invisiblespirits; of dreams that came true, or came near coming true; and, above everything, of forebodings and presentiments. 

"I dare say they didn't always talk of such things, and I'm givingpossibly a general impression from a single instance; everythingremembered of childhood is as if from large and repeated occurrence. But it must have happened more than once, for I recall that when itcame to presentiments my aunt broke it up, perhaps once only. Mycousin used to get very sleepy on the rug before the fire, and hermother would carry her off to bed, very cross and impatient of beingkissed good night, while I was left to the brunt of the occult alone. I could not go with my aunt and cousin, and I folded myself in mymother's skirt, where I sat at her feet, and listened in an anguish ofdrowsy terror. The talk would pass into my dreams, and the dreamswould return into the talk; and I would suffer a sort of doublenightmare, waking and sleeping. "

"Poor little devil!" Rulledge broke out. "It's astonishing how peoplewill go on before children, and never think of the misery they'remaking for them. "

"I believe my mother thought of it, " Minver returned, "but when thatsort of talk began, the witchery of it was probably too strong forher. 'It held her like a two years' child'; I was eight that winter. Idon't know how long my suffering had gone on, when my aunt came backand seemed to break up the talk. It had got to presentiments, and, whether they knew that this was forbidden ground with her, or whethershe now actually said something about it, they turned to talk of otherthings. I'm not telling you all this from my own memory, which dealswith only a point or two. My father and mother used to recur to itwhen I was older, and I am piecing out my story from their memories. 

"My uncle, with all his temperamental pensiveness, was my aunt's stayand cheer in the fits of depression which she paid with for her usualgaiety. But these fits always began with some uncommon depression ofhis--some effect of the forebodings he was subject to. Her oppositionto that kind of thing was purely unselfish, but certainly she dreadedit for him as well as herself. I suppose there was a sort of conscioussilence in the others which betrayed them to her. 'Well, ' she said, laughing, 'have you been at it again? That poor child looks frightenedout of his wits. '

"They all laughed then, and my father said, hypocritically, 'I wasjust going to ask Felix whether he expected to start East this week ornext. '

"My uncle tried to make light of what was always a heavy matter withhim. 'Well, yesterday, ' he answered, 'I should have said next week;but it's this week, now. I'm going on Wednesday. '

"'By stage or packet?' my father asked. 

"'Oh, I shall take the canal to the lake, and get the boat for Buffalothere, ' my uncle said. 

"They went on to speak of the trip to New York, and how much easier itwas then than it used to be when you had to go by stage over themountains to Philadelphia and on by stage again. Now, it seemed, yougot the Erie Canal packet at Buffalo and the Hudson River steamboat atAlbany, and reached New York in four or five days, in great comfortwithout the least fatigue. They had all risen and my aunt had gone outwith her sisters-in-law to help them get their wraps. When theyreturned, it seemed that they had been talking of the journey, too, for she said to my mother, laughing again, 'Well, Richard may thinkit's easy; but somehow Felix never expects to get home alive. '

"I don't think I ever heard my uncle laugh, but I can remember how hesmiled at my aunt's laughing, as he put his hand on her shoulder; Ithought it was somehow a very sad smile. On Wednesday I was allowed togo with my aunt and cousin to see him off on the packet, which came upfrom Cincinnati early in the morning; I had lain awake most of thenight, and then nearly overslept myself, and then was at the canal intime. We made a gay parting for him, but when the boat started, and Iwas gloating on the three horses making up the tow-path at a spankingtrot, under the snaky spirals of the driver's smacking whip-lash, Icaught sight of my uncle standing on the deck and smiling that sadsmile of his. My aunt was waving her handkerchief, but when she turnedaway she put it to her eyes. 

"The rest of the story, such as it is, I know, almost to the very end, from what I heard my father and mother say from my uncle's reportafterward. He told them that, when the boat started, the stress tostay was so strong upon him that if he had not been ashamed he wouldhave jumped ashore and followed us home. He said that he could notanalyze his feelings; it was not yet any definite foreboding, butsimply a depression that seemed to crush him so that all his movementswere leaden, when he turned at last, and went down to breakfast in thecabin below. The stress did not lighten with the little changes andchances of the voyage to the lake. He was never much given to makingacquaintance with people, but now he found himself so absent-mindedthat he was aware of being sometimes spoken to by friendly strangerswithout replying until it was too late even to apologize. He was notonly steeped in this gloom, but he had the constant distress of theeffort he involuntarily made to trace it back to some cause or followit forward to some consequence. He kept trying at this, with a mind sotensely bent to the mere horror that he could not for a moment strainaway from it. He would very willingly have occupied himself with otherthings, but the anguish which the double action of his mind gave himwas such that he could not bear the effort; all he could do was toabandon himself to his obsession. This would ease him only for awhile, though, and then he would suffer the misery of trying in vainto escape from it. 

"He thought he must be going mad, but insanity implied some definitedelusion or hallucination, and, so far as he could make out, he hadnone. He was simply crushed by a nameless foreboding. Somethingdreadful was to happen, but this was all he felt; knowledge had nopart in his condition. He could not say whether he slept during thetwo nights that passed before he reached Toledo, where he was to takethe lake steamer for Buffalo. He wished to turn back again, but therelentless pressure which had kept him from turning back at the startwas as strong as ever with him. He tried to give his presentimentdirection by talking with the other passengers about a recent accidentto a lake steamer, in which several hundred lives were lost; therehad been a collision in rough weather, and one of the boats had gonedown in a few minutes. There was a sort of relief in that, but thedouble action of the mind brought the same intolerable anguish again, and he settled back for refuge under the shadow of his impenetrabledoom. This did not lift till he was well on his way from Albany to NewYork by the Hudson River. The canal-boat voyage from Buffalo to Albanyhad been as eventless as that to Toledo, and his lake steamer hadreached Buffalo in safety, for which it had seemed as if those lost inthe recent disaster had paid. 

"He tried to pierce his heavy cloud by argument from the security inwhich he had traveled so far, but the very security had itshopelessness. If something had happened--some slight accident--tointerrupt it, his reason, or his unreason, might have taken it for asign that the obscure doom, whatever it was, had been averted. 

"Up to this time he had not been able to connect his foreboding withanything definite, and he was not afraid for himself. He was simplywithout the formless hope that helps us on at every step, through goodand bad, and it was a mortal peril, which he came through safely whilescores of others were lost, that gave his presentiment direction. Hehad taken the day boat from Albany, and about the middle of theafternoon the boat, making way under a head-wind, took fire. The pilotimmediately ran her ashore, and her passengers, those that had thecourage for it, ran aft, and began jumping from the stern, but a greatmany women and children were burned. My uncle was one of the first ofthose who jumped, and he stood in the water, trying to save those whocame after from drowning; it was not very deep. Some of the women lostcourage for the leap, and some turned back into the flames, remembering children they had left behind. One poor creature stoodhesitating wildly, and he called up to her to jump. At last she didso, almost into his arms, and then she clung about him as he helpedher ashore. 'Oh, ' she cried out between her sobs, 'if you have a wifeand children at home, God will take you safe back to them; you havesaved my life for my husband and little ones. ' 'No, ' he was consciousof saying, 'I shall never see my wife again, ' and now his forebodinghad the direction that it had wanted before. 

"From that on he simply knew that he should not get home alive, and hewaited resignedly for the time and form of his disaster. He had a sortof peace in that. He went about his business intelligently, and fromhabit carefully, but it was with a mechanical action of the mind, something, he imagined, like the mechanical action of his body inthose organs which do their part without bidding from the will. He wasonly a few days in New York, but in the course of them he got severalletters from his wife telling him that all was going well with her andtheir daughter. It was before the times when you can ask and answerquestions by telegraph, and he started back, necessarily withouthaving heard the latest news from home. 

"He made the return trip in a sort of daze, talking, reading, eating, and sleeping in the calm certainty of doom, and only wondering how itwould be fulfilled, and what hour of the night or day. But it is nouse my eking this out; I heard it, as I say, when I was a child, and Iam afraid that if I should try to give it with the full detail Ishould take to inventing particulars. " Minver paused a moment, andthen he said: "But there was one thing that impressed itself indeliblyon my memory. My uncle got back perfectly safe and well. "

"Oh!" Rulledge snorted in rude dissatisfaction. 

"What was it impressed itself on your memory?" Wanhope asked, withscientific detachment from the story as a story. 

Minver continued to address Wanhope, without regarding Rulledge. "Myuncle told my father that some sort of psychical change, which hecould not describe, but which he was as conscious of as if it werephysical, took place within him as he came in sight of his house--"

"Yes, " Wanhope prompted. 

"He had driven down from the canal-packet in the old omnibus whichused to meet passengers and distribute them at their destinations intown. All the way to his house he was still under the doom as regardedhimself, but bewildered that he should be getting home safe and well, and he was refusing his escape, as it were, and then suddenly, at thesight of the familiar house, the change within him happened. He lookedout of the omnibus window and saw a group of neighbors at his gate. Ashe got out of the omnibus, my father took him by the hand, as if tohold him back a moment. Then he said to my father, very quietly, 'Youneedn't tell me: my wife is dead. '"

There was an appreciable pause, in which we were all silent, and thenRulledge demanded, greedily, "And was she?"

"Really, Rulledge!" I could not help protesting. 

Minver asked him, almost compassionately and with unwonted gentleness, as from the mood in which his reminiscence had left him: "Yoususpected a hoax? She had died suddenly the night before while she andmy cousin were getting things ready to welcome my uncle home in themorning. I'm sorry you're disappointed, " he added, getting back to hisirony. 

"Whatever, " Rulledge pursued, "became of the little girl?"

"She died rather young; a great many years ago; and my uncle soonafter her. "

Rulledge went away without saying anything, but presently returnedwith the sandwich which he had apparently gone for, while Wanhope wasremarking: "That want of definition in the presentiment at first, andthen its determination in the new direction by, as it were, propinquity--it is all very curious. Possibly we shall some daydiscover a law in such matters. "

Rulledge said: "How was it your boyhood was passed in the Middle West, Minver? I always thought you were a Bostonian. "

"I was an adoptive Bostonian for a good while, until I decided tobecome a native New-Yorker, so that I could always be near to you, Rulledge. You can never know what a delicate satisfaction you are. "

Minver laughed, and we were severally restored to the wonted relationswhich his story had interrupted. 

 III

 CAPTAIN DUNLEVY'S LAST TRIP

 It was against the law, in such case made and provided, Of the United States, but by the good will of the pilots That we would some of us climb to the pilot-house after our breakfast For a morning smoke, and find ourselves seats on the benching Under the windows, or in the worn-smooth arm-chairs. The pilot, Which one it was did not matter, would tilt his head round and say, "All right!" When he had seen who we were, and begin, or go on as from stopping In the midst of talk that was leading up to a story, Just before we came in, and the story, begun or beginning, Always began or ended with some one, or something or other, Having to do with the river. If one left the wheel to the other, Going off watch, he would say to his partner standing behind him With his hands stretched out for the spokes that were not given up yet, "Captain, you can tell them the thing I was going to tell them Better than I could, I reckon, " and then the other would answer, "Well, I don't know as I feel so sure of that, captain, " and having Recognized each other so by that courtesy title of captain Never officially failed of without offense among pilots, One would subside into Jim and into Jerry the other. 

 It was on these terms, at least, Captain Dunn relieved Captain Davis When we had settled ourselves one day to listen in comfort, After some psychological subtleties we had indulged in at breakfast Touching that weird experience every one knows when the senses Juggle the points of the compass out of true orientation, Changing the North to the South, and the East to the West. "Why, Jerry, what was it You was going to tell them?" "Oh, never _you_ mind what it _was_, Jim. _You_ tell them something else, " and so Captain Davis submitted, While Captain Dunn, with a laugh, got away beyond reach of his protest. Then Captain Davis, with fitting, deprecatory preamble, Launched himself on a story that promised to be all a story Could be expected to be, when one of those women--you know them-- Who interrupt on any occasion or none, interrupted, Pointed her hand, and asked, "Oh, what is that island there, captain?" "That one, ma'am?" He gave her the name, and then the woman persisted, "Don't say you know them all by sight!" "Yes, by sight or by feeling. " "What do you mean by feeling?" "Why, just that by daylight we see them, And in the dark it's like as if somehow we felt them, I reckon. Every foot of the channel and change in it, wash-out and cave-in, Every bend and turn of it, every sand-bar and landmark, Every island, of course, we have got to see them, or feel them. " "But if you don't?" "But we've got to. " "But aren't you ever mistaken?" "Never the second time. " "Now, what do you mean, Captain Davis? Never the second time. " "Well, let me tell you a story. It's not the one I begun, but that island you asked about yonder Puts me in mind of it, happens to be the place where it happened, Three years ago. I suppose no man ever knew the Ohio Better than Captain Dunlevy, if any one else knew it like him. Man and boy he had been pretty much his whole life on the river: Cabin-boy first on a keelboat before the day of the steamboats, Back in the pioneer times; and watchman then on a steamboat; Then second mate, and then mate, and then pilot and captain and owner-- But he was proudest, I reckon, of being about the best pilot On the Ohio. He knew it as well as he knew his own Bible, And I don't hardly believe that ever Captain Dunlevy Let a single day go by without reading a chapter. "

 While the pilot went on with his talk, and in regular, rhythmical motion Swayed from one side to the other before his wheel, and we listened, Certain typical facts of the picturesque life of the river Won their way to our consciousness as without help of our senses. It was along about the beginning of March, but already In the sleepy sunshine the budding maples and willows, Where they waded out in the shallow wash of the freshet, Showed the dull red and the yellow green of their blossoms and catkins, And in their tops the foremost flocks of blackbirds debated As to which they should colonize first. The indolent house-boats Loafing along the shore, sent up in silvery spirals Out of their kitchen pipes the smoke of their casual breakfasts. Once a wide tow of coal-barges, loaded clear down to the gunwales, Gave us the slack of the current, with proper formalities shouted By the hoarse-throated stern-wheeler that pushed the black barges before her, And as she passed us poured a foamy cascade from her paddles. Then, as a raft of logs, which the spread of the barges had hidden, River-wide, weltered in sight, with a sudden jump forward the pilot Dropped his whole weight on the spokes of the wheel just in time to escape it. 

 "Always give those fellows, " he joked, "all the leeway they ask for; Worst kind of thing on the river you want your boat to run into. Where had I got about Captain Dunlevy? Oh yes, I remember. Well, when the railroads began to run away from the steamboats, Taking the carrying trade in the very edge of the water, It was all up with the old flush times, and Captain Dunlevy Had to climb down with the rest of us pilots till he was only Captain the same as any and every pilot is captain, Glad enough, too, to be getting his hundred and twenty-five dollars Through the months of the spring and fall while navigation was open. Never lowered himself, though, a bit from captain and owner, Knew his rights and yours, and never would thought of allowing Any such thing as a liberty _from_ you or taking one _with_ you. I had been his cub, and all that I knew of the river Captain Dunlevy had learnt me; and if you know what the feeling Is of a cub for the pilot that learns him the river, you'll trust me When I tell you I felt it the highest kind of an honor Having him for my partner; and when I came up to relieve him, One day, here at the wheel, and actu'lly thought that I found him Taking that island there on the left, I thought I was crazy. No, I couldn't believe my senses, and yet I couldn't endure it. Seeing him climb the spokes of the wheel to warp the _Kanawha_, With the biggest trip of passengers ever she carried, Round on the bar at the left that fairly stuck out of the water. Well, as I said, he learnt me all that I knew of the river, And was I to learn _him_ now which side to take of an island When I knew he knew it like his right hand from his left hand? My, but I hated to speak! It certainly seemed like my tongue clove, Like the Bible says, to the roof of my mouth! But I had to. 'Captain, ' I says, and it seemed like another person was talking, 'Do you usu'lly take that island there on the eastward?' 'Yes, ' he says, and he laughed, 'and I thought I had learnt you to do it, When you was going up. ' 'But not going _down_, did you, captain?' 'Down?' And he whirled at me, and, without ever stopping his laughing, Turned as white as a sheet, and his eyes fairly bulged from their sockets. Then he whirled back again, and looked up and down on the river, Like he was hunting out the shape of the shore and the landmarks. Well, I suppose the thing has happened to every one sometime, When you find the points of the compass have swapped with each other, And at the instant you're looking, the North and the South have changed places. _I_ knew what was in his mind as well as Dunlevy himself did. Neither one of us spoke a word for nearly a minute. Then in a kind of whisper he says, 'Take the wheel, Captain Davis!' Let the spokes fly, and while I made a jump forwards to catch them, Staggered into that chair--well, the very one you are in, ma'am. Set there breathing quick, and, when he could speak, all he said was, 'This is the end of it for me on the river, Jim Davis, ' Reached up over his head for his coat where it hung by that window, Trembled onto his feet, and stopped in the door there a second, Stared in hard like as if for good-by to the things he was used to, Shut the door behind him, and never come back again through it. " While we were silent, not liking to prompt the pilot with questions, "Well, " he said, at last, "it was no use to argue. We tried it, In the half-hearted way that people do that don't mean it. Every one was his friend here on the _Kanawha_, and _we_ knew It was the first time he ever had lost his bearings, but _he_ knew, In such a thing as that, that the first and the last are the same time. When we had got through trying our worst to persuade him, he only Shook his head and says, 'I am done for, boys, and you know it, ' Left the boat at Wheeling, and left his life on the river-- Left his life on the earth, you may say, for I don't call it living, Setting there homesick at home for the wheel he can never go back to. Reads the river-news regular; knows just the stage of the water Up and down the whole way from Cincinnati to Pittsburg; Follows every boat from the time she starts out in the spring-time Till she lays up in the summer, and then again in the winter; Wants to talk all about her and who is her captain and pilot; Then wants to slide away to that everlastingly puzzling Thing that happened to him that morning on the _Kanawha_ When he lost his bearings and North and South had changed places-- No, I don't call that living, whatever the rest of you call it. " We were silent again till that woman spoke up, "And what was it, Captain, that kept him from going back and being a pilot?" "Well, ma'am, " after a moment the pilot patiently answered, "_I_ don't hardly believe that I could explain it exactly. "

 IV

 THE RETURN TO FAVOR

He never, by any chance, quite kept his word, though there was amoment in every case when he seemed to imagine doing what he said, andhe took with mute patience the rakings which the ladies gave him whenhe disappointed them. 

Disappointed is not just the word, for the ladies did not reallyexpect him to do what he said. They pretended to believe him when hepromised, but at the bottom of their hearts they never did or could. He was gentle-mannered and soft-spoken, and when he set his head onone side, and said that a coat would be ready on Wednesday, or a dresson Saturday, and repeated his promise upon the same lady's expresseddoubt, she would catch her breath and say that now she absolutely musthave it on the day named, for otherwise she would not have a thing toput on. Then he would become very grave, and his soft tenor woulddeepen to a bass of unimpeachable veracity, and he would say, "Sure, lady, you have it. "

The lady would depart still doubting and slightly sighing, and hewould turn to the customer who was waiting to have a button sewed on, or something like that, and ask him softly what it was he could do forhim. If the customer offered him his appreciation of the case in hand, he would let his head droop lower, and in a yet deeper bass deplorethe doubt of the ladies as an idiosyncrasy of their sex. He would makethe customer feel that he was a favorite customer whose rights to aperfect fidelity of word and deed must by no means be tampered with, and he would have the button sewed on or the rip sewed up at once, andrefuse to charge anything, while the customer waited in hisshirt-sleeves in the small, stuffy shop opening directly from thestreet. When he tolerantly discussed the peculiarities of ladies as asex, he would endure to be laughed at, "for sufferance was the badgeof all his tribe, " and possibly he rather liked it. 

The favorite customer enjoyed being there when some lady came back onthe appointed Wednesday or Saturday, and the tailor came soothinglyforward and showed her into the curtained alcove where she was to tryon the garments, and then called into the inner shop for them. Theshirt-sleeved journeyman, with his unbuttoned waistcoat-front allpins and threaded needles, would appear in his slippers with thethings barely basted together, and the tailor would take them, with anairy courage, as if they were perfectly finished, and go in behind thecurtain where the lady was waiting in a dishabille which the favoritecustomer, out of reverence for the sex, forbore to picture to himself. Then sounds of volcanic fury would issue from the alcove. "Now, Mr. Morrison, you have lied to me again, deliberately _lied_. Didn't Itell you I _must_ have the things perfectly ready to-day? You seeyourself that it will be another week before I can have my things. "

"A week? Oh, madam! But I assure you--"

"Don't talk to me any more! It's the last time I shall ever come toyou, but I suppose I can't take the work away from you as it is. _When_ shall I have it?"

"To-morrow. Yes, to-morrow noon. Sure!"

"Now you know you are always out at noon. I should think you would beashamed. "

"If it hadn't been for sickness in the family I would have finishedyour dress with my own hands. Sure I would. If you come here to-morrownoon you find your dress all ready for you. "

"I know I won't, but I will come, and you'd _better_ have it ready. "

"Oh, sure. "

The lady then added some generalities of opprobrium with someparticular criticisms of the garments. Her voice sank intodispassionate murmurs in these, but it rose again in her renewed senseof the wrong done her, and when she came from the alcove she went outof the street door purple. She reopened it to say, "Now, remember!"before she definitely disappeared. 

"Rather a stormy session, Mr. Morrison, " the customer said. 

"Something fierce, " Mr. Morrison sighed. But he did not seem muchtroubled, and he had one way with all his victims, no matter what moodthey came or went in. 

One day the customer was by when a kind creature timidly upbraidedhim. "This is the third time you've disappointed me, Mr. Morrison. Ireally wish you wouldn't promise me unless you mean to do it. I don'tthink it's right for you. "

"Oh, but sure, madam! The things will be done, sure. We had a strikeon us. "

"Well, I will trust you once more, " the kind creature said. 

"You can depend on me, madam, sure. "

When she was gone the customer said: "I wonder you do that sort ofthing, Mr. Morrison. You can't be surprised at their behaving rustilywith you if you never keep your word. "

"Why, I assure you there are times when I don't know where to look, the way they go on. It is something awful. You ought to hear themonce. And now they want the wote. " He rearranged some pieces oftumbled goods at the table where the customer sat, and put togetherthe disheveled leaves of the fashion-papers which looked as if theladies had scattered them in their rage. 

One day the customer heard two ladies waiting for theirdisappointments in the outer room while the tailor in the alcove wastrying to persuade a third lady that positively her things would besent home the next day before dark. The customer had now formed thehabit of having his own clothes made by the tailor, and his system inavoiding disappointment was very simple. In the early fall he ordereda spring suit, and in the late spring it was ready. He never had anydifficulty, but he was curious to learn how the ladies managed, and helistened with all his might while these two talked. 

"I always wonder we keep coming, " one of them said. 

"I'll tell you why, " the other said. "Because he's cheap, and we getthings from a fourth to a third less than we can get them anywhereelse. The quality is first rate, and he's absolutely honest. And, besides, he's a genius. The wretch has _touch_. The things have astyle, a look, a hang! Really it's something wonderful. Sure it iss, "she ended in the tailor's accent, and then they both laughed andjoined in a common sigh. 

"Well, I don't believe he means to deceive any one. "

"Oh, neither do I. I believe he expects to do everything he says. Andone can't help liking him even when he doesn't. "

"He's a good while getting through with her, " the first lady said, meaning the unseen lady in the alcove. 

"She'll be a good while longer getting through with _him_, if hehasn't them ready the next time, " the second lady said. 

But the lady in the alcove issued from it with an impredicable smile, and the tailor came up to the others, and deferred to their wisheswith a sort of voiceless respect. 

He gave the customer a glance of good-fellowship, and said to him, radiantly: "Your things all ready for you, this morning. As soon asI--"

"Oh, no hurry, " the customer responded. 

"I won't be a minute, " the tailor said, pulling the curtain of thealcove aside, and then there began those sounds of objurgation andexpostulation, although the ladies had seemed so amiable before. 

The customer wondered if they did not all enjoy it; the ladies intheir patience under long trial, and the tailor in the pleasure ofpractising upon it. But perhaps he did believe in the things hepromised. He might be so much a genius as to have no grasp of facts;he might have thought that he could actually do what he said. 

The customer's question on these points found answer when one day thetailor remarked, as it were out of a clear sky, that he had sold hisbusiness; sold it to the slippered journeyman who used to come in hisshirt-sleeves, with his vest-front full of pins and needles, bringingthe basted garments to be tried on the ladies who had been promisedthem perfectly finished. 

"He will do your clothes all right, " he explained to the customer. "Heis a first-rate cutter and fitter; he knows the whole business. "

"But why--why--" the customer began. 

"I couldn't stand it. The way them ladies would talk to a person, whenyou done your best to please them; it's something fierce. "

"Yes, I know. But I thought you liked it, from the way you alwayspromised them and never kept your word. "

"And if I hadn't promised them?" the tailor returned with some show offeeling. "They _wanted_ me to promise them--they made me--theywouldn't have gone away without it. Sure. Every one wanted her thingsbefore every one. You had got to think of that. "

"But you had to think of what they would say. "

"Say? Sometimes I thought they would _hit_ me. One lady said she had anotion to slap me once. It's no way to talk. "

"But you didn't seem to mind it. "

"I didn't mind it for a good while. Then I couldn't stand it. So Isold. "

He shook his head sadly; but the customer had no comfort to offer him. He asked when his clothes would be done, and the tailor told him when, and then they were not. The new proprietor tried them on, but he wouldnot say just when they would be finished. 

"We have a good deal of work already for some ladies that beendisappointed. Now we try a new way. We tell people exactly what wedo. "

"Well, that's right, " the customer said, but in his heart he was notsure he liked the new way. 

The day before his clothes were promised he dropped in. From thecurtained alcove he heard low murmurs, the voice of the new proprietorand the voice of some lady trying on, and being severely bidden not toexpect her things at a time she suggested. "No, madam. We got too muchwork on hand already. These things, they will not be done before nextweek. "

"I told you to-morrow, " the same voice said to another lady, and thenew proprietor came out with an unfinished coat in his hand. 

"I know you did, but I thought you would be better than your word, andso I came to-day. Well, then, to-morrow. "

"Yes, to-morrow, " the new proprietor said, but he did not seem to haveliked the lady's joke. He did not look happy. 

A few weeks after that the customer came for some little alterationsin his new suit. 

In the curtained alcove he heard the murmurs of trying on, muchcheerfuller murmurs than before; the voice of a lady lifted ingladness, in gaiety, and an incredible voice replying, "Oh, sure, madam. "

Then the old proprietor came out in his shirt-sleeves and slippers, with his waistcoat-front full of pins and needles, just like the newproprietor in former days. 

"Why!" the customer exclaimed. "Have you bought back?"

"No. I'm just here like a journeyman already. The new man he want meto come. He don't get along very well with his way. He's all right;he's a good man and a first-class tailor. But, " and the formerproprietor looked down at the basted garment hanging over his arm, andpicked off an irrelevant thread from it, "he thinks I get along betterwith the ladies. "

 V

 SOMEBODY'S MOTHER

The figure of a woman sat crouched forward on one of the lowermoststeps of the brownstone dwelling which was keeping a domestictradition in a street mostly gone to shops and small restaurants andlocal express-offices. The house was black behind its closed shutters, and the woman remained sitting there because no one could have comeout of its door for a year past to hunt her away. The neighborhoodpoliceman faltered in going by, and then he kept on. The three peoplewho came out of the large, old-fashioned hotel, half a block off, ontheir way for dinner to a French _table d'hôte_ which they had heardof, stopped and looked at the woman. They were a father and his sonand daughter, and it was something like a family instinct thatcontrolled them, in their pause before the woman crouching on thesteps. 

It was the early dusk of a December day, and the day was very chilly. "She seems to be sick or something, " the father vaguely surmised. "Orasleep. "

The three looked at the woman, but they did nothing for a moment. Theywould rather have gone on, but they waited to see if anything wouldhappen to release them from the spell that they seemed to have laidupon themselves. They were conditional New-Yorkers of long sojourn, and it was from no apparent motive that the son wore evening dress, which his unbuttoned overcoat discovered, and an opera-hat. He wouldnot have dressed so for that problematical French _table d'hôte_;probably he was going on later to some society affair. He now put ineffect the father's impulse to go closer and look at the woman. 

"She seems to be asleep, " he reported. 

"Shouldn't you think she would take cold? She will get her deaththere. Oughtn't we to do something?" the daughter asked, but she leftit to the father, and he said:

"Probably somebody will come by. "

"That we could leave her to?" the daughter pursued. 

"We could do that without waiting, " the son commented. 

"Well, yes, " the father assented; but they did not go on. They waited, helplessly, and then somebody came by. It was a young girl, not verydefinite in the dusk, except that she was unmistakably of the workingclass; she was simply dressed, though with the New York instinct forclothes. Their having stopped there seemed to stay her involuntarily, and after a glance in the direction of their gaze she asked thedaughter:

"Is she sick, do you think?"

"We don't know what's the matter. But she oughtn't to stay there. "

Something velvety in the girl's voice had made its racial qualitysensible to the ear; as she went up to the crouching woman and bentforward over her and then turned to them, a street lamp threw itslight on her face, and they saw that she was a light shade of coloredgirl. 

"She seems to be sleeping. "

"Perhaps, " the son began, "she's not quite--" But he did not go on. 

The girl looked round at the others and suggested, "She must besomebody's mother!"

The others all felt abashed in their several sorts and degrees, but intheir several sorts and degrees they all decided that there wassomething romantic, sentimental, theatrical in the girl's words, likesomething out of some cheap story-paper story. 

The father wondered if that kind of thing was current among that kindof people. He had a sort of esthetic pleasure in the character andcondition expressed by the words. 

"Well, yes, " he said, "if she has children, or has had. " The girllooked at him uncertainly, and then he added, "But, of course--"

The son went up to the woman again, and asked: "Aren't you well? Canwe do anything for you? It won't do to stay here, you know. " The womanonly made a low murmur, and he said to his sister, "Suppose we get herup. "

His sister did not come forward promptly, and the colored girl said, "I'll help you. "

She took one arm of the woman and the son took the other, and theylifted her, without her connivance, to her feet and kept her on them. Then they walked her down the steps. On the level below she showedtaller than either of them; she was bundled up in different incoherentwraps; her head was muffled, and she wore a battered bonnet at aninvoluntary slant. 

"I don't know exactly what we shall do with her, " the son said. 

"We ought to get her home somehow, " the daughter said. 

The father proposed nothing, but the colored girl said, "If we keepwalking her along, we'll come to a policeman and we can--"

A hoarse rumble of protest came from the muffled head of the woman, and the girl put her ear closer. "Want to go home? Well, the policemanwill take you. We don't know where you live, and we haven't the time. "

The woman seemed to have nothing to say further, and they beganwalking her westward; the colored girl supported her on one hand, andthe son, in his evening dress and opera-hat, on the other. 

The daughter followed in a vague anxiety, but the father went along, enjoying the anomaly, and happy in his relish of that phrase, "Shemust be somebody's mother. " It now sounded to him like a catch fromone of those New York songs, popular in the order of life where themother represents what is best and holiest. He recalled a vaudevilleballad with the refrain of "A Boy's Best Friend is his Mother, " which, when he heard it in a vaudeville theater, threatened the gallery floorunder the applauding feet of the frenzied audience. Probably thiscolored girl belonged to that order of life; he wished he could knowher social circumstance and what her outlook on the greater worldmight be. She seemed a kind creature, poor thing, and he respectedher. "Somebody's mother"--he liked that. 

They all walked westward, aimlessly, except that the _table d'hôte_where they had meant to dine was in that direction; they had heard ofit as an amusingly harmless French place, and they were fond of suchmild adventures. 

The old woman contributed nothing to the definition of their progress. She stumbled and mumbled along, but between Seventh Avenue and Eighthshe stubbornly arrested her guardians. "She says"--the colored girltranslated some obscure avowal across her back--"she says she wants togo home, and she lives up in Harlem. "

"Oh, well, that's good, " the father said, with an optimisticamiability. "We'd better help walk her across to Ninth Avenue and puther on a car, and tell the conductor where to let her off. "

He was not helping walk her himself, but he enjoyed his son's doing itin evening dress and opera-hat, with that kind colored girl on theother side of the mother; the composition was agreeably droll. Thedaughter did not like it, and she cherished the ideal of a passingpoliceman to take the old woman in charge. 

No policeman passed, though great numbers of other people met themwithout apparently finding anything noticeable in the spectacle whichtheir group presented. Among the crowds going and coming on theavenues which they crossed scarcely any turned to look at them, or wasmoved by the sense of anything odd in them. 

The old woman herself did nothing to attract public notice till theywere midway between Seventh and Eighth avenues. She mumbled somethingfrom time to time which the colored girl interpreted to the rest asher continued wish to go home. She was now clearer about her streetand number. The girl, as if after question of her own generous spirit, said she did not see how _she_ could go with her; she was expected athome herself. 

"Oh, you won't have to go with her; we'll just put her aboard theNinth Avenue car, " the father encouraged her. He would have encouragedany one; he was enjoying the whole affair. 

At a certain moment, for no apparent reason, the mother decided to sitdown on a door-step. It proved to be the door-step of a house wherefrom time to time colored people--sometimes of one sex, sometimes ofanother--went in or came out. The door seemed to open directly into alarge room where dancing and dining were going on concurrently. At along table colored people sat eating, and behind their chairs on bothsides of the room and at the ends of the table colored couples werewaltzing. 

The effect was the more curious because, except for some almostinaudible music, the scene passed in silence. Those who were eatingwere not visibly incommoded by those revolving at their backs; thewaltzers turned softly around and around, untempted by the table nowbefore them, now behind them. When some of the diners or dancers cameout, they stumbled over the old woman on the door-step without mindingor stopping to inquire. Those outside, when they went in, fell overher with like equanimity and joined the strange company within. 

The father murmured to himself the lines, "'Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody--'"

with a remote trouble of mind because the words were at once sographic and yet so imperfectly applicable. The son and daughterexchanged a silent wonder as long as they could bear it; then thedaughter asked the colored girl:

"What is it?"

"It's a boarding-house, " the girl answered, simply. 

"Oh, " the daughter said. 

Sounds of more decided character than before now came from the figureon the door-step. 

"She seems to be saying something, " the daughter suggested in generalterms. "What is she saying?" she asked the colored girl. 

The girl stooped over and listened. Then she answered, "She's swearing. "

"Swearing? What about? Whom is she swearing at?"

"At me, I reckon. She says, why don't I take her home. "

"Well, why doesn't she get up, then?"

"She says she won't. "

"We can't carry her to the car, " the daughter noted. 

"Oh, why not?" the father merrily demanded. 

The daughter turned to her brother. They were both very respectful totheir father, but the son agreed with his sister when she said: "Papawould joke about anything. But this has passed a joke. We must getthis old thing up and start her off. "

Upon experiment they could not get the old thing up, even with thehelp of the kind colored girl. They had to let her be, and the coloredgirl reported, after stooping over her again, "She says she can'twalk. "

"She walked here well enough, " the daughter said. 

"Not _very_ well, " the father amended. 

His daughter did not notice him. She said to her brother: "Well, nowyou must go and find a policeman. It's strange none has gone by. "

It was also strange that still their group remained without attractingthe notice of the passers. Nobody stopped to speak or even stare;perhaps the phenomena of that boarding-house had ceased to havesurprises for the public of the neighborhood, and they in theirmomentary relation to it would naturally be without interest. 

The brother went away, leaving his sister with their father and thatkind colored creature in charge of the old woman, now more and morequiescent on the door-step; she had ceased to swear, or even to speak. The brother came back after a time that seemed long, and said that hecould not find a policeman anywhere, and at the same moment, as if theofficer had been following at his heels, a policeman crossed thestreet from just behind him. 

The daughter ran after him, and asked if he would not come and look atthe old woman who had so steadfastly remained in their charge, and sherapidly explained. 

"Sure, lady, " the policeman said, and he turned from crossing thestreet and went up to the old woman. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and his touch seemed magical. "What's the matter? Can't you stand up?"She stood up as if at something familiar in the voice of authority. "Where do you live?" She gave an address altogether different fromthat she had given before--a place on the next avenue, within a blockor two. "You'd better go home. You can walk, can't you?"

"I can walk well enough, " she answered in a tone of vexation, and shemade her word good by walking quite actively away in the direction shehad given. 

The kind colored girl became a part of the prevalent dark afterrefusing the thanks of the others. The daughter then fervently offeredthem to the policeman. 

"That's all right, lady, " he said, and the incident had closed exceptfor her emotion at seeing him enter a police-station precisely acrossthe street, where they could have got a dozen policemen in a moment. 

"Well, " the father said, "we might as well go to our French _tabled'hôte_ now. "

"Oh, " the son said, as if that reminded him, "the place seems to beshut. "

"Well, then, we might as well go back to the hotel, " the fatherdecided. "I dare say we shall do quite as well there. "

On the way the young people laughed over the affair and their escapefrom it, especially at the strange appearance and disappearance of thekind colored girl, with her tag of sentiment, and at the instantcompliance of the old woman with the suggestion of the policeman. 

The father followed, turning the matter over in his mind. Did meremotherhood hallow that old thing to the colored girl and her sort andcondition? Was there a superstition of motherhood among such peoplewhich would endear this disreputable old thing to their affection andreverence? Did such people hold mothers in tenderer regard than peopleof larger means? Would a mother in distress or merely embarrassmentinstantly appeal to their better nature as a case of want or sicknessin the neighborhood always appealed to their compassion? Would herfamily now welcome the old thing home from her aberration more fondlythan the friends of one who had arrived in a carriage among them in agood street? But, after all, how little one knew of other people! Howlittle one knew of one self, for that matter! How next to nothing oneknew of Somebody's Mother! It did not necessarily follow from anythingthey knew of her that she was a mother at all. Her motherhood might bethe mere figment of that kind colored girl's emotional fancy. Shemight be Nobody's Mother. 

When it came to this the father laughed, too. Why, anyhow, weremothers more sacred than fathers? If they had found an old man in thatold woman's condition on those steps, would that kind colored girlhave appealed to them in his behalf as Somebody's Father?

 VI

 THE FACE AT THE WINDOW

 He had gone down at Christmas, where our host Had opened up his house on the Maine coast, For the week's holidays, and we were all, On Christmas night, sitting in the great hall, About the corner fireplace, while we told Stories like those that people, young and old, Have told at Christmas firesides from the first, Till one who crouched upon the hearth, and nursed His knees in his claspt arms, threw back his head, And fixed our host with laughing eyes, and said, "This is so good, here--with your hickory logs Blazing like natural-gas ones on the dogs, And sending out their flicker on the wall And rafters of your mock-baronial hall, All in fumed-oak, and on your polished floor, And the steel-studded panels of your door-- I think you owe the general make-believe Some sort of story that will somehow give A more ideal completeness to our case, And make each several listener in his place-- Or hers--sit up, with a real goose-flesh creeping All over him--or her--in proper keeping With the locality and hour and mood. Come!" And amid the cries of "Yes!" and "Good!" Our host laughed back; then, with a serious air, Looked around him on our hemicycle, where He sat midway of it. "Why, " he began, But interrupted by the other man, He paused for him to say: "Nothing remote, But something with the actual Yankee note Of here and now in it!" "I'll do my best, " Our host replied, "to satisfy a guest. What do you say to Barberry Cove? And would Five years be too long past?" "No, both are good. Go on!" "You noticed that big house to-day Close to the water, and the sloop that lay, Stripped for the winter, there, beside the pier? Well, there she has lain just so, year after year; And she will never leave her pier again; But once, each spring she sailed in sun or rain, For Bay Chaleur--or Bay Shaloor, as they Like better to pronounce it down this way. "

 "I like Shaloor myself rather the best. But go ahead, " said the exacting guest. And with a glance around at us that said, "Don't let me bore you!" our host went ahead. 

 "Captain Gilroy built the big house, and he Still lives there with his aging family. He built the sloop, and when he used to come Back from the Banks he made her more his home, With his two boys, than the big house. The two Counted with him a good half of her crew, Until it happened, on the Banks, one day The oldest boy got in a steamer's way, And went down in his dory. In the fall The others came without him. That was all That showed in either one of them except That now the father and the brother slept Ashore, and not on board. When the spring came They sailed for the old fishing-ground the same As ever. Yet, not quite the same. The brother, If you believed what folks say, kissed his mother Good-by in going; and by general rumor, The father, so far yielding as to humor His daughters' weakness, rubbed his stubbly cheek Against their lips. Neither of them would speak, But the dumb passion of their love and grief In so much show at parting found relief. 

 "The weeks passed and the months. Sometimes they heard At home, by letter, from the sloop, or word Of hearsay from the fleet. But by and by Along about the middle of July, A time in which they had no news began, And holding unbrokenly through August, ran Into September. Then, one afternoon, While the world hung between the sun and moon, And while the mother and her girls were sitting Together with their sewing and their knitting, -- Before the early-coming evening's gloom Had gathered round them in the living-room, Helplessly wondering to each other when They should hear something from their absent men, -- They saw, all three, against the window-pane, A face that came and went, and came again, Three times, as though for each of them, about As high up from the porch's floor without As a man's head would be that stooped to stare Into the room on their own level there. Its eyes dwelt on them wistfully as if Longing to speak with the dumb lips some grief They could not speak. The women did not start Or scream, though each one of them, in her heart, Knew she was looking on no living face, But stared, as dumb as it did, in her place. "

 Here our host paused, and one sigh broke from all Our circle whom his tale had held in thrall. But he who had required it of him spoke In what we others felt an ill-timed joke: "Well, this is something like!" A girl said, "Don't!" As if it hurt, and he said, "Well, I won't. Go on!" And in a sort of muse our host Said: "I suppose we all expect a ghost Will sometimes come to us. But I doubt if we Are moved by its coming as we thought to be. At any rate, the women were not scared, But, as I said, they simply sat and stared Till the face vanished. Then the mother said, 'It was your father, girls, and he is dead. ' But both had known him; and now all went on Much as before till three weeks more were gone, When, one night sitting as they sat before, Together with their mother, at the door They heard a fumbling hand, and on the walk Up from the pier, the tramp and muffled talk Of different wind-blown voices that they knew For the hoarse voices of their father's crew. Then the door opened, and their father stood Before them, palpably in flesh and blood. The mother spoke for all, her own misgiving: 'Father, is this your ghost? Or are you living?' 'I am alive!' 'But in this very place We saw your face look, like a spirit's face, There through that window, just three weeks ago, And now you are alive!' 'I did not know That I had come; all I know is that then I wanted to tell you folks here that our Ben Was dying of typhoid fever. He raved of you So that I could not think what else to do. He's there in Bay Shaloor!'

 "Well, that's the end. " And rising up to mend the fire our friend Seemed trying to shun comment; but in vain: The exacting guest came at him once again; "You must be going to fall down, I thought, There at the climax, when your story brought The skipper home alive and well. But no, You saved yourself with honor. " The girl said, "Oh, " Who spoke before, "it's wonderful! But you, How could you think of anything so true, So delicate, as the father's wistful face Coming there at the window in the place Of the dead son's! And then, that quaintest touch, Of half-apology--that he felt so much, He _had_ to come! How perfectly New England! Well, I hope nobody will undertake to tell A common or garden ghost-story to-night. "

 Our host had turned again, and at her light And playful sympathy he said, "My dear, I hope that no one will imagine here I have been inventing in the tale that's done. My little story's charm if it has one Is from no skill of mine. One does not change The course of fable from its wonted range To such effect as I have seemed to do: Only the fact could make my story true. "

 VII

 AN EXPERIENCE

For a long time after the event my mind dealt with the poor man inhelpless conjecture, and it has now begun to do so again for no reasonthat I can assign. All that I ever heard about him was that he wassome kind of insurance man. Whether life, fire, or marine insurance Inever found out, and I am not sure that I tried to find out. 

There was something in the event which discharged him of allobligation to define himself of this or that relation to life. He musthave had some relation to it such as we all bear, and since thequestion of him has come up with me again I have tried him in severalof those relations--father, son, brother, husband--without identifyinghim very satisfyingly in either. 

As I say, he seemed by what happened to be liberated from the debt weowe in that kind to one another's curiosity, sympathy, or whatever. Icannot say what errand it was that brought him to the place, astrange, large, indeterminate open room, where several of us satoccupied with different sorts of business, but, as it seems to me now, by only a provisional right to the place. Certainly the cornerallotted to my own editorial business was of temporary assignment; Iwas there until we could find a more permanent office. The man hadnothing to do with me or with the publishers; he had no manuscript, orplan for an article which he wished to propose and to talk himselfinto writing, so that he might bring it with a claim to acceptance, asthough he had been asked to write it. In fact, he did not even look ofthe writing sort; and his affair with some other occupant of thatanomalous place could have been in no wise literary. Probably it wassome kind of insurance business, and I have been left with theimpression of fussiness in his conduct of it; he had to my involuntaryattention an effect of conscious unwelcome with it. 

After subjectively dealing with this impression, I ceased to noticehim, without being able to give myself to my own work. The day waschoking hot, of a damp that clung about one, and forbade one so mucheffort as was needed to relieve one of one's discomfort; to pull atone's wilted collar and loosen the linen about one's reeking neckmeant exertion which one willingly forbore; it was less suffering tosuffer passively than to suffer actively. The day was of the sortwhich begins with a brisk heat, and then, with a falling breeze, decays into mere swelter. To come indoors out of the sun was no escapefrom the heat; my window opened upon a shaded alley where the air wasdamper without being cooler than the air within. 

At last I lost myself in my work with a kind of humid interest in thepsychological inquiry of a contributor who was dealing with a matterrather beyond his power. I did not think that he was fortunate inhaving cast his inquiry in the form of a story; I did not think thathis contrast of love and death as the supreme facts of life was what asubtler or stronger hand could have made it, or that the situationgained in effectiveness from having the hero die in the very moment ofhis acceptance. In his supposition that the reader would care more forhis hero simply because he had undergone that tremendous catastrophe, the writer had omitted to make him interesting otherwise; perhaps hecould not. 

My mind began to wander from the story and not very relevantly toemploy itself with the question of how far our experiences reallyaffect our characters. I remembered having once classed certaintemperaments as the stuff of tragedy, and others as the stuff ofcomedy, and of having found a greater cruelty in the sorrows whichlight natures undergo, as unfit and disproportionate for them. Disaster, I tacitly decided, was the fit lot of serious natures; whenit befell the frivolous it was more than they ought to have been madeto bear; it was not of their quality. Then by the mental zigzaggingwhich all thinking is I thought of myself and whether I was of thismake or that. If it was more creditable to be of serious stuff thanfrivolous, though I had no agency in choosing, I asked myself how Ishould be affected by the sight of certain things, like the commoncalamities reported every day in the papers which I had hithertoescaped seeing. By another zigzag I thought that I had never known aday so close and stifling and humid. I then reflected upon thecomparative poverty of the French language, which I was told had onlythat one word for the condition we could call by half a dozendifferent names, as humid, moist, damp, sticky, reeking, sweltering, and so on. I supposed that a book of synonyms would give even moreEnglish adjectives; I thought of looking, but my book of synonyms wasat the back of my table, and I would have to rise for it. Then Iquestioned whether the French language was so destitute of adjectives, after all; I preferred to doubt it rather than rise. 

With no more logic than those other vagaries had, I realized that theperson who had started me in them was no longer in the room. He musthave gone outdoors, and I visualized him in the street pushing about, crowded hither and thither, and striking against other people as hewent and came. I was glad I was not in his place; I believed I shouldhave fallen in a faint from the heat, as I had once almost done in NewYork on a day like that. From this my mind jumped to the thought ofsudden death in general. Was it such a happy thing as peoplepretended? For the person himself, yes, perhaps; but not for thosewhom he had left at home, say, in the morning, and who were expectinghim at home in the evening. I granted that it was generally acceptedas the happiest death, but no one that had tried it had said so. To besure, one was spared a long sickness, with suffering from pain andfrom the fear of death. But one had no time for making one's peacewith God, as it used to be said, and after all there might besomething in death-bed repentance, although cultivated people nolonger believed in it. Then I reverted to the family unprepared forthe sudden death: the mother, the wife, the children. I struggled toget away from the question, but the vagaries which had lightlydispersed themselves before clung persistently to the theme now. Ifelt that it was like a bad dream. That was a promising diversion. Hadone any sort of volition in the quick changes of dreams? One was awareof finding a certain nightmare insupportable, and of breaking from itas by main force, and then falling into a deep, sweet sleep. Was deathsomething like waking from a dream such as that, which this lifelargely was, and then sinking into a long, restful slumber, andpossibly never waking again?

Suddenly I perceived that the man had come back. He might have beenthere some time with his effect of fussing and his pathetic sense ofunwelcome. I had not noticed; I only knew that he stood at thehalf-open door with the knob of it in his hand looking into the roomblankly. 

As he stood there he lifted his hand and rubbed it across his foreheadas if in a sort of daze from the heat. I recognized the gesture as onevery characteristic of myself; I had often rubbed my hand across myforehead on a close, hot day like that. Then the man suddenly vanishedas if he had sunk through the floor. 

People who had not noticed that he was there noticed now that he wasnot there. Some made a crooked rush toward the place where he hadbeen, and one of those helpful fellow-men who are first in all needslifted his head and mainly carried him into the wide space which thestreet stairs mounted to, and laid him on the floor. It was darker, ifnot cooler there, and we stood back to give him the air which he drewin with long, deep sighs. One of us ran down the stairs to the streetfor a doctor, wherever he might be found, and ran against a doctor atthe last step. 

The doctor came and knelt over the prostrate figure and felt itspulse, and put his ear down to its heart. It, which has already in mytelling ceased to be he, drew its breath in those long suspirationswhich seemed to search each more profoundly than the last the lurkinglife, drawing it from the vital recesses and expelling it in thosevast sighs. 

They went on and on, and established in our consciousness theexpectation of indefinite continuance. We knew that the figure therewas without such consciousness as ours, unless it was something soremotely withdrawn that it could not manifest itself in any signal toour senses. There was nothing tragical in the affair, but it had asurpassing dignity. It was as if the figure was saying something tothe life in each of us which none of us would have words to interpret, speaking some last message from the hither side of that bourne fromwhich there is no returning. 

There was a clutch upon my heart which tightened with the slower andslower succession of those awful breaths. Then one was drawn andexpelled and then another was not drawn. I waited for the breathing tobegin again, and it did not begin. The doctor rose from kneeling overthe figure that had been a man, and uttered, with a kind ofsoundlessness, "Gone, " and mechanically dusted his fingers with thethumbs of each hand from their contact with what had now become alldust forever. 

That helpfulest one among us laid a cloth over the face, and the restof us went away. It was finished. The man was done with the sorrowwhich, in our sad human order, must now begin for those he loved andwho loved him. I tried vaguely to imagine their grief for not havingbeen uselessly with him at the last, and I could not. The incidentremained with me like an experience, something I had known rather thanseen. I could not alienate it by my pity and make it another's. Theywhom it must bereave seemed for the time immeasurably removed from thefact. 

 VIII

 THE BOARDERS

The boarder who had eloped was a student at the theological seminary, and he had really gone to visit his family, so that he had a fairlygood conscience in giving this color to the fact that he was leavingthe place permanently because he could not bear it any longer. It wasa shade of deceit to connive with his room-mate for the custody of hiscarpet-bag and the few socks and collars and the one shirt and summercoat which did not visibly affect its lankness when gathered into itfrom his share of the bureau-drawers; but he did not know what else todo, and he trusted to a final forgiveness when all the facts wereconsidered by a merciful providence. His board was fully paid, and hehad suffered long. He argued with his room-mate that he could do nogood by remaining, and that he would have stayed if he could havebelieved there was any use. Besides, the food was undermining hishealth, and the room with that broken window had given him a coldalready. He had a right to go, and it was his duty to himself and thefriends who were helping him through the seminary not to get sick. 

He did not feel that he had convinced his room-mate, who took chargeof his carpet-bag and now sat with it between his feet waiting thesignal of the fugitive's surreptitious return for it. He was avague-looking young man, presently in charge of the "Local andLiterary" column of the one daily paper of the place, and he had justexplained to the two other boarders who were watching with him for theevent that he was not certain whether it was the supper, or theanxiety of the situation, or just what it was that was now affectinghis digestion. 

The fellow-boarders, who sat on the edge of the bed, in default of theone unbroken chair which their host kept for himself, as easier than amattress to get up from suddenly, did not take sides for or againsthim in his theories of his discomfort. One of them glanced at thebroken window. 

"How do you glaze that in the daytime? You can't use the bolsterthen?"

"I'm not in, much, in the daytime. "

It was a medical student who had spoken, but he was now silent, andthe other said, after they had listened to the twitter of a piano inthe parlor under the room, "That girl's playing will be the death ofme. "

"Not if her mother's cooking isn't, " the medical student, whose namewas Wallace, observed with a professional effect. 

"Why don't you prescribe something for it?" the law student suggested. 

"Which?" Wallace returned. 

"I don't believe anything could cure the playing. I must have meantthe cooking. "

"You're a promising young jurist, Blakeley. What makes you think Icould cure the cooking?"

"Oh, I just wondered. The sick one gets paler every day. I wonder whatails her. "

"She's not my patient. "

"Oh! Hippocratic oath. Rather fine of you, Wallace. But if she's notyour patient--"

"Listen!" their host interrupted, sharply. After a joint silence headded: "No. It must have been the sleet. "

"Well, Briggs, " the law student said, "if it must have been the sleet, what mustn't it have been?"

"Oh!" Briggs explained, "I thought it was Phillips. He was to throw ahandful of gravel at the window. "

"And then you were to run down with his bag and help him to make hisescape from a friendless widow. Well, I don't know that I blame him. If I didn't owe two weeks' board, I'd leave myself--though I hope Ishouldn't sneak away. And if Mrs. Betterson didn't owe Wallace, here, two weeks' board, we'd walk off together arm-in-arm at high noon. Ican't understand how he ever came to advance her the money. "

Wallace rose from the bed, and kicked each leg out to dislodge thetight trousers of the middle eighteen-fifties which had caught on thetops of his high boots. "You're a tonguey fellow, Blakeley. But you'llfind, as you live long, that there are several things you can'texplain. "

"I'll tell you what, " Blakeley said. "We'll get Mrs. Betterson to takeyour loan for my debt, and we'll go at once. "

"You can propose something like that before the justice of the peacein your first pettifogging case. "

"I believe Wallace likes to stay. And yet he must know from hisanatomical studies, better than the animals themselves, what cuts ofmeat the old lady gives us. I shouldn't be so fastidious about thecuts, if she didn't treat them all with pork gravy. Well, I mustn't betoo hard on a lone widow that I owe board to. I don't suppose his diethad anything to do with the deep damnation of the late Betterson'staking off. Does that stove of yours smoke, Briggs?"

"Not when there isn't a fire in it. "

"I just asked. Wallace's stove smokes, fire or no fire. It takesadvantage of the old lady's indebtedness to him. There seem, " headded, philosophically, "to be just two occupations open to widows whohave to support themselves: millinery business for young ones, boarding-housing for old ones. It _is_ rather restricted. What do yousuppose she puts into the mince-pies? Mince-pies are rather a mysteryat the best. "

Wallace was walking up and down the room still in some difficulty withhis trousers-legs, and kicking out from time to time to dislodge them. "How long should you say Blakeley had been going on?" he asked Briggs. 

"You never can tell, " Briggs responded. "I think he doesn't knowhimself. "

"Well said, youthful scribe! With such listeners as you two, I couldgo on forever. Consider yourselves clapped jovially on the back, mygentle Briggs; I can't get up to do it from the hollow of your bedhere. As you were saying, the wonder about these elderly widows whokeep boarding-houses is the domestic dilapidation they fall into. Ifthey've ever known how to cook a meal or sweep a room or make a bed, these arts desert them in the presence of their boarders. Their onlyaim in life seems to be preventing the escape of their victims, andthey either let them get into debt for their board or borrow moneyfrom them. But why do they always have daughters, and just two ofthem: one beautiful, fashionable, and devoted to the piano; the otherwilling to work, but pale, pathetic, and incapable of the smallestachievement with the gridiron or the wash-board? It's a thing to makea person want to pay up and leave, even if he's reading law. IfWallace, here, had the spirit of a man, he would collect the moneyowing him, and--"

"Oh, stop it, Blakeley!" Wallace stormed. "I should think you'd gettired of your talk yourself. "

"Well, as you insist--"

Blakeley began again, but Briggs jumped to his feet and caught upPhillips's carpet-bag, and looked wildly around. "It's gravel, thistime. "

"Well, take your hat, Briggs. It may be a prolonged struggle. Butremember that Phillips's cause is just. He's paid his board, and hehas a perfect right to leave. She has no right to prevent him. Thinkof that when the fray is at its worst. But try to get him off quietly, if you can. Deal gently with the erring, while you stand firm forboarders' rights. Remember that Phillips is sneaking off in order tospare her feelings and has come pretty near prevarication in theeffort. Have you got your shoes off? No; it's your rubbers on. That'sbetter. "

Briggs faltered with the carpet-bag in his hand. "Boys, I don't likethis. It feels--clandestine. "

"It _looks_ that way, too, " Blakeley admitted. "It has an air ofconspiracy. "

"I've got half a mind to let Phillips come in and get his baghimself. "

"It would serve him right, though I don't know why, exactly. He has aright to spare his own feelings if he's sparing hers at the same time. Of course he's afraid she'll plead with him to stay, and he'll have tobe inexorable with her; and if I understand the yielding nature ofPhillips he doesn't like to be inexorable. "

There came another sharp rattle of small pebbles at the window. 

"Oh, confound him!" Briggs cried under his breath, and he shuffled outof the room and crept noiselessly down the stairs to the front door. The door creaked a little in opening, and he left it ajar. The currentof cold air that swept up to the companions he had left behind at hisroom door brought them the noise of his rush down the gravel walk tothe gate and a noise there as of fugitive steps on the pavementoutside. 

A weak female tread made itself heard in the hallway, followed by asharp voice from a door in the rear. "Was it the cat, Jenny?"

"No; the door just seems to have blown open. The catch is broken. "

Swift, strong steps advanced with an effect of angry suspicion. "Idon't believe it blew open. More likely the cat clawed it open. "

The steps which the voice preceded seemed to halt at the open door, asif falling back from it, and Wallace and Blakeley, looking down, sawby the dim flare of the hall lamp the face of Briggs confronting theface of Mrs. Betterson from the outer darkness. They saw the sickgirl, whose pallor they could not see, supporting herself by thestairs-post with one hand and pressing the other to her side. 

"Oh! It's _you_, Mr. Briggs, " the landlady said, with a note ofinculpation. "What made you leave the door open?"

The spectators could not see the swift change in Briggs's face fromterror to savage desperation, but they noted it in his voice. "Yes--yes! It's me. I just--I was just-- No I won't, either! You'dbetter know the truth. I was taking Phillips's bag out to him. He wasafraid to come in for it, because he didn't want to see you, theconfounded coward! He's left. "

"Left? And he said he would stay till spring! Didn't he, Jenny?"

"I don't remember--" the girl weakly gasped, but her mother did notheed her in her mounting wrath. 

"A great preacher _he'll_ make. What'd he say he left for?"

"He didn't say. Will you let me up-stairs?"

"No, I won't, till you tell me. You know well enough, between you. "

"Yes, I do know, " Briggs answered, savagely. "He left because he wastired of eating sole-leather for steak, and fire-salt pork, and tarfor molasses, and butter strong enough to make your nose curl, anddrinking burnt-rye slops for coffee and tea-grounds for tea. And so amI, and so are all of us, and--and-- Will you let me go up-stairs now, Mrs. Betterson?"

His voice had risen, not so high but that another voice from theparlor could prevail over it: a false, silly, girl voice, with thetwitter of piano-keys as from hands swept over the whole board to helpdrown the noise of the quarrel in the hall. "Oh yes, I'll sing itagain, Mr. Saunders, if you sa-a-a-y. "

Then this voice lifted itself in a silly song, and a silence followedthe voices in the hall, except for the landlady's saying, brokenly:"Well, all right, Mr. Briggs. You can go up to your room for all me. I've tried to be a mother to you boys, but if _this_ is what I get forit!"

The two at the threshold of Briggs's room retreated within, as hebounded furiously upon them and slammed the door after him. It startedopen again, from the chronic defect of the catch, but he did not care. 

"Well, Briggs, I hope you feel better now, " Blakeley began. "Youcertainly told her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing _but_ thetruth. But I wonder you had the heart to do it before that sick girl. "

"I _didn't_ have the heart, " Briggs shouted. "But I had the courage, and if you say one word more, Blakeley, I'll throw you out of theroom. I'm going to leave! _My_ board's paid if yours isn't. "

He went wildly about, catching things down here and there from nailsand out of drawers. The tears stood in his eyes. But suddenly hestopped and listened to the sounds from below--the sound of the sillysinging in the parlor, and the sound of sobbing in the dining-room, and the sound of vain entreating between the sobs. 

"Oh, I don't suppose I'm fit to keep a boarding-house. I never was agood manager; and everybody imposes on me, and everything is so dear, and I don't know what's good from what's bad. Your poor father usedto look after all that. "

"Well, don't you cry, now, mother! It'll all come right, you'll see. I'm getting so I can go and do the marketing now; and if Minervy wouldonly help a little--"

"No, no!" the mother's voice came anxiously up. "We can get alongwithout her; we always have. I know he likes her, and I want to giveher every chance. _We_ can get along. If she was on'y married, once, we could all live--" A note of self-comforting gradually stole intothe mother's voice, and the sound of a nose violently blown seemed tonote a period in her suffering. 

"Oh, mother, I wish I was well!" The girl's voice came with a burst ofwild lamenting. 

"'Sh, 'sh, deary!" her mother entreated. "He'll _hear_ you, andthen--"

"'Hazel Dell'?" the silly voice came from the parlor, with a sound offright in it. "I can sing it without the music. " The piano keystwittered the prelude and the voice sang:

 "In the Hazel Dell my Nelly's sleeping, Nelly loved so long!"

Wallace went forward and shut the door. "It's a shame to overhearthem! What are you going to do, you fellows?"

"I'm going to stay, " Briggs said, "if it kills me. At least I willtill Minervy's married. _I_ don't care what the grub's like. I canalways get a bite at the restaurant. "

"If anybody will pay up my back board, I'll stay, too, " Blakeleyfollowed. "I should like to make a virtue of it, and, as things stand, I can't. "

"All right, " Wallace said, and he went out and down the stairs. Thenfrom the dining-room below his heavy voice offering encouragement cameup, in terms which the others could not make out. 

"I'll bet he's making her another advance, " Blakeley whispered, as ifhe might be overheard by Wallace. 

"I wish _I_ could have made to do it, " Briggs whispered back. "I feelas mean as pursley. Would you like to kick me?"

"I don't see how that would do any good. I may want to borrow money ofyou, and you can't ask a loan from a man you've kicked. Besides, Ithink what you said may do her good. "

 IX

 BREAKFAST IS MY BEST MEAL

 I

 Breakfast is my best meal, and I reckon it's always been Ever since I was old enough to know what breakfast could mean. I mind when we lived in the cabin out on the Illinoy, Where father had took up a quarter-section when I was a boy, I used to go for the cows as soon as it was light; And when I started back home, before I come in sight, I come in _smell_ of the cabin, where mother was frying the ham, And boiling the coffee, that reached through the air like a mile o' ba'm, 'N' I bet you I didn't wait to see what it was that the dog Thought he'd got under the stump or inside o' the hollow log! But I made the old cows canter till their hoof-joints cracked--you know That dry, funny kind of a noise that the cows make when they go-- And I never stopped to wash when I got to the cabin door; I pulled up my chair and e't like I never had e't before. And mother she set there and watched me eat, and eat, and eat, Like as if she couldn't give her old eyes enough of the treat; And she split the shortened biscuit, and spread the butter between, And let it lay there and melt, and soak and soak itself in; And she piled up my plate with potato and ham and eggs, Till I couldn't hold any more, or hardly stand on my legs; And she filled me up with coffee that would float an iron wedge, And never give way a mite, or spill a drop at the edge. 

 II

 What? Well, yes, this is good coffee, too. If they don't know much, They do know how to make coffee, I _will_ say that for these Dutch. But my--oh, my! It ain't the kind of coffee my mother made, And the coffee my wife used to make would throw it clear in the shade; And the brand of sugar-cured, canvased ham that she always used-- Well, this Westphalia stuff would simply have made her amused! That so, heigh? I saw that you was United States as soon As ever I heard you talk; I reckon I know the tune! Pick it out anywhere; and _you_ understand how I feel About these here foreign breakfasts: breakfast is my best meal. 

 III

 My! but my wife was a cook; and the breakfasts she used to get The first years we was married, I can smell 'em and taste 'em yet: Corn cake light as a feather, and buckwheat thin as lace And crisp as cracklin'; and steak that you couldn't have the face To compare any steak over here to; and chicken fried Maryland style--I couldn't get through the bill if I tried. And then, her waffles! My! She'd kind of slip in a few Between the ham and the chicken--you know how women'll do-- For a sort of little surprise, and, if I was running light, To take my fancy and give an edge to my appetite. Done it all herself as long as we was poor, and I tell _you_ _She_ liked to see me eat as well as mother used to do; I reckon she went ahead of mother some, if the truth was known, And everything she touched she give a taste of her own. 

 IV

 _She_ was a cook, I can tell you! And after we got ahead, And she could 'a' had a girl to do the cookin' instead, I had the greatest time to get Momma to leave the work; She said it made her feel like a mis'able sneak and shirk. She didn't want daughter, though, when we did begin to keep girls, To come in the kitchen and cook, and smell up her clo'es and curls; But you couldn't have stopped the child, whatever you tried to do-- I reckon the gift of the cookin' was born in Girly, too. Cook she would from the first, and we just had to let her alone; And after she got married, and had a house of her own, She tried to make me feel, when I come to live with her, Like it was my house, too; and I tell you she done it, sir! She remembered that breakfast was my best meal, and she tried To have all I used to have, and a good deal more beside; Grape-fruit to begin with, or melons or peaches, at least-- Husband's business took him there, and they had went to live East-- Then a Spanish macker'l, or a soft-shell crab on toast, Or a broiled live lobster! Well, sir, I don't want to seem to boast, But I don't believe you could have got in the whole of New York Any such an oyster fry or sausage of country pork. 

 V

 Well, I don't know what-all it means; I always lived just so-- Never drinked or smoked, and yet, here about two years ago, I begun to run down; I ain't as young as I used to be; And the doctors all said Carlsbad, and I reckon this is me. But it's more like some one I've dreamt of, with all three of 'em gone! Believe in ghosts? Well, _I_ do. I _know_ there are ghosts. I'm _one_. Maybe I mayn't look it--I was always inclined to fat; The doctors say that's the trouble, and very likely it's that. This is my little grandson, and this is the oldest one Of Girly's girls; and for all that the whole of us said and done, She must come with grandpa when the doctors sent me off here, To see that they didn't starve him. Ain't that about so, my dear? _She_ can cook, I tell you; and when we get home again We're goin' to have something to _eat_; I'm just a-livin' till then. But when I set here of a morning, and think of them that's gone-- Mother and Momma and Girly--well, I wouldn't like to let on Before the children, but I can almost seem to see All of 'em lookin' down, like as if they pitied me, After the breakfasts they give me, to have me have to put up With nothing but bread and butter, and a little mis'able cup Of this here weak-kneed coffee! I can't tell how _you_ feel, But it fairly makes me sick! Breakfast is my best meal. 

 X

 THE MOTHER-BIRD

She wore around the turned-up brim of her bolero-like toque a band ofviolets not so much in keeping with the gray of the austere Novemberday as with the blue of her faded autumnal eyes. Her eyes wereautumnal, but it was not from this, or from the lines of maturitygraven on the passing prettiness of her little face, that the notionand the name of Mother-Bird suggested itself. She became known as theMother-Bird to the tender ironic fancy of the earliest, if not thelatest, of her friends, because she was slight and small, and like abird in her eager movements, and because she spoke so instantly and soconstantly of her children in Dresden: before you knew anything elseof her you knew that she was going out to them. 

She was quite alone, and she gave the sense of claiming theirprotection, and sheltering herself in the fact of them. When shementioned her daughters she had the effect of feeling herselfchaperoned by them. You could not go behind them and find her wantingin the social guarantees which women on steamers, if not men, exact oflonely birds of passage who are not mother-birds. One must respect theconvention by which she safeguarded herself and tried to make good herstanding; yet it did not lastingly avail her with other birds ofpassage, so far as they were themselves mother-birds, or sometimesonly maiden-birds. The day had not ended before they began to hold heroff by slight liftings of their wings and rufflings of their feathers, by quick, evasive flutterings, by subtle ignorances of her approach, which convinced no one but themselves that they had not seen her. Shesailed with the sort of acquaintance-in-common which every one shareson a ship leaving port, when people are confused by the kindness offriends coming to see them off after sending baskets of fruit andsheaves of flowers, and scarcely know what they are doing or saying. But when the ship was abreast of Fire Island, and the pilot had goneover the side, these provisional intimacies of the parting hour beganto restrict themselves. Then the Mother-Bird did not know half thewomen she had known at the pier, or quite all the men. 

It was not that she did anything obvious to forfeit this knowledge. Her behavior was if anything too exemplary; it might be thought toform a reproach to others. Perhaps it was the unseasonable band ofviolets around her hat-brim; perhaps it was the vernal gaiety of herdress; perhaps it was the uncertainty of her anxious eyes, whichpresumed while they implored. A mother-bird must not hover tooconfidently, too appealingly, near coveys whose preoccupations shedoes not share. It might have been her looking and dressing youngerthan nature justified; at forty one must not look thirty; in Novemberone must not, even involuntarily, wear the things of May if one wouldhave others believe in one's devotion to one's children in Dresden;one alleges in vain one's impatience to join them as grounds forjoining groups or detached persons who have begun to write home totheir children in New York or Boston. 

The very readiness of the Mother-Bird to give security by the mentionof well-known names, to offer proof of her social solvency by theeager correctness of her behavior, created reluctance around her. Somewould not have her at all from the first; others, who had partially orconditionally accepted her, returned her upon her hands and withdrewfrom the negotiation. More and more she found herself outside thathard woman-world, and trying less and less to beat her way into it. 

The women may have known her better even than she knew herself, and itmay have been through ignorance greater than her own that the men weremore acquiescent. But the men too were not so acquiescent, or not atall, as time passed. 

It would be hard to fix the day, the hour, far harder the moment, whenthe Mother-Bird began to disappear from the drawing-room and to appearin the smoking-room, or say whether she passed from the one to theother in a voluntary exile or by the rigor of the women's unwrittenlaw. Still, from time to time she was seen in their part of the ship, after she was also seen where the band of violets showed strange andsad through veils of smoke that were not dense enough to hide herpoor, pretty little face, with its faded blue eyes and wistful mouth. There she passed by quick transition from the conversation of thegraver elderly smokers to the loud laughter of two birds of prey whobecame her comrades, or such friends as birds like them can be tobirds like her. 

From anything she had said or done there was no reason for her lapsefrom the women and the better men to such men; for her transition fromthe better sort of women there was no reason except that it happened. Whether she attached herself to the birds of prey, or they to her, bythat instinct which enables birds of all kinds to know themselves of afeather remained a touching question. 

There remained to the end the question whether she was of a featherwith them, or whether it was by some mischance, or by some such stressof the elements as drives birds of any feather to flock with birds ofany other. To the end there remained a distracted and forsakeninnocence in her looks. It was imaginable that she had made overturesto the birds of prey because she had made overtures to every one else;she was always seeking rather than sought, and her acceptance withthem was as deplorable as her refusal by better birds. Often they wereseen without her, when they had that look of having escaped, whichothers wore; but she was not often seen without them. 

There is not much walking-weather on a November passage, and she wasseen less with them in the early dark outdoors than in the late lightwithin, by which she wavered a small form through the haze of theircigars in the smoking-room, or in the grill-room, where she showed infaint eclipse through the fumes of the broiling and frying, orthrough the vapors of the hot whiskies. The birds of prey were thenheard laughing, but whether at her or with her it must have beenequally sorrowful to learn. 

Perhaps they were laughing at the maternal fondness which she had usedfor introduction to the general acquaintance lost almost in the momentof winning it. She seemed not to resent their laughter, though sheseemed not to join in it. The worst of her was the company she kept;but since no better would allow her to keep it, you could notconfidently say she would not have liked the best company on board. Atthe same time you could not have said she would; you could not havebeen sure it would not have bored her. Doubtless these results are notsolely the sport of chance; they must be somewhat the event of choiceif not of desert. 

For anything you could have sworn, the Mother-Bird would have liked tobe as good as the best. But since it was not possible for her to begood in the society of the best, she could only be good in that of theworst. It was to be hoped that the birds of prey were not cruel toher; that their mockery was never unkind if ever it was mockery. Thecruelty which must come came when they began to be seen less and lesswith her, even at the late suppers, through the haze of their cigarsand the smoke of the broiling and frying, and the vapors of the hotwhiskies. Then it was the sharpest pang of all to meet her wanderingup and down the ship's promenades, or leaning on the rail and lookingdimly out over the foam-whitened black sea. It is the necessity ofbirds of prey to get rid of other birds when they are tired of them, and it had doubtless come to that. 

One night, the night before getting into port, when the curiositywhich always followed her with grief failed of her in the heightenedhilarity of the smoking-room, where the last bets on the ship's runwere making, it found her alone beside a little iron table, of thoseset in certain nooks outside the grill-room. There she sat with no onenear, where the light from within fell palely upon her. The boon birdsof prey, with whom she had been supping, had abandoned her, and shewas supporting her cheek on the small hand of the arm that rested onthe table. She leaned forward, and swayed with the swaying ship; theviolets in her bolero-toque quivered with the vibrations of themachinery. She was asleep, poor Mother-Bird, and it would have beenimpossible not to wish her dreams were kind. 

 XI

 THE AMIGO

His name was really Perez Armando Aldeano, but in the end everybodycalled him the _amigo_, because that was the endearing term by whichhe saluted all the world. There was a time when the children calledhim "Span-yard" in their games, for he spoke no tongue but Spanish, and though he came from Ecuador, and was no more a Spaniard than theywere English, he answered to the call of "Span-yard!" whenever heheard it. He came eagerly in the hope of fun, and all the more eagerlyif there was a hope of mischief in the fun. Still, to discerningspirits, he was always the _amigo_, for, when he hailed you so, youcould not help hailing him so again, and whatever mock he put upon youafterward, you were his secret and inalienable friend. 

The moment of my own acceptance in this quality came in the firsthours of expansion following our getting to sea after long detentionin the dock by fog. A small figure came flying down the dock withoutspread arms, and a joyful cry of "Ah, _amigo_!" as if we were nowmeeting unexpectedly after a former intimacy in Bogotá; and the_amigo_ clasped me round the middle to his bosom, or more strictlyspeaking, his brow, which he plunged into my waistcoat. He was clad ina long black overcoat, and a boy's knee-pants, and under the peak ofhis cap twinkled the merriest black eyes that ever lighted up asmiling face of olive hue. Thereafter, he was more and more, with thethinness of his small black legs, and his habit of hopping up anddown, and dancing threateningly about, with mischief latent in everymotion, like a crow which in being tamed has acquired one of the worsttraits of civilization. He began babbling and gurgling in Spanish, andtook my hand for a stroll about the ship, and from that time we were, with certain crises of disaffection, firm allies. 

There were others whom he hailed and adopted his friends, whose legshe clung about and impeded in their walks, or whom he required to tosshim into the air as they passed, but I flattered myself that he had apeculiar, because a primary, esteem for myself. I have thought itmight be that, Bogotá being said to be a very literary capital, asthose things go in South America, he was mystically aware of a commonground between us, wider and deeper than that of his otherfriendships. But it may have been somewhat owing to my inviting him tomy cabin to choose such portion as he would of a lady-cake sent us onshipboard at the last hour. He prattled and chuckled over it in thesoft gutturals of his parrot-like Spanish, and rushed up on deck toeat the frosting off in the presence of his small companions, and toexult before them in the exploitation of a novel pleasure. Yet itcould not have been the lady-cake which lastingly endeared me to him, for by the next day he had learned prudence and refused it withoutwithdrawing his amity. 

This, indeed, was always tempered by what seemed a constitutionalirony, and he did not impart it to any one without some time makinghis friend feel the edge of his practical humor. It was not longbefore the children whom he gathered to his heart had each and allsuffered some fall or bump or bruise which, if not of his intention, was of his infliction, and which was regretted with such winningarchness that the very mothers of them could not resist him, and hisvictims dried their tears to follow him with glad cries of "Span-yard, Span-yard!" Injury at his hands was a favor; neglect was the only realgrievance. He went about rolling his small black head, and dartingroguish lightnings from under his thick-fringed eyes, and making moretrouble with a more enticing gaiety than all the other people on theship put together. 

The truth must be owned that the time came, long before the end of thevoyage, when it was felt that in the interest of the common welfare, something must be done about the _amigo_. At the conversational end ofthe doctor's table, where he was discussed whenever the racks were noton, and the talk might have languished without their inspiration, hisbadness was debated at every meal. Some declared him the worst boy inthe world, and held against his half-hearted defenders that somethingought to be done about him; and one was left to imagine all the darkerfate for him because there was nothing specific in these convictions. He could not be thrown overboard, and if he had been put in ironsprobably his worst enemies at the conversational end of the tablewould have been the first to intercede for him. It is not certain, however, that their prayers would have been effective with thecaptain, if that officer, framed for comfort as well as command, couldhave known how accurately the _amigo_ had dramatized his personalpresence by throwing himself back, and clasping his hands a foot infront of his small stomach, and making a few tilting paces forward. 

The _amigo_ had a mimic gift which he liked to exercise when he couldfind no intelligible language for the expression of his ironic spirit. Being forbidden visits in and out of season to certain stateroomswhose inmates feigned a wish to sleep, he represented in whatgrotesque attitudes of sonorous slumber they passed their day, and hespared neither age nor sex in these graphic shows. When age refusedone day to go up on deck with him and pleaded in such Spanish as itcould pluck up from its past studies that it was too old, he laughedit to scorn. "You are not old, " he said. "Why?" the flattered dotardinquired. "Because you smile, " and that seemed reason enough for one'scontinued youth. It was then that the _amigo_ gave his own age, carefully telling the Spanish numerals over, and explaining further byholding up both hands with one finger shut in. But he had the subtletyof centuries in his nine years, and he penetrated the ship everywherewith his arch spirit of mischief. It was mischief always in theinterest of the good-fellowship which he offered impartially to oldand young; and if it were mere frolic, with no ulterior object, he didnot care at all how old or young his playmate was. This endeared himnaturally to every age; and the little blond German-American boydried his tears from the last accident inflicted on him by the _amigo_to recall him by tender entreaties of "Span-yard, Span-yard!" whilethe eldest of his friends could not hold out against him more than twodays in the strained relations following upon the _amigo's_ sweepinghim down the back with a toy broom employed by the German-American boyto scrub the scuppers. This was not so much an injury as an indignity, but it was resented as an indignity, in spite of many demure glancesof propitiation from the _amigo's_ ironical eyes and murmurs ofinarticulate apology as he passed. 

He was, up to a certain point, the kindest and truest of _amigos_;then his weird seizure came, and the baby was spilled out of thecarriage he had been so benevolently pushing up and down; or thesecond officer's legs, as he walked past with the prettiest girl onboard, were hit with the stick that the _amigo_ had been innocentlyplaying shuffle-board with; or some passenger was taken unawares inhis vanity or infirmity and made to contribute to the _amigo's_passion for active amusement. 

At this point I ought to explain that the _amigo_ was not travelingalone from Ecuador to Paris, where it was said he was to rejoin hisfather. At meal-times, and at other rare intervals, he was seen to bein the charge of a very dark and very silent little man, withintensely black eyes and mustache, clad in raven hues from his head tothe delicate feet on which he wore patent-leather shoes. With him the_amigo_ walked gravely up and down the deck, and behaved decorously attable; and we could not reconcile the apparent affection between thetwo with a theory we had that the _amigo_ had been found impossible inhis own country, and had been sent out of Ecuador by a decree of thegovernment, or perhaps a vote of the whole people. The little, dark, silent man, in his patent-leather boots, had not the air of conveyinga state prisoner into exile, and we wondered in vain what the tiebetween him and the _amigo_ was. He might have been his tutor, or hisuncle. He exercised a quite mystical control over the _amigo_, who wasexactly obedient to him in everything, and would not look aside at youwhen in his keeping. We reflected with awe and pathos that, as theyroomed together, it was his privilege to see the _amigo_ asleep, whenthat little, very kissable black head rested innocently on the pillow, and the busy brain within it was at peace with the world which formedits pleasure and its prey in waking. 

It would be idle to represent that the _amigo_ played his pranks uponthat shipload of long-suffering people with final impunity. The timecame when they not only said something must be done, but actually didsomething. It was by the hand of one of the _amigo's_ sweetest andkindest friends, namely, that elderly captain, off duty, who was goingout to be assigned his ship in Hamburg. From the first he had shownthe affectionate tenderness for the _amigo_ which was felt by allexcept some obdurate hearts at the conversational end of the table;and it must have been with a loving interest in the _amigo's_ ultimatewell-being that, taking him in an ecstasy of mischief, he drew the_amigo_ face downward across his knees, and bestowed the chastisementwhich was morally a caress. He dismissed him with a smile in which the_amigo_ read the good understanding that existed unimpaired betweenthem, and accepted his correction with the same affection as thatwhich had given it. He shook himself and ran off with an enjoyment ofthe joke as great as that of any of the spectators and far moregenerous. 

In fact there was nothing mean in the _amigo_. Impish he was, or mightbe, but only in the sort of the crow or the parrot; there was nomalevolence in his fine malice. One fancied him in his adolescencetaking part in one of the frequent revolutions of his continent, buthumorously, not homicidally. He would like to alarm the otherfaction, and perhaps drive it from power, or overset it from itsofficial place, but if he had the say there would be no bringing thevanquished out into the plaza to be shot. He may now have been on hisway to France ultimately to study medicine, which seems to bepreliminary to a high political career in South America; but in themean time we feared for him in that republic of severely regulatedsubordinations. 

We thought with pathos of our early parting with him, as we approachedPlymouth and tried to be kodaked with him, considering it an honor andpleasure. He so far shared our feeling as to consent, but he insistedon wearing a pair of glasses which had large eyes painted on them, andon being taken in the act of inflating a toy balloon. Probably, therefore, the likeness would not be recognized in Bogotá, but it willalways be endeared to us by the memory of the many mockeries sufferedfrom him. There were other friends whom we left on the ship, notablythose of the conversational end of the table, who thought him simply abad boy; but there were none of such peculiar appeal as he, when hestood by the guard, opening and shutting his hand in ironical adieu, and looking smaller and smaller as our tender drifted away and thevast liner loomed immense before us. He may have contributed to itseffect of immensity by the smallness of his presence, or it may havedwarfed him. No matter; he filled no slight space in our lives whilehe lasted. Now that he is no longer there, was he really a bad littleboy, merely and simply? Heaven knows, which alone knows good boys frombad. 

 XII

 BLACK CROSS FARM

 (To F. S. )

 After full many a mutual delay My friend and I at last fixed on a day For seeing Black Cross Farm, which he had long Boasted the fittest theme for tale or song In all that charming region round about: Something that must not really be left out Of the account of things to do for me. It was a teasing bit of mystery, He said, which he and his had tried in vain, Ever since they had found it, to explain. The right way was to happen, as they did, Upon it in the hills where it was hid; But chance could not be always trusted, quite, You might not happen on it, though you might; Encores were usually objected to By chance. The next best thing that we could do Was in his carryall, to start together, And trust that somehow favoring wind and weather, With the eccentric progress of his horse, Would so far drift us from our settled course That we at least could lose ourselves, if not Find the mysterious object that we sought. So one blithe morning of the ripe July We fared, by easy stages, toward the sky That rested one rim of its turquoise cup Low on the distant sea, and, tilted up, The other on the irregular hilltops. Sweet The sun and wind that joined to cool and heat The air to one delicious temperature; And over the smooth-cropt mowing-pieces pure The pine-breath, borrowing their spicy scent In barter for the balsam that it lent! And when my friend handed the reins to me, And drew a fuming match along his knee, And, lighting his cigar, began to talk, I let the old horse lapse into a walk From his perfunctory trot, content to listen, Amid that leafy rustle and that glisten Of field, and wood, and ocean, rapt afar, From every trouble of our anxious star. From time to time, between effect and cause In this or that, making a questioning pause, My friend peered round him while he feigned a gay Hope that we might have taken the wrong way At the last turn, and then let me push on, Or the old horse rather, slanting hither and yon, And never in the middle of the track, Except when slanting off or slanting back. He talked, I listened, while we wandered by The scanty fields of wheat and oats and rye, With patches of potatoes and of corn, And now and then a garden spot forlorn, Run wild where once a house had stood, or where An empty house yet stood, and seemed to stare Upon us blindly from the twisted glass Of windows that once let no wayfarer pass Unseen of children dancing at the pane, And vanishing to reappear again, Pulling their mother with them to the sight. Still we kept on, with turnings left and right, Past farmsteads grouped in cheerful neighborhoods, Or solitary; then through shadowy woods Of pine or birch, until the road, grass-grown, Had given back to Nature all her own Save a faint wheel-trace, that along the slope, Rain-gullied, seemed to stop and doubt and grope, And then quite ceased, as if 't had turned and fled Out of the forest into which it led, And left us at the gate whose every bar Was nailed against us. But, "Oh, here we are!" My friend cried joyously. "At last, at last!" And making our horse superfluously fast, He led the way onward by what had been A lane, now hid by weeds and briers between Meadows scarce worth the mowing, to a space Shaped as by Nature for the dwelling-place Of kindly human life: a small plateau Open to the heaven that seemed bending low In liking for it. There beneath a roof Still against winter and summer weather-proof, With walls and doors and windows perfect yet, Between its garden and its graveyard set, Stood the old homestead, out of which had perished The home whose memory it dumbly cherished, And which, when at our push the door swung wide, We might have well imagined to have died And had its funeral the day before: So clean and cold it was from floor to floor, So lifelike and so deathlike, with the thrill Of hours when life and death encountered still Passionate in it. They that lay below The tangled grasses or the drifted snow, Husband and wife, mother and little one, From that sad house less utterly were gone Than they that living had abandoned it. In moonless nights their Absences might flit, Homesick, from room to room, or dimly sit Around its fireless hearths, or haunt the rose And lily in the neglected garden close; But they whose feet had borne them from the door Would pass the footworn threshold nevermore. We read the moss-grown names upon the tombs, With lighter melancholy than the glooms Of the dead house shadowed us with, and thence Turning, my heart was pierced with more intense Suggestion of a mystical dismay, As in the brilliance of the summer day We faced the vast gray barn. The house was old, Though so well kept, as age by years is told In our young land; but the barn, gray and vast, Stood new and straight and strong--all battened fast At every opening; and where once the mow Had yawned wide-windowed, on the sheathing now A Cross was nailed, the bigness of a man, Aslant from left to right, athwart the span, And painted black as paint could make it. Hushed, I stood, while manifold conjecture rushed To this point and to that point, and then burst In the impotent questionings rejected first. What did it mean? Ah, that no one could tell. Who put it there? That was unknown as well. Was there no legend? My friend knew of none. No neighborhood story? He had sought for one In vain. Did he imagine it accident, With nothing really implied or meant By the boards set in that way? It might be, But I could answer that as well as he. Then (desperately) what did he guess it was: Something of purpose, or without a cause Other than chance? He slowly shook his head, And with his gaze fixed on the symbol said: "We have quite ceased from guessing or surmising, For all our several and joint devising Has left us finally where I must leave you. But now I think it is your part to do Yourself some guessing. I hoped you might bring A fresh mind to the riddle's unraveling. Come!"

 And thus challenged I could not deny The sort of right he had to have me try; And yielding, I began--instinctively Proceeding by exclusion: "We agree It was not put there as a pious charm To keep the abandoned property from harm? The owner could have been no Catholic; And yet it was no sacrilegious trick To make folks wonder; and it was not chance Assuredly that set those boards askance In that shape, or before or after, so Painted them to that coloring of woe. Do you suppose, then, that it could have been Some secret sorrow or some secret sin, That tried to utter or to expiate Itself in that way: some unhappy hate Turned to remorse, or some life-rending grief That could not find in years or tears relief? Who lived here last?"

 "Ah, " my friend made reply, "You know as much concerning that as I. All I could tell is what those gravestones tell, And they have told it all to you as well. The names, the dates, the curious epitaphs At whose quaint phrase one either sighs or laughs, Just as one's heart or head happens to be Hollow or not, are there for each to see. But I believe they have nothing to reveal: No wrong to publish, no shame to conceal. "

 "And yet that Cross!" I turned at his reply, Fixing the silent symbol with my eye, Insistently. "And you consent, " I said, "To leave the enigma uninterpreted?"

 "Why, no, " he faltered, then went on: "Suppose That some one that had known the average woes Of human nature, finding that the load Was overheavy for him on life's road, Had wished to leave some token in this Cross, Of what had been his gain and been his loss, Of what had been his suffering and of what Had also been the solace of his lot? Whoever that unknown brother-man might be, I think he must have been like you and me, Who bear our Cross, and when we fail at length, Bow down and pray to it for greater strength. "

 I mused, and as I mused, I seemed to find The fancy more and still more to my mind. 

 "Well, let it go at that! I think, for me, I like that better than some tragedy Of clearer physiognomy, which were In being more definite the vulgarer. For us, what, after all, would be the gain Of making the elusive meaning plain? I really think, if I were you and yours, I would not lift the veil that now obscures The appealing fact, lest I should spoil the charm Deeding me for my own the Black Cross Farm. "

 "A good suggestion! I am glad, " said he, "We have always practised your philosophy. "

 He smiled, we laughed; we sighed and turned away, And left the mystery to the summer day That made as if it understood, and could Have read the riddle to us if it would: The wide, wise sky, the clouds that on the grass Let their vague shadows dreamlike trail and pass; The conscious woods, the stony meadows growing Up to birch pastures, where we heard the lowing Of one disconsolate cow. All the warm afternoon, Lulled in a reverie by the myriad tune Of insects, and the chirp of songless birds, Forgetful of the spring-time's lyric words, Drowsed round us while we tried to find the lane That to our coming feet had been so plain, And lost ourselves among the sweetfern's growth, And thickets of young pine-trees, nothing loath, Amidst the wilding loveliness to stray, And spend, if need were, looking for the way, Whole hours; but blundered into the right course Suddenly, and came out upon our horse, Where we had left him--to our great surprise, Stamping and switching at the pestering flies, But not apparently anxious to depart, When nearly overturning at the start, We followed down that evanescent trace Which, followed up, had brought us to the place. 

 Then, all the wayside scenes reversing, we Dropped to the glimpses of the distant sea, Content as if we brought, returning thus, The secret of the Black Cross back with us. 

 XIII

 THE CRITICAL BOOKSTORE

It had long been the notion of Frederick Erlcort, who held itplayfully, held it seriously, according to the company he was in, thatthere might be a censorship of taste and conscience in literarymatters strictly affiliated with the retail commerce in books. When hefirst began to propose it, playfully, seriously, as his listenerchose, he said that he had noticed how in the great department storeswhere nearly everything to supply human need was sold, the shopmen andshopwomen seemed instructed by the ownership or the management to dealin absolute good faith with the customers, and not to misrepresent thequality, the make, or the material of any article in the slightestdegree. A thing was not to be called silk or wool when it was partlycotton; it was not to be said that it would wash when it would notwash, or that the color would not come off when it would come off, orthat the stuff was English or French when it was American. 

When Erlcort once noted his interest in the fact to a floor-walkerwhom he happened to find at leisure, the floor-walker said, Yes, thatwas so; and the house did it because it was business, good business, the only good business. He was instantly enthusiastic, and he saidthat just in the same way, as an extension of its good faith with thepublic, the house had established the rule of taking back any articlewhich a customer did not like, or did not find what she had supposedwhen she got it home, and refunding the money. This was the best sortof business; it held custom; the woman became a customer for life. Thefloor-walker laughed, and after he had told an anxious applicant, "Second aisle to the left, lady; three counters back, " he concluded toErlcort, "I say she because a man never brings a thing back when he'smade a mistake; but a woman can always blame it on the house. Thatso?"

Erlcort laughed with him, and in going out he stopped at thebook-counter. Rather it was a bookstore, and no small one, with ranksof new books covering the large tables and mounting to their levelfrom the floor, neatly piled, and with shelves of complete editionsand soberer-looking volumes stretching along the wall as high as theceiling. "Do you happen to have a good book--a book that would readgood, I mean--in your stock here?" he asked the neat blonde behindthe literary barricade. 

"Well, here's a book that a good many are reading, " she answered, withprompt interest and a smile that told in the book's favor; it was aprotectingly filial and guardedly ladylike smile. 

"Yes, but is it a book worth reading--worth the money?"

"Well, I don't know as I'm a judge, " the kind little blonde replied. She added, daringly, "All I can say is, I set up till two last nightto finish it. "

"And you advise me to buy it?"

"Well, we're not allowed to do that, exactly. I can only tell you whatI know. "

"But if I take it, and it isn't what I expected, I can return it andget my money back?"

"That's something I never was asked before. Mr. Jeffers! Mr. Jeffers!"she called to a floor-walker passing near; and when he stopped andcame up to the counter, she put the case to him. 

He took the book from Erlcort's hand and examined the outside of itcuriously if not critically. Then he looked from it to Erlcort, andsaid, "Oh, how do you do again! Well, no, sir; I don't know as wecould do that. You see, you would have to read it to find out that youdidn't want it, and that would be like using or wearing an article, wouldn't it? We couldn't take back a thing that had been used orworn--heigh?"

"But you might have some means of knowing whether a book is good ornot?"

"Well, yes, we might. That's a point we have never had raised before. Miss Prittiman, haven't we any means of knowing whether a book'ssomething we can guarantee or not?"

"Well, Mr. Jeffers, there's the publisher's advertisement. "

"Why, yes, so there is! And a respectable publisher wouldn't indorse abook that wasn't the genuine article, would he now, sir?"

"He mightn't, " Erlcort said, as if he felt the force of the argument. 

"And there are the notices in the newspapers. They ought to tell, "Miss Prittiman added, more convincingly. "I don't know, " she said, asfrom a sensitive conscience, "whether there have been any about thisbook yet, but I should think there would be. "

"And in the mean time, as you won't guarantee the book so that I canbring it back and get my money if I find it worthless, I must acceptthe publisher's word?" Erlcort pressed further. 

"I should think you could do that, " the floor-walker suggested, withthe appearance of being tired. 

"Well, I think I will, for once, " Erlcort relented. "But wait! Whatdoes the publisher say?"

"It's all printed on this slip inside, " the blonde said, and sheshowed it as she took the book from him. "Shall I send it? Or willyou--"

"No, no, thank you, I'll take it with me. Let me--"

He kept the printed slip and began to read it. The blonde wrapped thebook up and laid it with a half-dollar in change on the counter beforeErlcort. The floor-walker went away; Erlcort heard him saying, "No, madam; toys on the fifth floor, at the extreme rear, left, " while helost himself in the glowing promises of the publisher. It appearedthat the book he had just bought was by a perfectly new author, an oldlady of seventy who had never written a novel before, and mighttherefore be trusted for an entire freshness of thought and feeling. The plot was of a gripping intensity; the characters were painted withlarge, bold strokes, and were of an unexampled virility; the story waspacked with passion from cover to cover; and the reader would be heldbreathless by the author's skill in working from the tragic conditionsto an all-round happy conclusion. 

From time to time Erlcort heard the gentle blonde saying such thingsas, "Oh yes; it's the best-seller, all right, " and, "All I can say isI set up till two o'clock in the morning to finish it, " and, "Yes, ma'am; it's by a new writer; a very old lady of seventy who is justbeginning to write; well, that's what I _heard_. "

On his way up-town in the Subway he clung to the wonted strap, unsupported by anything in the romance which he had bought; and yet hecould not take the book back and get his money, or even exchange itfor some article of neckwear or footwear. In his extremity he thoughthe would try giving it to the trainman just before he reached hisstop. 

"You want to _give_ it to me? Well, that's something that neverhappened to me on _this_ line before. I guess my wife will like it. I--_1009th Street! Change for East Brooklyn and the Bronx!_" the guardshouted, and he let Erlcort out of the car, the very first of the tidethat spilled itself forth at the station. He called after him, "Do asmuch for you some time. "

The incident first amused Erlcort, and then it began to trouble him;but he appeased his remorse by toying with his old notion of acritical bookstore. His mind was still at play with it when he stoppedat the bell-pull of an elderly girl of his acquaintance who had astudio ten stories above, and the habit of giving him afternoon tea init if he called there about five o'clock. She had her uglypainting-apron still on, and her thumb through the hole in herpalette, when she opened her door to him. 

"Too soon?" he asked. 

She answered as well as she could with the brush held horizontally inher mouth while she glared inhospitably at him. "Well, not much, " andthen she let him in, and went and lighted her spirit-lamp. 

He began at once to tell her of his strange experience, and went ontill she said: "Well, there's your tea. _I_ don't know what you'vebeen driving at, but I suppose you do. Is it the old thing?"

"It's my critical bookstore, if that's what you call the old thing. "

"Oh! _That!_ I thought it had failed 'way back in the dark ages. "

"The dark ages are not _back_, please; they're all 'round, and youknow very well that my critical bookstore has never been tried yet. But tell me one thing: should you wish to live with a picture, evenfor a few hours, which had been painted by an old lady of seventy whohad never tried to paint before?"

"If I intended to go crazy, yes. What has all that got to do with it?"

"That's the joint commendation of the publisher and the kind littleblonde who united to sell me the book I just gave to that poor Subwaytrainman. Do you ever buy a new book?"

"No; I always borrow an old one. "

"But if you _had_ to buy a new one, wouldn't you like to know of aplace where you could be sure of getting a good one?"

"I shouldn't mind. Or, yes, I should, rather. Where's it to be?"

"Oh, I know. I've had my eye on the place for a good while. It's afunny old place in Sixth Avenue--"

"Sixth _Avenue_!"

"Don't interrupt--where the dearest old codger in the world is justgoing out of the house-furnishing business in a small way. It's keptgetting smaller and smaller--I've watched it shrink--till now it can'tstand up against the big shops, and the old codger told me the otherday that it was no use. "

"Poor fellow!"

"No. He's not badly off, and he's going back up-state where he camefrom about forty years ago, and he can live--or die--very well on whathe's put by. I've known him rather a good while, and we've beenfriends ever since we've been acquainted. "

"Go on, " the elderly girl said. 

Erlcort was not stopping, but she spoke so as to close her mouth, which she was apt to let hang open in a way that she did not like; shehad her intimates pledged to tell her when she was doing it, but shecould not make a man promise, and she had to look after her mouthherself with Erlcort. It was not a bad mouth; her eyes were large, andit was merely large to match them. 

"When shall you begin--open shop?" she asked. 

"My old codger's lease expires in the fall, " he answered, "but hewould be glad to have me take it off his hands this spring. I couldgive the summer to changing and decorating, and begin my campaign inthe fall--the first of October, say. Wouldn't you like to come someday and see the old place?"

"I should love it. But you're not supposing I shall be of the leastuse, I hope? I'm not decorational, you know. Easel pictures, and smallones at that. "

"Of course. But you are a woman, and have ideas of the cozy. I meanthat the place shall be made attractive. "

"Do you think the situation will be--on Sixth Avenue?"

"It will be quaint. It's in a retarded region of low buildings, with acarpenter's shop two doors off. The L roars overhead and the surfacecars squeal before, but that is New York, you know, and it's verycentral. Besides, at the back of the shop, with the front door shut, it is very quiet. "

The next day the friends lunched together at an Italian restaurantvery near the place, and rather hurried themselves away to the oldcodger's store. 

"He _is_ a dear, " Margaret whispered to Erlcort in following him aboutto see the advantages of the place. 

"Oh, mine's setting-hen's time, " he justified his hospitality infinally asking them to take seats on a nail-keg apiece. "You mustn'tthink you're interruptin'. Look 'round all ye want to, or set down andrest ye. "

"That would be a good motto for your bookstore, " she screamed toErlcort, when they got out into the roar of the avenue. "'Look 'roundall ye want to, or set down and rest ye. ' Wasn't he sweet? And I don'twonder you're taken with the place: it _has_ such capabilities. Youmight as well begin imagining how you will arrange it. "

They were walking involuntarily up the avenue, and when they came tothe Park they went into it, and in the excitement of their planningthey went as far as the Ramble, where they sat down on a bench anddisappointed some squirrels who supposed they had brought peanuts withthem. 

They decided that the front of the shop should be elaborately simple;perhaps the door should be painted black, with a small-paned sash anda heavy brass latch. On each side should be a small-paned show-window, with books laid inside on an inclined shelving; on the door should bea modest bronze plate, reading, "The Critical Bookstore. " Theyrejected _shop_ as an affectation, and they hooted the notion of "YeCritical Bookstore" as altogether loathsome. The door and window wouldbe in a rather belated taste, but the beautiful is never out of date, and black paint and small panes might be found rococo in theirold-fashionedness now. There should be a fireplace, or perhaps aFranklin stove, at the rear of the room, with a high-shouldered, small-paned sash on each side letting in the light from the yard ofthe carpenter-shop. On the chimneypiece should be lettered, "Look'round all ye want to, or set down and rest ye. "

The genius of the place should be a refined hospitality, such as thegentle old codger had practised with them, and to facilitate thisthere should be a pair of high-backed settles, one under each window. The book-counter should stretch the whole length of the store, and atintervals beside it, against the book-shelving, should be setold-fashioned chairs, but not too old-fashioned. Against the lowerbook-shelves on a deeper shelf might be stood against the books a fewsketches in water-color, or even oil. 

This was Margaret Green's idea. 

"And would you guarantee the quality?" Erlcort asked. 

"Perhaps they wouldn't be for sale, though if any one insisted--"

"I see. Well, pass the sketches. What else?"

"Well, a few little figures in plaster, or even marble or bronze, veryGreek, or very American; things in low relief. "

"Pass the little figures and low reliefs. But don't forget it's a_bookstore_. "

"Oh, I won't. The sketches of all kinds would be strictly subordinatedto the books. If I had a tea-room handy here, with a table and thebacks of some menus to draw on, I could show you just how it wouldlook. "

"What's the matter with the Casino?"

"Nothing; only it's rather early for tea yet. "

"It isn't for soda-lemonade. "

She set him the example of instantly rising, and led the way backalong the lake to the Casino, resting at that afternoon hour among itsspring flowers and blossoms innocent of its lurid after-darkfrequentation. He got some paper from the waiter who came to taketheir order. She began to draw rapidly, and by the time the waitercame again she was giving Erlcort the last scrap of paper. 

"Well, " he said, "I had no idea that I had imagined anything socharming! If this critical bookstore doesn't succeed, it'll be becausethere are no critics. But what--what are these little things hungagainst the partitions of the shelves?"

"Oh--mirrors. Little round ones. "

"But why mirrors of any shape?"

"Nothing; only people like to see themselves in a glass of any shape. And when, " Margaret added, in a burst of candor, "a woman looks up andsees herself with a book in her hand, she will feel so intellectualshe will never put it down. She will buy it. "

"Margaret Green, this is immoral. Strike out those mirrors, or I willsmash them every one!"

"Oh, very well!" she said, and she rubbed them out with the top of herpencil. "If you want your place a howling wilderness. "

He looked at the ruin her rubber had wrought. "They _were_ rathernice. Could--could you rub them in again?"

"Not if I tried a hundred years. Besides, they _were_ rather impudent. What time is it?"

"No time at all. It's half-past three. "

"Dear me! I must be going. And if you're really going to start thatprecious critical bookstore in the fall, you must begin work on itright away. "

"Work?"

"Reading up for it. If you're going to guarantee the books, you mustknow what's in them, mustn't you?"

He realized that he must do what she said; he must know from his ownknowledge what was in the books he offered for sale, and he beganreading, or reading _at_, the new books immediately. He was a gooddeal occupied by day with the arrangement of his store, though he leftit mainly with the lively young decorator who undertook for a lump sumto realize Margaret Green's ideas. It was at night that he did most ofhis reading in the spring books which the publishers were willing tosend him gratis, when they understood he was going to open abookstore, and only wanted sample copies. As long as she remained intown Margaret Green helped him read, and they talked the books over, and mostly rejected them. By the time she went to Europe in Augustwith another elderly girl they had not chosen more than eight or tenbooks; but they hoped for better things in the fall. 

Word of what he was doing had gone out from Margaret, and a great manywomen of their rather esthetic circle began writing to him about thebooks they were reading, and commending them to him or warning himagainst them. The circle of his volunteer associates enlarged itselfin the nature of an endless chain, and before society quite broke upfor the summer a Sympathetic Tea was offered to Erlcort by a LeadingSociety Woman at the Intellectual Club, where he was invited toaddress the Intellectuals in explanation of his project. This wasbefore Margaret sailed, and he hurried to her in horror. 

"Why, of course you must accept. You're not going to hide yourCritical Bookstore under a bushel; you can't have too much publicity. "

The Leading Society Woman flowed in fulsome gratitude at hisacceptance, and promised no one but the club should be there; he hadhinted his reluctance. She kept her promise, but among theIntellectuals there was a girl who was a just beginning journalist, and who pumped Erlcort's whole scheme out of him, unsuspicious of whatshe was doing, till he saw it all, with his picture, in the SundaySupplement. She rightly judged that the intimacy of an interview wouldbe more popular with her readers than the cold and distant report ofhis formal address, which she must give, though she received it soardently with all the other Intellectuals. They flocked flatteringly, almost suffocatingly, around him at the end. His scheme was just whatevery one had vaguely thought of: something must be done to stem thetide of worthless fiction, which was so often shocking as well assilly, and they would only be too glad to help read for him. They werenearly all just going to sail, but they would each take a spring bookon the ship, and write him about it from the other side; they wouldeach get a fall book coming home, and report as soon as they got back. 

His scheme was discussed seriously and satirically by the press; itbecame a joke with many papers, and a byword quickly worn out, so thatpeople thought that it had been dropped. But Erlcort gave his days andnights to preparation for his autumnal campaign. He studied in carefulcomparison the reviews of the different literary authorities, and wasa little surprised to find, when he came to read the books theyreviewed, how honest and adequate they often were. He was obliged toown to himself that if people were guided by them, few worthless bookswould be sold, and he decided that the immense majority of thebook-buyers were not guided by the critics. The publishers themselvesseemed not so much to blame when he went to see them and explained hiswish to deal with them on the basis of a critical bookseller. Theysaid they wished all the booksellers were like him, for they would asknothing better than to publish only good books. The trouble, theysaid, lay with the authors; they wrote such worthless books. Or if nowand then one of them did write a good book and they were over-temptedto publish it, the public united in refusing to buy it. So he saw? Butif the booksellers persisted in selling none but good books, perhapssomething might be done. At any rate they would like to see theexperiment tried. 

Erlcort felt obliged to read the books suggested to him by the endlesschain of readers who volunteered to read for him, on both sides of theocean, or going and coming on the ocean. Mostly the books they praisedwere abject rubbish, but it took time to find this out, and he formedthe habit of reading far into the night, and if he was very much vexedat discovering that the book recommended to him was trash, he couldnot sleep unless he took veronal, and then he had a ghastly next day. 

He did not go out of town except for a few brief sojourns at placeswhere he knew cultivated people were staying, and could give him theiropinions of the books he was reading. When the publishers began, asthey had agreed, to send him their advance sheets, the stitched butunbound volumes roused so much interest by the novelty of their formthat his readers could not give an undivided attention to theircontents. He foresaw that in the end he should have to rely upon thetaste of mercenaries in his warfare against rubbish, and more and morehe found it necessary to expend himself in it, to read at second handas well as at first. His greatest relief was in returning to town andwatching the magical changes which the decorator was working in hisstore. This was consolation, this was inspiration, but he longed forthe return of Margaret Green, that she might help him enjoy therealization of her ideas in the equipment of the place; and he heldthe decorator to the most slavish obedience through the carpenters andpainters who created at his bidding a miraculous interior, all white, or just off-white, such as had never been imagined of a bookstore inNew York before. It was actually ready by the end of August, thoughsmelling a little of turpentine still, and Erlcort, letting himself inat the small-paned black door, and ranging up and down the long, beautiful room, and round and round the central book-table, and in andout between the side tables, under the soft, bright shelving of thewalls, could hardly wait the arrival of the _Minnedingdong_ in whichthe elderly girl had taken her passage back. One day, ten days aheadof time, she blew in at the front door in a paroxysm of explanation;she had swapped passages home with another girl who wanted to comeback later, while she herself wanted to come back earlier. She had novery convincing reason for this as she gave it, but Erlcort did notlisten to her reason, whatever it was. He said, between the raptureswith the place that she fell in and out of, that now she was just intime for the furnishing, which he never could have dared to undertakealone. 

In the gay September weather they visited all the antiquity shops inFourth Avenue, and then threw themselves frankly upon reproductions, which they bought in the native wood and ordered painted, the settlesand the spindle-backed chairs in the cool gray which she decided wasthe thing. In the same spirit they bought new brass fire-irons and newshovel and tongs, but all very tall and antique-looking, and then theygot those little immoral mirrors, which Margaret Green attached withher own hands to the partitions of the shelving. She also got softgreen silk curtains for the chimney windows and for the sash of thefront door; even the front windows she curtained, but very low, sothat a salesman or a saleswoman could easily reach over from theinterior and get a book that any customer had seen from the outside. 

One day when all this was done, and Erlcort had begun ordering in astock of such books as he had selected to start with, she said:"You're looking rather peakéd, aren't you?"

"Well, I've been _feeling_ rather peakéd, until lately, keeping awaketo read and read _after_ the volunteer readers. "

"You mean you've lost sleep?"

"Something like that. "

"Well, you mustn't. How many books do you start with?"

"About twenty-five. "

"Good ones? It's a lot, isn't it? I didn't suppose there were somany. "

"Well, to fill our shelves I shall have to order about a thousand ofeach. "

"You'll never sell them in the world! You'll be ruined. "

"Oh no; the publishers will take them back. "

"How nice of them! But that's only what painters have to do when thedealers can't sell their pictures. "

A month off, the prospect was brilliant, and when the shelves andtables were filled and the sketches and bas-reliefs were stuck aboutand the little immoral mirrors were hung, the place was charming. Thechairs and settles were all that could be asked; Margaret Green helpedput them about; and he let her light the low fire on the hearth ofthe Franklin stove; he said he should not always burn hickory, but hehad got twenty-four sticks for two dollars from an Italian in a cellarnear by, and he meant to burn that much. She upbraided him for hisextravagance while touching the match to the paper under the kindling;but October opened cold, and he needed the fire. 

The enterprise seemed rather to mystify the neighborhood, and some oldcustomers of the old codger's came in upon one fictitious errand andanother to see about it, and went away without quite making it out. Itwas a bookstore, all right, they owned in conference, but what did hemean by "critical"?

The first _bona fide_ buyer appeared in a little girl who could justget her chin on the counter, and who asked for an egg-beater. Erlcorthad begun with only one assistant, the young lady who typed hisletters and who said she guessed she could help him when she was notworking. She leaned over and tried to understand the little girl, andthen she called to Erlcort where he stood with his back to the fireand the morning paper open before his face. 

"Mr. Erlcort, have we got a book called _The Egg-beater_?"

"_The Egg-beater?_" he echoed, letting his paper drop below his face. 

"No, no!" the little girl shouted, angrily. "It _ain't_ a book. It's athing to beat eggs with. Mother said to come here and get it. "

"Well, she's sent you to the wrong place, little girl. You want to goto a hardware-store, " the young lady argued. 

"Ain't this No. 1232?"

"Yes. "

"Well, this is the _right_ place. Mother said to go to 1232. I guessshe knows. She's an old customer. "

"_The Egg-beater! The Egg-beater!_" the blithe young novelist to whomErlcort told the story repeated. He was still happy in his originalsuccess as a best-seller, and he had come to the Critical Bookstore tospy out the stock and see whether his last novel was in it; but thoughit was not, he joyously extended an acquaintance with Erlcort whichhad begun elsewhere. "_The Egg-beater?_ What a splendid title for astory of adventure! Keep the secret of its applicability to the lastword, or perhaps never reveal it at all, and leave the readerworrying. That's one way; makes him go and talk about the book to allthe girls he knows and get them guessing. Best ad. In the world. _TheEgg-beater!_ Doesn't it suggest desert islands and penguins' nests inthe rocks? Fellow and girl shipwrecked, and girl wants to make anomelette after they've got sick of plain eggs, and can't for want ofan egg-beater. Heigh? He invents one--makes it out of some wire thatfloats off from the wreck. See? When they are rescued, she brings itaway, and doesn't let him know it till their Iron Wedding Day. Theykeep it over his study fireplace always. "

This author was the first to stretch his legs before Erlcort's firefrom his seat on one of the reproductions. He could not say enough ofthe beauty of the place, and he asked if he might sit there and watchfor the old codger's old customers coming to buy hardware. There mightbe copy in it. 

But the old customers did not come so often as he hoped and Erlcortfeared. Instead there came _bona fide_ book-buyers, who asked some fora book and some for a particular book. The first were not satisfiedwith the books that Erlcort or his acting saleslady recommended, andwent away without buying. The last were indignant at not finding whatthey wanted in Erlcort's selection. 

"Why don't you stock it?" they demanded. 

"Because I don't think it's worth reading. "

"Oh, indeed!" The sarcastic customers were commonly ladies. "Ithought you let the public judge of that!"

"There are bookstores where they do. This is a critical bookstore. Isell only the books that _I_ think worth reading. If you had noticedmy sign--"

"Oh!" the customer would say, and she, too, would go away withoutbuying. 

There were other ladies who came, links of the endless chain ofvolunteer readers who had tried to help Erlcort in making hisselection, and he could see them slyly looking his stock over for thebooks they had praised to him. Mostly they went away without comment, but with heads held high in the offense which he felt even more thansaw. One, indeed, did ask him why he had not stocked her chosen book, and he had to say, "Well, when I came to go through it carefully, Ididn't think it quite--"

"But here is _The Green Bay Tree_, and _The Biggest Toad in thePuddle_, and--"

"I know. For one reason and another I thought them worth stocking. "

Then another head went away high in the air, with its plumesquivering. One afternoon late a lady came flying in with all themarks, whatever they are, of transatlantic travel upon her. 

"I'm just through the customs, and I've motored up here the firstthing, even before I went home, to stop you from selling that book Irecommended. It's dreadful; and, horrors! horrors! here it is by thehundreds! Oh, Mr. Erlcort! You mustn't sell that dreadful book! Yousee, I had skipped through it in my berth going out, and posted myletter the first thing; and just now, coming home, I found it in theship's library and came on that frightful episode. You know!Where-- How _could_ you order it without reading it, on a mere say-so?It's utterly immoral!"

"I don't agree with you, " Erlcort answered, dryly. "I consider thatpassage one of the finest in modern fiction--one of the most ennoblingand illumining--"

"Ennobling!" The lady made a gesture of horror. "Very well! If _that_is your idea of a critical bookstore, all I've got to say is--"

But she had apparently no words to say it in, and she went out bangingbut failing to latch the door which let through the indignant snort ofher car as it whirled her away. She left Erlcort and his assistant toa common silence, but he imagined somehow a resolution in thestenographer not to let the book go unsearched till she had graspedthe full iniquity of that episode and felt all its ennobling force. Hewas not consoled when another lady came in and, after driftingunmolestedly about (it was the primary rule of the place not tofollow people up), stopped before the side shelf where the book wasranged in dozens and scores. She took a copy from the neat ranks, andopened it; then she lifted her head by chance and caught sight of herplume in one of the little mirrors. She stealthily lifted herself ontiptoe till she could see her face, and then she turned to theassistant and said, gently, "I believe I should like _this_ book, please, " and paid for it and went out. 

It was now almost on the stroke of six, and Erlcort said to hisassistant: "I'll close the store, Miss Pearsall. You needn't stay anylonger. "

"All right, sir, " the girl said, and went into the little closet atthe rear for her hat and coat. Did she contrive to get a copy of thatbook under her coat as she passed the shelf where it lay?

When she was gone, he turned the key in the door and went back and satdown before the fire dying on the hearth of the Franklin stove. It wasnot a very cheerful moment with him, but he could not have said thatthe day had been unprofitable, either spiritually or pecuniarily. Inits experiences it had been a varied day, and he had really sold agood many books. More people than he could have expected had taken himseriously and even intelligently. It is true that he had been somewhatvexed by the sort of authority the president of the Intellectual Clubhad shown in the way she swelled into the store and patronized him andit, as if she had invented them both, and blamed him in a high, sweetvoice for having so many _old_ books. "My idea was that it would be aplace where one could come for the best of the _new_ books. But here!Why, half of them I saw in June before I sailed!" She chided himmerrily, and she acted as if it were quite part of the joke when hesaid that he did not think a good book could age much in four months. She laughed patronizingly at his conceit of getting in the fall booksby Thanksgiving; but even for the humor of it she could not let himsay he should not do anything in holiday books. "I had expected to get_all_ my Christmas books of you, Mr. Erlcort, " she crowed, but for thepresent she bought nothing. In compensation he recalled the gratitude, almost humble gratitude, of a lady (she was a lady!) who had come thatday, bringing her daughter to get a book, any book in his stock, andto thank him for his enterprise, which she had found worked perfectlyin the case of the book she had got the week before; the book had beenan unalloyed delight, and had left a sense of heightened self-respectwith her: that book of the dreadful episode. 

He wished Margaret Green had been there; but she had been there onlyonce since his opening; he could not think why. He heard a rattling atthe door-latch, and he said before he turned to look, "What if itshould be she _now_?" But when he went to peer through thedoor-curtain it was only an old fellow who had spent the better partof the afternoon in the best chair, reading a book. Erlcort went backto the fire and let him rattle, which he did rather a long time, andthen went away, Erlcort hoped, in dudgeon. He was one of a number ofcustomers who had acted on the half of his motto asking them to sitdown and rest them, after acting on the other half to look round allthey wanted. Most of them did not read, even; they seemed to know oneanother, and they talked comfortably together. Erlcort recognized acompanionship of four whom he had noticed in the Park formerly; theywere clean-enough-looking elderly men, but occupied nearly all thechairs and settles, so that lady customers did not like to bring booksand look over them in the few places left, and Erlcort foresaw thetime when he should have to ask the old fellows to look around moreand rest them less. In resuming his own place before the fire he feltthe fleeting ache of a desire to ask Margaret Green whether it wouldnot be a good plan to remove the motto from the chimneypiece. He wouldnot have liked to do it without asking her; it had been her notion toput it there, and her other notion of the immoral mirrors hadcertainly worked well. The thoughtful expression they had reflected onthe faces of lady customers had sold a good many books; not thatErlcort wished to sell books that way, though he argued with himselfthat his responsibility ought strictly to end with the provision ofbooks which he had critically approved before offering them for sale. 

His conscience was not wholly at peace as to his stock, not only thebooks which he had included, but also those he had excluded. Some ofthese tacitly pleaded against his severity; in one case an author cameand personally protested. This was the case of a book by theex-best-seller, who held that his last book was so much better thanhis first that it ought certainly to be found in any criticalbookstore. The proceeds of his best-seller had enabled him to buy anelectric runabout, and he purred up to Erlcort's door in it to arguethe matter with him. He sat down in a reproduction and proved, gaily, that Erlcort was quite wrong about it. He had the book with him, andread passages from it; then he read passages from some of the books onsale and defied Erlcort to say that his passages were not just asgood, or, as he put it merrily, the same as. He held that his markedimprovement entitled him to the favor of a critical bookstore;without this, what motive had he in keeping from a reversion to theerrors which had won him the vicious prosperity of his first venture?Hadn't Erlcort a duty to perform in preventing his going back to thebad? Refuse this markedly improved fiction, and you drove him towriting nothing but best-sellers from now on. He urged Erlcort toreflect. 

They had a jolly time, and the ex-best-seller went away in highspirits, prophesying that Erlcort would come to his fiction yet. 

There were authors who did not leave Erlcort so cheerful when theyfailed to see their books on his shelves or tables. Some of them wereyoung authors who had written their worthless books with a devoutfaith in their worth, and they went away more in sorrow than in anger, and yet more in bewilderment. Some were old authors who had been alltheir lives acceptably writing second-rate books and trying to makethem unacceptably first-rate. If he knew them he kept out of theirway, but the dejection of their looks was not less a pang to him if hesaw them searching his stock for their books in vain. 

He had his own moments of dejection. The interest of the press in hisenterprise had flashed through the Sunday issues of a single week, andthen flashed out in lasting darkness. He wondered vaguely if he hadcounted without the counting-house in hoping for their continuedfavor; he could not realize that nothing is so stale as old news, andthat no excess of advertising would have relumed those fitful fires. 

He would have liked to talk the case over with Margaret Green. Afterhis first revolt from the easy publicity the reporters had first givenhim, he was aware of having enjoyed it--perhaps vulgarly enjoyed it. But he hoped not quite that; he hoped that in his fleeting celebrityhe had cared for his scheme rather than himself. He had reallybelieved in it, and he liked having it recognized as a feature ofmodern civilization, an innovation which did his city and his countrycredit. Now and then an essayist of those who wrote thoughtfularticles in the Sunday or Saturday-evening editions had dropped in, and he had opened his heart to them in a way he would not have mindedtheir taking advantage of. Secretly he hoped they would see a topic inhis enterprise and his philosophy of it. But they never did, and hewas left to the shame of hopes which had held nothing to supportdefeat. He would have liked to confess his shame and own the justiceof his punishment to Margaret Green, but she seemed the only friendwho never came near. Other friends came, and many strangers, thefriends to look and the strangers to buy. He had no reason tocomplain of his sales; the fame of his critical bookstore might haveceased in New York, because it had gone abroad to Chicago and St. Louis and Pittsburg; people who were clearly from these commercialcapitals and others came and bought copiously of his criticized stock, and they praised the notion of it in telling him that he ought to openbranches in their several cities. 

They were all women, and it was nearly all women who frequented theCritical Bookstore, but in their multitude Margaret Green was not. Hethought it the greater pity because she would have enjoyed many ofthem with him, and would have divined such as hoped the cultureimplicated by a critical bookstore would come off on them withoutgreat effort of their own; she would have known the sincere spirits, too, and could have helped direct their choice of the best where allwas so good. He smiled to find that he was invoking her help, which hehad no right to. 

His longing had no effect upon her till deep in January, when theweather was engaged late one afternoon in keeping the promise of aJanuary thaw in the form of the worst snow-storm of the winter. Thenshe came thumping with her umbrella-handle at his door as if, hedivined, she were too stiff-handed or too package-laden to press thelatch and let herself in, and she almost fell in, but saved herselfby spilling on the floor some canvases and other things which she hadbeen getting at the artist's-materials store near by. "Don't botherabout them, " she said, "but take me to the fire as fast as you can, "and when she had turned from snow to rain and had dripped partiallydry before the Franklin stove, she asked, "Where have you been all thetime?"

"Waiting here for you, " he answered. 

"Well, you needn't. I wasn't going to come--or at least not till yousent for me, or said you wanted my advice. "

"I don't want your advice now. "

"I didn't come to give it. I just dropped in because if I hadn't Ishould have just dropped outside. How have you been getting along withyour ridiculous critical bookstore?"

"Well, things are rather quiet with us just now, as the publishers sayto the authors when they don't want to publish their books. "

"Yes, I know that saying. Why didn't you go in for the holiday books?"

"How did you know I didn't?"

"Lots of people told me. "

"Well, then, I'll tell you why. I would have had to read them first, and no human being could do that--not even a volunteer link in anendless chain. "

"I see. But since Christmas?"

"You know very well that after Christmas the book market drops dead. "

"Yes, so I've been told. " She had flung her wet veil back over hershoulders, and he thought she had never looked so adorably plainbefore; if she could have seen herself in a glass she would have foundher whole face out of drawing. It seemed as if his thinking had puther in mind of them, and she said, "Those immoral mirrors areshameful. "

"They've sold more of the best books than anything else. "

"No matter. As soon as I get a little drier I shall take them down. "

"Very well. _I_ didn't put them up. " He laid a log of hickory on thefire. "I'm not doing it to dry you quicker. "

"Oh, I know. I'll tell you one thing. You ought to keep the magazines, or at least the Big Four. You could keep them with a good conscience, and you could sell them without reading; they're always good. "

"There's an idea in that. I believe I'll try it. "

Margaret Green was now dry enough, and she rose and removed themirrors. In doing this she noticed that Erlcort had apparently sold agood many of his best books, and she said: "Well! I don't see why_you_ should be discouraged. "

"Who said I was? I'm exultant. "

"Then you were exulting with the corners of your mouth down just now. Well, I must be going. Will you get a taxi to flounder over to theSubway with me?" While Erlcort was telephoning she was talking to him. "I believe the magazines will revive public interest in your scheme. Put them in your window. Try to get advance copies for it. "

"You have a commercial genius, Margaret Green. "

"When it comes to selling literature, I have. Selling art is where Ifall down. "

"That's because you always try to sell your own art. I should falldown, too, if I tried to sell my own literature. "

They got quite back to their old friendliness; the coming of the taxigave them plenty of time. The electric lights were turned brilliantlyon, but there, at the far end of the store, before the Franklin stove, they had a cozy privacy. At the moment of parting she said:

"If I were you I should take out these settles. They simply inviteloafing. "

"I've noticed that they seem to do that. "

"And better paint out that motto. "

"I've sometimes fancied I'd better. _That_ invites loafing, too;though some nice people like it. "

"Nice people? Why haven't some of them bought a picture?" He perceivedthat she had taken in the persistent presence of the sketches whenremoving the mirrors, and he shared the indignation she expressed:"Shabby things!"

She stood with the mirrors under her arm, and he asked what she wasgoing to do with them, as he followed her to the door with her otherthings. 

"Put them around the studio. But you needn't come to see the effect. "

"No. I shall come to see you. "

But when he came in a lull of February, and he could walk part of theway up through the Park on the sunny Saturday afternoon, she said:

"I suppose you've come to pour out some more of your griefs. Well, pour away! Has the magazine project failed?"

"On the contrary, it has been a _succès fou_. But I don't feelaltogether easy in my mind about it. The fact is, they seem to printmuch more rubbish than I supposed. "

"Of course they do; they must; rubbish is the breath in theirnostrils. "

She painted away, screwing her eyes almost shut and getting very closeto her picture. He had never thought her so plain; she was letting hermouth hang open. He wondered why she was so charming; but when shestepped back rhythmically, tilting her pretty head this way and that, he saw why: it was her unfailing grace. She suddenly remembered hermouth and shut it to say, "Well?"

"Well, some people have come back at me. They've said, What a rottennumber this or that was! They were right; and yet there were things inall those magazines better than anything they had ever printed. What'sto be done about it? I can't ask people to buy truck or read truckbecause it comes bound up with essays and stories and poems of thefirst quality. "

"No. You can't. Why, " she asked, drifting up to her picture again, "don't you tear the bad out, and sell the good?"

Erlcort gave a disdainful sound, such as cannot be spelled in English. "Do you know how defiantly the bad is bound up with the good in themagazines? They're wired together, and you could no more tear out thebad and leave the good than you could part vice from virtue in humannature. "

"I see, " Margaret Green said, but she saw no further, and she had tolet him go disconsolate. After waiting a decent time she went to findhim in his critical bookstore. It was late in an afternoon of the daysthat were getting longer, and only one electric was lighted in therear of the room, where Erlcort sat before the fireless Franklinstove, so busy at something that he scarcely seemed aware of her. 

"What in the world are you doing?" she demanded. 

He looked up. "Who? I? Oh, it's you! Why, I'm merely censoring thetruck in the May number of this magazine. " He held up a little roller, as long as the magazine was wide, blacked with printer's ink, which hehad been applying to the open periodical. "I've taken a hint from theway the Russian censorship blots out seditious literature before itlets it go to the public. "

"And _what_ a mess you're making!"

"Of course it will have to dry before it's put on sale. "

"I should think so. Listen to me, Frederick Erlcort: you're goingcrazy. "

"I've sometimes thought so: crazy with conceit and vanity andarrogance. Who am I that I should set up for a criticalbookstore-keeper? What is the Republic of Letters, anyway? A vast, benevolent, generous democracy, where one may have what one likes, ora cold oligarchy where he is compelled to take what is good for him?Is it a restricted citizenship, with a minority representation, or isit universal suffrage?"

"Now, " Margaret Green said, "you are talking sense. Why didn't youthink of this in the beginning?"

"Is it a world, a whole earth, " he went on, "where the weeds mostlyoutflourish the flowers, or is it a wretched little florist'sconservatory where the watering-pot assumes to better the instructionof the rain which falls upon the just and the unjust? What is all theworthy family of asses to do if there are no thistles to feed them?Because the succulent fruits and nourishing cereals are better for thefiner organisms, are the coarser not to have fodder? No; I have made amistake. Literature is the whole world; it is the expression of thegross, the fatuous, and the foolish, and it is the pleasure of thegross, the fatuous, and the foolish, as well as the expression and thepleasure of the wise, the fine, the elect. Let the multitude havetheir truck, their rubbish, their rot; it may not be the truck, therubbish, the rot that it would be to us, or may slowly and by naturalselection become to certain of them. But let there be no artificialselection, no survival of the fittest by main force--the force of thespectator, who thinks he knows better than the creator of the ugly andthe beautiful, the fair and foul, the evil and good. "

"Oh, _now_ if the Intellectual Club could hear you!" Margaret Greensaid, with a long, deep, admiring suspiration. "And what are yougoing to do with your critical bookstore?"

"I'm going to sell it. I've had an offer from the author of thatbest-seller--I've told you about him. I was just trying to censor thatmagazine while I was thinking it over. He's got an idea. He's going tokeep it a critical bookstore, but the criticism is to be made byuniversal suffrage and the will of the majority. The latest books willbe put to a vote; and the one getting the greatest number of voteswill be the first offered for sale, and the author will receive a freepassage to Europe by the southern route. "

"The southern route!" Margaret mused. "I've never been that way. Itmust be delightful. "

"Then come with _me_! _I'm_ going. "

"But how can I?"

"By marrying me!"

"I never thought of that, " she said. Then, with the conscientiousresolution of an elderly girl who puts her fate to the touch of anyrisk the truth compels, she added: "Or, yes! I _have_. But I neversupposed you would ask me. " She stared at him, and she was aware shewas letting her mouth hang open. While she was trying for some word toclose it with he closed it for her. 

 XIV

 A FEAST OF REASON

Florindo and Lindora had come to the end of another winter in town, and had packed up for another summer in the country. They were sittingtogether over their last breakfast until the taxi should arrive towhirl them away to the station, and were brooding in a joint gloomfrom the effect of the dinner they had eaten at the house of a friendthe night before, and, "Well, thank goodness, " she said, "there is anend to that sort of thing for _one_ while. "

"An end to _that_ thing, " he partially assented, "but not that _sort_of thing. "

"What do you mean?" she demanded excitedly, almost resentfully. 

"I mean that the lunch is of the nature of the dinner, and that in thecountry we shall begin lunching where we left off dining. "

"Not instantly, " she protested shrilly. "There will be nobody therefor a while--not for a whole month, nearly. "

"They will be there before you can turn round, almost; and then youwomen will begin feeding one another there before you have well leftoff here. "

"We women!" she protested. 

"Yes, you--you women. You give the dinners. Can you deny it?"

"It's because we can't get you to the lunches. "

"In the country you can; and so you will give the lunches. "

"We would give dinners if it were not for the distance, and thedarkness on those bad roads. "

"I don't see where your reasoning is carrying you. "

"No, " she despaired, "there is no reason in it. No sense. How tired ofit all I am! And, as you say, it will be no time before it is allgoing on again. "

They computed the number of dinners they had given during the winter;that was not hard, and the sum was not great: six or seven at themost, large and small. When it came to the dinners they had received, it was another thing; but still she considered, "Were they really sofew? It's nothing to what the English do. They never dine alone athome, and they never dine alone abroad--of course not! I wonder theycan stand it. I think a dinner, the happy-to-accept kind, is alwaysloathsome: the everlasting soup, if there aren't oysters first, orgrape-fruit, or melon, and the fish, and the entrée, and the roast andsalad, and the ice-cream and the fruit nobody touches, and the coffeeand cigarettes and cigars--how I hate it all!"

Lindora sank back in her chair and toyed desperately with the fragmentof bacon on her plate. 

"And yet, " Florindo said, "there is a charm about the first dinner ofautumn, after you've got back. "

"Oh, yes, " she assented; "it's like a part of our lost youth. We thinkall the dinners of the winter will be like that, and we come awaybeaming. "

"But when it keeps on and there's more and more of our lost youth, till it comes to being the whole--"

"Florindo!" she stopped him. He pretended that he was not going tohave said it, and she resumed, dreamily, "I wonder what it is makes itso detestable as the winter goes on. "

"All customs are detestable, the best of them, " he suggested, "and Ishould say, in spite of the first autumnal dinner, that the societydinner was an unlovely rite. You try to carry if off with china andglass, and silver and linen, and if people could fix their minds onthese, or even on the dishes of the dinner as they come successivelyon, it would be all very well; but the diners, the diners!"

"Yes, " she said, "the old men are hideous, certainly; and the youngones--I try not to look at them, poking things into the hollows oftheir faces with spoons and forks--"

"Better than when it was done with knives! Still, it's a horror! Aveteran diner-out in full action is certainly a hideous spectacle. Often he has few teeth of his own, and the dentists don't serve himperfectly. He is in danger of dropping things out of his mouth, bothliquids and solids: better not look! His eyes bulge and roll in hishead in the stress of mastication and deglutition; his color rises andspreads to his gray hair or over his baldness; his person seems toswell vividly in his chair, and when he laughs--"

"Don't, Florindo! It _is_ awful. "

"Well, perhaps no worse than the sight of a middle-aged matron tendingto overweight and bulking above her plate--"

"Yes, yes! That's dreadful, too. But when people are young--"

"Oh, when people are young!" He said this in despair. Then he went onin an audible muse. "When people are young they are not only in theirown youth; they are in the youth of the world, the race. They dine, but they don't think of the dinner or the unpleasantness of thediners, and the grotesqueness of feeding in common. They think--" hebroke off in defect of other ideas, and concluded with a laugh, "theythink of themselves. And they don't think of how they are looking. "

"They needn't; they are looking very well. Don't keep harping on that!I remember when we first began going to dinners, I thought it was themost beautiful thing in the world. I don't mean when I was a girl; agirl only goes to a dinner because it comes before a dance. I meanwhen we were young married people; and I pinned up my dress and wewent in the horse-cars, or even walked. I enjoyed every instant of it:the finding who was going to take me in and who you were; and thegoing in; and the hovering round the table to find our places from thecards; and the seeing how you looked next some one else, and wonderinghow you thought I looked; and the beads sparkling up through thechampagne and getting into one's nose; and the laughing and joking andtalking! Oh, the talking! What's become of it? The talking, lastnight, it bored me to death! And what good stories people used totell, women as well as men! You can't deny it was beautiful. "

"I don't; and I don't deny that the forms of dining are stillcharming. It's the dining itself that I object to. "

"That's because your digestion is bad. "

"Isn't yours?"

"Of course it is. What has that got to do with it?"

"It seems to me that we have arrived at what is called an _impasse_ inFrench. " He looked up at the clock on the wall, and she gave a littlejump in her chair. "Oh, there's plenty of time. The taxi won't be herefor half an hour yet. Is there any heat left in that coffee?"

"There will be, " she said, and she lighted the lamp under the pot. "But I don't like being scared out of half a year's growth. "

"I'm sorry. I won't look at the clock any more; I don't care if we'releft. Where were we? Oh, I remember--the objection to dining itself. If we could have the forms without the facts, dining would be allright. Our superstition is that we can't be gay without gorging; thatsociety can't be run without meat and drink. But don't you rememberwhen we first went to Italy there was no supper at Italian houseswhere we thought it such a favor to be asked?"

"I remember that the young Italian swells wouldn't go to the Americanand English houses where they weren't sure of supper. They didn'tgive supper at the Italian houses because they couldn't afford it. "

"I know that. I believe they do, now. But--

 'Sweet are the uses of adversity, '

and the fasting made for beauty then more than the feasting does now. It was a lovelier sight to see the guests of those Italian housesconversing together without the grossness of feeding or being fed--thesort of thing one saw at our houses when people went out to supper. "

"I wonder, " Lindora said, "whether the same sort of thing goes on atevening parties still--it's so long since I've been at one. It wasawful standing jammed up in a corner or behind a door and eating_vis-à-vis_ with a man who brought you a plate; and it wasn't muchbetter when you sat down and he stood over you gabbling and gobbling, with his plate in one hand and his fork in the other. I was alwaysafraid of his dropping things into my lap; and the sight of his jawschamping as you looked up at them from below!"

"Yes, ridiculous. But there was an element of the grotesque in abird's-eye view of a lady making shots at her mouth with a spoon andtrying to smile and look _spirituelle_ between the shots. "

Lindora as she laughed bowed her forehead on the back of her hand inthe way Florindo thought so pretty when they were both young. "Yes, "she said, "awful, awful! Why _should_ people want to flock togetherwhen they feed? Do you suppose it's a survival of the primitivehospitality when those who had something to eat hurried to share itwith those who had nothing?"

"Possibly, " Florindo said, flattered into consequence by her momentarydeference, or show of it. "But the people who mostly meet to feedtogether now are not hungry; they are already so stuffed that theyloathe the sight of the things. Some of them shirk the consequences byfrankly dining at home first, and then openly or covertly dodging thecourses. "

"Yes, and you hear that praised as a mark of high civilization, orsocial wisdom. I call it wicked, and an insult to the very genius ofhospitality. "

"Well, I don't know. It must give the faster a good chance of seeinghow funny the feeders all look. "

"I wonder, I _do_ wonder, how the feeding in common came to be thecustom, " she said, thoughtfully. "Of course where it's done forconvenience, like hotels or in boarding-houses--but to do it wantonly, as people do in society, it ought to be stopped. "

"We might call art to our aid--have a large tableful of people kodakedin the moments of ingulfing, chewing, or swallowing, as the act variedfrom guest to guest; might be reproduced as picture postals, or fromfilms for the movies. That would give the ten and twenty centaudiences a chance to see what life in the exclusive circles was. "

She listened in dreamy inattention. "It was a step in the rightdirection when people began to have afternoon teas. To be sure, therewas the biting and chewing sandwiches, but you needn't take _them_, and most women could manage their teacups gracefully. "

"Or hide their faces in them when they couldn't. "

"Only, " she continued, "the men wouldn't come after the first go off. It was as bad as lunches. Now that the English way of serving tea tocallers has come in, it's better. You really get the men, and it keepsthem from taking cocktails so much. "

"They're rather glad of that. But still, still, there's the guttlingand guzzling. "

"It's reduced to a minimum. "

"But it's there. And the first thing you know you've loaded yourselfup with cake or bread-and-butter and spoiled your appetite for dinner. No, afternoon tea must go with the rest of it, if we're going to betruly civilized. If people could come to one another's tables withfull minds instead of stomachs, there would be some excuse forhospitality. Perhaps if we reversed the practice of the professionaldiner-out, and read up at home as he now eats at home, and-- No, Idon't see how it could be done. But we might take a leaf from the bookof people who are not in society. They never ask anybody to meals ifthey can possibly help it; if some one happens in at meal-times theytell him to pull up a chair--if they have to, or he shows no signsfirst of going. But even among these people the instinct ofhospitality--the feeding form of it--lurks somewhere. In ourfarm-boarding days--"

"Don't speak of them!" she implored. 

"We once went to an evening party, " he pursued, "where raw apples andcold water were served. "

"I thought I should die of hunger. And when we got home to our ownfarmer's we ravaged the pantry for everything left from supper. Itwasn't much. There!" Lindora screamed. "There _is_ the taxi!" And theshuddering sound of the clock making time at their expense penetratedfrom the street. "Come!"

"How the instinct of economy lingers in us, too, long after the useof it is outgrown. It's as bad as the instinct of hospitality. Wecould easily afford to pay extra for the comfort of sitting here overthese broken victuals--"

"I tell you we shall be left, " she retorted; and in the thirty-fiveminutes they had at the station before their train started sheoutlined a scheme of social reform which she meant to put in force assoon as people began to gather in summer force at Lobster Cove. 

He derided the notion; but she said, "You will see!" and in rathermore time than it takes to tell it they were settled in their cottage, where, after some unavoidable changes of cook and laundress, they weresoon in perfect running order. 

By this time Lobster Cove was in the full tide of lunching and beinglunched. The lunches were almost exclusively ladies' lunches, and theladies came to them with appetites sharpened by the incomparable airof those real Lobster Cove days which were all cloudless skies andwest winds, and by the vigorous automobile exercise of getting to oneanother's cottages. They seized every pretext for giving these feasts, marked each by some vivid touch of invention within the limits of thegraceful convention which all felt bound not to transcend. It was somesurprising flavor in the salad, or some touch of color appealing tothe eye only; or it was some touch in the ice-cream, or some daringsubstitution of a native dish for it, as strawberry or peachshortcake; or some bold transposition in the order of the courses; orsome capricious arrangement of the decoration, or the use of wildflowers, or even weeds (as meadow-rue or field-lilies), for the localflorist's flowers, which set the ladies screaming at the moment andtalking of it till the next lunch. This would follow perhaps the nextday, or the next but one, according as a new cottager's claimsinsisted or a lady had a change of guests, or three days at thelatest, for no reason. 

In their rapid succession people scarcely noticed that Lindora had notgiven a lunch, and she had so far abandoned herself to the enjoymentof the others' lunches that she had half forgotten her high purposesof reform, when she was sharply recalled to them by a lunch which hadnot at all agreed with her; she had, in fact, had to have the doctor, and many people had asked one another whether they had heard how shewas. Then she took her good resolution in both hands and gave anafternoon, asking people by note or 'phone simply whether they wouldnot come in at four sharp. People were a good deal mystified, but forthis very reason everybody came. Some of them came from somebody'slunch, which had been so nice that they lingered over it till four, and then walked, partly to fill in the time and partly to walk off thelunch, as there would be sure to be something at Lindora's later on. 

It would be invidious to say what the nature of Lindora'sentertainment was. It was certainly to the last degree original, andthose who said the worst of it could say no worse than that it wasqueer. It quite filled the time till six o'clock, and may be perhapsbest described as a negative rather than a positive triumph, thoughwhat Lindora had aimed at she had undoubtedly achieved. Whatever itwas, whether original or queer, it was certainly novel. 

A good many men had come, one at least to every five ladies, but asthe time passed and a certain blankness began to gather over thespirits of all, they fell into different attitudes of the despairwhich the ladies did their best to pass off for rapture. At eachunscheduled noise they started in a vain expectation, and when the endcame, it came so without accent, so without anything but the clock tomark it as the close, that they could hardly get themselves togetherfor going away. They did what was nice and right, of course, inthanking Lindora for her fascinating afternoon, but when they werewell beyond hearing one said to another: "Well, I shall certainlyhave an appetite for my dinner _to-night_! Why, if there had only beena cup of the weakest kind of tea, or even of cold water!"

Then those who had come in autos gathered as many pedestrians intothem as they would hold in leaving the house, or caught them upfainting by the way. 

Lindora and Florindo watched them from their veranda. 

"Well, my dear, " he said, "it's been a wonderful afternoon; an immensestride forward in the cause of anti-eating--or--"

"Don't _speak_ to me!" she cried. 

"But it leaves one rather hungry, doesn't it?"

"_Hungry!_" she hurled back at him. "I could eat a--I don't knowwhat!"

 XV

 CITY AND COUNTRY IN THE FALL

 A Long-distance Eclogue

 1902

 _Morrison. _ Hello! Hello! Is that you, Wetherbee?

 _Wetherbee. _ Yes. Who are you? What do you want with me?

 _Morrison. _ Oh, nothing much. It's Morrison, you know; Morrison--down at Clamhurst Shortsands. 

 _Wetherbee. _ Oh! Why, Morrison, of course! Of course, I know! How are you, Morrison? And, by the way, _Where_ are you? What! You never mean to say You are down there _yet_? Well, by the Holy Poker! What are you doing there, you ancient joker?

 _Morrison. _ Sticking it out over Thanksgiving Day. I said I would. I tell you, it is gay Down here. You ought to see the Hunter's Moon, These silver nights, prinking in our lagoon. You ought to see our sunsets, glassy red, Shading to pink and violet overhead. You ought to see our mornings, still and clear, White silence, far as you can look and hear. You ought to see the leaves--our oaks and ashes Crimson and yellow, with those gorgeous splashes, Purple and orange, against the bluish green Of the pine woods; and scattered in between The scarlet of the maples; and the blaze Of blackberry-vines, along the dusty ways And on the old stone walls; the air just balm, And the crows cawing through the perfect calm Of afternoons all gold and turquoise. Say, You ought to have been with wife and me to-day, A drive we took--it would have made you sick: The pigeons and the partridges so thick; And on the hill just beyond Barkin's lane, Before you reach the barn of Widow Payne, Showing right up against the sky, as clear And motionless as sculpture, stood a deer! Say, does that jar you just a little? Say, How have you found things up there, anyway, Since you got back? Air like a cotton string To breathe? The same old dust on everything, And in your teeth, and in your eyes? The smoke From the soft coal, got long beyond a joke? The trolleys rather more upon your curves, And all the roar and clatter in your nerves? Don't you wish you had stayed here, too?

 _Wetherbee. _ Well, yes, I do at certain times, I must confess. I swear it is enough at times to make you swear You would almost rather be anywhere Than here. The building up and pulling down, The getting to and fro about the town, The turmoil underfoot and overhead, Certainly make you wish that you were dead, At first; and all the mean vulgarity Of city life, the filth and misery You see around you, make you want to put Back to the country anywhere, hot-foot. Yet--there are compensations. 

 _Morrison. _ Such as?

 _Wetherbee. _ Why, There is the club. 

 _Morrison. _ The club I can't deny. Many o' the fellows back there?

 _Wetherbee. _ Nearly all. Over the twilight cocktails there are tall Stories and talk. But you would hardly care; You have the natives to talk with down there, And always find them meaty. 

 _Morrison. _ Well, so-so. Their words outlast their ideas at times, you know, And they have _staying_ powers. The theaters All open now?

 _Wetherbee. _ Yes, all. And it occurs To me: there's one among the things that you Would have enjoyed; an opera with the new-- Or at least the last--music by Sullivan, And words, though not Gilbertian, that ran Trippingly with it. Oh, I tell you what, I'd rather that you had been there than not. 

 _Morrison. _ Thanks ever so!

 _Wetherbee. _ Oh, there is nothing mean About your early friend. That deer and autumn scene Were kind of you! And, say, I think you like Afternoon teas when good. I have chanced to strike Some of the best of late, where people said They had sent you cards, but thought you must be dead. I told them I left you down there by the sea, And then they sort of looked askance at me, As if it were a joke, and bade me get Myself some bouillon or some chocolate, And turned the subject--did not even give Me time to prove it is not life to live In town as long as you can keep from freezing Beside the autumn sea. A little sneezing, At Clamhurst Shortsands, since the frosts set in?

 _Morrison. _ Well, not enough to make a true friend grin. Slight colds, mere nothings. With our open fires We've all the warmth and cheer that heart desires. Next year we'll have a furnace in, and stay Not till Thanksgiving, but till Christmas Day. It's glorious in these roomy autumn nights To sit between the firelight and the lights Of our big lamps, and read aloud by turns As long as kerosene or hickory burns. We hate to go to bed. 

 _Wetherbee. _ Of course you do! And hate to get up in the morning, too-- To pull the coverlet from your frost-bit nose, And touch the glary matting with your toes! Are you beginning yet to break the ice In your wash-pitchers? No? Well, that is nice. I always hate to do it--seems as if Summer was going; but when your hand is stiff With cold, it can be done. Still, I prefer To wash and dress beside my register, When summer gets a little on, like this. But some folks find the other thing pure bliss-- Lusty young chaps, like you. 

 _Morrison. _ And some folks find A sizzling radiator to their mind. What else have you, there, you could recommend To the attention of a country friend?

 _Wetherbee. _ Well, you know how it is in Madison Square, Late afternoons, now, if the day's been fair-- How all the western sidewalk ebbs and flows With pretty women in their pretty clo'es: I've never seen them prettier than this year. Of course, I know a dear is not a deer, But still, I think that if I had to meet One or the other in the road, or street, All by myself, I am not sure but that I'd choose the dear that wears the fetching hat. 

 _Morrison. _ Get out! What else?

 _Wetherbee. _ Well, it is not so bad, If you are feeling a little down, or sad, To walk along Fifth Avenue to the Park, When the day thinks perhaps of getting dark, And meet that mighty flood of vehicles Laden with all the different kinds of swells, Homing to dinner, in their carriages-- Victorias, landaus, chariots, coupés-- There's nothing like it to lift up the heart And make you realize yourself a part, Sure, of the greatest show on earth. 

 _Morrison. _ Oh, yes, I know. I've felt that rapture more or less. But I would rather put it off as long As possible. I suppose you like the song Of the sweet car-gongs better than the cry Of jays and yellowhammers when the sky Begins to redden these October mornings, And the loons sound their melancholy warnings; Or honk of the wild-geese that write their A Along the horizon in the evening's gray. Or when the squirrels look down on you and bark From the nut trees--

 _Wetherbee. _ We have them in the Park Plenty enough. But, say, you aged sinner, Have you been out much recently at dinner?

 _Morrison. _ What do you mean? You know there's no one here That dines except ourselves now. 

 _Wetherbee. _ Well, that's queer! I thought the natives-- But I recollect! It was not reasonable to expect--

 _Morrison. _ What are you driving at?

 _Wetherbee. _ Oh, nothing much. But I was thinking how you come in touch With life at the first dinner in the fall, When you get back, first, as you can't at all Later along. But you, of course, won't care With your idyllic pleasures. 

 _Morrison. _ _Who was there?_

 _Wetherbee. _ Oh--ha, ha! What d'you mean by _there_?

 _Morrison. _ Come off!

 _Wetherbee. _ What! you remain to pray that came to scoff!

 _Morrison. _ You know what I am after. 

 _Wetherbee. _ Yes, that dinner. Just a round dozen: Ferguson and Binner For the fine arts; Bowyer the novelist; Dr. Le Martin; the psychologist Fletcher; the English actor Philipson; The two newspaper Witkins, Bob and John; A nice Bostonian, Bane the archæologer, And a queer Russian amateur astrologer; And Father Gray, the jolly ritualist priest, And last your humble servant, but not least. The food was not so filthy, and the wine Was not so poison. We made out to dine From eight till one A. M. One could endure The dinner. But, oh say! _The talk was poor!_ Your natives down at Clamhurst--

 _Morrison. _ Look ye here! What date does Thanksgiving come on this year?

 _Wetherbee. _ Why, I suppose--although I don't remember Certainly--the usual 28th November. 

 _Morrison. _ Novem-- You should have waited to get sober! It comes on the 11th of October! And that's to-morrow; and if you happen down Later, you'd better look for us in town. 

 XVI

 TABLE TALK

They were talking after dinner in that cozy moment when theconversation has ripened, just before the coffee, into mocking guessesand laughing suggestions. The thing they were talking of was somethingthat would have held them apart if less happily timed and placed, butthen and there it drew these together in what most of them felt acharming and flattering intimacy. Not all of them took part in thetalk, and of those who did, none perhaps assumed to talk withauthority or finality. At first they spoke of the subject as _it_, forbearing to name it, as if the name of it would convey an unpleasantshock, out of temper with the general feeling. 

"I don't suppose, " the host said, "that it's really so much commonerthan it used to be. But the publicity is more invasive and explosive. That's perhaps because it has got higher up in the world and hasspread more among the first circles. The time was when you seldomheard of it there, and now it is scarcely a scandal. I remember thatwhen I went abroad, twenty or thirty years ago, and the Englishbrought me to book about it, I could put them down by saying that Ididn't know a single divorced person. "

"And of course, " a bachelor guest ventured, "a person of that sort_must_ be single. "

At first the others did not take the joke; then they laughed, but thewomen not so much as the men. 

"And you couldn't say that now?" the lady on the right of the hostinquired. 

"Why, I don't know, " he returned, thoughtfully, after a littleinterval. "I don't just call one to mind. "

"Then, " the bachelor said, "that classes you. If you moved in our bestsociety you would certainly know some of the many smart people whosedisunions alternate with the morning murders in the daily papers. "

"Yes, the fact seems to rank me rather low; but I'm rather proud ofthe fact. "

The hostess seemed not quite to like this arrogant humility. She said, over the length of the table (it was not very long), "I'm sure youknow some very nice people who have not been. "

"Well, yes, I do. But are they really smart people? They're of verygood family, certainly. "

"You mustn't brag, " the bachelor said. 

A husband on the right of the hostess wondered if there were reallymore of the thing than there used to be. 

"Qualitatively, yes, I should say. Quantitatively, I'm not convinced, "the host answered. "In a good many of the States it's been madedifficult. "

The husband on the right of the hostess was not convinced, he said, asto the qualitative increase. The parties to the suits were richenough, and sometimes they were high enough placed and far enoughderived. But there was nearly always a leak in them, a social leaksomewhere, on one side or the other. They could not be said to bepersons of quality in the highest sense. 

"Why, persons of quality seldom can be, " the bachelor contended. 

The girl opposite, who had been invited to balance him in the scale ofcelibacy by the hostess in her study of her dinner-party, firstsmiled, and then alleged a very distinguished instance of divorce inwhich the parties were both of immaculate origin and unimpeachablefashion. "Nobody, " she said, "can accuse _them_ of a want of quality. "She was good-looking, though no longer so young as she could havewished; she flung out her answer to the bachelor defiantly, but sheaddressed it to the host, and he said that was true; certainly it wasa signal case; but wasn't it exceptional? The others mentioned likecases, though none quite so perfect, and then there was a lull tillthe husband on the left of the hostess noted a fact which renewed thelife of the discussion. 

"There was a good deal of agitation, six or eight years ago, about it. I don't know whether the agitation accomplished anything. "

The host believed it had influenced legislation. 

"For or against?" the bachelor inquired. 

"Oh, against. "

"But in other countries it's been coming in more and more. It seems tobe as easy in England now as it used to be in Indiana. In France it'snothing scandalous, and in Norwegian society you meet so manydisunited couples in a state of quadruplicate reunion that it is veryembarrassing. It doesn't seem to bother the parties to the newrelation themselves. "

"It's very common in Germany, too, " the husband on the right of thehostess said. 

The husband on her left side said he did not know just how it was inItaly and Spain, and no one offered to disperse his ignorance. 

In the silence which ensued the lady on the left of the host created adiversion in her favor by saying that she had heard they had a verygood law in Switzerland. 

Being asked to tell what it was, she could not remember, but herhusband, on the right of the hostess, saved the credit of his familyby supplying her defect. "Oh, yes. It's very curious. We heard of itwhen we were there. When people want to be put asunder, for any reasonor other, they go before a magistrate and declare their wish. Thenthey go home, and at the end of a certain time--weeks or months--themagistrate summons them before him with a view to reconciliation. Ifthey come, it is a good sign; if they don't come, or come and persistin their desire, then they are summoned after another interval, andare either reconciled or put asunder, as the case may be, or as theychoose. It is not expensive, and I believe it isn't scandalous. "

"It seems very sensible, " the husband on the left of the hostess said, as if to keep the other husband in countenance. But for an interval noone else joined him, and the mature girl said to the man next her thatit seemed rather cold-blooded. He was a man who had been entreated tocome in, on the frank confession that he was asked as a stop-gap, theoriginal guest having fallen by the way. Such men are apt to abusetheir magnanimity, their condescension. They think that being thereout of compassion, and in compliance with a hospitality that had notat first contemplated their presence, they can say anything; they areusually asked without but through their wives, who are asked to "lend"them, and who lend them with a grudge veiled in eager acquiescence;and the men think it will afterward advantage them with their wives, when they find they are enjoying themselves, if they will go home andreport that they said something vexing or verging on the offensive totheir hostess. This man now addressed himself to the lady at the headof the table. 

"Why do we all talk as if we thought divorce was an unquestionableevil?"

The hostess looked with a frightened air to the right and left, andthen down the table to her husband. But no one came to her rescue, andshe asked feebly, as if foreboding trouble (for she knew she had takena liberty with this man's wife), "Why, don't we?"

"About one in seven of us doesn't, " the stop-gap said. 

"Oh!" the girl beside him cried out, in a horror-stricken voice whichseemed not to interpret her emotion truly. "Is it so bad as that?"

"Perhaps not quite, even if it is bad at all, " he returned, and thehostess smiled gratefully at the girl for drawing his fire. But itappeared she had not, for he directed his further speech at thehostess again: really the most inoffensive person there, and the leastable to contend with adverse opinions. 

"No, I don't believe we do think it an unquestionable evil, unless wethink marriage is so. " Everybody sat up, as the stop-gap had intended, no doubt, and he "held them with his glittering eye, " or as many as hecould sweep with his glance. "I suppose that the greatest hypocrite atthis table, where we are all so frankly hypocrites together, will notdeny that marriage is the prime cause of divorce. In fact, divorcecouldn't exist without it. "

The women all looked bewilderedly at one another, and then appealinglyat the men. None of these answered directly, but the bachelor softlyintoned out of Gilbert and Sullivan--he was of that date:

 "'A paradox, a paradox; A most ingenious paradox!'"

"Yes, " the stop-gap defiantly assented. "A paradox; and all aboriginalverities, all giant truths, are paradoxes. "

"Giant truths is good, " the bachelor noted, but the stop-gap did notmind him. 

He turned to the host: "I suppose that if divorce is an evil, and wewish to extirpate it, we must strike at its root, at marriage?"

The host laughed. "I prefer not to take the floor. I'm sure we allwant to hear what you have to say in support of your mammoth idea. "

"Oh yes, indeed, " the women chorused, but rather tremulously, as notknowing what might be coming. 

"Which do you mean? That all truth is paradoxical, or that marriage isthe mother of divorce?"

"Whichever you like. "

"The last proposition is self-evident, " the stop-gap said, supplyinghimself with a small bunch of the grapes which nobody ever takes atdinner; the hostess was going to have coffee for the women in thedrawing-room, and to leave the men to theirs with their tobacco at thetable. "And you must allow that if divorce is a good thing or a badthing, it equally partakes of the nature of its parent. Or elsethere's nothing in heredity. "

"Oh, come!" one of the husbands said. 

"Very well!" the stop-gap submitted. "I yield the word to you. " But asthe other went no further, he continued. "The case is so clear that itneeds no argument. Up to this time, in dealing with the evil ofdivorce, if it is an evil, we have simply been suppressing thesymptoms; and your Swiss method--"

"Oh, it isn't _mine_, " the man said who had stated it. 

"--Is only a part of the general practice. It is another attempt tomake divorce difficult, when it is marriage that ought to be madedifficult. "

"Some, " the daring bachelor said, "think it ought to be madeimpossible. " The girl across the table began to laugh hysterically, but caught herself up and tried to look as if she had not laughed atall. 

"I don't go as far as that, " the stop-gap resumed, "but as aninveterate enemy of divorce--"

An "Oh!" varying from surprise to derision chorused up; but he did notmind it; he went on as if uninterrupted. 

"I should put every possible obstacle, and at every step, in the wayof marriage. The attitude of society toward marriage is now simplypreposterous, absolutely grotesque. Society? The whole human frameworkin all its manifestations, social, literary, religious, artistic, andcivic, is perpetually guilty of the greatest mischief in the matter. Nothing is done to retard or prevent marriage; everything toaccelerate and promote it. Marriage is universally treated as a virtuewhich of itself consecrates the lives of the mostly vulgar andentirely selfish young creatures who enter into it. The blind andwitless passion in which it oftenest originates, at least with us, isflattered out of all semblance to its sister emotions, and revered asif it were a celestial inspiration, a spiritual impulse. But is it? Idefy any one here to say that it is. "

As if they were afraid of worse things if they spoke, the companyremained silent. But this did not save them. 

"You all know it isn't. You all know that it is the caprice of chanceencounter, the result of propinquity, the invention of poets andnovelists, the superstition of the victims, the unscrupulousmake-believe of the witnesses. As an impulse it quickly wears itselfout in marriage, and makes way for divorce. In this countrynine-tenths of the marriages are love-matches. The old motives whichdelay and prevent marriage in other countries, aristocratic countries, like questions of rank and descent, even of money, do not exist. Yetthis is the land of unhappy unions beyond all other lands, the veryhome of divorce. The conditions of marriage are ideally favorableaccording to the opinions of its friends, who are all more or lessactive in bottling husbands and wives up in its felicity andpreventing their escape through divorce. "

Still the others were silent, and again the stop-gap triumphed on. "Now, I am an enemy of divorce, too; but I would have it begin beforemarriage. "

"Rather paradoxical again?" the bachelor alone had the hardihood tosuggest. 

"Not at all. I am quite literal. I would have it begin with theengagement. I would have the betrothed--the mistress and thelover--come before the magistrate or the minister, and declare theirmotives in wishing to marry, and then I would have him reason withthem, and represent that they were acting emotionally in obedience toa passion which must soon spend itself, or a fancy which they wouldquickly find illusory. If they agreed with him, well and good; if not, he should dismiss them to their homes, for say three months, to thinkit over. Then he should summon them again, and again reason with them, and dismiss them as before, if they continued obstinate. After threemonths more, he should call them before him and reason with them forthe last time. If they persisted in spite of everything, he shouldmarry them, and let them take the consequences. "

The stop-gap leaned back in his chair defiantly, and fixed the hostwith an eye of challenge. Upon the whole the host seemed not so muchfrightened. He said: "I don't see anything so original in all that. It's merely a travesty of the Swiss law of divorce. "

"And you see nothing novel, nothing that makes for the highercivilization in the application of that law to marriage? You allapprove of that law because you believe it prevents nine-tenths of thedivorces; but if you had a law that would similarly preventnine-tenths of the marriages, you would need no divorce law at all. "

"Oh, I don't know that, " the hardy bachelor said. "What about theone-tenth of the marriages which it didn't prevent? Would you have theparties hopelessly shut up to them? Would you forbid _them_ all hopeof escape? Would you have no divorce for any cause whatever?"

"Yes, " the husband on the right of the hostess asked (but his wife onthe right of the host looked as if she wished he had not mixed in), "wouldn't more unhappiness result from that one marriage than from allthe marriages as we have them now?"

"Aren't you both rather precipitate?" the stop-gap demanded. "I said, let the parties to the final marriage take the consequences. But ifthese consequences were too dire, I would not forbid them the hope ofrelief. I haven't thought the matter out very clearly yet, but thereare one or two causes for divorce which I would admit. "

"Ah?" the host inquired, with a provisional smile. 

"Yes, causes going down into the very nature of things--the nature ofmen and of women. Incompatibility of temperament ought always to bevery seriously considered as a cause. "

"Yes?"

"And, above all, " and here the stop-gap swept the board with his eye, "difference of sex. "

The sort of laugh which expresses uncertainty of perception andconditional approval went up. 

The hostess rose with rather a frightened air. "Shall we leave them totheir tobacco?" she said to the other women. 

When he went home the stop-gap celebrated his triumph to his wife. "Idon't think she'll ask you for the loan of me again to fill a placewithout you. "

"Yes, " she answered, remotely. "You don't suppose she'll think we liveunhappily together?"

 XVII

 THE ESCAPADE OF A GRANDFATHER

"Well, what are you doing here?" the younger of the two sages asked, with a resolute air of bonhomie, as he dragged himself over theasphalt path, and sank, gasping, into the seat beside the other in thePark. His senior lifted his head and looked him carefully over to makesure of his identity, and then he said:

"I suppose, to answer your fatuous question, I am waiting here to getmy breath before I move on; and in the next place, I am watching thefeet of the women who go by in their high-heeled shoes. "

"How long do you think it will take you to get your breath in theatmosphere of these motors?" the younger sage pursued. "And you don'timagine that these women are of the first fashion, do you?"

"No, but I imagine their shoes are. I have been calculating that theiraverage heel is from an inch and a half to two inches high, andtouches the ground in the circumference of a twenty-five-cent piece. As you seem to be fond of asking questions, perhaps you will like toanswer one. Why do you think they do it?"

"Wear shoes like that?" the younger returned, cheerily, and laughed ashe added, "Because the rest do. "

"Mmm!" the elder grumbled, not wholly pleased, and yet not refusingthe answer. He had been having a little touch of grippe, and wassomewhat broken from his wonted cynicism. He said: "It's very strange, very sad. Just now there was such a pretty young girl, so sweet andfine, went tottering by as helpless, in any exigency, as the daughterof a thousand years of bound-feet Chinese women. While she tilted on, the nice young fellow with her swept forward with one stride to herthree on the wide soles and low heels of nature-last boots, and kepthimself from out-walking her by a devotion that made him grit histeeth. Probably she was wiser and better and brighter than he, but shedidn't look it; and I, who voted to give her the vote the other day, had my misgivings. I think I shall satisfy myself for the next fiveyears by catching cold in taking my hat off to her in elevators, andgetting killed by automobiles in helping her off the cars, where I'vegiven her my seat. "

"But you must allow that if her shoes are too tight, her skirts arenot so tight as they were. Or have you begun sighing for the good oldhobble-skirts, now they're gone?"

"The hobble-skirts were prettier than I thought they were when theywere with us, but the 'tempestuous petticoat' has its charm, which Ifind I'd been missing. "

"Well, at least it's a change, " the younger sage allowed, "and Ihaven't found the other changes in our dear old New York which I lookfor when I come back in the fall. "

The sages were enjoying together the soft weather which lingered withus a whole month from the middle of October onward, and the afternoonof their meeting in the Park was now softly reddening to the dimsunset over the westward trees. 

"Yes, " the elder assented. "I miss the new sky-scrapers which used towelcome me back up and down the Avenue. But there are more automobilesthan ever, and the game of saving your life from them when you crossthe street is madder and merrier than I have known it before. "

"The war seems to have stopped building because people can't affordit, " the other suggested, "but it has only increased automobiling. "

"Well, people can't afford that, either. Nine-tenths of them aretraveling the road to ruin, I'm told, and apparently they can't getover the ground too fast. Just look!" and the sages joined in theamused and mournful contemplation of the different types of motorsinnumerably whirring up and down the drive before them, while theychoked in the fumes of the gasolene. 

The motors were not the costliest types, except in a few instances, and in most instances they were the cheaper types, such as those whocould not afford them could at least afford best. The sages had founda bench beside the walk where the statue of Daniel Webster looks downon the confluence of two driveways, and the stream of motors, goingand coming, is like a seething torrent either way. 

"The mystery is, " the elder continued, "why they should want to do itin the way they do it. Are they merely going somewhere and must getthere in the shortest time possible, or are they arriving on a wager?If they are taking a pleasure drive, what a droll idea of pleasurethey must have! Maybe they are trying to escape Black Care, but theymust know he sits beside the chauffeur as he used to sit behind thehorseman, and they know that he has a mortgage in his pocket, and canforeclose it any time on the house they have hypothecated to buy theircar. Ah!" The old man started forward with the involuntary impulse ofrescue. But it was not one of the people who singly, or in terrorizedgroups, had been waiting at the roadside to find their way across; itwas only a hapless squirrel of those which used to make their waysafely among the hoofs and wheels of the kind old cabs and carriages, and it lay instantly crushed under the tire of a motor. "He's donefor, poor little wretch! They can't get used to the change. Some day apoliceman will pick _me_ up from under a second-hand motor. I wonderwhat the great Daniel from his pedestal up there would say if he cameto judgment. "

"He wouldn't believe in the change any more than that squirrel. Hewould decide that he was dreaming, and would sleep on, forgetting andforgotten. "

"Forgotten, " the elder sage assented. "I remember when his fame filledthe United States, which was then the whole world to me. And now Idon't imagine that our hyphenated citizens have the remotestconsciousness of him. If Daniel began delivering one of hisliberty-and-union-now-and-forever-one-and-inseparable speeches, theywouldn't know what he was talking about. " The sage laughed and champedhis toothless jaws together, as old men do in the effort to composetheir countenances after an emotional outbreak. 

"Well, for one thing, " the younger observed, "they wouldn't understandwhat he said. You will notice, if you listen to them going by, thatthey seldom speak English. That's getting to be a dead language in NewYork, though it's still used in the newspapers. " He thought to heartenthe other with his whimsicality, for it seemed to him that the eldersage was getting sensibly older since their last meeting, and that hewould be the gayer for such cheer as a man on the hither side ofeighty can offer a man on the thither. "Perhaps the Russian Jews wouldappreciate Daniel if he were put into Yiddish for them. They're thebrightest intelligences among our hyphenates. And they have theold-fashioned ideals of liberty and humanity, perhaps because they'veknown so little of either. "

His gaiety did not seem to enliven his senior much. "Ah, the oldideals!" he sighed. "The old ideal of an afternoon airing was a gentlecourse in an open carriage on a soft drive. Now it's a vertiginouswhirl on an asphalted road, round and round and round the Park tillthe victims stagger with their brains spinning after they get out oftheir cars. "

The younger sage laughed. "You've been listening to the pessimism ofthe dear old fellows who drive the few lingering victorias. If you'dbelieve them, all these people in the motors are chauffeurs givingtheir lady-friends joy-rides. "

"Few?" the elder retorted. "There are lots of them. I've countedtwenty in a single round of the Park. I was proud to be in one ofthem, though my horse left something to be desired in the way of youthand beauty. But I reflected that I was not very young or beautifulmyself. "

As the sages sat looking out over the dizzying whirl of the motorsthey smoothed the tops of their sticks with their soft old hands, andwere silent oftener than not. The elder seemed to drowse off from thetime and place, but he was recalled by the younger saying, "It iscertainly astonishing weather for this season of the year. "

The elder woke up and retorted, as if in offense: "Not at all. I'veseen the cherries in blossom at the end of October. "

"They didn't set their fruit, I suppose. "

"Well--no. "

"Ah! Well, I saw a butterfly up here in the sheep-pasture the otherday. I could have put out my hand and caught it. It's the soft weatherthat brings your victorias out like the belated butterflies. Wait tillthe first cold snap, and there won't be a single victoria or butterflyleft. "

"Yes, " the elder assented, "we butterflies and victorias belong to theyouth of the year and the world. And the sad thing is that we won'thave our palingenesis. "

"Why not?" the younger sage demanded. "What is to prevent your comingback in two or three thousand years?"

"Well, if we came back in a year even, we shouldn't find room, for onereason. Haven't you noticed how full to bursting the place seems?Every street is as packed as lower Fifth Avenue used to be when theoperatives came out of the big shops for their nooning. The city'sshell hasn't been enlarged or added to, but the life in it hasmultiplied past its utmost capacity. All the hotels and houses andflats are packed. The theaters, wherever the plays are bad enough, swarm with spectators. Along up and down every side-streets the motorsstand in rows, and at the same time the avenues are so dense with themthat you are killed at every crossing. There has been no building tospeak of during the summer, but unless New York is overbuilt next yearwe must appeal to Chicago to come and help hold it. But I've an ideathat the victorias are remaining to stay; if some sort of mechanicalhorse could be substituted for the poor old animals that remind me ofmy mortality, I should be sure of it. Every now and then I get animpression of permanence in the things of the Park. As long as thepeanut-men and the swan-boats are with us I sha'n't quite despair. And the other night I was moved almost to tears by the sight of afour-in-hand tooling softly down the Fifth Avenue drive. There it was, like some vehicular phantom, but how, whence, when? It came, as if outof the early eighteen-nineties; two middle-aged grooms, with theirarms folded, sat on the rumble (if it's the rumble), but of all theyoung people who ought to have flowered over the top none was left butthe lady beside the gentleman-driver on the box. I've tried everyevening since for that four-in-hand, but I haven't seen it, and I'vedecided it wasn't a vehicular phantom, but a mere dream of the past. "

"Four-horse dream, " the younger sage commented, as if musing aloud. 

The elder did not seem quite pleased. "A joke?" he challenged. 

"Not necessarily. I suppose I was the helpless prey of the rhyme. "

"I didn't know you were a poet. "

"I'm not, always. But didn't it occur to you that danger for dangeryour four-in-hand was more dangerous than an automobile to the passinghuman creature?"

"It might have been if it had been multiplied by ten thousand. Butthere was only one of it, and it wasn't going twenty miles an hour. "

"That's true, " the younger sage assented. "But there was always afearful hazard in horses when we had them. We supposed they weretamed, but, after all, they were only _trained_ animals, likeHagenback's. "

"And what is a chauffeur?"

"Ah, you have me there!" the younger said, and he laughed generously. "Or you would have if I hadn't noticed something like amelioration inthe chauffeurs. At any rate, the taxis are cheaper than they were, andI suppose something will be done about the street traffic some time. They're talking now about subway crossings. But I should preferoverhead foot-bridges at all the corners, crossing one anotherdiagonally. They would look like triumphal arches, and would serve thepurpose of any future Dewey victory if we should happen to haveanother hero to win one. "

"Well, we must hope for the best. I rather like the notion of thediagonal foot-bridges. But why not Rows along the second stories asthey have them in Chester? I should be pretty sure of always gettinghome alive if we had them. Now if I'm not telephoned for at a hospitalbefore I'm restored to consciousness, I think myself pretty lucky. Andyet it seems but yesterday, as the people used to say in the plays, since I had a pride in counting the automobiles as I walked up theAvenue. Once I got as high as twenty before I reached Fifty-ninthStreet. Now I couldn't count as many horse vehicles. "

The elder sage mocked himself in a feeble laugh, but the younger triedto be serious. "We don't realize the absolute change. Our streets arenot streets any more; they are railroad tracks with locomotives letloose on them, and no signs up to warn people at the crossings. It'spathetic to see the foot-passengers saving themselves, especially thepoor, pretty, high-heeled women, looking this way and that in theirfright, and then tottering over as fast as they can totter. "

"Well, I should have said it was outrageous, humiliating, insulting, once, but I don't any more; it would be no use. "

"No; and so much depends upon the point of view. When I'm on foot Ifeel all my rights invaded, but when I'm in a taxi it amuses me to seethe women escaping; and I boil with rage in being halted at everyother corner by the policeman with his new-fangled semaphore, and it's"Go" and "Stop" in red and blue, and my taxi-clock going round all thetime and getting me in for a dollar when I thought I should keepwithin seventy cents. Then I feel that pedestrians of every age andsex ought to be killed. "

"Yes, there's something always in the point of view; and there's somecomfort when you're stopped in your taxi to feel that they often _do_get killed. "

The sages laughed together, and the younger said: "I suppose when weget aeroplanes in common use, there'll be annoying trafficregulations, and policemen anchored out at intervals in the centralblue to enforce them. After all--"

What he was going to add in amplification cannot be known, for agirlish voice, trying to sharpen itself from its native sweetness to aconscientious severity, called to them as its owner swiftly advancedupon the elder sage: "Now, see here, grandfather! This won't do atall. You promised not to leave that bench by the Indian Hunter, andhere you are away down by the Falconer, and we've been lookingeverywhere for you. It's too bad! I shall be afraid to trust you atall after this. Why, it's horrid of you, grandfather! You might havegot killed crossing the drive. "

The grandfather looked up and verified the situation, which seemed toinclude a young man, tall and beautiful, but neither so handsome norso many heads high as the young men in the advertisements ofready-to-wear clothing, who smiled down on the young girl as if he hadarrived with her, and were finding an amusement in her severity whichhe might not, later. She was, in fact, very pretty, and her skirtflared in the fashion of the last moment, as she stooped threateninglyyet fondly over her grandfather. 

The younger sage silently and somewhat guiltily escaped from thetumult of emotion which ignored him, and shuffled slowly down thepath. The other finally gave an "Oh!" of recognition, and then said, for all explanation and excuse, "I didn't know what had become ofyou, " and then they all laughed. 

 XVIII

 SELF-SACRIFICE: A FARCE-TRAGEDY

 I

 MISS ISOBEL RAMSEY AND MISS ESTHER GARNETT

_Miss Ramsey_: "And they were really understood to be engaged?" MissRamsey is a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl of nearly the length of twolady's umbrellas and the bulk of one closely folded in its sheath. Shestands with her elbow supported on the corner of the mantel, hertemple resting on the knuckle of a thin, nervous hand, in an effect ofthoughtful absent-mindedness. Miss Garnett, more or less Merovingianin a costume that lends itself somewhat reluctantly to a low, thickfigure, is apparently poising for departure, as she stands before thechair from which she has risen beside Miss Ramsey's tea-table andlooks earnestly up into Miss Ramsey's absent face. Both are veryyoung, but aim at being much older than they are, with occasionallapses into extreme girlhood. 

_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, distinctly. I knew you couldn't know, and Ithought you ought to. " She speaks in a deep conviction-bearing andconviction-carrying voice. "If he has been coming here so much. "

_Miss Ramsey_, with what seems temperamental abruptness: "Sit down. One can always think better sitting down. " She catches a chair underher with a deft movement of her heel, and Miss Garnett sinksprovisionally into her seat. "And I think it needs thought, don'tyou?"

_Miss Garnett_: "That is what I expected of you. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "And have some more tea. There is nothing like _fresh_tea for clearing the brain, and we certainly need clear brains forthis. " She pushes a button in the wall beside her, and is silent tillthe maid appears. "More tea, Nora. " She is silent again while the maidreappears with the tea and disappears. "I don't know that he has beencoming here so _very_ much. But he has no right to be coming at all, if he is engaged. That is, in that _way_. "

_Miss Garnett_: "No. Not unless--he wishes he wasn't. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "That would give him _less_ than no right. "

_Miss Garnett_: "That is true. I didn't think of it in that light. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "I'm trying to decide what I ought to do if he doeswant to get off. She said herself that they were engaged?"

_Miss Garnett_: "As much as that. Conny understood her to say so. AndConny never makes a mistake in what people say. Emily didn't say_whom_ she was engaged to, but Conny felt that that was to come later, and she did not quite feel like asking, don't you know. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Of course. And how came she to decide that it was Mr. Ashley?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Simply by putting two and two together. They two weretogether the whole time last summer. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "I see. Then there is only one thing for me to do. "

_Miss Garnett_, admiringly: "I knew you would say that. "

_Miss Ramsey_, dreamily: "The question is what the thing is. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Yes!"

_Miss Ramsey_: "That is what I wish to think over. Chocolates?" Sheoffers a box, catching it with her left hand from the mantel at hershoulder, without rising. 

_Miss Garnett_: "Thank you; do you think they go well with tea?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "They go well with anything. But we mustn't allow ourminds to be distracted. The case is simply this: If Mr. Ashley isengaged to Emily Fray, he has no right to go round calling on othergirls--well, as if he wasn't--and he has been calling here a greatdeal. That is perfectly evident. He must be made to feel that girlsare not to be trifled with--that they are not mere toys. "

_Miss Garnett_: "How splendidly you do reason! And he ought tounderstand that Emily has a right--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I don't know that I care about _her_--or not_pri_marily. Or do you say pri_mar_ily?"

_Miss Garnett_: "I never know. I only use it in writing. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "It's a clumsy word; I don't know that I shall. Butwhat I mean is that I must act from a general principle, and thatprinciple is that when a man is engaged, it doesn't matter whether thegirl has thrown herself at him, or not--"

_Miss Garnett_: "She certainly did, from what Conny says. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "He must be shown that other girls won't tolerate hisbehaving as if he were _not_ engaged. It is wrong. "

_Miss Garnett_: "We must stand together. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Yes. Though I don't infer that he has been attentiveto other girls generally. "

_Miss Garnett_: "No. I meant that if he has been coming here so much, you want to prevent his trifling with others. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Something like that. But it ought to be more definite. He ought to realize that if another girl cared for him, it would becruel to her, paying her attentions, when he was engaged to some oneelse. "

_Miss Garnett_: "And cruel to the girl he is engaged to. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Yes. " She speaks coldly, vaguely. "But that is thepersonal ground, and I wish to avoid that. I wish to deal with himpurely in the abstract. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, I understand that. And at the same time you wishto punish him. He ought to be made to feel it all the more because heis so severe himself. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Severe?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Not tolerating anything that's the least out of theway in other people. Taking you up about your ideas and showing whereyou're wrong, or even silly. Spiritually snubbing, Conny calls it. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I like that in him. It's so invigorating. Itbraces up all your good resolutions. It makes you ashamed; and shameis sanative. "

_Miss Garnett_: "That's just what I told Conny, or the same thing. Doyou think another one would hurt me? I will risk it, anyway. " Shetakes another chocolate from the box. "Go on. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I was just wishing that I had been out longer, andhad a little more experience of men. Then I should know how to act. How do you suppose people do, generally?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Why, you know, if they find a man in love with them, after he's engaged to another girl, they make him go back to her, itdoesn't matter whether they're in love with him themselves or not. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "I'm _not_ in love with Mr. Ashley, please. "

_Miss Garnett_: "No; I'm supposing an extreme case. "

_Miss Ramsey_, after a moment of silent thought: "Did you ever hear ofanybody doing it?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Not just in our set. But I know it's donecontinually. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "It seems to me as if I had read something of thekind. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Oh yes, the books are full of it. Are those mallows?They might carry off the effects of the chocolates. " Miss Ramseypasses her the box of marshmallows which she has bent over the tableto look at. 

_Miss Ramsey_: "And of course they couldn't get into the books if theyhadn't really happened. I wish I could think of a case in point. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Why, there was Peg Woffington--"

_Miss Ramsey_, with displeasure: "She was an actress of some sort, wasn't she?"

_Miss Garnett_, with meritorious candor: "Yes, she was. But she was avery _good_ actress. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "What did _she_ do?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Well, it's a long time since I read it; and it'srather old-fashioned now. But there was a countryman of some sort, Iremember, who came away from his wife, and fell in love with PegWoffington, and then the wife follows him up to London, and begs herto give him back to her, and she does it. There's something about aportrait of Peg--I don't remember exactly; she puts her face throughand cries when the wife talks to the picture. The wife thinks it is areal picture, and she is kind of soliloquizing, and asking Peg to giveher husband back to her; and Peg does, in the end. That part isbeautiful. They become the greatest friends. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Rather silly, I should say. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, it _is_ rather silly, but I suppose the authorthought she had to do something. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "And disgusting. A married man, that way! I don't seeany comparison with Mr. Ashley. "

_Miss Garnett_: "No, there really isn't any. Emily has never asked youto give him up. And besides, Peg Woffington really liked him alittle--loved him, in fact. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "And I _don't_ like Mr. Ashley at all. Of course Irespect him--and I admire his intellect; there's no question about hisbeing handsome; but I have never thought of him for a moment in anyother way; and now I can't even respect him. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Nobody could. I'm sure Emily would be welcome to himas far as _I_ was concerned. But he has never been about with me somuch as he has with you, and I don't wonder you feel indignant. "

_Miss Ramsey_, coldly: "I don't feel indignant. I wish to be just. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, that is what I mean. And poor Emily is souninteresting! In the play that Kentucky Summers does, she isperfectly fascinating at first, and you can see why the poor girl'sfiancé should be so taken with her. But I'm sure no one could say youhad ever given Mr. Ashley the least encouragement. It would be purejustice on your part. I think you are grand! I shall always be proudof knowing what you were going to do. "

_Miss Ramsey_, after some moments of snubbing intention: "I don't knowwhat I am going to do myself, yet. Or how. What _was_ that play? Inever heard of it. "

_Miss Garnett_: "I don't remember distinctly, but it was about a youngman who falls in love with her, when he's engaged to another girl, andshe determines, as soon as she finds it out, to disgust him, so thathe will go back to the other girl, don't you know. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "That sounds rather more practical than the PegWoffington plan. What does she do?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Nothing you'd like to do. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "I'd like to do something in such a cause. What doesshe do?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, when he is calling on her, Kentucky Summerspretends to fly into a rage with her sister, and she pulls her hairdown, and slams everything round the room, and scolds, and drinkschampagne, and wants him to drink with her, and I don't know what all. The upshot is that he is only too glad to get away. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "It's rather loathsome, isn't it?"

_Miss Garnett_: "It _is_ rather loathsome. But it was in a good cause, and I suppose it was what an actress would think of. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "An actress?"

_Miss Garnett_: "I forgot. The heroine is a distinguished actress, youknow, and Kentucky could play that sort of part to perfection. But Idon't think a lady would like to cut up, much, in the _best_ cause. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Cut up?"

_Miss Garnett_: "She certainly frisks about the room a good deal. Howdelicious these mallows are! Have you ever tried toasting them?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "At school. There seems an idea in it. And the heroisn't married. I don't like the notion of a married man. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, I'm quite sure he isn't married. He's merelyengaged. That makes the whole difference from the Peg Woffingtonstory. And there's no portrait, I'm confident, so that you wouldn'thave to do that part. "

_Miss Ramsey_, haughtily: "I don't propose to do _any_ part, if theaffair can't be arranged without some such mountebank business!"

_Miss Garnett_: "You can manage it, if anybody can. You have so muchdignity that you could awe him into doing his duty by a single glance. I wouldn't be in his place!"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I shall not give him a glance. I shall not see himwhen he comes. That will be simpler still. " To Nora, at the door:"What is it, Nora?"

 II

 NORA, MISS RAMSEY, MISS GARNETT

_Nora_: "Mr. Ashley, Miss Ramsey. "

_Miss Ramsey_, with a severity not meant for Nora: "Ask him to sitdown in the reception-room a moment. "

_Nora_: "Yes, Miss Ramsey. "

 III

 MISS RAMSEY, MISS GARNETT

_Miss Garnett_, rising and seizing Miss Ramsey's hands: "Oh, Isobel!But you will be equal to it! Oh! Oh!"

_Miss Ramsey_, with state: "Why are you going, Esther? Sit down. "

_Miss Garnett_: "If I only _could_ stay! If I could hide under thesofa, or behind the screen! Isn't it wonderful--providential--hiscoming at the very instant? Oh, Isobel!" She clasps her friendconvulsively, and after a moment's resistance Miss Ramsey yields toher emotion, and they hide their faces in each other's neck, andstrangle their hysteric laughter. They try to regain their composure, and then abandon the effort with a shuddering delight in theperfection of the incident. "What shall you do? Shall you trust toinspiration? Shall you make him show his hand first, and then act? Orshall you tell him at once that you know all, and-- Or no, of courseyou can't do that. He's not supposed to know that you know. Oh, I canimagine the freezing hauteur that you'll receive him with, and the icyindifference you'll let him understand that he isn't a _persona grata_with! If I were only as tall as you! He isn't as tall himself, and youcan tower over him. Don't sit down, or bend, or anything; just standwith your head up, and glance carelessly at him under your lashes asif nobody was there! Then it will gradually dawn upon him that youknow everything, and he'll simply go through the floor. " They takesome ecstatic turns about the room, Miss Ramsey waltzing as gentleman. She abruptly frees herself. 

_Miss Ramsey_: "No. It can't be as tacit as all that. There must besomething explicit. As you say, I must _do_ something to cure him ofhis fancy--his perfidy--and make him glad to go back to her. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Yes! Do you think he deserves it?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I've no wish to punish him. "

_Miss Garnett_: "How noble you are! I don't wonder he adores you. _I_should. But you won't find it so easy. You must do something drastic. It _is_ drastic, isn't it? or do I mean static? One of those thingswhen you simply crush a person. But now I must go. How I should liketo listen at the door! We must kiss each other very quietly, and Imust slip out-- Oh, you dear! How I long to know what you'll do! But itwill be perfect, whatever it is. You always _did_ do perfect things. "They knit their fingers together in parting. "On second thoughts Iwon't kiss you. It might unman you, and you need all your strength. Unman isn't the word, exactly, but you can't say ungirl, can you? Itwould be ridiculous. Though girls are as brave as men when it comes toduty. Good-by, dear!" She catches Miss Ramsey about the neck, andpressing her lips silently to her cheek, runs out. Miss Ramsey ringsand the maid appears. 

 IV

 NORA, MISS RAMSEY

_Miss Ramsey_, starting: "Oh! Is that you, Nora? Of course! Nora!"

_Nora_: "Yes, Miss Ramsey. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Do you know where my brother keeps his cigarettes?"

_Nora_: "Why, in his room, Miss Ramsey; you told him you didn't likethe smell here. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Yes, yes. I forgot. And has he got any cocktails?"

_Nora_: "He's got the whole bottle full of them yet. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Full yet?"

_Nora_: "You wouldn't let him offer them to the gentlemen he had tolunch, last week, because you said--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "What did I say?"

_Nora_: "They were vulgar. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "And so they are. And so much the better! Bring thecigarettes and the bottle and some glasses here, Nora, and then askMr. Ashley to come. " She walks away to the window, and hurriedly humsa musical comedy waltz, not quite in tune, as from not rememberingexactly, and after Nora has tinkled in with a tray of glasses shelights a cigarette and stands puffing it, gasping and coughing alittle, as Walter Ashley enters. "Oh, Mr. Ashley! Sorry to make youwait. "

 V

 MR. ASHLEY, MISS RAMSEY

_Mr. Ashley_: "The time _has_ seemed long, but I could have waited allday. I couldn't have gone without seeing you, and telling you--" Hepauses, as if bewildered at the spectacle of Miss Ramsey's resolutepractice with the cigarette, which she now takes from her lips andwaves before her face with innocent recklessness. 

_Miss Ramsey_, chokingly: "Do sit down. " She drops into an easy-chairbeside the tea-table, and stretches the tips of her feet out beyondthe hem of her skirt in extremely lady-like abandon. "Have acigarette. " She reaches the box to him. 

_Ashley_: "Thank you. I won't smoke, I believe. " He stands frowning, while she throws her cigarette into a teacup and lights another. 

_Miss Ramsey_: "I thought everybody smoked. Then have a cocktail. "

_Ashley_: "A what?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "A cocktail. So many people like them with their tea, instead of rum, you know. "

_Ashley_: "No, I didn't know. " He regards her with amaze, rapidlyhardening into condemnation. 

_Miss Ramsey_: "I hope you don't _object_ to smoking. Englishwomen allsmoke. "

_Ashley_: "I think I've heard. I didn't know that American ladiesdid. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "They don't, _all_. But they will when they find hownice it is. "

_Ashley_: "And do Englishwomen all drink cocktails?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "They will when they find how nice it is. But why doyou keep standing? Sit down, if it's only for a moment. There issomething I would like to talk with you about. What were you sayingwhen you came in? I didn't catch it quite. "

_Ashley_: "Nothing--now--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "And I can't persuade you to have a cocktail? I believeI'll have another myself. " She takes up the bottle, and tries severaltimes to pour from it. "I do believe Nora's forgotten to open it! Thatis a good joke on me. But I mustn't let her know. Do you happen tohave a pocket-corkscrew with you, Mr. Ashley?"

_Ashley_: "No--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Well, never mind. " She tosses her cigarette into thegrate, and lights another. "I wonder why they always have cynicalpersons smoke, on the stage? I don't see that the two thingsnecessarily go together, but it does give you a kind of thrill whenthey strike a match, and it lights up their faces when they put it tothe cigarette. You know something good and wicked is going to happen. "She puffs violently at her cigarette, and then suddenly flings it awayand starts to her feet. "Will you--would you--open the window?" Shecollapses into her chair. 

_Ashley_, springing toward her: "Miss Ramsey, are you--you are ill!"

_Miss Ramsey_: "No, no! The window! A little faint--it's soclose-- There, it's all right now. Or it will be--when--I'vehad--another cigarette. " She leans forward to take one; Ashley gravelywatches her, but says nothing. She lights her cigarette, but, withoutsmoking, throws it away. "Go on. "

_Ashley_: "I wasn't saying anything!"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I forgot. And I don't know what we were talkingabout myself. " She falls limply back into her chair and closes hereyes. 

_Ashley_: "Sha'n't I ring for the maid? I'm afraid--"

_Miss Ramsey_, imperiously: "Not at all. Not on any account. " Far lessimperiously: "You may pour me a cup of tea if you like. That will makeme well. The full strength, please. " She motions away the hot-waterjug with which he has proposed qualifying the cup of tea which heoffers her. 

_Ashley_: "One lump or two?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Only one, thank you. " She takes the cup. 

_Ashley_, offering the milk: "Cream?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "A drop. " He stands anxiously beside her while shetakes a long draught and then gives back the cup. "That was perfect. "

_Ashley_: "Another?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "No, that is just right. Now go on. Or, I forgot. Youwere not going on. Oh dear! How much better I feel. There must havebeen something poisonous in those cigarettes. "

_Ashley_: "Yes, there was tobacco. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, do you think it was the tobacco? Do throw thewhole box into the fire! I shall tell Bob never to get cigarettes withtobacco in them after this. Won't you have one of the chocolates? Or amallow? I feel as if I should never want to eat anything again. Wherewas I?" She rests her cheek against the side of her chair cushion, andspeaks with closed eyes, in a weak murmur. Mr. Ashley watches her atfirst with anxiety, then with a gradual change of countenance until agleam of intelligence steals into his look of compassion. 

_Ashley_: "You asked me to throw the cigarettes into the fire. But Iwant you to let me keep them. "

_Miss Ramsey_, with wide-flung eyes: "You? You said you wouldn'tsmoke. "

_Ashley_, laughing: "May I change my mind? One talks better. " Helights a cigarette. "And, Miss Ramsey, I believe I _will_ have acocktail, after all. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley!"

_Ashley_, without noting her protest: "I had forgotten that I had acorkscrew in my pocket-knife. Don't trouble yourself to ring for one. "He produces the knife and opens the bottle; then, as Miss Ramsey risesand stands aghast, he pours out a glass and offers it to her, withmock devotion. As she shakes her head and recoils: "Oh! I thought youliked cocktails. They are very good after cigarettes--very reviving. But if you won't--" He tosses off the cocktail and sets down theglass, smacking his lips. "Tell your brother I commend his taste--incocktails and"--puffing his cigarette--"tobacco. Poison for poison, let me offer you one of _my_ cigarettes. They're milder than these. "He puts his hand to his breast pocket. 

_Miss Ramsey_, with nervous shrinking: "No--"

_Ashley_: "It's just as well. I find that I hadn't brought mine withme. " After a moment: "You are so unconventional, so fearless, that Ishould like your notion of the problem in a book I've just beenreading. Why should the mere fact that a man is married to one womanprevent his being in love with another, or half a dozen others; or_vice versa_?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley, do you wish to insult me?"

_Ashley_: "Dear me, no! But put the case a little differently. Supposea couple are merely engaged. Does that fact imply that neither has aright to a change of mind, or to be fancy free to make anotherchoice?"

_Miss Ramsey_, indignantly: "Yes, it does. They are as sacredly boundto each other as if they were married, and if they are false to eachother the girl is a wretch, and the man is a villain! And if you thinkanything I have said can excuse you for breaking your engagement, orthat I don't consider you the wickedest person in the world, and themost barefaced hypocrite, and--and--I don't know what--you are verymuch mistaken. "

_Ashley_: "What in the world are you talking about?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I am talking about you and your shameless perfidy. "

_Ashley_: "My shameless perf-- I don't understand! I came hereto tell you that I love you--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "How dare you! To speak to me of that, when-- Orperhaps you _have_ broken with her, and think you are free to hoodwinksome other poor creature. But you will find that you have chosen thewrong person. And it's no excuse for you her being a little--alittle--not so bright as some girls, and not so good-looking. Oh, it'senough to make any girl loathe her own looks! You mustn't suppose youcan come here red-handed--yes, it's the same as a murder, and any truegirl would say so--and tell me you care for me. No, Walter Ashley, Ihaven't fallen so low as that, though I _have_ the disgrace of youracquaintance. And I hope--I hope--if you don't like my smoking, andoffering you cocktails, and talking the way I have, it will be alesson to you. And yes!--I _will_ say it! If it will add to yourmisery to know that I did respect you very much, and thoughteverything--very highly--of you, and might have answered you verydifferently before, when you were free to tell me _that_--nowI have nothing but the utmost abhorrence--and--disapproval of you. And--and-- Oh, I don't see how you can be so hateful!" She hides herface in her hands and rushes from the room, overturning several chairsin her course toward the door. Ashley remains staring after her, whilea succession of impetuous rings make themselves heard from the streetdoor. There is a sound of opening it, and then a flutter of skirts andanxieties, and Miss Garnett comes running into the room. 

 VI

 MISS GARNETT, MR. ASHLEY

_Miss Garnett_, to the maid hovering in the doorway: "Yes, I must haveleft it here, for I never missed it till I went to pay my fare in themotor-bus, and tried to think whether I had the exact dime, and if Ihadn't whether the conductor would change a five-dollar bill or not, and then it rushed into my mind that I had left my purse somewhere, and I knew I hadn't been anywhere else. " She runs from the mantel tothe writing-desk in the corner, and then to the sofa, where, peeringunder the tea-table, she finds her purse on the shelf. "Oh, here itis, Nora, just where I put it when we began to talk, and I must havegone out and left it. I--" She starts with a little shriek, inencountering Ashley. "Oh, Mr. Ashley! What a fright you gave me! I wasjust looking for my purse that I missed when I went to pay my fare inthe motor-bus, and was wondering whether I had the exact dime, or theconductor could change a five-dollar bill, and--" She discovers, oraffects to discover, something strange in his manner. "What--what isthe matter, Mr. Ashley?"

_Ashley_: "I shall be glad to have you tell me--or any one. "

_Miss Garnett_: "I don't understand. Has Isobel--"

_Ashley_: "Miss Garnett, did you know I was engaged?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Why, yes; I was just going to congrat--"

_Ashley_: "Well, don't, unless you can tell me whom I am engaged to. "

_Miss Garnett_: "Why, aren't you engaged to Emily Fray?"

_Ashley_: "Not the least in the world. "

_Miss Garnett_, in despair: "Then _what_ have I done? Oh, what afatal, fatal scrape!" With a ray of returning hope: "But she told me_herself_ that she was engaged! And you were together so much, lastsummer!" Desperately: "Then if she isn't engaged to you, whom is sheengaged to?"

_Ashley_: "On general principles, I shouldn't know, but in thisparticular instance I happen to know that she is engaged to OwenBrooks. They were a great deal more together last summer. "

_Miss Garnett_, with conviction: "So they were!" With returning doubt:"But why didn't she say so?"

_Ashley_: "I can't tell you; she may have had her reasons, or she maynot. Can you possibly tell me, in return for my ignorance, why thefact of her engagement should involve me in the strange way it seemsto have done with Miss Ramsey?"

_Miss Garnett_, with a burst of involuntary candor: "Why, _I_ didthat. Or, no! What's she been doing?"

_Ashley_: "Really, Miss Garnett--"

_Miss Garnett_: "How can I tell you anything, if you don't tell meeverything? You wouldn't wish me to betray confidence?"

_Ashley_: "No, certainly not. What was the confidence?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Well-- But I shall have to know first what she's beendoing. You must see that yourself, Mr. Ashley. " He is silent. "Hasshe--has Isobel--been behaving--well, out of character?"

_Ashley_: "Very much indeed. "

_Miss Garnett_: "I expected she would. " She fetches a thoughtful sigh, and for her greater emotional convenience she sinks into an easy-chairand leans forward. "Oh dear! It is a scrape. " Suddenly andimperatively: "Tell me exactly what she did, if you hope for any helpwhatever. "

_Ashley_: "Why, she offered me a cocktail--"

_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, how good! I didn't suppose she would dare! Well?"

_Ashley_: "And she smoked cigarettes--"

_Miss Garnett_: "How perfectly divine! And what else?"

_Ashley_, coldly: "May I ask why you admire Miss Ramsey's behaving outof character so much? I think the smoking made her rather faint, and--"

_Miss Garnett_: "She would have let it _kill_ her! Never tell me thatgirls have no moral courage!"

_Ashley_: "But what--what was the meaning of it all?"

_Miss Garnett_, thoughtfully: "I suppose if I got her in for it, Iought to get her out, even if I betray confidence. "

_Ashley_: "It depends upon the confidence. What is it?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Why-- But you're sure it's my duty?"

_Ashley_: "If you care what I think of her--"

_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, Mr. Ashley, you mustn't think it strange ofIsobel, on my bended knees you mustn't! Why, don't you see? She wasjust doing it to disgust you!"

_Ashley_: "Disgust me?"

_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, and drive you back to Emily Fray. "

_Ashley_: "Drive me ba--"

_Miss Garnett_: "If she thought you were engaged to Emily, when youwere coming here all the time, and she wasn't quite sure that shehated to have you, don't you see it would be her duty to sacrificeherself, and-- Oh, I suppose she's heard everything up there, and--"She catches herself up and runs out of the room, leaving Ashley toawait the retarded descent of skirts which he hears on the stairsafter the crash of the street door has announced Miss Garnett'sescape. He stands with his back to the mantel, and faces Miss Ramseyas she enters the room. 

 VII

 MISS RAMSEY, ASHLEY

_Miss Ramsey_, with the effect of cold surprise: "Mr. Ashley? Ithought I heard-- Wasn't Miss Garnett--"

_Ashley_: "She was. Did you think it was the street door closing on_me_?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "How should I know?" Then, courageously: "No, I didn'tthink it was. Why do you ask?" She moves uneasily about the room, withan air of studied inattention. 

_Ashley_: "Because if you did, I can put you in the right, though Ican't restore Miss Garnett's presence by my absence. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "You're rather--enigmatical. " A ring is heard; the maidpauses at the doorway. "I'm not at home, Nora. " To Mr. Ashley: "Itseems to be very close--"

_Ashley_: "It's my having been smoking. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "_Your_ having?" She goes to the window and tries tolift it. 

_Ashley_: "Let _me_. " He follows her to the window, where he standsbeside her. 

_Miss Ramsey_: "Now, she's seen me! And you here with me. Of course--"

_Ashley_: "I shouldn't mind. But I'm so sorry if--and I will go. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "You can't go now--till she's round the corner. She'llkeep looking back, and she'll think I made you. "

_Ashley_: "But haven't you? Aren't you sending me back to Miss Fray totell her that I must keep my engagement, though I care nothing forher, and care all the world for you? Isn't that what you want me todo?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "But you're not engaged to her! You just--"

_Ashley_: "Just what?"

_Miss Ramsey_, desperately: "You wish me to disgrace myself forever inyour eyes. Well, I will; what does it matter now? I heard you tellingEsther you were not engaged. I _overheard_ you. "

_Ashley_: "I fancied you must. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "I _tried_ to overhear! I _eavesdropped_! I wish you toknow that. "

_Ashley_: "And what do you wish me to do about it?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I should think any self-respecting person would know. I'm _not_ a self-respecting person. " Her wandering gaze seems to fallfor the first time upon the tray with the cocktails and glasses andcigarettes; she flies at the bell-button and presses it impetuously. As the maid appears: "Take these things away, Nora, please!" To Ashleywhen the maid has left the room: "Don't be afraid to say what youthink of me!"

_Ashley_: "I think all the world of you. But I should merely like toask--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, you can ask anything of me now!"

_Ashley_, with palpable insincerity: "I should like to ask why youdon't respect yourself?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Was that what you were going to ask? I know it wasn't. But I will tell you. Because I have been a fool. "

_Ashley_: "Thank you. Now I will tell you what I was really going toask. Why did you wish to drive me back to Miss Fray when you knew thatI would be false to her a thousand times if I could only once be trueto you?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Now you _are_ insulting me! And that is just thepoint. You may be a very clever lawyer, Mr. Ashley, and everybody saysyou are--very able, and talented, and all that, but you can't getround that point. You may torture any meaning you please out of mywords, but I shall always say you brought it on yourself. "

_Ashley_: "Brought what on?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley! I won't be cross-questioned. "

_Ashley_: "Was that why you smoked, and poured cocktails out of anunopened bottle? Was it because you wished me to hate you, andremember my duty, and go back to Miss Fray? Well, it was a deadfailure. It made me love you more than ever. I am a fool too, as youcall it. "

_Miss Ramsey_: "Say anything you please. I have given you the right. Ishall not resent it. Go on. "

_Ashley_: "I should only repeat myself. You must have known how much Icare for you, Isobel. Do you mind my calling you Isobel?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Not in the least if you wish to humiliate me by it. Ishould like you to trample on me in every way you can. "

_Ashley_: "Trample on you? I would rather be run over by asteam-roller than tread on the least of your outlying feelings, dearest. Do you mind my saying dearest?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I have told you that you can say anything you like. Ideserve it. But oh, if you have a spark of pity--"

_Ashley_: "I'm a perfect conflagration of compassion, darling. Do youobject to darling?"

_Miss Ramsey_, with starting tears: "It doesn't matter now. " She haslet her lovely length trail into the corner of the sofa, where shedesperately reclines, supporting her elbow on the arm of it, andresting her drooping head on her hand. He draws a hassock up in frontof her, and sits on it. 

_Ashley_: "This represents kneeling at your feet. One doesn't do itliterally any more, you know. "

_Miss Ramsey_, in a hollow voice: "I should despise you if you did, and"--deeply murmurous--"I don't _wish_ to despise you. "

_Ashley_: "No, I understand that. You merely wish _me_ to despise_you_. But why?"

_Miss Ramsey_, nervously: "You know. "

_Ashley_: "But I don't know--Isobel, dearest, darling, if you willallow me to express myself so fully. _How_ should I know?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "I've told you. "

_Ashley_: "May I take your hand? For good-by!" He possesses himself ofit. "It seems to go along with those expressions. "

_Miss Ramsey_, self-contemptuously: "Oh yes. "

_Ashley_: "Thank you. Where were we?"

_Miss Ramsey_, sitting up and recovering her hand: "You were sayinggood-by--"

_Ashley_: "Was I? But not before I had told you that I knew you weredoing all that for my best good, and I wish--I _wish_ you could haveseen how exemplary you looked when you were trying to pour a cocktailout of a corked bottle, between your remarks on passionate fiction andpuffs of the insidious cigarette! When the venomous tobacco began toget in its deadly work, and you turned pale and reeled a little, andcalled for air, it made me mentally vow to go back to Miss Frayinstantly, whether I was engaged to her or not, and cut out poor oldBrooks--"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Was it Mr. Brooks? I didn't hear the name exactly. "

_Ashley_: "When I was telling Miss Garnett? I ought to have spokenlouder, but I wasn't sure at the time you were listening. Though asyou were saying, what does it matter now?"

_Miss Ramsey_: "Did I say that?"

_Ashley_: "Words to that effect. And they have made me feel howunworthy of you I am. I'm not heroic--by nature. But I could be, ifyou made me--by art--"

_Miss Ramsey_, springing to her feet indignantly: "Now, you areridiculing me--you are making fun of me. "

_Ashley_, gathering himself up from his hassock with difficulty, andconfronting her: "Do I look like a man who would dare to make fun ofyou? I am half a head shorter than you, and in moral grandeur youovertop me so that I would always have to wear a high hat when I waswith you. "

_Miss Ramsey_, thoughtfully: "Plenty of girls are that way, now. Butif you are ashamed of my being tall--" Flashingly, and with startingtears. 

_Ashley_: "Ashamed! I can always look up to you, you can always stoopto me!" He stretches his arms toward her. 

_Miss Ramsey_, recoiling bewildered: "Wait! We haven't got to thatyet. "

_Ashley_: "Oh, Isobel--dearest--darling! We've got past it! We're onthe home stretch, now. "

 XIX

 THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

 A MORALITY

 I

 MR. AND MRS. CLARENCE FOUNTAIN

_Mrs. Clarence Fountain_, backing into the room, and closing the doornoiselessly before looking round: "Oh, you poor thing! I can see thatyou are dead, at the first glance. I'm dead myself, for that matter. "She is speaking to her husband, who clings with one hand to thechimney-piece, and supports his back with the other; from this hand alittle girl's long stocking lumpily dangles; Mrs. Fountain, turninground, observes it. "Not finished yet? But I don't wonder! I wonderyou've even begun. Well, now, _I_ will take hold with you. " In tokenof the aid she is going to give, Mrs. Fountain sinks into a chair androlls a distracted eye over the littered and tumbled room. "It's worsethan I thought it would be. You ought to have smoothed the papers outand laid them in a pile as fast as you unwrapped the things; that isthe way I always do; and wound the strings up and put them one side. Then you wouldn't have had to wade round in them. I suppose I oughtn'tto have left it to you, but if I had let _you_ put the children to bedyou know you'd have told them stories and kept them all night overtheir prayers. And as it was each of them wanted to put in a specialChristmas clause; I know what kind of Christmas clause _I_ should haveput in if I'd been frank! I'm not sure it's right to keep up thedeception. One comfort, the oldest ones don't believe in it any morethan we do. Dear! I did think at one time this afternoon I should haveto be brought home in an ambulance; it would have been a convenience, with all the packages. I simply marvel at their delivery wagonsgetting them here. "

_Fountain_, coming to the table, where she sits, and taking up one ofthe toys with which it is strewn: "They haven't all of them. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "What do you mean by all of them?"

_Fountain_: "I mean half. " He takes up a mechanical locomotive andstuffs it into the stocking he holds. 

_Mrs. Fountain_, staying his hand: "What are you doing? PuttingJimmy's engine into Susy's stocking! She'll be perfectly insulted whenshe finds it, for she'll know you weren't paying the least attention, and you can't blame Santa Claus for it with _her_. If that's whatyou've been doing with the other stockings-- But there _aren't_ anyothers. Don't tell me you've just begun! Well, I could simply cry. "

_Fountain_, dropping into the chair on the other side of the table, under the shelter of a tall Christmas tree standing on it: "Do youcall unwrapping a whole car-load of truck and getting it sorted, justbeginning? I've been slaving here from the dawn of time, and I had tohave _some_ leisure for the ghosts of my own Christmases when I waslittle. I didn't have to wade round in the wrappings of my presents inthose days. But it isn't the sad memories that take it out of you;it's the happy ones. I've never had a ghastlier half-hour than I'vejust spent in the humiliating multiplicity of these gifts. All the oldbirthdays and wedding-days and Fourth of Julys and home-comings andchildren's christenings I've ever had came trooping back. Thereoughtn't to be any gay anniversaries; they should be forbidden by law. If I could only have recalled a few dangerous fevers and funerals!"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Clarence! Don't say such a thing; you'll be punishedfor it. I know how you suffer from those gloomy feelings, and I pityyou. You ought to bear up against them. If _I_ gave way! You mustthink about something cheerful in the future when the happiness of thepast afflicts you, and set one against the other; life isn't _all_ avale of tears. You must keep your mind fixed on the work before you. Idon't believe it's the number of the packages here that's broken youdown. It's the shopping that's worn you out; I'm sure I'm a merethread. And I had been at it from immediately after breakfast; and Ilunched in one of the stores with ten thousand suburbans who had comepouring in with the first of their unnatural trains: I did hope Ishould have some of the places to myself; but they were every onejammed. And you came up from your office about four, perfectly fresh. "

_Fountain_: "Fresh! Yes, quite dewy from a day's fight with the beastsat Ephesus on the eve of Christmas week. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, don't be cynical, Clarence, on this, of allnights of the year. You know how sorry I always am for what you haveto go through down there, and I suppose it's worse, as you say, atthis season than any other time of year. It's the terribleconcentration of everything just before Christmas that makes it sokilling. I really don't know which of the places was the worst; thebig department stores or the separate places for jewelry and toys andbooks and stationery and antiques; they were all alike, and allmaddening. And the rain outside, and everybody coming in reeking;though I don't believe that sunshine would have been any better;there'd have been more of them. I declare, it made my heart ache forthose poor creatures behind the counters, and I don't know whether Isuffered most for them when they kept up a ghastly cheerfulness intheir attention or were simply insulting in their indifference. I knowthey must be all dead by this time. 'Going up?' 'Going down?''Ca-ish!' 'Here, boy!' I believe it will ring in my ears as long as Ilive. And the whiz of those overhead wire things, and having to waitages for your change, and then drag your tatters out of the storesinto the streets! If I hadn't had you with me at the last I shouldcertainly have dropped. "

_Fountain_: "Yes, and what had become of your good resolutions aboutdoing all your Christmas shopping in July?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "_My_ good resolutions? Really, Clarence, sometimesif it were not cruelty to animals I should like to hit you. _My_ good--You _know_ that you suggested that plan, and it wasn't even originalwith you. The papers have been talking about it for years; but whenyou brought it up as such a new idea, I fell in with it to please you--"

_Fountain_: "Now, look out, Lucy!"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, to please you, and to help you forget theChristmas worry, just as I've been doing to-night. You never spare_me_. "

_Fountain_: "Stick to the record. Why didn't you do your Christmasshopping in July?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Why didn't I? Did you expect me to do my Christmasshopping down at Sculpin Beach, where I spent the whole time from themiddle of June till the middle of September? Why didn't _you_ do theChristmas shopping in July? You had the stores under your nose herefrom the beginning till the end of summer, with nothing in the worldto hinder you, and not a chick or a child to look after. "

_Fountain_: "Oh, I like that. You think I was leading a life ofcomplete leisure here, with the thermometer among the ninetiesnine-tenths of the time?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "I only know you were bragging in all your lettersabout your bath and your club, and the folly of any one going awayfrom the cool, comfortable town in the summer. I suppose you'll saythat was to keep me from feeling badly at leaving you. When it wasonly for the children's sake! I will let you take them the next time. "

_Fountain_: "While you look after my office? And you think the storesare full of Christmas things in July, I suppose. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "I never thought so; and now I hope you see the follyof that idea. No, Clarence. We must be logical in everything. Youcan't get rid of Christmas shopping at Christmas-time. "

_Fountain_, shouting wrathfully: "Then I say get rid of Christmas!"

 II

 MR. FRANK WATKINS, MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Watkins_, opening the door for himself and struggling into the roomwith an armful of parcels: "I'm with you there, Clarence. Christmas isat the root of Christmas shopping, and Christmas giving, and all therest of it. Oh, you needn't be afraid, Lucy. I didn't hear anyepithets; just caught the drift of your argument through the keyhole. I've been kicking at the door ever since you began. Where shall I dumpthese things?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, you poor boy! Here--anywhere--on the floor--onthe sofa--on the table. " She clears several spaces and helps Watkinsunload. "Clarence! I'm surprised at you. What are you thinking of?"

_Fountain_: "I'm thinking that if this goes on, I'll let somebody elsearrange the presents. "

_Watkins_: "If I saw a man coming into my house with a load like thisto-night, I'd throw him into the street. But living in a ninth-storyflat like you, it might hurt him. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, reading the inscriptions on the packages: "'For Bennyfrom his uncle Frank. ' Oh, how sweet of you, Frank! And here's a kissfor his uncle Frank. " She embraces him with as little interruption aspossible. "'From Uncle Frank to Jim. ' Oh, I know what that is!" Shefeels the package over. "And this is for 'Susy from her aunt Sue. ' Oh, I knew she would remember her namesake. 'For Maggie. Merry Christmasfrom Mrs. Watkins. ' 'Bridget, with Mrs. Watkins's best wishes for aMerry Christmas. ' Both the girls! But it's like Sue; she never forgetsanybody. And what's this for Clarence? I _must_ know! Not abath-gown?" Undoing it: "I simply _must_ see it. Blue! His verycolor!" Holding it up: "From you, Frank?" He nods. "Clarence!"

_Watkins_: "If Fountain tries to kiss me, I'll--"

_Fountain_: "I wouldn't kiss you for a dozen bath-gowns. " Lifting itup from the floor where Mrs. Fountain has dropped it: "It _is_ rathernice. "

_Watkins_: "Don't overwhelm me. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, dancing about with a long, soft roll in her hand: "Oh, oh, oh! She saw me gloating on it at Shumaker's! I do wonder if it_is_. "

_Fountain_, reaching for it: "Why, open it--"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "You dare! No, it shall be opened the very last thingin the morning, now, to punish you! How is poor Sue? I saw herliterally dropping by the way at Shumaker's. "

_Watkins_, making for the door: "Well, she must have got up again. Ileft her registering a vow that if ever she lived to see anotherChristmas she would leave the country months before the shoppingbegan. She called down maledictions on all the recipients of her giftsand wished them the worst harm that can befall the wicked. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Poor Sue! She simply lives to do people good, and Ican understand exactly how she feels toward them. I'll be round brightand early to-morrow to thank her. Why do you go?"

_Watkins_: "Well, I can't stay here all night, and I'd better let youand Clarence finish up. " He escapes from her detaining embrace andruns out. 

 III

 MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Mrs. Fountain_, intent upon her roll: "How funny he is! I wonder ifhe did hear anything but our scolding voices? Where were we?"

_Fountain_: "I had just called you a serpent. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, with amusement: "No, really?" Feeling the parcel: "Ifit's that Spanish lace scarf I can tell her it was machine lace. I sawit at the first glance. But poor Sue has no taste. I suppose I muststand it. But I can't bear to think what she's given the girls andchildren. She means well. Did you really say serpent, Clarence? Younever called me just _that_ before. "

_Fountain_: "No, but you called me a laughing hyena, and said Iscoffed at everything sacred. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "I can't remember using the word hyena, exactly, though I do think the way you talk about Christmas is dreadful. But Itake back the laughing hyena. "

_Fountain_: "And I take back the serpent. I meant dove, anyway. Butit's this Christmas-time when a man gets so tired he doesn't knowwhat he's saying. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, _you're_ good, anyway, dearest, whatever yousay; and now I'm going to help you arrange the things. I supposethere'll be lots more to-morrow, but we must get rid of these now. Don't you wish nobody would do anything for us? Just thechildren--dear little souls! I don't believe but what we can make Jimand Susy believe in Santa Claus again; Benny is firm in the faith; heput him into his prayer. I declare, his sweetness almost broke myheart. " At a knock: "Who's that, I wonder? Come in! Oh, it's you, Maggie. Well?"

 IV

 THE FOUNTAINS, FOUNTAIN'S SISTERS

_Maggie_: "It's Mr. Fountain's sisters just telephoned up. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Have them come up at once, Maggie, of course. " AsMaggie goes out: "Another interruption! If it's going to keep on likethis! Shouldn't you have thought they might have _sent_ theirpresents?"

_Fountain_: "I thought something like it in Frank's case; but I didn'tsay it. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "And I don't know why _I_ say it, now. It's becauseI'm so tired I don't know what I _am_ saying. Do forgive me! It's thisterrible Christmas spirit that gets into me. But now you'll see hownice I can be to them. " At a tap on the door: "Come in! Come in!Don't mind our being in all this mess. So darling of you to come! Youcan help cheer Clarence up; you know his Christmas Eve dumps. " Sheruns to them and clasps them in her arms with several half-openpackages dangling from her hands and contrasting their disarray withthe neatness of their silk-ribboned and tissue-papered parcels whichtheir embrace makes meet at her back. "Minnie! Aggie! To lug here, when you ought to be at home in bed dying of fatigue! But it's justlike you, both of you. Did you ever see anything like the storesto-day? Do sit down, or swoon on the floor, or anything. Let me havethose wretched bundles which are simply killing you. " She looks at thedifferent packages. "'For Benny from Grandpa. ' 'For a good girl, fromSusy's grandmother. ' 'Jim, from Aunt Minnie and Aunt Aggie. ' 'Lucy, with love from Aggie and Minnie. ' And Clarence! What hearts you _have_got! Well, I always say there never were such thoughtful girls, andyou always show such taste and such originality. I long to get at thethings. " She keeps fingering the large bundle marked with herhusband's name. "Not--not--a--"

_Minnie_: "Yes, a bath-robe. Unless you give him a cigar-case it'sabout the only thing you can give a man. "

_Aggie_: "Minnie thought of it and I chose it. Blue, because it's hiscolor. Try it on, Clarence, and if it's too long--"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, do, dear! Let's see you with it on. " While thegirls are fussily opening the robe, she manages to push her brother'sgift behind the door. Then, without looking round at her husband. "Itisn't a bit too long. Just the very--" Looking: "Well, it can easilybe taken up at the hem. I can do it to-morrow. " She abandons him tohis awkward isolation while she chatters on with his sisters. "Sitdown; I insist! Don't think of going. Did you see that frightful packof people when the cab horse fell down in front of Shumaker's?"

_Minnie_: "See it?"

_Aggie_: "We were in the midst of it! I wonder we ever got out alive. It's enough to make you wish never to see another Christmas as long asyou live. "

_Minnie_: "A great many _won't_ live. There will be more grippe, andmore pneumonia, and more appendicitis from those jams of people in thestores!"

_Aggie_: "The germs must have been swarming. "

_Fountain_: "Lucy was black with them when we got home. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Don't pay the slightest attention to him, girls. He'll probably be the first to sneeze himself. "

_Minnie_: "I don't know about sneezing. I shall only be too glad if Idon't have nervous prostration from it. "

_Aggie_: "I'm glad we got our motor-car just in time. Any one thatgoes in the trolleys now will take their life in their hand. " Thegirls rise and move toward the door. "Well, we must go on now. We'remaking a regular round; you can't trust the delivery wagons at a timelike this. Good-by. Merry Christmas to the children. They're fastasleep by this time, I suppose. "

_Minnie_: "I only wish _I_ was!"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "I believe you, Minnie. Good-by. Good night. Goodnight, Aggie. Clarence, go to the elevator with them! Or no, he can'tin that ridiculous bath-gown!" Turning to Fountain as the door closes:"Now I've done it. "

 V

 MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Fountain_: "It isn't a thing you could have wished to phrase thatway, exactly. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "And you made me do it. Never thanking them, oranything, and standing there like I don't know what, and leaving thetalk all to me. And now, making me lose my temper again, when I wantedto be so nice to you. Well, it is no use trying, and from this on Iwon't. _Clarence!_" She has opened the parcel addressed to herself andnow stands transfixed with joy and wonder. "_See_ what the girls havegiven me! The very necklace I've been longing for at Planets', anddenying myself for the last fortnight! Well, never will I say yoursisters are mean again. "

_Fountain_: "You ought to have said that to them. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "It quite reconciles one to Christmas. What? Oh, that_was_ rather nasty. You know I didn't mean it. I was so excited Ididn't know what I was saying. I'm sure nobody ever got on better withsisters-in-law, and that shows my tact; if I do make a slip, now andthen, I can always get out of it. They will understand. Do you thinkit was very nice of them to flaunt their new motor in my face? But ofcourse anything _your_ family does is perfect, and always was, thoughI must say this necklace is sweet of them. I wonder they had thetaste. " A tap on the door is heard. "Come in, Maggie!" _Sotto voce. _"Take it off. " She snatches his bath-robe and tosses it behind thedoor. 

 VI

 WILBUR HAZARD, THE FOUNTAINS

_Hazard_: "I suppose I can come in, even if I'm not Maggie. Catch, Fountain. " He tosses a large bundle to Fountain. "It's huge, but itisn't hefty. " He turns to go out again. 

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, oh, oh! Don't go! Come in and help us. What haveyou brought Clarence! May I feel?"

_Hazard_: "You can look, if you like. I'm rather proud of it. There'sonly one other thing you can give a man, and I said, 'No, not acigar-case. Fountain smokes enough already, but if a bath-robe caninduce him to wash--'" He goes out. 

_Mrs. Fountain_, screaming after him through the open door: "Oh, howgood! Come back and see it on him. " She throws the bath-robe overFountain's shoulders. 

_Hazard_, looking in again: "Perfect fit, just as the Jew said, andthe very color for Fountain. " He vanishes, shutting the door behindhim. 

 VII

 MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Mrs. Fountain_: "How coarse! Well, my dear, I don't know where youpicked up your bachelor friends. I hope this is the last of them. "

_Fountain_: "Hazard's the only one who has survived your rigoroustreatment. But he always had a passion for cold shoulder, poor fellow. As bath-robes go, this isn't bad. " He gets his arms into it, and walksup and down. "Heigh?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, it is pretty good. But the worst of Christmasis that it rouses up all your old friends. "

_Fountain_: "They feel so abnormally good, confound them. I supposepoor old Hazard half killed himself looking this thing up and buildingthe joke to go with it. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, take it off, now, and come help me with thechildren's presents. You're quite forgetting about them, and it'll bemorning and you'll have the little wretches swarming in before you canturn round. Dear little souls! I can sympathize with their impatience, of course. But what are you going to do with these bath-robes? Youcan't wear _four_ bath-robes. "

_Fountain_: "I can change them every day. But there ought to be seven. This hood is rather a new wrinkle, though, isn't it? I suppose it'sfor a voyage, and you pull it up over your head when you come throughthe corridor back to your stateroom. We shall have to go to Europe, Lucy. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "I would go to Asia, Africa, and Oceanica, to escapeanother Christmas. Now if there are any more bath-robes-- Come in, Maggie. "

 VIII

 MAGGIE, THE FOUNTAINS

_Maggie_, bringing in a bundle: "Something a District Messengerbrought. Will you sign for it, ma'am?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "You sign, Clarence. If I know anything about thelook and the feel of a bundle, this _is_ another bath-robe, but Ishall soon see. " While she is cutting the string and tearing thewrappings away, Fountain signs and Maggie goes. Mrs. Fountain shakesout the folds of the robe. "Well, upon my word, I should think therewas conspiracy to insult you, Clarence. I should like to know who hashad the effrontery-- What's on it?"

_Fountain_, reading from the card which had fallen out of the garmentto the floor: "'With Christmas greetings from Mrs. Arthur J. Gibby. '"

_Mrs. Fountain_, dropping the robe and seizing the card: "_Mrs. _Arthur J. Gibby! Well, upon my word, this _is_ impudence. It's notonly impudence, it's indelicacy. And I had always thought she was thevery embodiment of refinement, and I've gone about saying so. Now Ishall have to take it back. The idea of a lady sending a bath-robe toa gentleman! What next, I wonder! What right has Mrs. Gibby to sendyou a bath-robe? Don't prevaricate! Remember that the truth is theonly thing that can save you. Matters must have gone pretty far, whena woman could send you anything so--intimate. What are you staring atwith that paper? You needn't hope to divert my mind by--"

_Fountain_, giving her the paper in which the robe came: "Seems to befor _Mrs. _ Clarence Fountain. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, snatching it from him: "What! It is, it is! Oh, poordear Lilly! How can you ever forgive me? She saw me looking at itto-day at Shumaker's, and it must have come into her head in despairwhat else to get me. But it was a perfect inspiration--for it was justwhat I was longing for. Why"--laughing hysterically while she holds upthe robe, and turns it this way and that--"I might have seen at aglance that it wasn't a man's, with this lace on and this silk hood, and"--she hurries into it, and pulls it forward, looking down ateither side--"it's just the right length, and if it was made for me itcouldn't fit me better. What a joke I _shall_ have with Lilly, when Itell her about it. I sha'n't spare myself a bit!"

_Fountain_: "Then I hope you'll spare me. I have some little delicacyof feeling, and I don't like the notion of a lady's giving me abath-robe. It's--intimate. I don't know where you picked up your girlfriends. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, capering about joyfully: "Oh, how funny you are, darling! But go on. I don't mind it, now. And you may be glad you'vegot off so easily. Only now if there are any more bath-robes--" Atimid rap is heard at the door. "Come in, Maggie!" The door is slowlyset ajar, then flung suddenly wide open, and Jim and Susy in theirnight-gowns rush dancing and exulting in. 

 IX

 JIM, SUSY, THE FOUNTAINS

_Susy_: "We've caught you, we've caught you. "

_Jim_: "I just bet it was you, and now I've won, haven't I, mother?"

_Susy_: "And I've won, too, haven't I, father?" Arrested at sight ofher father in the hooded bath-gown: "He does look like Santa Claus, doesn't he, Jimmy? But the real Santa Claus would be all over snow, and a long, white beard. You can't fool _us_!"

_Jim_: "You can't fool _us_! We know you, we know you! And motherdressed up, too! There isn't any Mrs. Santa Claus, and that provesit!"

_Mrs. Fountain_, severely: "Dreadful little things! Who said you mightcome here? Go straight back to bed, this minute, or-- _Will_ you sendthem back, Clarence, and not stand staring so? What are you thinking of?"

_Fountain_, dreamily: "Nothing. Merely wondering what we shall do whenwe've got rid of our superstitions. Shall we be the better for it, oreven the wiser?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "What put that question into your head? Christmas, Isuppose; and that's another reason for wishing there was no suchthing. If I had my way, there wouldn't be. "

_Jim_: "Oh, mother!"

_Susy_: "No Christmas?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, not for disobedient children who get out ofbed and come in, spoiling everything. If you don't go straight back, it will be the last time, Santa Claus or no Santa Claus. "

_Jim_: "And if we go right back?"

_Susy_: "And promise not to come in any more?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, we'll see how you keep your promise. If youdon't, that's the end of Christmas in _this_ house. "

_Jim_: "It's a bargain, then! Come on, Susy!"

_Susy_: "And we do it for you, mother. And for you, father. We justcame in for fun, anyway. "

_Jim_: "We just came for a surprise. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, kissing them both: "Well, then, if it was only forfun, we'll excuse you this time. Run along, now, that's good children. _Clarence!_"

 X

 MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Fountain_: "Well?" He looks up at her from where he has dropped intoa chair beside the table strewn with opened and unopened gifts at thefoot of the Christmas tree. 

_Mrs. Fountain_: "What _are_ you mooning about?"

_Fountain_: "What if it was all a fake? Those thousands and hundredsof thousands of churches that pierce the clouds with their spires;those millions of ministers and missionaries; those billions ofworshipers, sitting and standing and kneeling, and singing andpraying; those nuns and monks, and brotherhoods and sisterhoods, withtheir ideals of self-denial, and their duties to the sick and poor;those martyrs that died for the one true faith, and those othermartyrs of the other true faiths whom the one true faith tortured andkilled; those masses and sermons and ceremonies, what if they were alla delusion, a mistake, a misunderstanding? What if it were all asunlike the real thing, if there is any real thing, as this paganChristmas of ours is as unlike a Christian Christmas?"

_Mrs. Fountain_, springing up: "I knew it! I knew that it was thisChristmas giving that was making you morbid again. Can't you shake itoff and be cheerful--like me? I'm sure I have to bear twice as much ofit as you have. I've been shopping the whole week, and you've beenjust this one afternoon. " She begins to catch her breath, and fails insearching for her handkerchief in the folds of her dress under thebath-robe. 

_Fountain_, offering his handkerchief: "Take mine. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, catching it from him, and hiding her face in it onthe table: "You ought to help me bear up, and instead of that youfling yourself on my sympathies and break me down. " Lifting her face:"And if it was all a fake, as you say, and an illusion, what would youdo, what would you give people in place of it?"

_Fountain_: "I don't know. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "What would you have in place of Christmas itself?"

_Fountain_: "I don't know. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, then, I wouldn't set myself up to preach downeverything--in a blue bath-gown. You've no idea how ridiculous youare. "

_Fountain_: "Oh, yes, I have. I can see you. You look like one ofthose blue nuns in Rome. But I don't remember any lace on them. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, you don't look like a blue monk, you needn'tflatter yourself, for there are none. You look like-- What are youthinking about?"

_Fountain_: "Oh, nothing. What do you suppose is in all these packageshere? Useful things, that we need, that we must have? You know withoutlooking that it's the superfluity of naughtiness in one form or other. And the givers of these gifts, they _had_ to give them, just as we'vehad to give dozens of gifts ourselves. We ought to have put on ourcards, 'With the season's bitterest grudges, ' 'In hopes of a return, ''With a hopeless sense of the folly, ' 'To pay a hateful debt, ' 'Withimpotent rage and despair. '"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "I don't deny it, Clarence. You're perfectly right; Ialmost wish we _had_ put it. How it would have made them hop! Butthey'd have known it was just the way they felt themselves. "

_Fountain_, going on thoughtfully: "It's the cap-sheaf of the socialbarbarism we live in, the hideous hypocrisy. It's no use to put it onreligion. The Jews keep Christmas, too, and we know what they think ofChristianity as a belief. No, we've got to go further back, to thePagan Saturnalia-- Well, I renounce the whole affair, here and now. I'mgoing to spend the rest of the night bundling these things up, andto-morrow I'm going to spend the day in a taxi, going round and givingthem back to the fools that sent them. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "And I'm going with you. I hate it as much as youdo-- Come in, Maggie!"

 XI

 MAGGIE, MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Maggie_: "Something the elevator-boy says he forgot. It came alongwith the last one. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, taking a bundle from her: "If this is anotherbath-robe, Clarence! It _is_, as I live. Now if it is a woman sendingit--" She picks up a card which falls out of the robe as she unfoldsit. "'Love the Giver, ' indeed! Now, Clarence, I insist, I demand--"

_Fountain_: "Hold on, hold on, my dear. The last bath-robe that camefrom a woman was for _you_. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "So it was. I don't know what I was thinking about;and I do beg your par-- But this is a man's bath-robe!"

_Fountain_, taking the card which she mechanically stretches out tohim: "And a man sends it--old Fellows. Can't you read print? AmbroseJ. Fellows, and a message in writing: 'It was a toss-up between thisand a cigar-case, and the bath-robe won. Hope you haven't got anyother thoughtful friends. '"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, very brilliant, giving me a start like this! Ishall let Mr. Fellows know-- What is it, Maggie? Open the door, please. "

_Maggie_, opening: "It's just a District Messenger. "

_Fountain_, ironically: "Oh, only a District Messenger. " He signs themessenger's slip, while his wife receives from Maggie a bundle whichshe regards with suspicion. 

 XII

 MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Mrs. Fountain_: "'From Uncle Philip for Clarence. ' Well, UnclePhilip, if you have sent Clarence-- _Clarence!_" breaking intoa whimper: "It is, it is! It's another. "

_Fountain_: "Well, that only makes the seventh, and just enough forevery day in the week. It's quite my ideal. Now, if there's nothingabout a cigar-case-- Hello!" He feels in the pocket of the robe andbrings out a cigar-case, from which a slip of paper falls: "'Couldn'tmake up my mind between them, so send both. Uncle Phil. ' Well, thisis the last stroke of Christmas insanity. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "His brain simply reeled under it, and gave way. Itshows what Christmas really comes to with a man of strong intellectlike Uncle Phil. "

_Fountain_, opening the case: "Oh, I don't know! He's put some cigarsin here--in a lucid interval, probably. There's hope yet. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, in despair: "No, Clarence, there's no hope. Don'tflatter yourself. The only way is to bundle back all their presentsand never, never, never give or receive another one. Come! Let's begintying them up at once; it will take us the rest of the night. " A knockat the door. "Come, Maggie. "

 XIII

 JIM AND SUSY, MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Jim and Susy_, pushing in: "We can't sleep, mother. May we have apillow fight to keep us amused till we're drowsy?"

_Mrs. Fountain_, desolately: "Yes, go and have your pillow fight. Itdoesn't matter now. We're sending the presents all back, anyway. " Shebegins frantically wrapping some of the things up. 

_Susy_: "Oh, father, are you sending them back?"

_Jim_: "She's just making believe. Isn't she, father?"

_Fountain_: "Well, I'm not so sure of that. If she doesn't do it, Iwill. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, desisting: "Will you go right back to bed?"

_Jim and Susy_: "Yes, we will. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "And to sleep, instantly?"

_Jim and Susy_, in succession: "We won't keep awake a minute longer. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Very well, then, we'll see. Now be off with you. " Asthey put their heads together and go out laughing: "And remember, ifyou come here another single time, back go every one of the presents. "

_Fountain_: "As soon as ever Santa Claus can find a moment for it. "

_Jim_, derisively: "Oh, yes, Santa Claus!"

_Susy_: "I guess if you wait for Santa Claus to take them back!"

 XIV

 MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Tiresome little wretches. Of course we can't expectthem to keep up the self-deception. "

_Fountain_: "They'll grow to another. When they're men and womenthey'll pretend that Christmas is delightful, and go round givingpeople the presents that they've worn their lives out in buying andgetting together. And they'll work themselves up into the notion thatthey are really enjoying it, when they know at the bottom of theirsouls that they loathe the whole job. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "There you are with your pessimism again! And I hadjust begun to feel cheerful about it!"

_Fountain_: "Since when? Since I proposed sending this rubbish back tothe givers with our curse?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "No, I was thinking what fun it would be if we couldget up a sort of Christmas game, and do it just among relations andintimate friends. "

_Fountain_: "Ah, I wish you luck of it. Then the thing would begin tohave some reality, and just as in proportion as people had the worstfeelings in giving the presents, their best feeling would be hurt ingetting them back. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Then why did you ever think of it?"

_Fountain_: "To keep from going mad. Come, let's go on with this jobof sorting the presents, and putting them in the stockings and hangingthem up on the tree and laying them round the trunk of it. One thing:it's for the last time. As soon as Christmas week is over, I shallinaugurate an educational campaign against the whole Christmassuperstition. It must be extirpated root and branch, and theextirpation must begin in the minds of the children; we old fools arehopeless; we must die in it; but the children can be saved. We mustorganize and make a house-to-house fight; and I'll begin in our ownhouse. To-morrow, as soon as the children have made themselvesthoroughly sick with candy and cake and midday dinner, I will appealto their reason, and get them to agree to drop it; to sign theAnti-Christmas pledge; to--"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Clarence! I have an idea. "

_Fountain_: "Not a _bright_ one?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, a bright one, even if you didn't originate it. Have Christmas confined entirely to children--to the very youngest--tochildren that believe firmly in Santa Claus. "

_Fountain_: "Oh, hello! Wouldn't that leave Jim and Susy out? Icouldn't have _them_ left out. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "That's true. I didn't think of that. Well, say, tochildren that either believe or _pretend_ to believe in him. What's_that_?" She stops at a faint, soft sound on the door. "It's Maggiewith her hands so full she's pushing with her elbow. Come in, Maggie, come in. _Come_ in! Don't you hear me? Come in, I say! Oh, it isn'tMaggie, of course! It's those worthless, worthless little wretches, again. " She runs to the door calling out, "Naughty, naughty, naughty!"as she runs. Then, flinging the door wide, with a final cry of"_Naughty_, I say!" she discovers a small figure on the threshold, nightgowned to its feet, and looking up with a frightened, wistfulface. "Why, Benny!" She stoops down and catches the child in her arms, and presses him tight to her neck, and bends over, covering his headwith kisses. "What in the world are you doing here, you poor littlelamb? Is mother's darling walking in his sleep? What did you want, mypet? Tell mudda, do! Whisper it in mudda's big ear! Can't you tellmudda? What? Whisper a little louder, love! We're not angry with you, sweetness. Now, try to speak louder. Is that Santa Claus? No, dearest, that's just dadda. Santa Claus hasn't come yet, but he will soon. What? Say it again. _Is_ there any Santa Claus? Why, who else couldhave brought all these presents? Presents for Benny and Jim and Susyand mudda, and seven bath-gowns for dadda. Isn't that funny? Seven!And one for mudda. What? I can't quite hear you, pet. Are we going tosend the presents back? Why, who ever heard of such a thing? Jim saidso? And Susy? Well, I will settle with them, when I come to them. Youdon't want me to? Well, I won't, then, if Benny doesn't want mudda to. I'll just give them a kiss apiece, pop in their big ears. What? You'vegot something for Santa Claus to give them? What? Where? In your crib?And shall we go and get it? For mudda too? And dadda? Oh, my littleangel!" She begins to cry over him, and to kiss him again. "You'llbreak my heart with your loveliness. He wants to kiss you too, dadda. "She puts the boy into his father's arms; then catches him back andruns from the room with him. Fountain resumes the work of filling thelong stocking he had begun with; then he takes up a very short sock. He has that in his hand when Mrs. Fountain comes back, wiping hereyes. "He'll go to sleep now, I guess; he was half dreaming when hecame in here. I should think, when you saw how Benny believed in it, you'd be ashamed of saying a word against Christmas. "

_Fountain_: "Who's said anything against it? I've just been arguingfor it, and trying to convince you that for the sake of littlechildren like Benny it ought to be perpetuated to the end of theworld. It began with the childhood of the race, in the rejuvenescenceof the spirit. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Didn't you say that Christmas began with thepagans? How monstrously you prevaricate!"

_Fountain_: "That was merely a figure of speech. And besides, sinceyou've been out with Benny, I've been thinking, and I take backeverything I've said or thought against Christmas; I didn't reallythink it. I've been going back in my mind to that first Christmas wehad together, and it's cheered me up wonderfully. "

_Mrs. Fountain_, tenderly: "Have you, dearest? I _always_ think of it. If you could have seen Benny, how I left him, just now?"

_Fountain_: "I shouldn't mind seeing him, and I shouldn't care if Igave a glance at poor old Jim and Susy. I'd like to reassure themabout not sending back the presents. " He puts his arm round her andpresses her toward the door. 

_Mrs. Fountain_: "How sweet you are! And how funny! And good!" Sheaccentuates each sentiment with a kiss. "And don't you suppose I feltsorry for you, making you go round with me the whole afternoon, andthen leaving you to take the brunt of arranging the presents? Now I'lltell you: _next_ year, I _will_ do my Christmas shopping in July. It'sthe only way. "

_Fountain_: "No, there's a better way. As you were saying, they don'thave the Christmas things out. The only way is to do our Christmasshopping the day after Christmas; everything will be round still, anddog-cheap. Come, we'll begin day after to-morrow. "

_Mrs. Fountain_: "We will, we will!"

_Fountain_: "Do you think we will?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, we'll _say_ we will. " They laugh together, andthen he kisses her. 

_Fountain_: "Even if it goes on in the same old way, as long as wehave each other--"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "And the children. "

_Fountain_: "I forgot the children!"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, how delightful you are!"

 THE END

 BOOKS BY W. D. HOWELLS

 Annie Kilburn. 12mo. April Hopes. 12mo. Between the Dark and Daylight. New Edition. 12mo. Boy Life. Illustrated. 12mo. Boy's Town. Illustrated. Post 8vo. Certain Delightful English Towns. Illustrated. 8vo. Traveller's Edition, Leather. Christmas Every Day, and Other Stories. Illustrated. 12mo. Holiday Edition. Illustrated. 4to. Coast of Bohemia. Illustrated. 12mo. Criticism and Fiction. Portrait. 16mo. Day of Their Wedding. Illustrated. 12mo. Familiar Spanish Travels. Illustrated. 8vo. Fennel and Rue. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. Flight of Pony Baker. Post 8vo. Hazard of New Fortunes. New Edition. 12mo. Heroines of Fiction. Illustrated. 2 vols. 8vo. Imaginary Interviews. 8vo. Imperative Duty. 12mo. Paper. Impressions and Experiences. New Edition. 12mo. Kentons. 12mo. Landlord at Lion's Head. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. Letters Home. 12mo. Library of Universal Adventure. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth. Three-quarter Calf. Literary Friends and Acquaintance. Illustrated. 8vo. Literature and Life. 8vo. Little Swiss Sojourn. Illustrated. 32mo. London Films. Illustrated. 8vo. Traveller's Edition, Leather. Miss Bellard's Inspiration. 12mo. Modern Italian Poets. Illustrated. 12mo. Mother and the Father. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. Mouse-Trap, A Likely Story, The Garroters, Five-o'Clock Tea. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. My Literary Passions. New Edition. 12mo. My Mark Twain. Illustrated. 8vo. My Year in a Log Cabin. Illustrated. 32mo. Open-Eyed Conspiracy. 12mo. Pair of Patient Lovers. 12mo. Parting and a Meeting. Illustrated. Square 32mo. Quality of Mercy. New Edition. 12mo. Questionable Shapes. Ill'd. 12mo. Ragged Lady. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. Roman Holidays. Illustrated. 8vo. Traveller's Edition, Leather. Seven English Cities. Illustrated. 8vo. Traveller's Edition, Leather. Shadow of a Dream. 12mo. Son of Royal Langbrith. 8vo. Stops of Various Quills. Illustrated. 4to. Limited Edition. Story of a Play. 12mo. The Daughter of the Storage. 8vo. The Seen and Unseen at Stratford-on-Avon. Crown 8vo. Their Silver Wedding Journey. Illustrated. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. In 1 vol. New Edition. 12mo. Through the Eye of a Needle. New Edition. 12mo. Traveller from Altruria. New Edition. 12mo. World of Chance. 12mo. Years of My Youth. Crown 8vo. 

 FARCES:

 A Letter of Introduction. Illustrated. 32mo. A Likely Story. Illustrated. 32mo. A Previous Engagement. 32mo. Paper. Evening Dress. Illustrated. 32mo. Five-o'Clock Tea. Illustrated. 32mo. Parting Friends. Illustrated. 32mo. The Albany Depot. Illustrated. 32mo. The Garroters. Illustrated. 32mo. The Mouse-Trap. Illustrated. 32mo. The Unexpected Guests. Illustrated. 32mo. 

 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK