THE MILITANTS

_"The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. "_

BOOKS BY MARY R. S. ANDREWS

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

The Militants. Illustrated $1. 50

Bob and the Guides. Illustrated $1. 50

The Perfect Tribute. With Frontispiece $0. 50

Vive L'Empereur. Illustrated $1. 00

[Illustration: "I took her in my arms and held her. "]

THE MILITANTS

STORIES OF SOME PARSONS, SOLDIERS

AND OTHER FIGHTERS IN THE WORLD

BY

MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN ANDREWS

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1907

Published, May, 1907

 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF A MAN WHO WAS WITH HIS WHOLE HEART A PRIEST AND WITH HIS WHOLE STRENGTH A SOLDIER OF THE CHURCH MILITANT. 

 JACOB SHAW SHIPMAN

CONTENTS

 _I. The Bishop's Silence_

 _II. The Witnesses_

 _III. The Diamond Brooches_

 _IV. Crowned with Glory and Honor_

 _V. A Messenger_

 _VI. The Aide-de-Camp_

 _VII. Through the Ivory Gate_

_VIII. The Wife of the Governor_

 _IX. The Little Revenge_

ILLUSTRATIONS

_"I took her in my arms and held her"_

_"Many waters shall not wash out love", said Eleanor_

_He stared into the smoldering fire_

_"Look!" he said, and Miles swung about toward the ridge behind_

_"I got behind a turn and fired as a man came on alone"_

_"I reckon I shall have to ask you to not pick any more of thoseroses, " a voice said_

_"You see, the boat is very new and clean, Miss, " he was saying_

_I felt myself pulled by two pairs of hands_

THE BISHOP'S SILENCE

The Bishop was walking across the fields to afternoon service. It was ahot July day, and he walked slowly--for there was plenty of time--withhis eyes fixed on the far-off, shimmering sea. That minstrel of heat, the locust, hidden somewhere in the shade of burning herbage, pulled along, clear, vibrating bow across his violin, and the sound fell lazilyon the still air--the only sound on earth except a soft crackle underthe Bishop's feet. Suddenly the erect, iron-gray head plunged madlyforward, and then, with a frantic effort and a parabola or two, recovered itself, while from the tall grass by the side of the pathgurgled up a high, soft, ecstatic squeal. The Bishop, his face flushedwith the stumble and the heat and a touch of indignation besides, straightened himself with dignity and felt for his hat, while his eyesfollowed a wriggling cord that lay on the ground, up to a small brownfist. A burnished head, gleaming in the sunshine like the gilded ballon a church steeple, rose suddenly out of the waves of dry grass, and apink-ginghamed figure, radiant with joy and good-will, confronted him. The Bishop's temper, roughly waked up by the unwilling and unepiscopalwar-dance just executed, fell back into its chains. 

"Did you tie that string across the path?"

"Yes, " The shining head nodded. "Too bad you didn't fell 'way down. I'msorry. But you kicked awf'ly. "

"Oh! I did, did I?" asked the Bishop. "You're an unrepentant youngsinner. Suppose I'd broken my leg?"

The head nodded again. "Oh, we'd have patzed you up, " she saidcheerfully. "Don't worry. Trust in God. "

The Bishop jumped. "My child, " he said, "who says that to you?"

"Aunt Basha. " The innocent eyes faced him without a sign ofembarrassment. "Aunt Basha's my old black mammy. Do you know her? Allher name's longer'n that. I can say it. " Then with careful, slowenunciation, "Bathsheba Salina Mosina Angelica Preston. "

"Is that your little bit of name too?" the Bishop asked, "Are you aPreston?"

"Why, of course. " The child opened her gray eyes wide. "Don't you knowmy name? I'm Eleanor. Eleanor Gray Preston. "

For a moment again the locust had it all to himself. High and insistent, his steady note sounded across the hot, still world. The Bishop lookeddown at the gray eyes gazing upward wonderingly, and through a mist ofyears other eyes smiled at him. Eleanor Gray--the world is small, thelife of it persistent; generations repeat themselves, and each is youngbut once. He put his hand under the child's chin and turned up the babyface. 

"Ah!" said he--if that may stand for the sound that stood for theBishop's reverie. "Ah! Whom were you named for, Eleanor Gray?"

"For my own muvver. " Eleanor wriggled her chin from the big hand andlooked at him with dignity. She did not like to be touched bystrangers. Again the voices stopped and the locust sang two notes andstopped also, as if suddenly awed. 

"Your mother, " repeated the Bishop, "your mother! I hope you are worthyof the name. "

"Yes, I am, " said Eleanor heartily. "Bug's on your shoulder, Bishop! Forde Lawd's sake!" she squealed excitedly, in delicious high notes that aprima donna might envy; then caught the fat grasshopper from the blackclerical coat, and stood holding it, lips compressed and the joy ofadventure dancing in her eyes. The Bishop took out his watch and lookedat it, as Eleanor, her soul on the grasshopper, opened her fist andflung its squirming contents, with delicious horror, yards away. Half anhour yet to service and only five minutes' walk to the little church ofSaint Peter's-by-the-Sea. 

"Will you sit down and talk to me, Eleanor Gray?" he asked, gravely. 

"Oh, yes, if there's time, " assented Eleanor, "but you mustn't be lateto church, Bishop. That's naughty. "

"I think there's time. How do you know who I am, Eleanor?"

"Dick told me. "

The Bishop had walked away from the throbbing sunshine into thegreen-black shadows of a tree, and seated himself with a boyishlightness in piquant contrast with his gray-haired dignity--a lightnessthat meant athletic years. Eleanor bent down the branch of a great bushthat faced him and sat on it as if a bird had poised there. She smiledas their eyes met, and began to hum an air softly. The startled Bishopslowly made out a likeness to the words of the old hymn that begins

 Am I a soldier of the Cross, A follower of the Lamb?

Sweetly and reverently she sang it, over and over, with a difference. 

 Am I shoulder of a hoss, A quarter of a lamb?

sang Eleanor. 

The Bishop exploded into a great laugh that drowned the music. 

"Aunt Basha taught you that, too, didn't she?" he asked, and off hewent into another deep-toned peal. 

"I thought you'd like that, 'cause it's a hymn and you're a Bishop, "said Eleanor, approvingly. Her effort was evidently meeting withappreciation. "You can talk to me now, I'm here. " She settled herselflike a Brownie, elbows on knees, her chin in the hollows of small, leanhands, and gazed at him unflinchingly. 

"Thank you, " said the Bishop, sobering at once, but laughter still inhis eyes. "Will you be kind enough to tell me then, Eleanor, who isDick?"

Eleanor looked astonished, "You don't know anybody much, do you?" andthere was gentle pity in her voice. "Why, Dick, he's--why, he's--why, you see, he's my friend. I don't know his uvver names, but Mr. Fielding, he's Dick's favver. "

"Oh!" said the Bishop with comprehension. "Dick Fielding. Then Dick ismy friend, too. And people that are friends to the same people shouldbe friends to each other--that's geometry, Eleanor, though it'spossibly not life. "

"Huh?" Eleanor stared, puzzled. 

"Will you be friends with me, Eleanor Gray? I knew your mother a longtime ago, when she was Eleanor Gray. " Eleanor yawned frankly. That mightbe true, but it did not appear to her remarkable or interesting. Thedeep voice went on, with a moment's interval. "Where is your mother? Isshe here?"

Eleanor laughed. "Oh, no, " she said. "Don't you know? What a funny manyou are--you know such a few things. My muvver's up in heaven. She wentwhen I was a baby, long, _long_ ago. I reckon she must have flewed, " sheadded, reflectively, raising clear eyes to the pale, heat-worn sky thatgleamed through the branches. 

The Bishop's big hands went up to his face suddenly, and the strongfingers clasped tensely above his forehead. Between his wrists one couldsee that his mouth was set in a hard line. "Dead!" he said. "And I neverknew it. "

Eleanor dug a small russet heel unconcernedly into the ground. "Naughty, naughty, naughty little grasshopper, " she began to chant, addressing an unconscious insect near the heel. "Don't you go and crawlup on the Bishop. No, just don't you. 'Cause if you do, oh, naughtygrasshopper, I'll scrunch you!" with a vicious snap on the "scrunch. "

The Bishop lowered his hands and looked at her. "I'm not being veryinteresting, Eleanor, am I?"

"Not very, " Eleanor admitted. "Couldn't you be some more int'rstin'?"

"I'll try, " said the Bishop. "But be careful not to hurt the poorgrasshopper. Because, you know, some people say that if he is a goodgrasshopper for a long time, then when he dies his little soul will gointo a better body--perhaps a butterfly's body next time. "

Eleanor caught the thought instantly. "And if he's a good butterfly, then what'll he be? A hummin'-bird? Let's kill him quick, and see himturn into a butterfly. "

"Oh, no, Eleanor, you can't force the situation. He has to live out hislittle grasshopper life the best that he can, before he's good enough tobe a butterfly. If you kill him now you might send him backward. Hemight turn into what he was before--a poor little blind worm perhaps. "

"Oh, my Lawd!" said Eleanor. 

The Bishop was still a moment, and then repeated, quietly:

 Slay not the meanest creature, lest thou slay Some humble soul upon its upward way. 

"Oughtn't to talk to yourself, " Eleanor shook her head disapprovingly. "'Tisn't so very polite. Is that true about the grasshopper, Bishop, oris it a whopper?"

The Bishop thought for a moment. "I don't know, Eleanor, " he answered, gently. 

"You don't know so very much, do you?" inquired Eleanor, not asdespising but as wondering, sympathizing with ignorance. 

"Very little, " the Bishop agreed. "And I've tried to learn, all mylife"--his gaze wandered off reflectively. 

"Too bad, " said Eleanor. "Maybe you'll learn some time. "

"Maybe, " said the Bishop and smiled, and suddenly she sprang to herfeet, and shook her finger at him. 

"I'm afraid, " she said, "I'm very much afraid you're a naughty boy. "

The Bishop looked up at the small, motherly face, bewildered. "Wh--why?"he stammered. 

"Do you know what you're bein'? You're bein' late to church!"

The Bishop sprang up too, at that, and looked at his watch quickly. "Notlate yet, but I'll walk along. Where are you going, waif? Aren't you incharge of anybody?"

"Huh?" inquired Eleanor, her head cocked sideways. 

"Whom did you come out with?"

"Madge and Dick, but they're off there, " nodding toward the wood behindthem. "Madge is cryin'. She wouldn't let me pound Dick for makin' her, so I went away. "

"Who is Madge?"

Eleanor, drifting beside him through the sunshine like a rose-leaf onthe wind, stopped short. "Why, Bishop, don't you know even Madge? FunnyBishop! Madge is my sister--she's grown up. Dick made her cry, but Ithink he wasn't much naughty, 'cause she would _not_ let me pound him. She put her arms right around him. "

"Oh!" said the Bishop, and there was silence for a moment. "You mustn'ttell me any more about Madge and Dick, I think, Eleanor. "

"All right, my lamb!" Eleanor assented, cheerfully, and conversationflagged. 

"How old are you, Eleanor Gray?"

"Six, praise de Lawd!"

The Bishop considered deeply for a moment, then his face cleared. 

"'Their angels do always behold the face of my Father, '" and he smiled. "I say it too, praise the Lord that she is six. "

"Madge is lots more'n that, " the soft little voice, with its gay, courageous inflection, went on. "She's twenty. Isn't that old? Youaren't much different of that, are you?" and the heavy, cropped, straight gold mass of her hair swung sideways as she turned her face upto scrutinize the tall Bishop. 

He smiled down at her. "Only thirty years different. I'm fifty, Eleanor. "

"Oh!" said Eleanor, trying to grasp the problem. Then with a sigh shegave it up, and threw herself on the strength of maturity. "Is fiftyolder'n twenty?" she asked. 

More than once as they went side by side on the narrow foot-path acrossthe field the Bishop put out his hand to hold the little brown one nearit, but each time the child floated from his touch, and he smiled at theunconscious dignity, the womanly reserve of the frank and friendlylittle lady. "Thus far and no farther, " he thought, with the quickperception of character that was part of his power. But the Bishop wasas unconscious as the child of his own charm, of the magnetism in himthat drew hearts his way. Only once had it ever failed, and that was theonly time he had cared. But this time it was working fast as they walkedand talked together quietly, and when they reached the open door thatled from the fields into the little robing-room of Saint Peter's, Eleanor had met her Waterloo. Being six, it was easy to say so, and shedid it with directness, yet without at all losing the dignity that wasbreeding, that had come to her from generations, and that she knew of aslittle as she knew the names of her bones. Three steps led to therobing-room, and Eleanor flew to the top and turned, the childish figurein its worn pink cotton dress facing the tall powerful one in soberblack broadcloth. 

"I love you, " she said. "I'll kiss you, " and the long, strong littlearms were around his neck, and it seemed to the Bishop as if a kiss thathad never been given came to him now from the lips of the child of thewoman he had loved. As he put her down gently, from the belfry abovetolled suddenly a sweet, rolling note for service. 

When the Bishop came out from church the "peace that passethunderstanding" was over him. The beautiful old words that to churchmenare dear as their mothers' faces, haunting as the voices that make home, held him yet in the last echo of their music. Peace seemed, too, to lieacross the world, worn with the day's heat, where the shadows werestretching in lengthening, cooling lines. And there at the vestry step, where Eleanor had stood an hour before, was Dick Fielding, waiting forhim, with as unhappy a face as an eldest scion, the heir to millions, well loved, and well brought up, and wonderfully unspoiled, ever carriedabout a country-side. The Bishop was staying at the Fieldings'. Henodded and swung past Dick, with a look from the tail of his eye thatsaid: "Come along. " Dick came, and silently the two turned into the pathof the fields. The scowl on Dick's dark face deepened as they walked, and that was all there was by way of conversation for some time. Finally:

"You don't know about it, do you, Bishop?" he asked. 

"A very little, my boy, " the Bishop answered. 

Dick was on the defensive in a moment. "My father told you--you agreewith him?"

"Your father has told me nothing. I only came last night, remember. Iknow that you made Madge cry, and that Eleanor wasn't allowed to punishyou. "

The boyish face cleared a little, and he laughed. "That little rat! Hasshe been talking? It's all right if it's only to you, but Madge willhave to cork her up. " Then anxiety and unhappiness seized Dick's buoyantsoul again. "Bishop, let me talk to you, will you please? I'm knocked upabout this, for there's never been trouble between my father and mebefore, and I can't give in. I know I'm right--I'd be a cad to give in, and I wouldn't if I could. If you would only see your way to talking tothe governor, Bishop! He'll listen to you when he'd throw any other chapout of the house. "

"Tell me the whole story if you can, Dick, I don't understand, you see. "

"I suppose it will sound rather commonplace to you, " said Dick, humbly, "but it means everything to me. I--I'm engaged to Madge Preston. I'veknown her for a year, and been engaged half of it, and I ought to knowmy own mind by now. But father has simply set his forefeet and won'thear of it. Won't even let me talk to him about it. "

Dick's hands went into his pockets and his head drooped, and his bigfigure lagged pathetically. The Bishop put his hand on the young man'sshoulder, and left it there as they walked slowly on, but he saidnothing. 

"It's her father, you know, " Dick went on. "Such rot, to hold a girlresponsible for her ancestors! Isn't it rot, now? Father says they're abad stock, dissipated and arrogant and spendthrift and shiftless andweak--oh, and a lot more! He's not stingy with his adjectives, blessyou! Picture to yourself Madge being dissipated and arrogant and--haveyou seen Madge?" he interrupted himself. 

The Bishop shook his head. "Eleanor made an attempt on my life with astring across the path, to-day. We were friends over that. "

"She's a winning little rat, " said Dick, smiling absent-mindedly, "butnothing to Madge. You'll understand when you see Madge how I couldn'tgive her up. And it isn't so much that--my feeling for her--thoughthat's enough in all conscience, but picture to yourself, if you please, a man going to a girl and saying: 'I'm obliged to give you up, becausemy father threatens to disinherit me and kick me out of the business. Heobjects because your father's a poor lot. ' That's a nice line of conductto map out for your only son. Yet that's practically what my fatherwishes me to do. But he's brought me up a gentleman, by George, " saidDick straightening himself, "and it's too late to ask me to be a beastlycad. Besides that, " and voice and figure drooped to despondency again, "I just can't give her up. "

The Bishop's keen eyes were on the troubled face, and in their depthslurked a kindly shade of amusement. He could see stubborn old DickFielding in stubborn young Dick Fielding so plainly. Dick the elder hadbeen his friend for forty years. But he said nothing. It was better tolet the boy talk himself out a bit. In a moment Dick began again. 

"Can't see why the governor's so keen against Colonel Preston, anyway. He's lost his money and made a mess of his life, and I rather fancy hedrinks too much. But he's the sort of man you can't help being proudof--bad clothes and vices and all--handsome and charming andthorough-bred--and father must know it. His children love him--he can'tbe such a brute as the governor says. Anyway, I don't want to marry theColonel--what's the use of rowing about the Colonel?" inquired Dick, desperately. 

The Bishop asked a question now: "How many children are there?"

"Only Madge and Eleanor. They're here with their cousins, the Vails, summers. Two or three died between those two, I believe. Lucky, perhaps, for the family has been awfully hard up. Lived on in their big oldplace, in Maryland, with no money at all. I've an idea Madge's motherwasn't so sorry to die--had a hard life of it with the fascinatingColonel. " The Bishop's hand dropped from the boy's shoulder, and shuttightly. "But that has nothing to do with my marrying Madge, " Dick wenton. 

"No, " said the Bishop, shortly. 

"And you see, " said Dick, slipping to another tangent, "it's not themoney I'm keenest about, though of course I want that too, but it'sfather. You believe I think more of my father than of his money, don'tyou? We've been good friends all my life, and he's such a crackerjackold fellow. I'd hate to get along without him. " Dick sighed, from hisboots up--almost six feet. "Couldn't you give him a dressing down, Bishop? Make him see reason?" He looked anxiously up the three inchesthat the Bishop towered above him. 

At ten o'clock the next morning Richard Fielding, owner of the greatFielding Foundries, strolled out on his wide piazza, which, luxurious indeep wicker chairs and Japanese rugs and light, cool furniture, lookedunder scarlet and white awnings, across long boxes of geraniums andvines, out to the sparkling Atlantic. The Bishop, a friendly lightcoming into his thoughtful eyes, took his cigar from his lips andglanced up at his friend. Mr. Fielding kicked a hassock aside, moved atable between them, and settled himself in another chair, and with thescratch of a match, but without a word spoken, they entered into thecompanionship which had been a life-long joy to both. 

"Father and the Bishop are having a song and dance without words, " Dickwas pleased sometimes to say, and felt that he hit it off. The breezecarried the scent of the tobacco in intermittent waves of fragrance, andon the air floated delicately that subtle message of peace, prosperity, and leisure which is part of the mission of a good cigar. Thepleasantness of the wide, cool piazza, with its flowers and vines andgay awnings; the charm of the summer morning, not yet dulled by wear andtear of the day; the steady, deliberate dash of the waves on the beachbelow; the play and shimmer of the big, quiet water, stretching out tothe edge of the world; all this filled their minds, rested their souls. There was no need for words. The Bishop sighed comfortably as he pushedhis great shoulders back against the cool wicker of the chair and swungone long leg across the other. Fielding, chin up and lips rounded to letout a cloud of smoke, rested his hand, cigar between the fingers, on thetable, and gazed at him satisfied. This was the man, after Dick, dearestto him in the world. Into which peaceful Eden stole at this point theserpent, and, as is usual, in the shape of woman. Little Eleanor, long-legged, slim, fresh as a flower in her crisp, faded pink dress, came around the corner. In one hot hand she carried, by their heads, abunch of lilac and pink and white sweet peas. It cost her no trouble atall, and about half a minute of time, to charge the atmosphere, so fullof sweet peace and rest, with a saturated solution of bitterness anddisquiet. Her presence alone was a bombshell, and with a sentence or twoin her clear, innocent voice, the fell deed was done. Fielding stoppedsmoking, his cigar in mid-air, and stared with a scowl at the child; butEleanor, delighted to have found the Bishop, saw only him. A shower ofcrushed blossoms fell over his knees. 

"I ran away from Aunt Basha. I brought you a posy for 'Good-mornin', '"she said. The Bishop, collecting the plunder, expressed gratitude. "Dickpicked a whole lot for Madge, and then they went walkin' and forgot 'em. Isn't Dick funny?" she went on. 

Mr. Fielding looked as if Dick's drollness did not appeal to him, butthe Bishop laughed, and put his arm around her. 

"Will you give me a kiss, too, for 'Good-morning, '" he said; and then, "That's better than the flowers. You had better run back to Aunt Bashanow, Eleanor--she'll be frightened. "

Eleanor looked disappointed, "I wanted to ask you 'bout what deadchickens gets to be, if they're good. Pups? Do you reckon it's pups?"

The theory of transmigration of souls had taken strong hold. Mr. Fielding lost his scowl in a look of bewilderment, and the Bishopfrankly shouted out a big laugh. 

"Listen, Eleanor. This afternoon I'll come for you to walk, and we'lltalk that all over. Go home now, my lamb. " And Eleanor, like a pale-pinkover-sized butterfly, went. 

"Do you know that child, Jim?" Mr. Fielding asked, grimly. 

"Yes, " answered the Bishop, with a serene pull at his cigar. 

"Do you know she's the child of that good-for-nothing Fairfax Preston, who married Eleanor Gray against her people's will and took her Southto--to--starve, practically?"

The Bishop drew a long breath, and then he turned and looked at his oldfriend with a clear, wide gaze. "She's Eleanor Gray's child, too, Dick, "he said. 

Mr. Fielding was silent a moment. "Has the boy talked to you?" he asked. The Bishop nodded. "It's the worst trouble I've ever had. It would killme to see him marry that man's daughter. I can't and won't resign myselfto it. Why should I? Why should Dick choose, out of all the world, theone girl in it who would be insufferable to me. I can't give in aboutthis. Much as Dick is to me I'll let him go sooner. I hope you'll seeI'm right, Jim, but right or wrong, I've made up my mind. "

The Bishop stretched a large, bony hand across the little table thatstood between them. Fielding's fell on it. Both men smoked silently fora minute. 

"Have you anything against the girl, Dick?" asked the Bishop, presently. 

"That she's her father's daughter--it's enough. The bad blood ofgenerations is in her. I don't like the South--I don't likeSoutherners. And I detest beyond words Fairfax Preston. But the girl iscertainly beautiful, and they say she is a good girl, too, " heacknowledged, gloomily. 

"Then I think you're wrong, " said the Bishop. 

"You don't understand, Jim, " Fielding took it up passionately. "That manhas been the _bête noir_ of my life. He has gotten in my wayhalf-a-dozen times deliberately, in business affairs, little as heamounts to himself. Only two years ago--but that isn't the point afterall. " He stopped gloomily. "You'll wonder at me, but it's an older feudthan that. I've never told anyone, but I want you to understand, Jim, how impossible this affair is. " He bit off the end of a fresh cigar, lighted it and then threw it across the geraniums into the grass. "Iwanted to marry her mother, " he said, brusquely. "That man got her. Ofcourse, I could have forgiven that, but it was the way he did it. Helied to her--he threw it in my teeth that I had failed. Can't you seehow I shall never forgive him--never, while I live!" The intensity of alife-long, silent hatred trembled in his voice. 

"It's the very thing it's your business to do, Dick, " said the Bishop, quietly. "'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you'--what do youthink that means? It's your very case. It may be the hardest thing inthe world, but it's the simplest, most obvious. " He drew a long puff athis cigar, and looked over the flowers to the ocean. 

"Simple! Obvious!" Fielding's voice was full of bitterness. "That's theway with you churchmen! You live outside passions and temptations, andthen preach against them, with no faintest notion of their force. Itsounds easy, doesn't it? Simple and obvious, as you say. You never lovedEleanor Gray, Jim; you never had to give her up to a man you knewbeneath her; you never had to shut murder out of your heart when youheard that he'd given her a hard life and a glad death. Eleanor Gray! Doyou remember how lovely she was, how high-spirited and full of the joyof life?" The Bishop's great figure was still as if the breath in it hadstopped, but Fielding, carried on the flood of his own rushing feeling, did not notice. "Do you remember, Jim?" he repeated. 

"I remember, " the Bishop said, and his voice sounded very quiet. 

"Jove! How calm you are!" exploded the other. 

"You're a churchman; you live behind a wall, you hear voices through it, but you can't be in the fight--it's easy for you. "

"Life isn't easy for anyone, Dick, " said the Bishop, slowly. "You knowthat. I'm fighting the current as well as you. You are a churchman aswell as I. If it's my _métier_ to preach against human passion, it'syours to resist it. You're letting this man you hate mould yourcharacter; you're letting him burn the kindness out of your soul. He'smaking you bitter and hard and unjust--and you're letting him. I thoughtyou had more will--more poise. It isn't your affair what he is, evenwhat he does, Dick--it's your affair to keep your own judgment unwarped, your own heart gentle, your own soul untainted by the poison of hatred. We are both churchmen, as you put it--loyalty is for us both. You liveyour sermon--I say mine. I have said it. Now live yours. Put thiswormwood away from you. Forgive Preston, as you need forgiveness athigher hands. Don't break the girl's heart, and spoil your boy'slife--it may spoil it--the leaven of bitterness works long. You're at aparting of the ways--take the right turn. Do good and not evil with yourstrength; all the rest is nothing. After all the years there is just onething that counts, and that our mothers told us when we were littlechaps together--be good, Dick. "

The magnetic voice, that had swayed thousands, the indescribable trickof inflection that caught the heart-strings, the pure, high personalitythat shone through look and tone, had never, in all his brilliantcareer, been more full of power than for this audience of one. Fieldinggot up, trembling, and stood before him. 

"Jim, " he said, "whatever else is so, you are that--you are a good man. The trouble is you want me to be as good as you are; and I can't. If youhad had temptations like mine, trials like mine, I might try to followyou--I would try. But you haven't--you're an impossible model for me. You want me to be an angel of light, and I'm only--a man. " He turnedand went into the house. 

The oldest inhabitant had not seen a devotion like the Bishop's andEleanor's. There was in it no condescension on one side, no strain onthe other. The soul that through fulness of life and sorrow andhappiness and effort had reached at last a child's peace met as its likethe little child's soul, that had known neither life nor sorrow norconscious happiness, and was without effort as a lily of the field. Itmay be that the wisdom of babyhood and the wisdom of age will look veryalike to us when we have the wisdom of eternity. And as all the colorsof the spectrum make sunlight, so all his splendid powers that patientyears had made perfect shone through the Bishop's character in the whitelight of simplicity. No one knew what they talked about, the child andthe man, on the long walks that they took together almost every day, except from Eleanor's conversation after. Transmigration, done into thevernacular, and applied with startling directness, was evidently afascinating subject from the first. She brought back as well a vividand epigrammatic version of the nebular hypothesis. 

"Did you hear 'bout what the world did?" she demanded, casually, at thelunch-table. "We were all hot, nasty steam, just like a tea-kettle, andwe cooled off into water, sailin' around so much, and then we got crustson us, bless de Lawd, and then, sir, we kept on gettin' solid, andcircus animals grewed all over us, and then they died, and thank God forthat, and Adam and Evenin' camed, and Madge _can't_ I have some moregingerbread? I'd just as soon be a little sick if you'll let me haveit. "

The "fairyland of science and the long results of time, " passing fromthe Bishop's hands into the child's, were turned into such graphictales, for Eleanor, with all her airy charm, struck straight from theshoulder. Never was there a sense of superiority on the Bishop's side, or of being lectured on Eleanor's. 

"Why do you like to walk with the Bishop?" Mrs. Vail asked, curiously. 

"Because he hasn't any morals, " said the little girl, fresh from aSunday-school lesson. 

Saturday night Mr. Fielding stayed late in the city, and Dick was withhis lady-love at the Vails; so the Bishop, after dining alone, went downon the wide beach below the house and walked, as he smoked his cigar. Through the week he had been restless under the constant prick of a dutyundone, which he could not make up his mind to do. Over and over heheard his friend's agitated voice. "If you had had temptations likemine, trials like mine, I would try to follow you, " it said. He knewthat the man would be good as his word. He could perhaps win Dick'shappiness for him if he would pick up the gauntlet of that speech. If hecould bring himself to tell Fielding the whole story that he had shut solong ago into silence--that he, too, had cared for Eleanor Gray, and hadgiven her up in a harder way than the other, for the Bishop had made itpossible that the Southerner should marry her. But it was like tearinghis soul to do it. No one but his mother, who was dead, had known thisone secret of a life like crystal. The Bishop's reticence was theintense sort, that often goes with a frank exterior, and he had nevercared for another woman. Some men's hearts are open pleasure-grounds, where all the world may come and go, and the earth is dusty with manyfeet; and some are like theatres, shut perhaps to the world in general, but which a passport of beauty or charm may always open; and with many, of finer clay, there are but two or three ways into a guarded temple, and only the touchstone of quality may let pass the lightest foot uponthe carefully tended sod. But now and then a heart is Holy of Holies. Long ago the Bishop, lifting a young face from the books that absorbedhim, had seen a girl's figure filling the narrow doorway, and dazzled bythe radiance of it, had placed that image on the lonely altar, where theflame waited, before unconsecrated. Then the girl had gone, and he hadquietly shut the door and lived his life outside. But the sealed placewas there, and the fire burned before the old picture. Why should he, for Dick Fielding, for any one, let the light of day upon thatstillness? The one thing in life that was his own, and all these yearshe had kept it sacred--why should he? Fiercely, with the old animaljealousy of ownership, he guarded for himself that memory--what wasthere on earth that could make him share it? And in answer there rosebefore him the vision of Madge Preston, with a haunting air of hermother about her; of young Dick Fielding, almost his own child frombabyhood, his honest soul torn between two duties; of old Dick Fielding, loyal and kind and obstinate, his stubborn feet, the feet that hadwalked near his for forty years, needing only a touch to turn them intothe right path. 

Back and forth the thoughts buffeted each other, and the Bishop sighed, and threw away his cigar, and then stopped and stared out at thedarkening, great ocean. The steady rush and pause and low wash ofretreat did not calm him to-night. 

"I'd like to turn it off for five minutes. It's so eternally right, " hesaid aloud and began to walk restlessly again. 

Behind him came light steps, but he did not hear them on the soft sand, in the noise of a breaking wave. A small, firm hand slipped into his wasthe first that he knew of another presence, and he did not need to lookdown at the bright head to know it was Eleanor, and the touch thrilledhim in his loneliness. Neither spoke, but swung on across the sand, sideby side, the child springing easily to keep pace with his great step. Beside the gift of English, Eleanor had its comrade gift of excellentsilence. Those who are born to know rightly the charm and the power andthe value of words, know as well the value of the rests in the music. Little Eleanor, her nervous fingers clutched around the Bishop's bigthumb, was pouring strength and comfort into him, and such an instinctkept her quiet. 

So they walked for a long half-hour, the Bishop fighting out his battle, sometimes stopping, sometimes talking aloud to himself, but Eleanor, through it all, not speaking. Once or twice he felt her face laidagainst his hand, and her hair that brushed his wrist, and the savageselfishness of reserve slowly dissolved in the warmth of that lighttouch and the steady current of gentleness it diffused through him. Clearly and more clearly he saw his way and, as always happens, as hecame near to the mountain, the mountain grew lower. "Over the Alps liesItaly. " Why should he count the height when the Italy of Dick'shappiness and Fielding's duty done lay beyond? The clean-handed, light-hearted disregard of self that had been his habit of mind alwayscame flooding back like sunshine as he felt his decision made. Afterall, doing a duty lies almost entirely in deciding to do it. He stoopedand picked Eleanor up in his arms. 

"Isn't the baby sleepy? We've settled it together--it's all right now, Eleanor. I'll carry you back to Aunt Basha. "

"Is it all right now?" asked Eleanor, drowsily. "No, I'll walk, " kickingherself downward. "But you come wiv me. " And the Bishop escorted hislady-love to her castle, where the warden, Aunt Basha, was for this halfhour making night vocal with lamentations for the runaway. 

"Po' lil lamb!" said Aunt Basha, with an undisguised scowl at theBishop. "Seems like some folks dunno nuff to know a baby's bedtime. Seems like de Lawd's anointed wuz in po' business, ti'in' out chillens!"

"I'm sorry, Aunt Basha, " said the Bishop, humbly. "I'll bring her backearlier again. I forgot all about the time. "

"Huh!" was all the response that Aunt Basha vouchsafed, and the Bishop, feeling himself hopelessly in the wrong, withdrew in discreet silence. 

Luncheon was over the next day and the two men were quietly smokingtogether in the hot, drowsy quiet of the July mid-afternoon before theBishop found a chance to speak to Fielding alone. There was an hour anda half before service, and this was the time to say his say, and hegathered himself for it, when suddenly the tongue of the ready speaker, the _savoir faire_ of the finished man of the world, the mastery ofsituations which had always come as easily as his breath, all failed himat once. 

"Dick, " he stammered, "there is something I want to tell you, " and heturned on his friend a face which astounded him. 

"What on earth is it? You look as if you'd been caught stealing a hat, "he responded, encouragingly. 

The Bishop felt his heart thumping as that healthy organ had notthumped for years. "I feel a bit that way, " he gasped. "You rememberwhat we were talking of the other day?"

"The other day--talking--" Fielding looked bewildered. Then his facedarkened. "You mean Dick--the affair with that girl. " His voice was atonce hard and unresponsive. "What about it?"

"Not at all, " said the Bishop, complainingly. "Don't misunderstand likethat, Dick--it's so much harder. "

"Oh!" and Fielding's look cleared. "Well, what is it then, old man? Outwith it--want a check for a mission? Surely you don't hesitate to tellme that! Whatever I have is yours, too--you know it. "

The Bishop looked deeply disgusted. "Muddlehead!" was his unexpectedanswer, and Fielding, serene in the consciousness of generosity and goodfeeling, looked as if a hose had been turned on him. 

"What the devil!" he said. "Excuse me, Jim, but just tell me what you'reafter. I can't make you out. "

"It's most difficult. " The Bishop seemed to articulate with trouble. "It was so long ago, and I've never spoken of it. " Fielding, mouth andeyes wide, watched him as he stumbled on. "There were three of us, yousee--though, of course, you didn't know. Nobody knew. She told mymother, that was all. --Oh, I'd no idea how difficult this would be, " andthe Bishop pushed back his damp hair and gasped again. Suddenly a waveof color rushed over his face. 

"No one could help it, Dick, " he said. "She was so lovely, so exquisite, so--"

Fielding rose quickly and put his hand on his friend's forehead, "Jim, my dear boy, " he said gravely, "this heat has been too much for you. Sitthere quietly, while I get some ice. Here, let me loosen your collar, "and he put his fingers on the white clerical tie. 

Then the Bishop rose up in his wrath and shook him off, and his deepblue eyes flashed fire. 

"Let me alone, " he said. "It is inexplicable to me how a man can be sodense. Haven't I explained to you in the plainest way what I have nevertold another soul? Is this the reward I am to have for making thegreatest effort I have made for years?" And after a moment's steady, indignant glare at the speechless Fielding he turned and strode in angrymajesty through the wide hall doorway. 

When he walked out of the same doorway an hour later, on his way toservice, Fielding sat back in a shadowy corner and let him pass withouta word. He watched critically the broad shoulders and athletic figure ashis friend moved down the narrow walk--a body carefully trained to holdwell and easily the trained mind within. But the careless energy thatwas used to radiate from the great elastic muscles seemed lackingto-day, and the erect head drooped. Fielding shook his own head as theBishop turned the corner and went out of his view. 

"'_Mens sana in corpore sano_, '" he said aloud, and sighed. "He hasworked too hard this summer. I never saw him like that. If he should--"and he stopped; then he rose, and looked at his watch and slowlyfollowed the Bishop's steps. 

The little church of Saint Peter's-by-the-Sea was filled even on thishot July afternoon, to hear the famous Bishop, and in the half-lightthat fell through painted windows and lay like a dim violet veil againstthe gray walls, the congregation with summer gowns and flowery hats, hada billowy effect as of a wave tipped everywhere with foam. Fielding, sitting far back, saw only the white-robed Bishop, and hardly heard thewords he said, through listening for the modulations of his voice. Hewas anxious for the man who was dear to him, and the service and itsminister were secondary to-day. But gradually the calm, reverent, well-known tones reassured him, and he yielded to the pleasure ofletting his thoughts be led, by the voice that stood to him forgoodness, into the spirit of the words that are filled with the beautyof holiness. At last it was time for the sermon, and the Bishop toweredin the low stone pulpit and turned half away from them all as he raisedone arm high with a quick, sweeping gesture. 

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!"he said, and was still. 

A shaft of yellow light fell through a memorial window and struck agolden bar against the white lawn of his surplice, and Fielding, staringat him with eyes of almost passionate devotion, thought suddenly of SirGalahad, and of that "long beam" down which had "slid the Holy Grail. "Surely the flame of that old vigorous Christianity had never burnedhigher or steadier. A marvellous life for this day, kept, like theflower of Knighthood, strong and beautiful and "unspotted from theworld. " Fielding sighed as he thought of his own life, full of goodimpulses, but crowded with mistakes, with worldliness, with loweredideals, with yieldings to temptation. Then, with a pang, he thoughtabout Dick, about the crisis for him that the next week must bring, andhe heard again the Bishop's steady, uncompromising words as they talkedon the piazza. And on a wave of selfish feeling rushed back the oldexcuses. "It is different. It is easy for him to be good. Dick is nothis son. He has never been tempted like other men. He never hatedFairfax Preston--he never loved Eleanor Gray. " And back somewhere in thedark places of his consciousness began to work a dim thought of hisfriend's puzzling words of that day: "No one could help loving her--shewas so lovely--so exquisite!"

The congregation rustled softly everywhere as the people settledthemselves to listen--they listened always to him. And across the hushthat followed came the Bishop's voice again, tranquilly breaking, notjarring, the silence. "Not disobedient to the heavenly vision, " were thewords he was saying, and Fielding dropped at once the thread of his ownthought to listen. 

He spoke quickly, clearly, in short Anglo-Saxon words--the words thatcarry their message straightest to hearts red with Saxon blood--of thecomplex nature of every man--how the angel and the demon live in eachand vary through all the shades of good and bad. How yet in each thereis always the possibility of a highest and best that can be true forthat personality only--a dream to be realized of the lovely life, blooming into its own flower of beauty, that God means each life to be. In his own rushing words he clothed the simple thought of the chargethat each one has to keep his angel strong, the white wings free forhigher flights that come with growth. 

"The vision, " he said, "is born with each of us, and though we lose itagain and again, yet again and again it comes back and beckons, calls, and the voice thrills us always. And we must follow, or lose the way. Through ice and flame we must follow. And no one may look across whereanother soul moves on a quick, straight path and think that the way iseasier for the other. No one can see if the rocks are not cutting hisfriend's feet; no one can know what burning lands he has crossed tofollow, to be so close to his angel, his messenger. Believe always thatevery other life has been more tempted, more tried than your own;believe that the lives higher and better than your own are so notthrough more ease, but more effort; that the lives lower than yours areso through less opportunity, more trial. Believe that your friend withpeace in his heart has won it, not happened on it--that he has foughtyour very fight. So the mist will melt from your eyes and you will seeclearer the vision of your life and the way it leads you; selfishnesswill fall from your shoulders and you will follow lightly. And at theend, and along the way you will have the glory of effort, the joy offighting and winning, the beauty of the heights where only an ideal cantake you. "

What more he said Fielding did not hear--for him one sentence had beenthe final word. The unlaid ghost of the Bishop's puzzling talk an hourbefore rose up and from its lips came, as if in full explanation, "Hehas fought your very fight. " He sat in his shadowy, dark corner of thecool, little stone church, and while the congregation rose and knelt andsang and prayed, he was still. Piece by piece he fitted the mosaic ofpast and present, and each bit slipped faultlessly into place. There wasno question in his mind now as to the fact, and his manliness and honorrushed to meet the situation. He had said that where his friend had gonehe would go. If it was down the road of renunciation of a life-longenmity, he would not break his word. Complex problems resolve themselvesat the point of action into such simple axioms. Dick should have ablessing and his sweetheart; he would do his best for Fairfax Preston;with his might he would keep his word. A great sigh and a wrench at hisheart as if a physical growth of years were tearing away, and thedecision was made. Then, in a mist of pain and effort, and a surprisednew freedom from the accustomed pang of hatred, he heard the rustle andmovement of a kneeling congregation, and, as he looked, the Bishopraised his arms. Fielding bent his gray head quickly in his hands, andover it, laden with "peace" and "the blessing of God Almighty, " as if ageneral commended his soldier on the field of battle, swept the solemnwords of the benediction. 

Peace touched the earth on the blue and white September day when Madgeand Dick were married. Pearly piled-up clouds, white "herded elephants, "lay still against a sparkling sky, and the air was alive like cool wine, and breathing warm breaths of sunlight. No wedding was ever gayer orprettier, from the moment when the smiling holiday crowd in little SaintPeter's caught their breath at the first notes of "Lohengrin" andturned to see Eleanor, white-clad and solemn, and impressed withresponsibility, lead the procession slowly up the aisle, her eyes raisedto the Bishop's calm face in the chancel, to the moment when, in showersof rice and laughter and slippers, the Fielding carriage dashed down thedriveway, and Dick, leaning out, caught for a last picture of hiswedding-day, standing apart from the bright colors grouped on the lawn, the black and white of the Bishop and Eleanor, gazing after them, handin hand. 

Bit by bit the brilliant kaleidoscopic effect fell apart and resolveditself into light groups against the dark foliage or flashing masses ofcarriages and people and horses, and then even the blurs on the distancewere gone, and the place was still and the wedding was over. The longafternoon was before them, with its restless emptiness, as if the brideand groom had taken all the reason for life with them. 

There were bridesmaids and ushers staying at the Fieldings'. Thegraceful girl who poured out the Bishop's tea on the piazza, some hourslater, and brought it to him with her own hands, stared a little at hisface for a moment. 

"You look tired, Bishop. Is it hard work marrying people? But you mustbe used to it after all these years, " and her blue eyes fell gently onhis gray hair. "So many love-stories you have finished--so many, many!"she went on, and then quite softly, "and yet never to have a love-storyof your own!"

At this instant Eleanor, lolling on the arm of his chair, slipped overon his knee and burrowed against his coat a big pink bow that tied herhair. The Bishop's arm tightened around the warm, alive lump of whitemuslin, and he lifted his face, where lines showed plainly to-day, witha smile like sunshine. 

"You are wrong, my daughter. They never finish--they only begin here. And my love-story"--he hesitated and his big fingers spread over thechild's head, "It is all written in Eleanor's eyes. "

"I hope when mine comes I shall have the luck to hear anything half aspretty as that. I envy Eleanor, " said the graceful bridesmaid as shetook the tea-cup again, but the Bishop did not hear her. 

[Illustration: "Many waters shall not wash out this love, " said Eleanor]

He had turned toward the sea and his eyes wandered out across thegeraniums where the shadow of a sun-filled cloud lay over uncountedacres of unhurried waves. His face was against the little girl's brighthead, and he said something softly to himself, and the child turned herface quickly and smiled at him and repeated the words:

"Many waters shall not wash out love, " said Eleanor. 

THE WITNESSES

The old clergyman sighed and closed the volume of "Browne on TheThirty-nine Articles, " and pushed it from him on the table. He could nottell what the words meant; he could not keep his mind tense enough tofollow an argument of three sentences. It must be that he was verytired. He looked into the fire, which was burning badly, and about thebare, little, dusty study, and realized suddenly that he was tired allthe way through, body and soul. And swiftly, by way of the leak whichthat admission made in the sea-wall of his courage, rushed in an oceanof depression. It had been a hard, bad day. Two people had given uptheir pews in the little church which needed so urgently every ounce ofsupport that held it. And the junior warden, the one rich man of theparish, had come in before service in the afternoon to complain of themusic. If that knife-edged soprano did not go, he said, he was afraid heshould have to go himself; it was impossible to have his nerves scrapedto the raw every Sunday. 

The old clergyman knew very little about music, but he remembered thathis ear had been uncomfortably jarred by sounds from the choir, and thathe had turned once and looked at them, and wondered if some one had madea mistake, and who it was. It must be, then, that dear Miss Barlow, whohad sung so faithfully in St. John's for twenty-five years, was perhapsgrowing old. But how could he tell her so; how could he deal such a blowto her kind heart, her simple pride and interest in her work? He wasgrowing old, too. 

His sensitive mouth carved downward as he stared into the smolderingfire, and let himself, for this one time out of many times he hadresisted, face the facts. It was not Miss Barlow and the poor music; itwas not that the church was badly heated, as one of the ex-pewholdershad said, nor that it was badly situated, as another had claimed; it wassomething of deeper, wider significance, a broken foundation, that madethe ugly, widening crack all through the height of the tower. It washis own inefficiency. The church was going steadily down, and he waspowerless to lift it. His old enthusiasm, devotion, confidence--what hadbecome of them? They seemed to have slipped by slow degrees, through theunsuccessful years, out of his soul, and in their place was a dulldistrust of himself; almost--God forgive him--distrust in God'skindness. He had worked with his might all the years of his life, andwhat he had to show for it was a poor, lukewarm parish, a diminishedcongregation, debt--to put it in one dreadful word, failure!

[Illustration: He stared into the smoldering fire. ]

By the pitiless searchlight of hopelessness, he saw himself for thefirst time as he was--surely devoted and sincere, but narrow, limited, aman lacking outward expression of inward and spiritual grace. He hadnever had the gift to win hearts. That had not troubled him much, earlier, but lately he had longed for a little appreciation, a littlehuman love, some sign that he had not worked always in vain. Heremembered the few times that people had stopped after service to praisehis sermons, and to-night he remembered not so much the glow at hisheart that the kind words had brought, as the fact that those times hadbeen very few. He did not preach good sermons; he faced that now, unflinchingly. He was not broad minded; new thoughts were unattractive, hard for him to assimilate; he had championed always theories that weregoing out of fashion, and the half-consciousness of it put him ever onthe defensive; when most he wished to be gentle, there was something inhis manner which antagonized. As he looked back over his colorless, conscientious past, it seemed to him that his life was a failure. Thesouls he had reached, the work he had done with such infinite effort--itmight all have been done better and easily by another man. He would notbegrudge his strength and his years burned freely in the sacred fire, ifhe might know that the flame had shone even faintly in dark places, thatthe heat had warmed but a little the hearts of men. But--he smiledgrimly at the logs in front of him, in the small, cheap, black marblefireplace--his influence was much like that, he thought, cold, dull, ugly with uncertain smoke. He, who was not worthy, had dared toconsecrate himself to a high service, and it was his reasonablepunishment that his life had been useless. 

Like a stab came back the thought of the junior warden, of the two moreempty pews, and then the thought, in irresistible self-pity, of how hardhe had tried, how well he had meant, how much he had given up, and hefelt his eyes filling with a man's painful, bitter tears. There had beenso little beauty, reward, in his whole past. Once, thirty years before, he had gone abroad for six weeks, and he remembered the trip with athrill of wonder that anything so lovely could have come into his sombrelife--the voyage, the bit of travel, the new countries, the old cities, the expansion, broadening of mind he had felt for a time as its result. More than all, the delight of the people whom he had met, the unusedexperience of being understood at once, of light touch and easyflexibility, possible, as he had not known before, with good and seriousqualities. One man, above all, he had never forgotten. It had been apleasant memory always to have known him, to have been friends with himeven, for he had felt to his own surprise and joy that something in himattracted this man of men. He had followed the other's career, a careerfull of success unabused, of power grandly used, of responsibilitylifted with a will. He stood over thousands and ruled rightly--a trueprince among men. Somewhat too broad, too free in his thinking--the oldclergyman deplored that fault--yet a man might not be perfect. It waspleasant to know that this strong and good soul was in the world and washappy; he had seen him once with his son, and the boy's fine, sensitiveface, his honest eyes, and pretty deference of manner, his pride, too, in his distinguished father, were surely a guaranty of happiness. Theold man felt a sudden generous gladness that if some lives must bewasted, yet some might be, like this man's whom he had once known, fullof beauty and service. It would be good if he might add a drop to thecup of happiness which meant happiness to so many--and then he smiled athis foolish thought. That he should think of helping that other--a manof so little importance to help a man of so much! And suddenly again hefelt tears that welled up hotly. 

He put his gray head, with its scanty, carefully brushed hair, backagainst the support of the worn armchair, and shut his eyes to keep themback. He would try not to be cowardly. Then, with the closing of thesoul-windows, mental and physical fatigue brought their own gentlehealing, and in the cold, little study, bare, even, of many books, withthe fire smoldering cheerlessly before him, he fell asleep. 

 * * * * *

A few miles away, in a suburb of the same great city, in a large librarypeopled with books, luxurious with pictures and soft-toned rugs andcarved dark furniture, a man sat staring into the fire. The six-footlogs crackled and roared up the chimney, and the blaze lighted the wide, dignified room. From the high chimney-piece, that had been the featureof a great hall in Florence two centuries before, grotesque heads ofblack oak looked down with a gaze which seemed weighted with age-oldwisdom and cynicism, at the man's sad face. The glow of the lamp, shining like a huge gray-green jewel, lighted unobtrusively the generoussweep of table at his right hand, and on it were books whose presencemeant the thought of a scholar and the broad interests of a man ofaffairs. Each detail of the great room, if there had been an observer ofits quiet perfection, had an importance of its own, yet each exquisitebelonging fell swiftly into the dimness of the background of a picturewhen one saw the man who was the master. Among a thousand picked men, his face and figure would have been distinguished. People did not callhim old, for the alertness and force of youth radiated from him, and hisgray eyes were clear and his color fresh, yet the face was linedheavily, and the thick thatch of hair shone in the firelight silverywhite. Face and figure were full of character and breeding, of lifelived to its utmost, of will, responsibility, success. Yet to-night thespring of the mechanism seemed broken, and the noble head lay backagainst the brown leather of his deep chair as listlessly as a tiredgirl's. He watched the dry wood of the fire as it blazed and fell apartand blazed up brightly again, yet his eyes did not seem to seeit--their absorbed gaze was inward. 

The distant door of the room swung open, but the man did not hear, and, his head and face clear cut like a cameo against the dark leather, handsstretched nervelessly along the arms of the chair, eyes gazing gloomilyinto the heart of the flame, he was still. A young man, brilliant withstrength, yet with a worn air about him, and deep circles under hiseyes, stood inside the room and looked at him a long minute--those twoin the silence. The fire crackled cheerfully and the old man sighed. 

"Father!" said the young man by the door. 

In a second the whole pose changed, and he sat intense, staring, whilethe son came toward him and stood across the rug, against the dark woodof the Florentine fireplace, a picture of young manhood which any fatherwould he proud to own. 

"Of course, I don't know if you want me, father, " he said, "but I'vecome to tell you that I'll be a good boy, if you do. "

The gentle, half-joking manner was very winning, and the play of hiswords was trembling with earnest. The older man's face shone as if lampswere lighted behind his eyes. 

"If I want you, Ted!" he said, and held out his hand. 

With a quick step forward the lad caught it, and then, with quickimpulsiveness, as if his childhood came back to him on the flood offeeling unashamed, bent down and kissed him. As he stood erect again helaughed a little, but the muscles of his face were working, and therewere tears in his eyes. With a swift movement he had drawn a chair, andthe two sat quiet a moment, looking at each other in deep and silentcontent to be there so, together. 

"Yesterday I thought I'd never see you again this way, " said the boy;and his father only smiled at him, satisfied as yet without words. Theson went on, his eager, stirred feelings crowding to his lips. "Thereisn't any question great enough, there isn't any quarrel big enough, tokeep us apart, I think, father. I found that out this afternoon. When achap has a father like you, who has given him a childhood and a youthlike mine--" The young voice stopped, trembling. In a moment he hadmastered himself. "I'll probably never be able to talk to you like thisagain, so I want to say it all now. I want to say that I know, beyonddoubt, that you would never decide anything, as I would, on impulse, orprejudice, or from any motives but the highest. I know how well-balancedyou are, and how firmly your reason holds your feelings. So it's aquestion between your judgment and mine--and I'm going to trust yours. You may know me better than I know myself, and anyway you're more to methan any career, though I did think--but we won't discuss it again. Itwould have been a tremendous risk, of course, and it shall be as yousay. I found out this afternoon how much of my life you were, " herepeated. 

The older man kept his eyes fixed on the dark, sensitive, glowing youngface, as if they were thirsty for the sight. "What do you mean byfinding it out this afternoon, Ted? Did anything happen to you?"

The young fellow turned his eyes, that were still a bit wet with thetears, to his father's face, and they shone like brown stars. "It was aqueer thing, " he said, earnestly, "It was the sort of thing you read instories--almost like, " he hesitated, "like Providence, you know. I'lltell you about it; see if you don't think so. Two days ago, when I--whenI left you, father--I caught a train to the city and went straight tothe club, from habit, I suppose, and because I was too dazed andwretched to think. Of course, I found a grist of men there, and theywouldn't let me go. I told them I was ill, but they laughed at me. Idon't remember just what I did, for I was in a bad dream, but I wasabout with them, and more men I knew kept turning up--I couldn't seem toescape my friends. Even if I stayed in my room, they hunted me up. Sothis morning I shifted to the Oriental, and shut myself up in my roomthere, and tried to think and plan. But I felt pretty rotten, and Icouldn't see daylight, so I went down to lunch, and who should be at thenext table but the Dangerfields, the whole outfit, just back fromEngland and bursting with cheerfulness! They made me lunch with them, and it was ghastly to rattle along feeling as I did, but I got away assoon us I decently could--rather sooner, I think--and went for a walk, hoping the air would clear my head. I tramped miles--oh, a long time, but it seemed not to do any good; I felt deadlier and more hopeless thanever--I haven't been very comfortable fighting you, " he stopped aminute, and his tired face turned to his father's with a smile of verywinning gentleness. 

The father tried to speak, but, his voice caught harshly. Then, "We'llmake it up, Ted, " he said, and laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. 

The young fellow, as if that touch had silenced him, gazed into the firethoughtfully, and the big room was very still for a long minute. Then helooked up brightly. 

"I want to tell you the rest. I came back from my tramp by the riverdrive, and suddenly I saw Griswold on his horse trotting up thebridle-path toward me. I drew the line at seeing any more men, andGriswold is the worst of the lot for wanting to do things, so I turnedinto a side-street and ran. I had an idea he had seen me, so when Icame to a little church with the doors open, in the first half-block, Ishot in. Being Lent, you know, there was service going on, and I droppedquietly into a seat at the back, and it came to me in a minute, that Iwas in fit shape to say my prayers, so--I said 'em. It quieted me a bit, the old words of the service. They're fine English, of course, and Ithink words get a hold on you when they're associated with every turn ofyour life. So I felt a little less like a wild beast, by the time theclergyman began his sermon. He was a pathetic old fellow, thin andascetic and sad, with a narrow forehead and a little white hair, and anunderfed look about him. The whole place seemed poor and badly kept. Ashe walked across the chancel, he stumbled on a hole in the carpet. Istared at him, and suddenly it struck me that he must be about your age, and it was like a knife in me, father, to see him trip. No two men wereever more of a contrast, but through that very fact he seemed to bestanding there as a living message from you. So when he opened his mouthto give out his text I fell back as if he had struck me, for the wordshe said were, 'I will arise and go to my father. '"

The boy's tones, in the press and rush of his little story, weredramatic, swift, and when he brought out its climax, the older man, though his tense muscles were still, drew a sudden breath, as if he, too, had felt a blow. But he said nothing, and the eager young voicewent on. 

"The skies might have opened and the Lord's finger pointed at me, and Icouldn't have felt more shocked. The sermon was mostly tommy-rot, youknow--platitudes. You could see that the man wasn't clever--had nograsp--old-fashioned ideas--didn't seem to have read at all. There wasreally nothing in it, and after a few sentences I didn't listenparticularly. But there were two things about it I shall never forget, never, if I live to a hundred. First, all through, at every tone of hisvoice, there was the thought that the brokenhearted look in the eyes ofthis man, such a contrast to you in every way possible, might be thevery look in your eyes after a while, if I left you. I think I'm notvain to know I make a lot of difference to you, father--considering wetwo are all alone. " There was a questioning inflection, but he smiled, as if he knew. 

"You make all the difference. You are the foundation of my life. All therest counts for nothing beside you. " The father's voice was slow andvery quiet. 

"That thought haunted me, " went on the young man, a bit unsteadily, "andthe contrast of the old clergyman and you made it seem as if you werethere beside me. It sounds unreasonable, but it was so. I looked at him, old, poor, unsuccessful, narrow-minded, with hardly even the dignity ofage, and I couldn't help seeing a vision of you, every year of your lifea glory to you, with your splendid mind, and splendid body, and all thepower and honor and luxury that seem a natural background to you. Proudas I am of you, it seemed cruel, and then it came to my mind like a stabthat perhaps without me, your only son, all of that would--well, whatyou said just now. Would count for nothing--that you would bepractically, some day, just a lonely and pathetic old man like thatother. "

The hand on the boy's shoulder stirred a little. "You thought right, Ted. "

"That was one impression the clergyman's sermon made, and the other wassimply his beautiful goodness. It shone from him at every syllable, uninspired and uninteresting as they were. You couldn't help knowingthat his soul was white as an angel's. Such sincerity, devotion, purityas his couldn't be mistaken. As I realized it, it transfigured the wholeplace. It made me feel that if that quality--just goodness--could soglorify all the defects of his look and mind and manner, it must beworth while, and I would like to have it. So I knew what was right in myheart--I think you can always know what's right if you want to know--andI just chucked my pride and my stubbornness into the street, and--and Icaught the 7:35 train. "

The light of renunciation, the exhaustion of wrenching effort, thetrembling triumph of hard-won victory, were in the boy's face, and thethought, as he looked at it, dear and familiar in every shadow, that hehad never seen spirit shine through clay more transparently. Never intheir lives had the two been as close, never had the son so unveiled hissoul before. And, as he had said, in all probability never would it beagain. To the depth where they stood words could not reach, and againfor minutes, only the friendly undertone of the crackling fire stirredthe silence of the great room. The sound brought steadiness to the twowho sat there, the old hand on the young shoulder yet. After a time, theolder man's low and strong tones, a little uneven, a little hard withthe effort to be commonplace, which is the first readjustment from deepfeeling, seemed to catch the music of the homely accompaniment of thefire. 

"It is a queer thing, Ted, " he said, "but once, when I was not mucholder than you, just such an unexpected chance influence made a crisisin my life. I was crossing to England with the deliberate intention ofdoing something which I knew was wrong. I thought it meant happiness, but I know now it would have meant misery. On the boat was a youngclergyman of about my own age making his first, very likely his only, trip abroad. I was thrown with him--we sat next each other at table, andour cabins faced--and something in the man attracted me, a quality suchas you speak of in this other, of pure and uncommon goodness. He wasmuch the same sort as your old man, I fancy, not particularly winning, rather narrow, rather limited in brains and in advantages, with anatural distrust of progress and breadth. We talked together often, andone day, I saw, by accident, into the depths of his soul, and knew whathe had sacrificed to become a clergyman--it was what meant to himhappiness and advancement in life. It had been a desperate effort, thatwas plain, but it was plain, too, that from the moment he saw what hethought was the right, there had been no hesitation in his mind. And I, with all my wider mental training, my greater breadth--as I looked atit--was going, with my eyes open, to do a wrong because I wished to doit. You and I must be built something alike, Ted, for a touch in theright spot seems to penetrate to the core of us--the one and the other. This man's simple and intense flame of right living, right doing, allunconsciously to himself, burned into me, and all that I had planned todo seemed scorched in that fire--turned to ashes and bitterness. Ofcourse it was not so simple as it sounds. I went through a great deal. But the steady influence for good was beside me through that longpassage--we were two weeks--the stronger because it was unconscious, thestronger, I think, too, that it rested on no intellectual basis, but waswholly and purely spiritual--as the confidence of a child might hold aman to his duty where the arguments of a sophist would have no effect. As I say, I went through a great deal. My mind was a battle-field forthe powers of good and evil during those two weeks, but the man who wasleading the forces of the right never knew it. The outcome was that assoon as I landed I took my passage back on the next boat, which sailedat once. Within a year, within a month almost, I knew that the decisionI made then was a turning-point, that to have done otherwise would havemeant ruin in more than one way. I tremble now to think how close I wasto shipwreck. All that I am, all that I have, I owe more or lessdirectly to that man's unknown influence. The measure of a life is itsservice. Much opportunity for that, much power has been in my hands, andI have tried to hold it humbly and reverently, remembering that time. Ihave thought of myself many times us merely the instrument, fitted toits special use, of that consecrated soul. "

The voice stopped, and the boy, his wide, shining eyes fixed on hisfather's face, drew a long breath. In a moment he spoke, and the fatherknew, as well as if he had said it, how little of his feeling he couldput into words. 

"It makes you shiver, doesn't it, " he said, "to think what effect youmay be having on people, and never know it? Both you and I, father--ourlives changed, saved--by the influence of two strangers, who hadn'tthe least idea what they were doing. It frightens you. "

"I think it makes you know, " said the older man, slowly, "that not yourleast thought is unimportant; that the radiance of your character shinesfor good or evil where you go. Our thoughts, our influences, are likebirds that fly from us as we walk along the road; one by one, we openour hands and loose them, and they are gone and forgotten, but surelythere will be a day when they will come back on white wings or dark likea cloud of witnesses--"

The man stopped, his voice died away softly, and he stared into theblaze with solemn eyes, as if he saw a vision. The boy, suddenly awareagain of the strong hand on his shoulder, leaned against it lovingly, and the fire, talking unconcernedly on, was for a long time the onlysound in the warmth and stillness and luxury of the great room whichheld two souls at peace. 

 * * * * *

At that hour, with the volume of Browne under his outstretched hand, histhin gray hair resting against the worn cloth of the chair, in the barelittle study, the old clergyman slept. And as he slept, a wonderfuldream came to him. He thought that he had gone from this familiar, hardworld, and stood, in his old clothes, with his old discouraged soul, inthe light of the infinitely glorious Presence, where he must surelystand at last. And the question was asked him, wordlessly, solemnly:

"Child of mine, what have you made of the life given you?" And he lookeddown humbly at his shabby self, and answered:

"Lord, nothing. My life is a failure. I worked all day in God's garden, and my plants were twisted and my roses never bloomed. For all myfighting, the weeds grew thicker. I could not learn to make the goodthings grow, I tried to work rightly, Lord, my Master, but I must havedone it all wrong. "

And as he stood sorrowful, with no harvest sheaves to offer as witnessesfor his toiling, suddenly back of him he heard a marvellous, many-toned, soft whirring, as of innumerable light wings, and over his head flew acountless crowd of silver-white birds, and floated in the air beyond. And as he gazed, surprised, at their loveliness, without speech again itwas said to him:

"My child, these are your witnesses. These are the thoughts and theinfluences which have gone from your mind to other minds through theyears of your life. " And they were all pure white. 

And it was borne in upon him, as if a bandage had been lifted from hiseyes, that character was what mattered in the great end; that success, riches, environment, intellect, even, were but the tools the master gaveinto his servants' hands, and that the honesty of the work was all theymust answer for. And again he lifted his eyes to the hovering whitebirds, and with a great thrill of joy it came to him that he had hisoffering, too, he had this lovely multitude for a gift to the Master;and, as if the thought had clothed him with glory, he saw his poor blackclothes suddenly transfigured to shining garments, and, with a shock, hefelt the rush of a long-forgotten feeling, the feeling of youth andstrength, beating in a warm glow through his veins. With a sigh of deephappiness, the old man awoke. 

A log had fallen, and turning as it fell, the new surface had caughtlife from the half-dead ashes, and had blazed up brightly, and thewarmth was penetrating gratefully through him. The old clergymansmiled, and held his thin hands to the flame as he gazed into the fire, but the wonder and awe of his dream were in his eyes. 

"My beautiful white birds!" he said, aloud, but softly. "Mine! They wereout of sight, but they were there all the time. Surely the dream wassent from Heaven--surely the Lord means me to believe that my life hasbeen of service after all. " And as he still gazed, with rapt face, intohis study fire, he whispered: "Angels came and ministered unto him. "

THE DIAMOND BROOCHES

The room was filled with signs of breeding and cultivation; it wasbare of the things which mean money. Books were everywhere; familyportraits, gone brown with time, hung on the walls; a tall silvercandlestick gleamed from a corner; there was the tarnished gold ofcarved Florentine frames, such as people bring still from Italy. Butthe furniture-covering was faded, the carpet had been turned, theplace itself was the small parlor of a cheap apartment, and thewall-paper was atrocious. The least thoughtful, listening for a momentto that language which a room speaks of those who live in it, wouldhave known this at once as the home of well-bred people who were verypoor. 

So quiet it was that it seemed empty. If an observer had stood in thedoorway, it might have been a minute before he saw that a man sat infront of the fireless hearth with his arms stretched before him on thetable and his head fallen into them. For many minutes there was nosound, no stir of the man's nerveless pose; it might have been that hewas asleep. Suddenly the characterless silence of the place was floodedwith tragedy, for the man groaned, and a child would have known that thesound came from a torn soul. He lifted his face--a handsome, high-bredface, clever, a bit weak, --and tears were wet on his cheeks. He glancedabout as if fearing to be seen as he wiped them away, and at the momentthere was a light bustle, low voices down the hall. The young man sprangto his feet and stood alert as a step came toward him. He caught a sharpbreath as another man, iron-gray, professional, stood in the doorway. 

"Doctor! You have made the examination--you think--" he flung at thenewcomer, and the other answered with the cool incisive manner of onewhose words weigh. 

"Mr. Newbold, " he said, "when you came to my office this morning I toldyou my conjectures and my fear. I need not, therefore, go into detailsagain. I am very sorry to have to say to you--" he stopped, and lookedat the younger man kindly. "I wish I might make it easier, but it isbetter that I should tell you that your mother's condition is as Iexpected. "

Newbold gave way a step as if under a blow, and his color went gray. Thedoctor had seen souls laid bare before, yet he turned his eyes to thefloor as the muscles pulled and strained in this young face. It seemedminutes that the two faced each other in the loaded silence, the doctorgazing gravely at the worn carpet, the other struggling forself-control. At last Newbold spoke, in the harsh tone which often comesfirst after great emotion. 

"You mean that there is--no hope?"

And the doctor, relieved at the loosening of the tension, answeredreadily, glad to merge his humanity in his professional capacity: "No, Mr. Newbold; I do not mean just that. It is this bleak climate, the rawwinds from the lake, which make it impossible for your mother to takethe first step which might lead to recovery. There is, in fact--" hehesitated. "I may say that there is no hope for her cure while here. Butif she is taken to a warm climate at once--at once--within twoweeks--and kept there until summer, then, although I have not the giftof prophecy, yet I believe she would be in time a well woman. Nomedicine, can do it, but out-of-doors and warmth would do it--probably. "

He put out his hand with a smile. "I am indeed glad that I may temperjudgment with mercy, " he said. "Try the south, Mr. Newbold, --tryBermuda, for instance. The sea air and the warmth there might set yourmother up marvellously. " And as the young man stared at himunresponsively he gave a grasp to the hand he held, and turning, foundhis way out alone. He stumbled down the dark steps of the third-rateapartment-house and into his brougham, and as the rubber tires bowledhim over the asphalt he communed with himself:

"Queer about those Newbolds. Badly off, of course, to live in thatplace, yet they know what it means to call me in. There must be somemoney. I wonder if they have enough for a trip, poor souls. Bah! theymust have--everybody has when it comes to life and death. They'll get itsomehow--rich relations and all that. Burr Claflin is their cousin, Iknow. David Newbold himself was rich enough five years ago, when he madethat unlucky gamble in stocks--which killed him, they say. Well--life iscertainly hard. " And the doctor turned his mind to a new pair of horseshe had been looking at in the afternoon, with a comfortable sense of awind-guard or so, at the least, between himself and the gales ofadversity. 

In the little drawing-room, with its cheap paper and its old portraits, Randolph Newbold faced his sister with the news. He knew her courage, yet, even in the stress of his feeling, he wondered at it now; he feltalmost a pang of jealousy when he saw her take the blow as he had notbeen able to take it. 

"It is a death-sentence, " he said, brokenly. "We have not the money tosend her south, and we cannot get it. "

Katherine Newbold's hands clenched. "We will get it, " she said. "I don'tknow how just now, but we'll get it, Randolph. Mother's life shall notgo for lack of a few hundred dollars. Oh, think--just think--six yearsago it would have meant nothing. We went south every winter, and wewere all well. It is too cruel! But we'll get the money--you'll see. "

"How?" the young man asked, bitterly. "The last jewel went so that wecould have Dr. Renfrew. There's nothing here to sell--nobody would buyour ancestors, " and he looked up mournfully at the painted figures onthe wall. The very thought seemed an indignity to those statelypersonalities--the English judge in his wig, the colonial general in hisbuff-faced uniform, harbored for a century proudly among their own, nowspeculated upon as possible revenue. The girl put up a hand toward themas if deprecating her brother's words, and his voice went on: "You knowthe doctor practically told me this morning. I have had no hope all day, and all day I have lived in hell. I don't know how I did my work. To-night, coming home, I walked past Litterny's. The windows werelighted and filled with a gorgeous lot of stones--there were a dozen bigdiamond brooches. I stopped and looked at them, and thought how she usedto wear such things, and how now her life was going for the value ofone of them, and--you may be horrified, Katherine, but this is true: IfI could have broken into that window and snatched some of that stuff, I'd have done it. Honesty and all I've been brought up to would havemeant nothing--nothing. I'd do it now, in a second, if I could, to getthe money to save my mother. God! The town is swimming in money, and Ican't get a little to keep her alive!"

The young man's eyes were wild with a passion of helplessness, but hissister gazed at him calmly, as if considering a question. From a roombeyond came a painful cough, and the girl was on her feet. 

"She is awake; I must go to her. But I shall think--don't be hopeless, boy--I shall think of a way. " And she was gone. 

Worn out with emotion, Randolph Newbold was sleeping a deep sleep thatnight. With a start he awoke, staring at a white figure with long, fairbraids. 

"Randolph, it's I--Katherine. Don't be startled. "

"What's the matter? Is she worse?" He lifted himself anxiously, blinking sleep from his eyes. 

"No--oh no! She's sleeping well. It's just that I have to talk to you, Randolph. Now. I can't wait till morning--you'll understand when I tellyou. I haven't been asleep at all; I've been thinking. I know now how wecan get the money. "

"Katherine, are you raving?" the brother demanded; but the girl was notto be turned aside. 

"Listen to me, " she said, and in her tone was the authority of thestronger personality, and the young man listened. She sat on the edge ofhis bed and held his hand as she talked, and through their lives neithermight ever forget that midnight council. 

 * * * * *

The room had an air of having come in perfect and luxurious condition, fur-lined and jewel-clasped, as it were, from the hands of a gooddecorator, and of having stopped at that. The great triple lamp glowedgreen as if set with gigantic emeralds; and its soft light shone on ascheme of color full of charm for the eye. The stuffs, the woodwork, were of a delightful harmony, but it seemed that the books and thepictures were chosen to match them. The man talking, in the great carvedarmchair by the fire, fitted the place. His vigorous, pleasant facelooked prosperous, and so kindly was his air that one might not cavil ata lack of subtler qualities. He drew a long breath as he brought out thelast words of the story he was telling. 

"And that, Mr. North, " he concluded, "is the way the firm of LitternyBrothers, the leading jewellers of this city, were done yesterday by aperson or persons unknown, to the tune of five thousand dollars. " Hiseyes turned from the blazing logs to his guest. 

The young man in his clerical dress stood as he listened, with eyes widelike a child's, fixed on the speaker. He stooped and picked up a pokerand pushed the logs together as he answered. The deliberateness of theaction would not have prepared one for the intensity of his words. "Inever wanted to be a detective before, " he said, "but I'd give a gooddeal to catch the man who did that. It was such planned rascality, suchkeen-witted scoundrelism, that it gives me a fierce desire to show himup. I'd like to teach the beggar that honesty can be as intelligent asknavery; that in spite of his strength of cunning, law and right arestronger. I wish I could catch him, " and the brass poker gleamed in asavage flourish. "I'd have no mercy. The hungry wretch who steals meat, the ignorant sinner taught to sin from babyhood--I have infinitepatience for such. But this thief spoke like a gentleman, and the maidsaid he was 'a pretty young man'--there's no excuse for him. He simplywanted money that wasn't his, --there's no excuse. It makes my blood boilto think of a clever rascal like that succeeding in his rascality. " Withthat the intense manner had dropped from him as a garment, and he wassmiling the gentlest, most whimsical smile at the older man. "You'llthink, Mr. Litterny, that it's the loss of my new parish-house that'smaking me so ferocious, but, honestly, I'd forgotten all about it. " Andno one who heard him could doubt his sincerity. "I was thinking of thecase from your point of view. As to the parish-house, it's adisappointment, but of course I know that a large loss like this mustmake a difference in a man's expenditures. You have been very good toSt. John's already, --a great many times you have been good to us. "

"It's a disappointment to me as well, " Litterny said. "Old St. John's ofNewburyport has been dear to me many years. I was confirmed and marriedthere--but _you_ know. Everything I could do for it has been asatisfaction. And I looked forward to giving this parish-house. Inordinary years a theft of five thousand dollars would not have preventedme, but there have been complications and large expenses of late, towhich this loss is the last straw. I shall have to postpone theparish-house, --but it shall be only postponed, Mr. North, onlypostponed. "

The young rector answered quietly: "As I said before, Mr. Litterny, youhave been most generous. We are grateful more than I know how to say. "His manner was very winning, and the older man's kind face brightened. 

"The greatest luxury which money brings is to give it away. St. John'sowes its thanks not to me, but to you, Mr. North. I have meant for sometime to put into words my appreciation of your work there. In two yearsyou have infused more life and earnestness into that sleepy parish thanI thought possible. You've waked them up, put energy into them, and gotit out of them. You've done wonders. It's right you should know thatpeople think this of you, and that your work is valued. "

"I am glad, " Norman North said, and the restraint of the words carriedmore than a speech. 

Mr. Litterny went on: "But there's such a thing as overdoing, young man, and you're shaving the edge of it. You're looking ill--poor color--thinas a rail. You need a rest. "

"I think I'll go to Bermuda. My senior warden was there last year, andhe says it's a wonderful little place--full of flowers and tennis andsailing, and blue sea and nice people. " He stood up suddenly andbroadened his broad shoulders. "I love the south, " he said. "And I loveout-of-doors and using my muscles. It's good to think of whole dayswith no responsibility, and with exercise till my arms and legs ache. Iget little exercise, and I miss it. I was on the track team at Yale, yousee, and rather strong at tennis. "

Mr. Litterny smiled, and his smile was full of sympathy. "We try to makea stained-glass saint out of you, " he said, "and all the time you're ahuman youngster with a human desire for a good time. A mere lad, " headded, reflectively, and went on: "Go down to Bermuda with a lightheart, my boy, and enjoy yourself, --it will do your church as much goodas you. Play tennis and sail--fall in love if you find the rightgirl, --nothing makes a man over like that. " North was putting out hishand. "And remember, " Litterny added, "to keep an eye out for my thief. You're retained as assistant detective in the case. "

 * * * * *

On a bright, windy morning a steamship wound its careful way through thetwisted water-road of Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda. Up from cabins midcorners poured figures unknown to the decks during the passage, andhaggard faces brightened under the balmy breeze, and tired eyes smiledat the dark hills and snowy sands of the sliding shore. In a shelteredcorner of the deck a woman lay back in a chair and drew in breaths ofsoft air, and a tall girl watched her. 

"You feel better already, don't you?" she demanded, and Mrs. Newbold puther hand into her daughter's. 

"It is Paradise, " she said. "I am going to get well. "

In an hour the landing had been made, the custom-house passed; the gay, exhilarating little drive had been taken to the hotel, through whitestreets, past white-roofed houses buried in trees and flowers and vines;the sick woman lay quiet and happy on her bed, drawn to the open window, where the healing of the breeze touched her gently, and where her eyesdreamed over a fairy stretch of sea and islands. Katherine, moving aboutthe room, unpacking, came to sit in a chair by her mother and talk toher for a moment. 

"To-morrow, if you're a good child, you shall go for a drive. Think--adrive in an enchanted island. It's Shakespeare's _Tempest_ island, --didI tell you I heard that on the boat? We might run across Caliban anyminute, and I think at least we'll find 'M' and 'F', for Miranda andFerdinand, cut into the bark of a tree somewhere. We'll go for a driveevery day, every single day, till we find it. You'll see. "

Mrs. Newbold's eyes moved from the sea and rested, perplexed, on herdaughter. "Katherine, how can we afford to drive every day? How can webe here at all? I don't understand it. I'm sure there was nothing leftto sell except the land out west, and Mr. Seaton told us last springthat it was worthless. How did you and Randolph conjure up the money forthis beautiful journey that is going to save my life?"

The girl bent impulsively and kissed her with tender roughness. "It isgoing to do that--it is!" she cried, and her voice broke. Then: "Nevermind how the money came, dear, --invalids mustn't be curious. It strainstheir nerves. Wait till you're well and perhaps you'll hear a tale aboutthat land out west. "

Day after day slipped past in the lotus-eating land whose unrealitymakes it almost a change of planets from every-day America. Each daybrought health with great rapidity, and soon each day brought newfriends. Mrs. Newbold was full of charm, and the devotion between theill mother and the blooming daughter was an attractive sight. Yet thegirl was not light-hearted. Often the mother, waking in the night, hearda shivering sigh through the open door between their rooms; often shesurprised a harassed look in the young eyes which, with all that thefamily had gone through, was new to them. But Katherine laughed atquestions, and threw herself so gayly into the pleasures which came toher that Mrs. Newbold, too happy to be analytical, let the straws passand the wind blow where it would. 

There came a balmy morning when the two were to take, with half a dozenothers, the long drive to St. George's. The three carriage-loads set offin a pleasant hubbub from the white-paved courtyard of the hotel, and asKatherine settled her mother with much care and many rugs, her cameradropped under the wheels. Everybody was busy, nobody was looking, andshe stooped and reached for it in vain. Then out of a blue sky a voicesaid:

"I'll get it for you, " She was pushed firmly aside and a figure in ablue coat was grovelling adventurously beneath the trap. It came out, straightened; she had her camera; she was staring up into a face whichcontemplated her, which startled her, so radiant, so everythingdesirable it seemed to her to be. The man's eyes considered her a momentas she thanked him, and then he had lifted his hat and was gone, running, like a boy in a hurry for a holiday, toward the white stonelanding. An empty sail flopped big at the landing, and the girl stoodand looked as he sprang in under it and took the rudder. Joe, the headporter, the familiar friend of every one, was stowing in a rug. 

"That gen'l'man's the Reverend Norman North, --he come by the _Trinidad_last Wednesday; he's sailin' to St. George's, " Joe volunteered. "Don'tlook much like a reverend, do he?" And with that the carriage hadstarted. 

Seeing the sights at St. George's, they came to the small old church, on its western side a huge flight of steps, capped with a meek doorway;on its eastern end a stone tower guarding statelily a flowery graveyard. The moment the girl stepped inside, the spell of the bright peace whichfilled the place caught her. The Sunday decorations were still there, and hundreds of lilies bloomed from the pillars; sunshine slantedthrough the simple stained glass and lay in colored patches on thefloor; there were square pews of a bygone day; there was a pulpit with awinding stair; there were tablets on the walls to shipwrecked sailors, to governors and officers dead here in harness. The clumsy woodwork, thecheap carpets, the modest brasses, were in perfect order; there weremarks everywhere of reverent care. 

"Let me stay, " the girl begged. "I don't want to drive about. I want tostay in this place. I'll meet you at the hotel for lunch, if you'llleave me. " And they left her. 

The verger had gone, and she was quite alone. Deep in the shadow of agallery she slid to her knees and hid her face. "O God!" shewhispered, --"O God, forgive me!" And again the words seemed torn fromher--"O God, forgive me!"

There were voices in the vestibule, but the girl in the stress of herprayer did not hear. 

"Deal not with us according to our sins, neither reward us according toour iniquities, " she prayed, the accustomed words rushing to her want, and she was suddenly aware that two people stood in the church. One ofthem spoke. 

"Don't bother to stay with me, " he said, and in the voice, it seemed, were the qualities that a man's speech should have--strength, certainty, the unteachable tone of gentle blood, and beyond these the note ofpersonality, always indescribable, in this case carrying an appeal andan authority oddly combined. "Don't stay with me. I like to be alonehere. I'm a clergyman, and I enjoy an old church like this. I'd like tobe alone in it, " and a bit of silver flashed. 

If the tip did it or the compelling voice, the verger murmured a wordabout luncheon, was gone, and the girl in her dim corner saw, as theother turned, that he was the rescuer of her camera, whose name was, Joe had said and she remembered, Norman North. She was about to move, tolet herself be seen, when the young man knelt suddenly in theold-fashioned front pew, as a good child might kneel who had been taughtthe ways of his mother church, and bent his dark head. She waitedquietly while this servant spoke to his Master. There was no sound inthe silent, sun-lanced church, but outside one heard as from far awaythe noises of the village. Katherine's eyes rested on the bowed head, and she wondered uncertainly if she should let him know of her presence, or if it might not be better to slip out unnoticed, when in a moment hehad risen and was swinging with a vigorous step up the little corkscrewstairway of the pulpit. There he stood, facing the silence, facing theflower-starred shadows, the empty spaces; facing her, but not seeingher. And the girl forgot herself and the question of her going as shesaw the look in his face, the light which comes at times to those whogive their lives to holiness, since the day when the people, gazing atStephen, the martyr, "saw his face as it had been the face of anangel. " When his voice floated out on the dim, sunny atmosphere itrested as lightly on the silence as if the notes of an organ rolledthrough its own place. He spoke a prayer of a service which, to thosewhose babyhood has been consecrated by it, whose childhood and youthhave listened to its simple and stately words, whose manhood andwomanhood have been carried over many a hard place by the lift of itsfamiliar sentences, --he spoke a prayer of that service which is lessdear only, to those bred in it, than the voices of their dearest. As apriest begins to speak to his congregation he began, and the hearer inthe shadow of the gallery listened, awed:

"The Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence beforeHim. "

And in the little church was silence as if all the earth obeyed. Thecollect for the day came next, and a bit of jubilant Easter service, andthen his mind seemed to drift back to the sentences with which theprayer-book opens. 

"This is the day which the Lord hath made, " the ringing voice announced. "Let us rejoice and be glad in it. " And then, stabbing into the girl'sfevered conscience, "I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is everbefore me. " It was as if an inflexible judge spoke the words for her. "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and doeth thatwhich is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive, " the pure, stern tones went on. 

She was not turning away from wickedness; she did not mean to turn away;she would not do that which was lawful. The girl shivered. She could nothear this dreadful accusal from the very pulpit. She must leave thisplace. And with that the man, as if in a sudden passion of feeling, hadtossed his right hand high above him; his head was thrown back; his eyesshone up into the shadows of the roof as if they would pierce materialthings and see Him who reigned; he was pleading as if for his life, pleading for his brothers, for human beings who sin and suffer. 

"O Lord, " he prayed, "spare all those who confess their sins unto Thee, that they whose consciences by sin are accused, by Thy merciful pardonmay be absolved; through Christ our Lord. " And suddenly he was using thevery words which had come to her of themselves a few minutes before. "Deal not with us according to our sins--deal not with us, " he repeated, as if wresting forgiveness for his fellows from the Almighty. "Deal notwith us according to our sins, neither reward us according to ouriniquities. " And while the echo of the words yet held the girlmotionless he was gone. 

 * * * * *

Down by the road which runs past the hotel, sunken ten feet below itslevel, are the tennis-courts, and soldiers in scarlet and khaki, andblue-jackets with floating ribbons, and negro bell-boys returning fromerrands, and white-gowned American women with flowery hats, and men insummer flannels stop as they pass, and sit on the low wall and watch thegames. There is always a gallery for the tennis-players. But on aTuesday morning about eleven o'clock the audience began to melt away indisgust. Without doubt they were having plenty of amusement amongthemselves, these tennis-players grouped at one side of the court andfilling the air with explosions of laughter. But the amusement of thepublic was being neglected. Why in the world, being rubber-shod as tothe foot and racqueted as to the hand, did they not play tennis? A girlin a short white dress, wearing white tennis-shoes and carrying aracquet, came tripping down the flight of stone steps, and stopped asshe stood on the last landing and seemed to ask the same question. Shecame slowly across the empty court, looking with curiosity at the bunchof absorbed people, and presently she caught her breath. The man who wasthe centre of the group, who was making, apparently, the amusement, wasthe young clergyman, Norman North. 

There was an outburst, a chorus of: "You can't have that one, Mr. North!" "That's been used!" "That's Mr. Dennison's!"

A tall English officer--a fine, manly mixture of big muscles and freshcolor and khaki--looked up, saw the girl, and swung toward her. "Goodmorning, Miss Newbold. Come and join the fun. Devil of a fellow, thatNorth, --they say he's a parson. "

"What is it? What are they laughing at?" Katherine demanded. 

"They're doing a Limerick tournament, which is what North calls thegame. Mr. Gale is timekeeper. They're to see which recites most rhymesinside five minutes. The winner picks his court and plays with MissLee. "

Captain Comerford imparted this in jerky whispers, listening with oneear all the time to a sound which stirred Katherine, the voice which shehad heard yesterday in the church at St. George's. The Englishman'sspasmodic growl stopped, and she drifted a step nearer, listening. Asshe caught the words, her brows drew together with displeasure, withshocked surprise. The inspired saint of yesterday was reciting withearnestness, with every delicate inflection of his beautiful voice, these words:

 "There was a young curate of Kidderminster, Who kindly, but firmly, chid a spinster, Because on the ice She said something not nice When he quite inadvertently slid ag'inst her. "

As the roar which followed this subsided, Katherine's face cleared. What right had she to make a pattern of solemn righteousness for thisstranger and be insulted if he did not fit? Certainly he wassaintly--she had seen his soul bared to her vision; but certainly he washuman also, as this moment was demonstrating. It flashed over hervaguely to wonder which was the dominant quality--which would rule in astress of temptation--the saintly side or the human? But at least he washuman with a winning humanity. His mirth and his enjoyment of it were asspontaneous as a mischievous, bright child's, and it was easy to seethat the charm of his remarkable voice attracted others as it hadattracted her. 

 "There was a young fellow from Clyde, Who was often at funerals espied--"

he had begun, and with that, between her first shock and her swiftrecovery, with the contrast between the man of yesterday and the man ofto-day, Katherine suddenly laughed aloud. North stopped short, andturned and looked at her, and for a second and their eyes met, and eachread recognition and friendliness. The Limerick went on:

 "When asked who was dead, He nodded and said, '_I_ don't know--_I_ just came for the ride. '"

"Eleven for Mr. North--one-half minute more, " called Mr. Gale, andinstantly North was in the breach:

 "A sore-hipped hippopotamus quite flustered Objected to a poultice made of custard; 'Can't you doctor up my hip With anything but flip?' So they put upon the hip a pot o' mustard. '"

And the half-minute was done and North had won, and there was clappingof hands for the victor, and at once, before the little uproar was over, Katherine saw him speak a word to Mr. Gale, and saw the latter, turning, stare about as if searching for some one, and, meeting her glance, smile. 

"I want to present Mr. North, Miss Newbold, " Gale said. 

"Why did you laugh in the middle of my Limerick? Had you heard it?"North demanded, as if they had known each other a year instead of aminute. 

"No, I had not heard it. " Katherine shook her head. 

"Then why did you laugh?"

She looked at him reflectively. "I don't know you well enough to tellyou that. "

"How soon will you know me well enough--if I do my best?"

She considered. "About three weeks from yesterday. "

 * * * * *

Many things grow fast in southern climates--fruits, flowers, evenfriendship and love. Three weeks later, on a hot, bright morning ofApril, North and Katherine Newbold were walking down a road of Bermudato the sea, and between them was what had ripened in the twenty-one daysfrom a germ to a full-grown bud, ready to open at the lightest touchinto flower. As they walked down such a road of a dream, the man talkedto the girl as he had never talked to any one before. He spoke of hiswork and its hopes and disappointments, of the pathos, the tragedy, thecomedy often of a way of life which leads by a deeper cut through men'shearts than any other, and he told her also, modestly indeed, andbecause he loved to tell her what meant much to him, of the joy ofknowing himself successful in his parish. He went into details, absorbingly interesting to him, and this new luxury of speaking freelycarried him away. 

"I hope I'm not boring you. " His frank gaze turned on her anxiously. "Idon't know what right I have to assume that the increase in theSunday-school, or even the new brass pulpit, is a fascinating subject toyou. I never did this before, " he said, and there was something in hisvoice which hindered the girl from answering his glance. But there wasno air of being bored about her, and he went on. "However, life isn'tall good luck. I had a serious blow just before I came down here--aqueer thing happened. I told you just now that all the large gifts toSt. John's had come from one man--a former parishioner. The man wasJames Litterny, of the great firm of--Why, what's the matter--what isit?" For Katherine had stopped short, in her fast, swinging walk, andwithout a sound had swayed and caught at the wall as if to keep herselffrom falling. Before he could reach her she had straightened herself andwas smiling. 

"I felt ill for a second--it's nothing, --let's go along. "

North made eager suggestions for her comfort, but the girl was firm inher assertion, that she was now quite well, so that, having no sistersand being ignorant that a healthy young woman does not, any more than ahealthy young man, go white and stagger without reason, he yielded, andthey walked briskly on. 

"You were telling me something that happened to you--something connectedwith Mr. --with the rich parishioner. " Her tone was steady and casual, but looking at her, he saw that she was still pale. 

"Do you really want to hear my yarns? You're sure it isn't that whichmade you feel faint--because I talked so much?"

"It's always an effort not to talk myself, " she laughed up at him, yetwith a strange look in her eyes. "All the same, talk a little more. Tell me what you began to tell about Mr. Litterny. " The name came outfull and strong. 

"Oh, that! Well, it's a story extraordinary enough for a book. I thinkit will interest you. "

"I think it will, " Katherine agreed. 

"You see, " he went on, "Mr. Litterny promised us a new parish-house, thebest and largest practicable. It was to cost, with the lot, ten thousanddollars. It was to be begun this spring. Not long before I came toBermuda, I had a note one morning from him, asking me to come to hishouse the next evening. I went, and he told me that the parish-housewould have to be given up for the present, because the firm of LitternyBrothers had just met with a loss, through a most skilful and originalrobbery, of five thousand dollars. "

"A robbery?" the girl repeated. "Burglars, you mean?"

"Something much more artistic than burglars. I told you this story wasgood enough for a book. It's been kept quiet because the detectivesthought the chance better that way of hunting the thief to earth. " (Whyshould she catch her breath?) "But I'm under no promise--I'm sure I maytell you. You're not likely to have any connection with the rascal. "

Katherine's step hung a little as if she shrank from the words, but shecaught at a part of the sentence and repeated it, "'Hunting the thief toearth'--you say that as if you'd like to see it done. "

"I would like to see it done, " said North, with slow emphasis. "Nothinghas ever more roused my resentment. I suppose it's partly the loss ofthe parish-house, but, aside from that, it makes me rage to think ofsplendid old James Litterny, the biggest-hearted man I know, being donein that way. Why, he'd have helped the scoundrel in a minute if he'dgone to him instead of stealing from him. Usually my sympathies are withthe sinner, but I believe if I caught this one I'd be merciless. "

"Would you mind sitting down here?" Katherine asked, in a voice whichsounded hard. "I'm not ill, but I feel--tired. I want to sit here andlisten to the story of that unprincipled thief and his wicked robbery. "

North was all solicitude in a moment, but the girl put him asideimpatiently. 

"I'm quite right. Don't bother. I just want to be still while you talk. See what a good seat this is. "

Over the russet sand of the dunes the sea flashed a burning blue;storm-twisted cedars led a rutted road down to it; in the salt air thepiny odor was sharp with sunlight. Katherine had dropped beneath one ofthe dwarfed trees, and leaning back, smiled dimly up at him with astricken face which North did not understand. 

"You are ill, " he said, anxiously. "You look ill. Please let me takecare of you. There is a house back there--let me--" but she interrupted:

"I'm not ill, and I won't be fussed over. I'm not exactly right, but Iwill be in a few minutes. The best thing for me is just to rest here andhave you talk to me. Tell me that story you are so slow about. "

He took her at her word. Lying at full length at her feet--his headpropped on a hillock so that he might look into her face, one of hishands against the hem of her white dress, --the shadows of the cedarsswept back and forth across him, the south sea glittered beyond thesand-dunes, and he told the story. 

"Mr. Litterny was in his office in the early afternoon of February 18, "he began, "when a man called him up on the telephone. Mr. Litterny didnot recognize the voice, but the man stated at once that he was BurrClaflin, whose name you may know. He is a rich broker, and a personalfriend of both the Litternys. Voice is so uncertain a quantity over atelephone that it did not occur to Mr. Litterny to be suspicious on thatpoint, and the conversation was absolutely in character otherwise. Thetalker used expressions and a manner of saying things which the jewellerknew to be characteristic of Claflin. 

"He told Mr. Litterny that he had just made a lucky hit in stocks, and'turned over a bunch of money, ' as he put it, and that he wanted to makehis wife a present. 'Now--this afternoon--this minute, ' he said, whichwas just like Burr Claflin, who is an impetuous old chap. 'I want togive her a diamond brooch, and I want her to wear it out to dinnerto-night, ' he said. 'Can't you send two or three corkers up to the housefor me?' That surprised Mr. Litterny and he hesitated, but finally saidthat he would do it. It was against the rules of the house, but as itwas for Mr. Claflin he would do it. They had a little talk about thedetails, and Claflin arranged to call up his wife and tell her that thejewels would be there at four-thirty, so that she could look out forthem personally. All that was the Litterny end of the affair. Simpleenough, wasn't it?"

Katherine's eyes were so intent, so brilliant, that Norman North went onwith a pleased sense that he told the tale well:

"Now begins the Claflin experience. At half past four a clerk fromLitterny's left a package at the Claflin house in Cleveland Avenue, which was at once taken, as the man desired, to Mrs. Claflin. She openedit and found three very handsome diamond brooches, which astonished herextremely, as she knew nothing about them. However, it was not unusualfor Claflin to give her jewelry, and he is, as I said, an impulsive man, so that unexpected presents had come once or twice before; andaltogether, being much taken with the stones, she concluded simply thatshe would understand when her husband came home to dinner. 

"However, her hopes were dashed, for twenty minutes later, barely longenough for the clerk to have got back to the shop, she was called to thetelephone by a message, said to be from Litterny's, and a most politeand apologetic person explained over the line that a mistake had beenmade; that the diamonds had been addressed and sent to her by an errorof the shipping-clerk; that they were not intended for Mrs. BurrClaflin, but for Mrs. Bird Catlin, and that the change in name had beendiscovered on the messenger's return. Would Mrs. Claflin pardon thetrouble caused, and would she be good enough to see that the package wasgiven to their man, who would call for it in fifteen minutes? Now theCatlins, as you must know, are richer people even than the Claflins, sothat the thing was absolutely plausible. Mrs. Claflin tied up the jewelsherself, and entrusted them to her own maid, who has been with her foryears, and this woman answered the door and gave the parcel into thehands of a man who said that he was sent from Litterny's for it. Allthat the maid could say of him was that he was 'a pretty young man, witha speech like a gentleman. ' And that was the last that has been seen ofthe diamond brooches. Wasn't it simple? Didn't I tell you that thisaffair was an artistic one?" North demanded. 

Katherine Newbold drew a deep breath, and the story-teller, watching herface, saw that she was stirred with an emotion which he put down, with aslight surprise, to interest in his narrative. 

"Is there no clew to the--thief? Have they no idea at all? Haven't thosewonderful detectives yet got on--his track?"

North shook his head. "I had a letter by yesterday's boat from Mr. Litterny about another matter, and he spoke of this. He said the policewere baffled--that he believed now that it could never be traced. "

"Thank God!" Katherine said, slowly and distinctly, and North stared inastonishment. 

"What?" His tone was incredulous. 

"Oh; don't take me so seriously, " said the girl, impatiently. "It's onlythat I can't sympathize with your multimillionaire, who loses a littleof his heaps of money, against some poor soul to whom that little maymean life or death--life or death, maybe, for his nearest and dearest. Mr. Litterny has had a small loss, which he won't feel in a year fromnow. The thief, the rascal, the scoundrel, as you call him so fluently, has escaped for now, perhaps, with his ill-gotten gains, but he is ahunted thing, living with a black terror of being found out--a terrorwhich clutches him when he prays and when he dances. It's the thief I'msorry for--I'm sorry for him--I'm sorry for him. " Her voice was agitatedand uneven beyond what seemed reasonable. 

"'The way of the transgressor is hard, '" Norman North said, slowly, andlooked across the shifting sand-stretch to the inevitable sea, andspoke the words pitilessly, as if an inevitable law spoke through him. 

They cut into the girl's soul. A quick gasp of pain broke from her, andthe man turned and saw her face and sprang to his feet. 

"Come, " he said, --"come home, " and held out his hands. 

She let him take hers, and he lifted her lightly, and did not let herhands go. For a second they stood, and into the silence a deep boom ofthe water against the beach thundered and died away. He drew the handsslowly toward him till he held them against him. There seemed not to beany need for words. 

Half an hour later, as they walked back through the sweet loneliness ofSpringfield Avenue, North said: "You've forgotten something. You'veforgotten that this is the day you were to tell me why you had the badmanners to laugh at me before you knew me. Now that we are engaged it'syour duty to tell me if I'm ridiculous. "

There was none of the responsive, soft laughter he expected. "We're notengaged--we can't be engaged, " she threw back, impetuously, and as helooked at her there was suffering in her face. 

"What do you mean? You told me you loved me. " His voice was full of itscurious mixture of gentleness and sternness, and she shrank visibly fromthe sternness. 

"Don't be hard on me, " she begged, like a frightened child, and hecaught her hand with a quick exclamation. "I'll tell you--everything. Not only that little thing about my laughing, but--but more--everything. Why I cannot be engaged to you. I must tell you--I know it--but, oh! notto-day--not for a little while! Let me have this little time to behappy. You sail a week from to-day. I'll write it all for you, and youcan read it on the way to New York. That will do--won't that do?" shepleaded. 

North took both her hands in a hard grasp and searched her face and hereyes--eyes clear and sweet, though filled with misery. "Yes, that willdo, " he said. "It's all nonsense that you can't be engaged to me. Youare engaged to me, and you are going to marry me. If you love me--andyou say you do, --there's nothing I'll let interfere. Nothing--absolutelynothing. " There was little of the saint in his look now; it was filledwith human love and masterful determination, and in his eyes smouldereda recklessness, a will to have his way, that was no angel, but all man. 

A week later Norman North sailed to New York, and in his pocket was aletter which was not to be read till Bermuda was out of sight. When thecoral reef was passed, when the fairy blue of the island waters hadchanged to the dark swell of the Atlantic, he slipped the bolt in thedoor of his cabin and took out the letter. 

"I laughed because you were so wonderfully two men in one, " it began, "Iwas in the church at St. George's the day when you sent the verger awayand went into the pulpit and said parts of the service. I could not tellyou this before because it came so close to the other thing which I musttell you now; because I sat trembling before you that day, hidden in theshadow of a gallery, knowing myself a criminal, while you stood above melike a pitiless judge and rolled out sentences that were bolts of fireemptied on my soul. The next morning I heard you reciting Limericks. Areyou surprised that I laughed when the contrast struck me? Even then Iwondered which was the real of you, the saint or the man, --which wouldwin if it came to a desperate fight. The fight is coming, Norman. 

"That's all a preamble. Here is what you must know: I am the thief whostole Mr. Litterny's diamonds. "

The letter fell, and the man caught at it as it fell. His hand shook, but he laughed aloud. 

"It is a joke, " he said, in a queer, dry voice. "A wretched joke. Howcan she?" And he read on:

"You won't believe this at first; you will think I am making a poorjoke; but you will have to believe it in the end. I will try to put thecase before you as an outside person would put it, without softening orcondoning. My mother was very ill; the specialist, to pay whom we hadsold her last jewel, said that she would die if she were not takensouth; we had no money to take her south. That night my brother losthis self-control and raved about breaking into a shop and stealingdiamonds, to get money to save her life. That put the thought into mymind, and I made a plan. Randolph, my brother, is a clever amateuractor, and the rich Burr Claflin is our distant cousin. We both know himfairly well, and it was easy enough for Randolph to copy his mannerisms. We knew also, of course, more or less, his way of living, and that itwould not be out of drawing that he should send up diamonds to his wifeunexpectedly. I planned it all, and I made Randolph do it. I have alwaysbeen able to influence him to what I pleased. The sin is all mine, nothis. We had been selling my mother's jewels little by little for severalyears, so we had no difficulty in getting rid of the stones, whichRandolph took from their settings and sold to different dealers. Mymother knows nothing of where the money came from. We are living inBermuda now, in comfort and luxury, I as well as she, on the profits ofmy thievery. I am not sorry. It has wrecked life, perhaps eternity, forme, but I would do it again to save my mother. 

"I put this confession into your hands to do with, as far as I amconcerned, what you like. If the saint in you believes that I ought tobe sent to jail, take this to Mr. Litterny and have him send me tojail. But you shan't touch Randolph--you are not free there. It was Iwho did it--he was my tool, --any one will tell you I have the strongerwill. You shall not hurt Randolph--that is barred. 

"You see now why I couldn't be engaged to you--you wouldn't want tomarry a thief, would you, Norman? I can never make restitution, youknow, for the money will be mostly gone before we get home, and there isno more to come. You could not, either, for you said that you had littlebeyond your salary. We could never make it good to Mr. Litterny, even ifyou wanted to marry me after this. Mr. Litterny is your best friend; youare bound to him by a thousand ties of gratitude and affection. Youcan't marry a thief who has robbed him of five thousand dollars, andnever tell him, and go on taking his gifts. That is the way the saintwill look at it--the saint who thundered awful warnings at me in thelittle church at St. George's. But even that day there was somethinggentler than the dreadful holiness of you. Do you remember how youpleaded, begged as if of your father, for your brothers and sisters?'Deal not with us according to our sins, neither reward us according toour iniquities, ' you said. Do you remember? As you said that to God, Isay it to you, I love you. I leave my fate at your mercy. But don'tforget that you yourself begged that, with your hands stretched out toheaven, as I stretch my hands to you, Norman, Norman--'Deal not with meaccording to my sins, neither reward me according to my iniquities. '"

The noises of a ship moving across a quiet ocean went on steadily. Manyfeet tramped back and forth on the deck, and cheerful voices andlaughter floated through the skylight, and down below a man knelt in anarrow cabin with his head buried in his arms, motionless. 

CROWNED WITH GLORY AND HONOR

Mists blew about the mountains across the river, and over West Pointhung a raw fog. Some of the officers who stood with bared heads by theheap of earth and the hole in the ground shivered a little. The youngChaplain read, solemnly, the solemn and grand words of the service, andthe evenness of his voice was unnatural enough to show deep feeling. Heremembered how, a year before, he had seen the hero of this sceneplaying football on just such a day, tumbling about and shouting, hishair wild and matted and his face filled with fresh color. Such a mereboy he was, concerned over the question as to where he could hide hiscontraband dress boots, excited by an invitation to dine out Saturdaynight. The dear young chap! There were tears in the Chaplain's eyes ashe thought of little courtesies to himself, of little generosities toother cadets, of a manly and honest heart shown everywhere thatcharacter may show in the guarded life of the nation's schoolboys. 

The sympathetic, ringing voice stopped, and he watched the quick, dreadful, necessary work of the men at the grave, and then his sad eyeswandered pitifully over the rows of boyish faces where the cadets stood. Just such a child as those, thought the Chaplain--himself but a fewyears older--no history; no life, as we know life; no love, and what waslife without--you may see that the Chaplain was young; the poor boy wastaken from these quiet ways and sent direct on the fire-lit stage ofhistory, and in the turn, behold! he was a hero. The white-robedChaplain thrilled and his dark eyes flashed. He seemed to see that day;he would give half his life to have seen it--this boy had given all ofhis. The boy was wounded early, and as the bullets poured death down thehill he crept up it, on hands and knees, leading his men. The stronglife in him lasted till he reached the top, and then the last of itpulled him to his feet and he stood and waved and cheered--and fell. Buthe went up San Juan Hill. After all, he lived. He missed fifty years, perhaps, but he had Santiago. The flag wrapped him, he was the honoreddead of the nation. God keep him! The Chaplain turned with a swing andraised his prayer-book to read the committal. The long black box--theboy was very tall--was being lowered gently, tenderly. Suddenly theheroic vision of Santiago vanished and he seemed to see again therumpled head and the alert, eager, rosy face of the boy playingfootball--the head that lay there! An iron grip caught his throat, andif a sound had come it would have been a sob. Poor little boy! Poorlittle hero! To exchange all life's sweetness for that fiery glory! Notto have known the meaning of living--of loving--of being loved!

The beautiful, tender voice rang out again so that each one heard it tothe farthest limit of the great crowd--"We therefore commit his body tothe ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; looking forthe general resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world tocome. "

 * * * * *

An hour later the boy's mother sat in her room at the hotel and openeda tin box of letters, found with his traps, and given her with the rest. She had planned it for this time and had left the box unopened. To-morrow she must take up life and try to carry it, with the boy gone, but to-day she must and would be what is called morbid. She looked overthe bend in the river to the white-dotted cemetery--she could tell wherelay the new mound, flower-covered, above his yellow head. She lookedaway quickly and bent over the box in her lap and turned the key. Herown handwriting met her eyes first; all her letters for six months backwere there, scattered loosely about the box. She gathered them up, slipping them through her fingers to be sure of the writing. Letterafter letter, all hers. 

"They were his love-letters, " she said to herself. "He never had anyothers, dear little boy--my dear little boy!"

Underneath were more letters, a package first; quite a lot of them, thirty, fifty--it was hard to guess--held together by a rubber strap. The strap broke as she drew out the first envelope and they fell allabout her, some on the floor, but she did not notice it, for the addresswas in a feminine writing that had a vague familiarity. She stopped amoment, with the envelope in one hand and the fingers of the other handon the folded paper inside. It felt like a dishonorable thing todo--like prying into the boy's secrets, forcing his confidence; and shehad never done that. Yet some one must know whether these papers of hisshould be burned or kept, and who was there but herself? She drew outthe letter. It began "My dearest. " The boy's mother stopped short anddrew a trembling breath, with a sharp, jealous pain. She had not known. Then she lifted her head and saw the dots of white on the green earthacross the bay and her heart grew soft for that other woman to whom hehad been "dearest" too, who must suffer this sorrow of losing him too. But she could not read her letters, she must send them, take them toher, and tell her that his mother had held them sacred. She turned tothe signature. 

"And so you must believe, darling, that I am and always willbe--always, always, with love and kisses, your own dear, little 'GoodQueen Bess. '"

It was not the sort of an ending to a letter she would have expectedfrom the girl he loved, for the boy, though most undemonstrative, hadbeen intense and taken his affections seriously always. But one cannever tell, and the girl was probably quite young. But who was she? Thesignature gave no clew; the date was two years before, and from NewYork--sufficiently vague! She would have to read until she found thethread, and as she read the wonder grew that so flimsy a personalitycould have held her boy. One letter, two, three, six, and yet no sign toidentify the writer. She wrote first from New York on the point ofstarting for a long stay abroad, and the other letters were all fromdifferent places on the other side. Once in awhile a familiar namecropped up, but never to give any clew. There were plenty of people whomshe called by their Christian names, but that helped nothing. And oftenshe referred to their engagement--to their marriage to come. It was hardfor the boy's mother, who believed she had had his confidence. Butthere was one letter from Vienna that made her lighter-hearted as tothat. 

"My dear sweet darling, " it began, "I haven't written you very oftenfrom here, but then I don't believe you know the difference, for younever scold at all, even if I'm ever so long in writing. And as for you, you rascal, you write less and less, and shorter and shorter. If Ididn't know for certain--but then, of course, you love me? Don't you, you dearest boy? Of course you do, and who wouldn't? Now don't think I'mreally so conceited as that, for I only mean it in joke, but in earnest, I might think it if I let myself, for they make such a fuss over mehere--you never saw anything like it! The Prince von H---- told Mammayesterday I was the prettiest girl who had been here in ten years--whatdo you think of that, sir? The officers are as thick as bees wherever Igo, and I ride with them and dance with them and am having just theloveliest time! You don't mind that, do you, darling, even if we areengaged? Oh, about telling your mother--no, sir, you just cannot! You'vebegged me all along to do that, but you might as well stop, for Iwon't. You write more about that than anything else, it seems to me, andI'll believe soon you are more in love with your mother than with me. Sotake care! Remember, you promised that night at the hop at WestPoint--what centuries ago it seems, and it was a year and a half!--thatyou would not tell a living soul, not even your mother, until I said so. You see, it might get out and--oh, what's the use of fussing? It mightspoil all my good time, and though I'm just as devoted as ever, and asmuch in love, you big, handsome thing--yes, just exactly!--still, I wantto have a good time. Why shouldn't I? As the Prince would say, I'mpretty enough--but that's nonsense, of course. "

The letter was signed like all the others "Good Queen Bess, " a foolishenough name for a girl to call herself, the boy's mother thought, atouch contemptuously. She sat several minutes with that letter in herhand. 

"I'll believe soon that you are more in love with your mother than youare with me"--that soothed the sore spot in her heart wonderfully. Wasn't it so, perhaps. It seemed to her that the boy had fallen intothis affair suddenly, impulsively, without realizing its meaning, andthat his loyalty had held him fast, after the glamour was gone. Andperhaps the girl, too. For the boy had much besides himself, and therewere girls who might think of that. 

The next letter went far to confirm this theory. 

"Of course I don't want to break our engagement, " the girl wrote. "Whatmakes you ask such a question? I fully expect to marry you some day, ofcourse, when I have had my little 'fling, ' and I should just go crazy ifI thought you didn't love me as much as always. You would if you saw me, for they all say I'm prettier than ever. You don't want to break theengagement, do you? Please, please, don't say so, for I couldn't bearit. "

And in the next few lines she mentioned herself by name. It was awell-known name to the boy's mother, that of the daughter of a cousinwith whom she had never been over-intimate. She had had notes from thegirl a few times, once or twice from abroad, which accounted for thefamiliarity of the writing. So she gathered the letters together, thelast one dated only a month before, and put them one side to send back. 

"She will soon get over it, " she said, and sighed as she turned to thepapers still left in the bottom of the box. There were only a few, athin packet of six or eight, and one lying separate. She slipped therubber band from the packet and looked hard at the irregular, strongwriting, woman's or man's, it was hard to say which. Then she spread outthe envelopes and took them in order by the postmarks. The first was alittle note, thanking him for a book, a few lines of clever nothingsigned by a woman's name which she had never heard. 

 * * * * *

"My dear Mr. ----, " it ran. "Indeed you did get ahead of 'all the others'in sending me 'The Gentleman from Indiana, ' So far ahead that the nextman in the procession is not even in sight yet. I hate to tell you that, but honesty demands it. I have taken just one sidewise peep at 'TheGentleman'--and like his looks immensely--but to-morrow night I amgoing to pretend I have a headache and stay home from the concert wherethe family are going, and turn cannibal and devour him. I hope nothingwill interrupt me. Unless--I wonder if you are conceited enough toimagine what is one of the very few things I would like to haveinterrupt me? After that bit of boldness I think I must stop writing toyou. I mean it just the same. And thanking you a thousand times again, Iam, "Sincerely yours. "

There were four or five more of this sort, sometimes only a day or two, sometimes a month apart; always with some definite reason for thewriting, flowers or books to thank him for, a walk to arrange, aninvitation to dinner. Charming, bright, friendly notes, with the happyatmosphere of a perfect understanding between them, of mutual interestsand common enthusiasms. 

"She was very different from the other, " the boy's mother sighed, as shetook up an unread letter--there were but two more. There was no harm inreading such letters as these, she thought with relief, and noticed asshe drew the paper from the envelope that the postmark was two monthslater. 

"You want me to write once that I love you"--that is the way it began. 

The woman who read dropped it suddenly as if it had burned her. Was itpossible? Her light-hearted boy, whose short life she had been so surehad held nothing but a boy's, almost a child's, joys and sorrows! Theother affair was surprise enough, and a sad surprise, yet after all ithad not touched him deeply, she felt certain of that; but this wasanother question. She knew instinctively that if love had grown fromsuch a solid foundation as this sweet and happy and reasonablefriendship with this girl, whose warm heart and deep soul shone throughher clear and simple words, it would be a different love from anythingthat other poor, flimsy child could inspire. "L'amitié, c'est l'amoursans ailes. " But sometimes when men and women have let the quiet, safegod Friendship fold his arms gently around them, he spreads suddenly apair of sinning wings and carries them off--to heaven--wherever hewills it, and only then they see that he is not Friendship, but Love. 

She picked up the letter again and read on:

"You want me to write once that I love you, so that you may read it withyour eyes, if you may not hear it with your ears. Is that it--is thatwhat you want, dear? Which question is a foolish sort of way for me towaste several drops of ink, considering that your letter is open beforeme. And your picture just back of it, your brown eyes looking over theedge so eagerly, so actually alive that it seems very foolish to bemaking signs to you on paper at all. How much simpler just to say half aword and then--then! Only we two can fill up that dash, but we can fillit full, can't we? However, I'm not doing what you want, and--will younot tell yourself, if I tell you something? To do what you want is justthe one thing on earth I like most to do. I think you have magnetized meinto a jelly-fish, for at times I seem to have no will at all. I believeif you asked me to do the Chinese kotow, and bend to the earth beforeyou, I'd secretly be dying to do it. But I wouldn't, you know, Ipromise you that. I give you credit for liking a live woman, with a willof her own, better than a jelly-fish. And anyway I wouldn't--if youliked me for it or not--so you see it's no use urging me. And still Ihaven't done what you want--what was it now? Oh, to tell you that--butthe words frighten me, they are so big. That I--I--I--love you. Is itthat? I haven't said it yet, remember. I'm only asking a question. Doyou know I have an objection to sitting here in cold blood and writingthat down in cold ink? If it were only a little dark now, and yourshoulder--and I could hide my head--you can't get off for a minute? Ah, I am scribbling along light-heartedly, when all the time the sword ofDamocles is hanging over us both, when my next letter may have to begood-by for always. If that fate comes you will find me steady to standby you, to help you. I will say those three little words, so little andso big, to you once again, and then I will live them by giving up whatis dearest to me--that's you, dear--that your 'conduct' may not be'unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. ' You must keep your word. Ifthe worst comes, will you always remember that as an American woman'spatriotism. There could be none truer. I could send you marching off toCuba--and how about that, is it war surely?--with a light heart, knowingthat you were giving yourself for a holy cause and going to honor andfame, though perhaps, dear, to a soldier's death. And I would pray foryou and remember your splendid strength, and think always of seeing youmarch home again, and then only your mother could be more proud than I. That would be easy, in comparison. Write me about the war--but, ofcourse, you would not be sent. 

"Now here is the very end of my letter, and I haven't yet said it--whatyou wanted. But here it Is, bend your head, from away up there, andlisten. Now--do you hear--I love you. Good-by, good-by, I love you. "

The papers rustled softly in the silent room, and the boy's mother, asshe put the letter back, kissed it, and it was as if ghostly lipstouched hers, for the boy had kissed those words, she knew. 

The next was only a note, written just before his sailing to Cuba. 

"A fair voyage and a short one, a good fight and a quick one, " the notesaid. "It is my country as well as yours you are going to fight for, andI give you with all my heart. All of it will be with you and all mythoughts, too, every minute of every day, so you need never wonder ifI'm thinking of you. And soon the Spaniards will be beaten and you'll becoming home again 'crowned with glory and honor, ' and the bands willplay fighting music, and the flag will be flying over you, for you, andin all proud America there will be no prouder soul than I--unless it isyour mother. Good-by, good-by--God be with you, my very dearest. "

He had come home "crowned with glory and honor. " And the bands hadplayed martial music for him. But his horse stood riderless by hisgrave, and the empty cavalry boots hung, top down, from the saddle. 

Loose in the bottom of the box lay a folded sheet of paper, and, hiddenunder it, an envelope, the face side down. When the boy's mother openedthe paper, it was his own crabbed, uneven writing that met her eye. 

"They say there will be a fight to-morrow, " he wrote, "and we're likelyto be in it. If I come out right, you will not see this, and I hope Ishall, for the world is sweet with you in it. But if I'm hit, then thiswill go to you. I'm leaving a line for my mother and will enclose thisand ask her to send it to you. You must find her and be good to her, ifthat happens. I want you to know that if I die, my last thought willhave been of you, and if I have the chance to do anything worth while, it will be for your sake. I could die happy if I might do even a smallthing that would make you proud of me. "

The sorrowful woman drew a long, shivering breath as she thought of themagnificent courage of that painful passing up San Juan Hill, wounded, crawling on, with a pluck that the shades of death could not dim. Wouldshe be proud of him?

The line for herself he had never written. There was only the emptyenvelope lying alone in the box. She turned it in her hand and saw itwas addressed to the girl to whom he had been engaged. Slowly it dawnedon her that to every appearance this envelope belonged to the letter shehad just read, his letter of the night before the battle. She recoiledat the thought--those last sacred words of his, to go to thatempty-souled girl! All that she would find in them would be a littlefuel for her vanity, while the other--she put her fingers on theirregular, back writing, and felt as if a strong young hand held hersagain. She would understand, that other; she had thought of his motherin the stress of her own strongest feeling; she had loved him forhimself, not for vanity. This letter was hers, the mother knew it. Andyet the envelope, with the other address, had lain just under it, andshe had been his promised wife. She could not face her boy in heaven ifthis last earthly wish of his should go wrong through her. How could sheread the boy's mind now? What was right to do?

The twilight fell over Crow Nest, and over the river and the heaped-upmountains that lie about West Point, and in the quiet room the boy'smother sat perplexed, uncertain, his letter in her hands; yet with avague sense of coming comfort in her heart as she thought of the girlwho would surely "find her and be good to her, " But across the water, onthe hillside, the boy lay quiet. 

A MESSENGER

 How oft do they their silver bowers leave, To come to succour us that succour want! How oft do they with golden pineons cleave The flitting skyes, like flying Pursuivant, Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant! They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward, And their bright Squadrons round about us plant; And all for love, and nothing for reward. O! Why should heavenly God to men have such regard?

 --_Spenser's "Faerie Queene. "_

That the other world of our hope rests on no distant, shining star, butlies about us as an atmosphere, unseen yet near, is the belief of many. The veil of material life shades earthly eyes, they say, from theglories in which we ever are. But sometimes when the veil wears thin inmortal stress, or is caught away by a rushing, mighty wind ofinspiration, the trembling human soul, so bared, so purified, may lookdown unimagined heavenly vistas, and messengers may steal across theshifting boundary, breathing hope and the air of a brighter world. Andof him who speaks his vision, men say "He is mad, " or "He has dreamed. "

 * * * * *

The group of officers in the tent was silent for a long half minuteafter Colonel Wilson's voice had stopped. Then the General spoke. 

"There is but one thing to do, " he said. "We must get word to CaptainThornton at once. "

The Colonel thought deeply a moment, and glanced at the orderly outsidethe tent. "Flannigan!" The man, wheeling swiftly, saluted. "Present mycompliments to Lieutenant Morgan and say that I should like to see himhere at once, " and the soldier went off, with the quick militaryprecision in which there is no haste and no delay. 

"You have some fine, powerful young officers, Colonel, " said the Generalcasually. "I suppose we shall see in Lieutenant Morgan one of the best. It will take strength and brains both, perhaps, for this message. "

A shadow of a smile touched the Colonel's lips. "I think I have chosena capable man, General, " was all he said. 

Against the doorway of the tent the breeze blew the flap lazily back andforth. A light rain fell with muffled gentle insistence on the canvasover their heads, and out through the opening the landscape wasblurred--the wide stretch of monotonous, billowy prairie, the sluggish, shining river, bending in the distance about the base of Black WindMountain--Black Wind Mountain, whose high top lifted, though it wasalmost June, a white point of snow above dark pine ridges of the hillsbelow. The five officers talked a little as they waited, butspasmodically, absent-mindedly. A shadow blocked the light of theentrance, and in the doorway stood a young man, undersized, slight, blond. He looked inquiringly at the Colonel. 

"You sent for me, sir?" and the General and his aide, and the grizzledold Captain, and the big, fresh-faced young one, all watched him. 

In direct, quiet words--words whose bareness made them dramatic for theweight of possibility they carried--the Colonel explained. Black Wolfand his band were out on the war-path. A soldier coming in wounded, escaped from the massacre of the post at Devil's Hoof Gap, had reportedit. With the large command known to be here camped on Sweetstream Fork, they would not come this way; they would swerve up the Gunpowder Rivertwenty miles away, destroying the settlement and Little Fort Slade, andwould sweep on, probably for a general massacre, up the Great Horn asfar as Fort Doncaster. He himself, with the regiment, would try to saveFort Slade, but in the meantime, Captain Thornton's troop, coming tojoin him, ignorant that Black Wolf had taken the war-path, would bedirectly in their track. Some one must be sent to warn them, and ofcourse the fewer the quicker. Lieutenant Morgan would take a sergeant, the Colonel ordered quietly, and start at once. 

In the misty light inside the tent, the young officer looked hardly morethan seventeen years old as he stood listening. His small figure waslight, fragile; his hair was blond to an extreme, a thick thatch ofpale gold; and there was about him, among these tanned, stalwart men inuniform, a presence, an effect of something unusual, a simplicity out ofplace yet harmonious, which might have come with a little child into ascene like this. His large blue eyes were fixed on the Colonel as hetalked, and in them was just such a look of innocent, pleased wonder, asmight be in a child's eyes, who had been told to leave studying and gopick violets. But as the Colonel ended he spoke, and the few words hesaid, the few questions he asked, were full of poise, of crispdirectness. As the General volunteered a word or two, he turned to himand answered with a very charming deference, a respect that was yet fullof gracious ease, the unconscious air of a man to whom generals arefirst as men, and then as generals. The slight figure in its darkuniform was already beyond the tent doorway when the Colonel spokeagain, with a shade of hesitation in his manner. 

"Mr. Morgan!" and the young officer turned quickly. "I think it may beright to warn you that there is likely to be more than usual danger inyour ride. "

"Yes, sir. " The fresh, young voice had a note of inquiry. 

"You will--you will"--what was it the Colonel wanted to say? He finishedabruptly. "Choose the man carefully who goes with you. "

"Thank you, Colonel, " Morgan responded heartily, but with a hint ofbewilderment. "I shall take Sergeant O'Hara, " and he was gone. 

There was a touch of color in the Colonel's face, and he sighed as ifglad to have it over. The General watched him, and slowly, after apause, he demanded:

"May I ask, Colonel, why you chose that blond baby to send on a missionof uncommon danger and importance?"

The Colonel answered quietly: "There were several reasons, General--goodones. The blond baby"--that ghost of a smile touched the Colonel's lipsagain--"the blond baby has some remarkable qualities. He never loses hishead; he has uncommon invention and facility of getting out of badholes; he rides light and so can make a horse last longer than most, and"--the Colonel considered a moment--"I may say he has no fear ofdeath. Even among my officers he is known for the quality of hiscourage. There is one more reason: he is the most popular man I have, both with officers and men; if anything happened to Morgan the wholecommand would race into hell after the devils that did it, before theywould miss their revenge. "

The General reflected, pulling at his mustache. "It seems a bit liketaking advantage of his popularity, " he said. 

"It is, " the Colonel threw back quickly. "It's just that. But that'swhat one must do--a commanding officer--isn't it so, General? In thiswar music we play on human instruments, and if a big chord comes outstronger for the silence of a note, the note must be silenced--that'sall. It's cruel, but it's fighting; it's the game. "

The General, as if impressed with the tense words, did not respond, andthe other officers stared at the Colonel's face, as carved, as stern asif done in marble--a face from which the warm, strong heart seldomshone, held back always by the stronger will. 

The big, fresh-colored young Captain broke the silence. "Has the Generalever heard of the trick Morgan played on Sun Boy, sir?" he asked. 

"Tell the General, Captain Booth, " the Colonel said briefly, and theCaptain turned toward the higher officer. 

"It was apropos of what the Colonel said of his inventive faculties, General, " he began. "A year ago the youngster with a squad of ten menwalked into Sun Boy's camp of seventy-five warriors. Morgan had madequite a pet of a young Sioux, who was our prisoner for five months, andthe boy had taught him a lot of the language, and assured him that hewould have the friendship of the band in return for his kindness to BlueArrow--that was the chap's name. So he thought he was safe; but itturned out that Blue Arrow's father, a chief, had got into a row withSun Boy, and the latter would not think of ratifying the boy's promise. So there was Morgan with his dozen men, in a nasty enough fix. He knewplenty of Indian talk to understand that they were discussing what theywould do with him, and it wasn't pleasant. 

"All of a sudden he had an inspiration. He tells the story himself, sir, and I assure you he'd make you laugh--Morgan is a wonderful mimic. Well, he remembered suddenly, as I said, that he was a mighty goodventriloquist, and he saw his chance. He gave a great jump like astartled fawn, and threw up his arms and stared like one demented intothe tree over their heads. There was a mangy-looking crow sitting upthere on a branch, and Morgan pointed at him as if at somethingmarvellous, supernatural, and all those fool Indians stopped pow-wowingand stared up after him, as curious as monkeys. Then to all appearances, the crow began to talk. Morgan said they must have thought that spiritsdidn't speak very choice Sioux, but he did his best. The bird cawed out:

"'Oh, Sun Boy, great chief, beware what you do!'

"And then the real bird flapped its wings and Morgan thought it wasgoing to fly, and he was lost. But it settled back again on the branch, and Morgan proceeded to caw on:

"'Hurt not the white man, or the curses of the gods will come upon SunBoy and his people. '

"And he proceeded to give a list of what would happen if the Indianstouched a hair of their heads. By this time the red devils were all downon their stomachs, moaning softly whenever Morgan stopped cawing. Hesaid he quite got into the spirit of it and would have liked to go onsome time, but he was beginning to get hoarse, and besides he was indeadly terror for fear the crow would fly before he got to the point. Sohe had the spirit order them to give the white men their horses and turnthem loose instanter; and just as he got all through, off went the thingwith a big flap and a parting caw on its own account. I wish I couldtell it as Morgan does--you'd think he was a bird and an Indian rolledtogether. He's a great actor spoiled, that lad. "

"You leave out a fine point, to my mind, Captain Booth, " the Colonelsaid quickly. "About his going back. "

"Oh! certainly that ought to be told, " said the Captain, and theGeneral's eyes turned to him again. "Morgan forgot to see young BlueArrow, his friend, before he got away, and nothing would do but that heshould go back and speak to him. He said the boy would be disappointed. The men were visibly uneasy at his going, but that didn't affect him. Heordered them to wait, and back he went, pell-mell, all alone into thathorde of fiends. They hadn't got over their funk, luckily, and he sawBlue Arrow and made his party call and got out again all right. Hedidn't tell that himself, but Sergeant O'Hara made the camp ring withit. He adores Morgan, and claims that he doesn't know what fear is. Ibelieve it's about so. I've seen him in a fight three times now. His capalways goes off--he loses a cap every blessed scrimmage--and with thatyellow mop of hair, and a sort of rapt expression he gets, he looks likea child saying its prayers all the time he is slashing and shooting likea berserker. " Captain Booth faced abruptly toward the Colonel. "I begyour pardon for talking so long, sir, " he said. "You know we're allrather keen about little Miles Morgan. "

The General lifted his head suddenly. "Miles Morgan?" he demanded. "Ishis name Miles Morgan. "

The Colonel nodded. "Yes. The grandson of the old Bishop--named forhim. "

"Lord!" ejaculated the General. "Miles Morgan was my earliest friend, myfriend until he died! This must be Jim's son--Miles's only child. AndJim is dead these ten years, " he went on rapidly. "I've lost track ofhim since the Bishop died, but I knew Jim left children. Why, hemarried"--he searched rapidly in his memory--"he married a daughter ofGeneral Fitzbrian's. This boy's got the church and the army both in him. I knew his mother, " he went on, talking to the Colonel, garrulous withinterest. "Irish and fascinating she was--believed in fairies and ghostsand all that, as her father did before her. A clever woman, but with thesuperstitious, wild Irish blood strong in her. Good Lord! I wish I'dknown that was Miles Morgan's grandson. "

The Colonel's voice sounded quiet and rather cold after the General'simpulsive enthusiasm. "You have summed him up by his antecedents, General, " he said. "The church and the army--both strains are strong. Heis deeply religious. "

The General looked thoughtful. "Religious, eh? And popular? They don'talways go together. "

Captain Booth spoke quickly. "It's not that kind, General, " he said. "There's no cant in the boy. He's more popular for it--that's often sowith the genuine thing, isn't it? I sometimes think"--the youngCaptain hesitated and smiled a trifle deprecatingly--"that Morgan ismuch of the same stuff as Gordon--Chinese Gordon; the martyr stuff, youknow. But it seems a bit rash to compare an every-day American youngsterto an inspired hero. "

"There's nothing in Americanism to prevent either inspiration or heroismthat I know of, " the General affirmed stoutly, his fine old head up, hiseyes gleaming with pride of his profession. 

Out through the open doorway, beyond the slapping tent-flap, the keen, gray eyes of the Colonel were fixed musingly on two black points whichcrawled along the edge of the dulled silver of the distant river--MilesMorgan and Sergeant O'Hara had started. 

 * * * * *

"Sergeant!" They were eight miles out now, and the camp had disappearedbehind the elbow of Black Wind Mountain. "There's something wrong withyour horse. Listen! He's not loping evenly. " The soft cadence of eighthoofs on earth had somewhere a lighter and then a heavier note; the earof a good horseman tells in a minute, as a musician's ear at a falsenote, when an animal saves one foot ever so slightly, to come downharder on another. 

"Yessirr. The Lieutenant'll remimber 'tis the horrse that had a bit of aspavin, Sure I thot 'twas cured, and 'tis the kindest baste in therigiment f'r a pleasure ride, sorr--that willin' 'tis. So I tuk it. Ithink 'tis only the stiffness at furrst aff. 'Twill wurruk aff later. Plaze God, I'll wallop him. " And the Sergeant walloped with a will. 

But the kindest beast in the regiment failed to respond except with aplunge and increased lameness. Soon there was no more question of hisincapacity. 

Lieutenant Morgan halted his mount, and, looking at the woe-begoneO'Hara, laughed. "A nice trick this is, Sergeant, " he said, "to startout on a trip to dodge Indians with a spavined horse. Why didn't you geta broomstick? Now go back to camp as fast as you can go; and that horseought to be blistered when you get there. See if you can't really curehim. He's too good to be shot. " He patted the gray's nervous head, andthe beast rubbed it gently against his sleeve, quiet under his hand. 

"Yessirr. The Lieutenant'll ride slow, sorr, f'r me to catch up on ye, sorr?"

Miles Morgan smiled and shook his head. "Sorry, Sergeant, but there'llbe no slow riding in this. I'll have to press right on without you; Imust be at Massacre Mountain to-night to catch Captain Thorntonto-morrow. "

Sergeant O'Hara's chin dropped. "Sure the Lieutenant'll niver bethinkin' to g'wan alone--widout _me_?" and with all the sergeant'srespect of his superiors, it took the Lieutenant ten valuable minutes toget the man started back, shaking his head and muttering forebodings, tothe camp. 

It was quiet riding on alone. There were a few miles to go before therewas any chance of Indians, and no particular lookout to be kept, so heput the horse ahead rapidly while he might, and suddenly he foundhimself singing softly as he galloped. How the words had come to him hedid not know, for no conscious train of thought had brought them; butthey surely fitted to the situation, and a pleasant sense ofcompanionship, of safety, warmed him as the swing of an old hymn carriedhis voice along with it. 

 God shall charge His angel legions Watch and ward o'er thee to keep; Though thou walk through hostile regions, Though in desert wilds thou sleep. 

Surely a man riding toward--perhaps through--skulking Indian hordes, ashe must, could have no better message reach him than that. The bent ofhis mind was toward mysticism, and while he did not think the train ofreasoning out, could not have said that he believed it so, yet thefamiliar lines flashing suddenly, clearly, on the curtain of his mind, seemed to him, very simply, to be sent from a larger thought than hisown. As a child might take a strong hand held out as it walked overrough country, so he accepted this quite readily and happily, as fromthat Power who was never far from him, and in whose service, beyond mostpeople, he lived and moved. Low but clear and deep his voice went on, following one stanza with its mate:

 Since with pure and firm affection Thou on God hast set thy love, With the wings of His protection He will shield thee from above. 

The simplicity of his being sheltered itself in the broad promise of thewords. 

Light-heartedly he rode on and on, though now more carefully; lying flatand peering over the crests of hills a long time before he crossedtheir tops; going miles perhaps through ravines; taking advantage ofevery bit of cover where a man and a horse might be hidden; travellingas he had learned to travel in three years of experience in thisdangerous Indian country, where a shrub taken for granted might mean awarrior, and that warrior a hundred others within signal. It was hisplan to ride until about twelve--to reach Massacre Mountain, and thererest his horse and himself till gray daylight. There was grass there anda spring--two good and innocent things that had been the cause of thebad, dark thing which had given the place its name. A troop underCaptain James camping at this point, because of the water and grass, hadbeen surprised and wiped out by five hundred Indian braves of the wickedand famous Red Crow. There were ghastly signs about the place yet;Morgan had seen them, but soldiers may not have nerves, and it was goodcamping ground. 

On through the valleys and half-way up the slopes, which rolled here faraway into a still wilder world, the young man rode. Behind the distanthills in the east a glow like fire flushed the horizon. A rim of palegold lifted sharply over the ridge; a huge round ball of light pushedfaster, higher, and lay, a bright world on the edge of the world, greatagainst the sky--the moon had risen. The twilight trembled as the yellowrays struck into its depths, and deepened, dying into purple shadows. Across the plain zigzagged pools of a level stream, as if a giant hadspilled handfuls of quicksilver here and there. 

Miles Morgan, riding, drank in all the mysterious, wild beauty, as a manat ease; as open to each fair impression as if he were not riding eachmoment into deeper danger, as if his every sense were not on guard. Onthrough the shining moonlight and in the shadow of the hills he rode, and, where he might, through the trees, and stopped to listen often, tostare at the hill-tops, to question a heap of stones or a bush. 

At last, when his leg-weary horse was beginning to stumble a bit, hesaw, as he came around a turn, Massacre Mountain's dark head rising infront of him, only half a mile away. The spring trickled its low song, as musical, as limpidly pure as if it had never run scarlet. Thepicketed horse fell to browsing and Miles sighed restfully as he laidhis head on his saddle and fell instantly to sleep with the light of themoon on his damp, fair hair. But he did not sleep long. Suddenly with astart he awoke, and sat up sharply, and listened. He heard the horsestill munching grass near him, and made out the shadow of its bulkagainst the sky; he heard the stream, softly falling and calling to thewaters where it was going. That was all. Strain his hearing as he mighthe could hear nothing else in the still night. Yet there was something. It might not be sound or sight, but there was a presence, asomething--he could not explain. He was alert in every nerve. Suddenlythe words of the hymn he had been singing in the afternoon flashed againinto his mind, and, with his cocked revolver in his hand, alone, onguard, in the midnight of the savage wilderness, the words came thatwere not even a whisper:

 God shall charge His angel legions Watch and ward o'er thee to keep; Though thou walk through hostile regions, Though in desert wilds thou sleep. 

He gave a contented sigh and lay down. What was there to worry about? Itwas just his case for which the hymn was written. "Desert wilds"--thatsurely meant Massacre Mountain, and why should he not sleep herequietly, and let the angels keep their watch and ward? He closed hiseyes with a smile. But sleep did not come, and soon his eyes were openagain, staring into blackness, thinking, thinking. 

It was Sunday when he started out on this mission, and he fell toremembering the Sunday nights at home--long, long ago they seemed now. The family sang hymns after supper always; his mother played, and thechildren stood around her--five of them, Miles and his brothers andsisters. There was a little sister with brown hair about her shoulders, who always stood by Miles, leaned against him, held his hand, looked upat him with adoring eyes--he could see those uplifted eyes now, shiningthrough the darkness of this lonely place. He remembered the big, home-like room; the crackling fire; the peaceful atmosphere of books andpictures; the dumb things about its walls that were yet eloquent to himof home and family; the sword that his great-grandfather had worn underWashington; the old ivories that another great-grandfather, the Admiral, had brought from China; the portraits of Morgans of half a dozengenerations which hung there; the magazine table, the books and booksand books. A pang of desperate homesickness suddenly shook him. Hewanted them--his own. Why should he, their best-beloved, throw away hislife--a life filled to the brim with hope and energy and high ideals--onthis futile quest? He knew quite as well as the General or the Colonelthat his ride was but a forlorn hope. As he lay there, longing so, inthe dangerous dark, he went about the library at home in his thought andplaced each familiar belonging where he had known it all his life. Andas he finished, his mother's head shone darkly golden by the piano; herfingers swept over the keys; he heard all their voices, the dearnever-forgotten voices. Hark! They were singing his hymn--little Alice'sreedy note lifted above the others--"God shall charge His angellegions--"

Now! He was on his feet with a spring, and his revolver pointedsteadily. This time there was no mistaking--something had rustled in thebushes. There was but one thing for it to be--Indians. Without realizingwhat he did, he spoke sharply. 

"Who goes there?" he demanded, and out of the darkness a voice answeredquietly:

"A friend. "

"A friend?" With a shock of relief the pistol dropped by his side, andhe stood tense, waiting. How might a friend be here, at midnight in thisdesert? As the thought framed itself swiftly the leaves parted, and hisstraining eyes saw the figure of a young man standing before him. 

"How came you here?" demanded Miles sternly. "Who are you?"

Even in the dimness he could see the radiant smile that answered him. The calm voice spoke again: "You will understand that later. I am hereto help you. "

As if a door had suddenly opened into that lighted room of which hedreamed, Miles felt a sense of tranquillity, of happiness stirringthrough him. Never in his life had he known such a sudden utterconfidence in anyone, such a glow of eager friendliness as thishalf-seen, mysterious stranger inspired. "It is because I was lonelierthan I knew, " he said mentally. "It is because human companionship givescourage to the most self-reliant of us"; and somewhere in the words hewas aware of a false note, but he did not stop to place it. 

The low, even voice of the stranger spoke again. "There are Indians onyour trail, " he said. "A small band of Black Wolf's scouts. But don't betroubled. They will not hurt you. "

"You escaped from them?" demanded Miles eagerly, and again the light ofa swift smile shone into the night. "You came to save me--how was it?Tell me, so that we can plan. It is very dark yet, but hadn't we betterride? Where is your horse?"

He threw the earnest questions rapidly across the black night, and theunhurried voice answered him. "No, " it said, and the verdict was not tobe disputed. "You must stay here. "

Who this man might be or how he came Miles could not tell, but this muchhe knew, without reason for knowing it; it was someone stronger than he, in whom he could trust. As the newcomer had said, it would be timeenough later to understand the rest. Wondering a little at his own swiftacceptance of an unknown authority, wondering more at the peace whichwrapped him as an atmosphere at the sound of the stranger's voice, Milesmade a place for him by his side, and the two talked softly to theplashing undertone of the stream. 

Easily, naturally, Miles found himself telling how he had been homesick, longing for his people. He told him of the big familiar room, and of theold things that were in it, that he loved; of his mother; of littleAlice, and her baby adoration for the big brother; of how they hadalways sung hymns together Sunday night; he never for a moment doubtedthe stranger's interest and sympathy--he knew that he cared to hear. 

"There is a hymn, " Miles said, "that we used to sing a lot--it was myfavorite; 'Miles's hymn, ' the family called it. Before you cameto-night, while I lay there getting lonelier every minute, I almostthought I heard them singing it. You may not have heard it, but it has agrand swing. I always think"--he hesitated--"it always seems to me as ifthe God of battles and the beauty of holiness must both have filled theman's mind who wrote it. " He stopped, surprised at his own lack ofreserve, at the freedom with which, to this friend of an hour, he spokehis inmost heart. 

"I know, " the stranger said gently. There was silence for a moment, andthen the wonderful low tones, beautiful, clear, beyond any voice Mileshad ever heard, began again, and it was as if the great sweet notes ofan organ whispered the words:

 God shall charge His angel legions Watch and ward o'er thee to keep; Though thou walk through hostile regions, Though in desert wilds thou sleep. 

"Great Heavens!" gasped Miles. "How could you know I meant that? Why, this is marvellous--why, this"--he stared, speechless, at the dimoutlines of the face which he had never seen before to-night, but whichseemed to him already familiar and dear beyond all reason. As he gazedthe tall figure rose, lightly towering above him. "Look!" he said, andMiles was on his feet. In the east, beyond the long sweep of theprairie, was a faint blush against the blackness; already threads ofbroken light, of pale darkness, stirred through the pall of the air; thedawn was at hand. 

"We must saddle, " Miles said, "and be off. Where is your horsepicketed?" he demanded again. 

But the strange young man stood still; and now his arm was stretchedpointing. "Look, " he said again, and Miles followed the direction withhis eyes. 

From the way he had come, in that fast-growing glow at the edge of thesky, sharp against the mist of the little river, crept slowly half adozen pin points, and Miles, watching their tiny movement, knew thatthey were ponies bearing Indian braves. He turned hotly to hiscompanion. 

"It's your fault, " he said. "If I'd had my way we'd have ridden fromhere an hour ago. Now here we are caught like rats in a trap; and who'sto do my work and save Thornton's troop--who's to save them--God!" Thename was a prayer, not an oath. 

"Yes, " said the quiet voice at his side, "God, "--and for a second therewas a silence that was like an Amen. 

Quickly, without a word, Miles turned and began to saddle. Then suddenlyas he pulled at the girth, he stopped. "It's no use, " he said. "We can'tget away except over the rise, and they'll see us there"; he nodded atthe hill which rose beyond the camping ground three hundred yards away, and stretched in a long, level sweep into other hills and the west. "Ourchance is that they're not on my trail after all--it's quite possible. "There was a tranquil unconcern about the figure near him; his own brightcourage caught the meaning of its relaxed lines with a hound ofpleasure. "As you say, it's best to stay here, " he said, and as ifthinking aloud--"I believe you must always be right. " Then he added, asif his very soul would speak itself to this wonderful new friend: "Wecan't be killed, unless the Lord wills it, and if he does it's right. Death is only the step into life; I suppose when we know that life, wewill wonder how we could have cared for this one. "

Through the gray light the stranger turned his face swiftly, bent towardMiles, and smiled once again, and the boy thought suddenly of themartyrdom of St. Stephen, and how those who were looking "saw his faceas it had been the face of an angel. "

Across the plain, out of the mist-wreaths, came rushing, scurrying, thehandful of Indian braves. Pale light streamed now from the east, filtering over a hushed world. Miles faced across the plain, stood closeto the tall stranger whose shape, as the dawn touched it, seemed to risebeyond the boy's slight figure wonderfully large and high. There was asense of unending power, of alertness, of great, easy movement abouthim; one might have looked at him, and looking away again, have saidthat wings were folded about him. But Miles did not see him. His eyeswere on the fast-nearing, galloping ponies, each with its load offilthy, cruel savagery. This was his death coming; there was disgust, but not dread in the thought for the boy. In a few minutes he should befighting hopelessly, fiercely against this froth of a lower world; in afew minutes after that he should be lying here still--for he meant to bekilled; he had that planned. They should not take him--a wave of sickrepulsion at that thought shook him. Nearer, nearer, right on his trackcame the riders pell-mell. He could hear their weird, horrible cries;now he could see gleaming through the dimness the huge headdress of theforemost, the white coronet of feathers, almost the stripes of paint onthe fierce face. 

Suddenly a feeling that he knew well caught him, and he laughed. It wasthe possession that had held in him in every action which he had so farbeen in. It lifted his high-strung spirit into an atmosphere where therewas no dread and no disgust, only a keen rapture in throwing every atomof soul and body into physical intensity; it was as if he himself werea bright blade, dashing, cutting, killing, a living sword rejoicing todestroy. With the coolness that may go with such a frenzy he felt thathis pistols were loose; saw with satisfaction that he and his new allywere placed on the slope to the best advantage, then turned swiftly, eager now for the fight to come, toward the Indian band. As he looked, suddenly in mid-career, pulling in their plunging ponies with a jerkthat threw them, snorting, on their haunches, the warriors halted. Mileswatched in amazement. The bunch of Indians, not more than a hundredyards away, were staring, arrested, startled, back of him to his right, where the lower ridge of Massacre Mountain stretched far and level overthe valley that wound westward beneath it on the road to FortRain-and-Thunder. As he gazed, the ponies had swept about and weregalloping back as they had come, across the plain. 

Before he knew if it might be true, if he were not dreaming this curiousthing, the clear voice of his companion spoke in one word again, likethe single note of a deep bell. "Look!" he said, and Miles swung abouttoward the ridge behind, following the pointing finger. 

In the gray dawn the hill-top was clad with the still strength of anarmy. Regiment after regiment, silent, motionless, it stretched backinto silver mist, and the mist rolled beyond, above, about it; andthrough it he saw, as through rifts in broken gauze, lines interminableof soldiers, glitter of steel. Miles, looking, knew. 

He never remembered how long he stood gazing, earth and time and selfforgotten, at a sight not meant for mortal eyes; but suddenly, with astab it came to him, that if the hosts of heaven fought his battle itwas that he might do his duty, might save Captain Thornton and his men;he turned to speak to the young man who had been with him. There was noone there. Over the bushes the mountain breeze blew damp and cold; theyrustled softly under its touch; his horse stared at him mildly; away offat the foot-hills he could see the diminishing dots of the fleeingIndian ponies; as he wheeled again and looked, the hills that had beencovered with the glory of heavenly armies, lay hushed and empty. Andhis friend was gone. 

[Illustration: "Look!" he said, and Miles swung about toward the ridgebehind. ]

Clatter of steel, jingle of harness, an order ringing out far butclear--Miles threw up his head sharply and listened. In a second he waspulling at his horse's girth, slipping the bit swiftly into itsmouth--in a moment more he was off and away to meet them, as a body ofcavalry swung out of the valley where the ridge had hidden them. 

"Captain Thornton's troop?" the officer repeated carelessly. "Why, yes;they are here with us. We picked them up yesterday, headed straight forBlack Wolf's war-path. Mighty lucky we found them. How about you--seenany Indians, have you?"

Miles answered slowly: "A party of eight were on my trail; they wereriding for Massacre Mountain, where I camped, about an hour--about halfan hour--awhile ago. " He spoke vaguely, rather oddly, the officerthought, "Something--stopped them about a hundred yards from themountain. They turned, and rode away. "

"Ah, " said the officer. "They saw us down the valley. "

"I couldn't see you, " said Miles. 

The officer smiled. "You're not an Indian, Lieutenant. Besides, theywere out on the plain and had a farther view behind the ridge. " AndMiles answered not a word. 

General Miles Morgan, full of years and of honors, has never but twicetold the story of that night of forty years ago. But he believes thatwhen his time comes, and he goes to join the majority, he will knowagain the presence which guarded him through the blackness of it, andamong the angel legions he looks to find an angel, a messenger, who washis friend. 

THE AIDE-DE-CAMP

Age has a point or two in common with greatness; few willingly achieveit, indeed, but most have it thrust upon them, and some are born old. But there are people who, beginning young, are young forever. One mightfancy that the careless fates who shape souls--from cotton-batting, fromstone, from wood and dynamite and cheese--once in an æon catch, bychance, a drop of the fountain of youth, and use it in their business, and the soul so made goes on bubbling and sparkling eternally, and graydust of years cannot dim it. It might be imagined, in another flight offancy, that a spark of divine fire from the brazier of the immortalssnaps loose once in a century and lodges in somebody, and is aheart--with such a clean and happy flame burns sometimes a heart oneknows. 

On a January evening, in a room where were books and a blazing hearth, a man with a famous name and a long record told me a story, and throughhis blunt speech flashed in and out all the time the sparkle of the fireand the ripple of the fountain. Unsuspecting, he betrayed every minutethe queer thing that had happened to him--how he had never grown up andhis blood had never grown cold. So that the story, as it fell in easysequence, had a charm which was his and is hard to trap, yet it is toogood a story to leave unwritten. A picture goes with it, what I lookedat as I listened: a massive head on tremendous shoulders; bright whitehair and a black bar of eyebrows, striking and dramatic; underneath, eyes dark and alive, a face deep red-and-brown with out of doors. Hisvoice had a rough command in it, because, I suppose, he had given manyorders to men. I tell the tale with this memory for a setting; thefirelight, the soldierly presence, the gayety of youth echoing throughit. 

The fire had been forgotten as we talked, and I turned to see it dulland lifeless. "It hasn't gone out, however, " I said, and coughed as Iswallowed smoke. "There's no smoke without some fire, " I poked the logstogether. "That's an old saw; but it's true all the same. "

"Old saws always are true, " said the General. "If there isn't somethingin them that people know is so they don't get old--they die young. Ibelieve in the ridden-to-death proverbs--little pitchers with bigears--cats with nine lives--still waters running deep--love at firstsight, and the rest. They're true, too. " His straight look challenged meto dispute him. 

The pine knots caught and blazed up, and I went back comfortably into mychair and laughed at him. 

"O General! Come! You don't believe in love at first sight. "

I liked to make him talk sentiment. He was no more afraid of it than ofanything else, and the warmest sort came out of his handling natural andunashamed. 

"I don't? Yes, I do, too, " he fired at me. "I know it happens, sometimes. "

With that the lines of his face broke into the sunshiniest smile. Hethrew back his head with sudden boyishness, and chuckled, "I ought toknow; I've had experience, " he said. His look settled againthoughtfully. "Did I ever tell you that story--the story about the day Irode seventy-five miles? Well, I did that several times--I rode it onceto see my wife. But this was the first time, and a good deal happened. It was a history-making day for me all right. That was when I wasaide-de-camp to General Stoneman. Have I told you that?"

"No, " I said; and "oh, do tell me. " I knew already that a fire and adeep chair and one of the General's stories made a good combination. 

His manner had a quality uncommon to storytellers; he spoke as if whathe told had occurred not in times gone by, but perhaps last week; it wasmore gossip than history. Probably the sharp, full years had been soshort to him that the interval between twenty and seventy was no greatmatter; things looked as clear and his interest was as lively as ahalf-century ago. This trick of mind made a narrative of his vivid. Witheyes on the fire, with his dominant voice absorbing the crisp sound ofthe crackling wood, he began to talk. 

"It was down in Virginia in--let me see--why, certainly, it was in'63--right away after the battle of Chancellorsville, you know. " I keptstill and hoped the General thought I knew the date of the battle ofChancellorsville. "I was part of a cavalry command that was sent fromthe Army of the Potomac under General Stoneman--I was his aide. Well, we did a lot of things--knocked out bridges and railroads, and all that;our object was, you see, to destroy communication between Lee's army andRichmond. We even got into Richmond--we thought every Confederatesoldier was with Lee at the front, and we had a scheme to free theprisoners in Libby, and perhaps capture Jefferson Davis--but we countedwrong. The defence was too strong, and our force too small; we had toskedaddle, or we'd have seen Libby in a way we didn't like. We found anegro who could pilot us, and we slipped out through fields and swampsbeyond the reach of the enemy. Then the return march began. Let me putthat log on. "

"No. Talk, " I protested; but the General had the wood in his vigorousleft hand--where a big scar cut across the back. 

"You needn't be so independent, " he threw at me. "Now you've got asplinter in your finger--serves you right. " I laughed at the savagetone, and his eyes flashed fiercely--and he laughed back. 

"What was I talking about--you interrupted. Oh, that march. Well, we'dhad a pretty rough time when the march back began. For nine days wehadn't had a real meal--just eaten standing up, whatever we could getcooked--or uncooked. We hadn't changed our clothes, and we'd slept onthe ground every night. "

"Goodness!" I interjected with amateur vagueness. "What about thehorses?"

"Oh, they got it, too, " the General said carelessly. "We seldomunsaddled them at all, and when we did it was just to give them arub-down and saddle again. We'd made one march toward home and halted, late at night, when General Stoneman called for his aide-de-camp. I wentto him, rather sleepy, and he told me he'd decided to communicate withhis chief and report his success, and that I was to start at daylightand find the Army of the Potomac. I had my pick of ten of the best menand horses from the brigade, and I got off at gray dawn with them, andwith the written report in my boot to the commanding general, and verbalorders to find him wherever he might be. Nothing else, except thetools--swords and pistols, and that sort of thing. Oh, yes, there wasone thing more. General Ladd, who was a Virginian, had given my chief aletter for his people, thinking we'd get into their country. His familywere all on the Confederate side of the fence, while he was a Unionofficer. That was not uncommon in our civil war. But we didn't get nearthe Ladd estate, and so Stoneman commissioned me to return the letter tothe general with the explanation. Does this bore you?" he stoppedsuddenly to ask, and his alert eye shot the glance at me like a bullet. 

"Stop once more and I'll be likely to cry, " I predicted. 

"For Heaven's sake don't do that. " He reached across and took thepoker. "Here's the Rapidan River, " he sketched down the rug. "Runs eastand west. And this blue diagonal north of it is the Rappahannock. Istarted south of the Rapidan, to cross it and go north, hoping to findour army victorious and south of the Rappahannock. Which I didn't--butthat's farther along. Well, we were off at daylight, ten men and theofficer--me. It was a fine spring morning, and the bunch of horsemenmade a pretty sight as the sun came up, moving through thegreenness--the foliage is well out down there in May. The bits jingledand the saddles creaked under our legs--I remember how it sounded as westarted off. We'd had a strenuous week, but we were a strong lot andready for anything. We were going to get it, too. " The General chuckledsuddenly, as if something had hit his funny-bone. "I skirted along thesouth bank of the Rapidan, keeping off the roads most of the time, andout of sight, which was better for our health--we were in Confederatecountry--and we got to Germania Ford without seeing anybody, or beingseen. Said I, 'Here's the place we'll cross. ' We'd had breakfast beforestarting, but we'd been in the saddle three hours since that, and I wasthirsty. I could see a house back in the trees as we came to the ford--abeautiful old house--the kind you see a lot of in the South--high whitepillars--dignified and aristocratic. It seemed to be quiet and safe, sowe trotted up the drive, the eleven of us. The front door was open, andI jumped off my horse and ran up the steps and stood in the doorway. There were four or five people in the hall, and they'd seen us comingand were scared. A nice old lady was lying back in a chair, as pale asashes, with her hand to her heart, gasping ninety to the second, and twoor three negroes stood around her with their eyes rolling. And right inthe middle of the place a red-headed girl in a white dress was bendingover a grizzled old negro man who was locking a large travelling-bag. Ascool as a cucumber that girl was. "

The General stopped and considered. 

"I wish I could describe the scene the way I saw it--I remember exactly. It was a big, square hall running through from front to back, and theback door was open, and you saw a garden with box hedges, and woodsbehind it. Stairs went up each side the hall and a balcony ran aroundthe second story, with bedrooms opening off it. There was a high, ovalwindow at the back over the balcony, and the sun poured through. 

"The girl finished locking her bag as if she hadn't noticed scum of theearth like us, and then she deliberately picked up a bunch of long whiteflowers that lay by the bag--lilies, I think you call them--and stoodup, and looked right past me, as if she was struck with the landscape, and didn't see me. She was a tall girl, and when she stood straight thelight from the back window just hit her hair and shone through the loosepart of it--there was a lot, and it was curly. I give you my word that, as she stood there and looked calmly beyond me, in her white dress, withthe stalk of flowers over her shoulder, and the sun turning thatwonderful red-gold hair into a halo--I give you my word she was aperfect picture of a saint out of a stained-glass window in a church. But she didn't act like one. "

The General was seized with sudden, irresistible laughter. He soberedquickly. 

"I took one look at the vision, and I knew it was all up with me. Talkabout love at first sight--before she ever spoke a word I--well. " Hepulled up the sentence as if it were a horse. "I snatched off my cap andI said, said I, 'I'm very sorry to disturb you, ' just as politely as Iknew how, but all the answer she gave me was to glance across at the oldlady. Then she went find put her arm around her as she lay back gaspingin a great curved chair. 

"'Don't be afraid, Aunt Virginia, ' she said. 'Nothing shall hurt you. Ican manage this man. '

"The way she said 'this man' was about as contemptuous as they make 'em. I guess she was right, too--I guess she could. She turned her headtoward me, but did not look at me. 

"'Do you want anything here?'" she asked. 

"Her voice was the prettiest, softest sound you ever heard--she was madas a hornet, too. " The General's swift chuckle caught him. "'Hyer, ' shesaid it, " he repeated. "'Hyer. '" He liked to say it, evidently. "Istood holding my cap in my hand, so tame by this time you could have putme on a perch in a cage, for the pluck of the girl was as fascinating asher looks. I spoke up like a man all the same. 

"'I wanted to ask, ' said I, 'if I might send my men around to your wellfor a drink of water. They're thirsty. '

"The way she answered, looking all around me and never once at me, mademe uncomfortable. 'I suppose you can if you wish, ' she said. 'You'restronger than we are. You can take what you choose. But I won't give youanything--not if you were dying--not a glass of water. '

"Well, in spite of her having played football with my heart, that mademe angry. 

"'I didn't know before that to be Southern made a woman unwomanly, ' Isaid. 'Where I came from I don't believe there's a girl would say acruel thing like that or refuse a drink of cold water to soldiers doingtheir duty, friends or enemies. We've slept on the ground nine nightsand ridden nine days, and had very little to eat--my men are tired andthirsty. I shan't make them go without any refreshment they can get, even if it is grudged. '

"I gave an order over my shoulder, and my party went off to the back ofthe house. Then I made a low bow to the old lady and to MissHigh-and-Mighty, and I swung about and walked down the steps and mountedmy horse. I was parched for water, but I wouldn't have had it if I'dchoked, after that. Between taking an almighty shine to the girl andgetting stirred up that way, and then being all frozen over with iciclesby her cool insultingness, I was pretty savage, and I stared away fromthe place and thought the men would never come. All of a sudden I feltsomething touch my arm, and I looked around quick, and there was thegirl. She stood by the horse, her red hair close to my elbow as I sat inthe saddle, and she held up a glass of water. I never was so astonishedin my life. 

"'You're thirsty and tired, too, ' she said, speaking as low as if shewas afraid the horse might hear. 'For my self-respect--for Southernwomen'--she brought it out in that soft, sliding way, but the wordswere all mixed up with embarrassment--and red--my, but she blushed! Thenshe went on. 'You were right, ' said she. 'I was cruel; you're my enemyand I hate you, but I ought not to grudge you water. Take it. '

"I put my hand right on top of hers as she held the glass, and bent downand drank so, making her hold it to my lips, and my hand overhers--bless her heart!"

The General came to a full stop. He was smiling into the fire, and hisface was as if a flame burned back of it. I waited very quietly, fearingto change the current by a word, and in a moment the strong voice, withits vibrating note, not to be described, began again. 

"I drained every drop, " he said, "I'd have drunk a hogshead. When Ifinished I raised my head and looked down at her without a wordsaid--but I didn't let go of the glass with her hand holding it insidemine--and she lifted her eyes very slowly, and for the first time lookedat me. Well--" he shut his lips a moment--"these things don't tell well, but something happened. I held her eyes into mine, us if I gripped themwith my muscles, and there came over her face an extraordinaryexpression--first as if she was surprised that it was me, then as if shewas glad, and then--well, you may believe it or not, but I knew thatsecond that the girl--loved me. She hated me all right five minutesbefore--I was her people's enemy--the chances were she'd never see meagain--all that's true, but it simply didn't count. She cared for me, and I for her, and we both knew it--that's all there was about it. People live faster in war-time, I think--anyhow, that's the way it was. 

"The men and horses came pouring around the house, and I let her handloose--it was hard to do it, too--and then she was gone, and we rode onto the ford. We stopped when we got to the stream to let the horses havetheir turn at drinking, and as I sat loafing in the saddle, with my mindpretty full of what had just passed, my eyes were all over. Everycavalry officer, and especially an aide-de-camp, gets to be a sort ofhawk in active service--nothing can move within range that he doesn'tsee. So as I looked about me I took in among other things the housewe'd just left, and suddenly I spied a handkerchief waving from behindone of the big white pillars. Of course you've got to be wary in anenemy's country, and these people were rabid Confederates, as I'doccasion to know. All the same it would have been bad judgment toneglect such a signal, and what's more, I'd have staked my life on thatgirl's honesty. If the handkerchief had been a cannon I'd have goneback. So back I went, taking a couple of men with me. As I jumped off myhorse I saw her standing inside the front door, back in the shadow, andI ran up the steps to her. 

"'Well?' said I. 

"She looked up at me and laughed, showing a row of white teeth. That wasthe first time I ever saw her laugh. 'I knew you'd come back, ' said she, as mischievous as a child, and her eyes danced. 

"I didn't mean to be made a fool of, for I had my duty to think about, so I spoke rather shortly. 'Well, and now I'm here--what?'

"With that she drew an excited little gasp. 'I couldn't let you bekilled, ' she brought out in a sort of breathless whisper, so low I hadto bend over close to hear her. 'You mustn't go on--in thatdirection--you'll be taken. The Union army's been defeated--atChancellorsville. They're driven north of the Rappahannock--to Falmouth. Our troops are in their old camps. There's an outpost across theford--just over the hill. '

"It was the first I'd heard of the defeat at Chancellorsville, and itstunned me for a second. 'Are you telling me the truth?' I asked herpretty sharply. 

"'You know I am, ' she said, as haughty as you please all of a sudden, and drew herself up with her head in the air. 

"And I did know it. Something else struck me just about then. The oldlady and the servants were gone from the hall. There wasn't anybody init but herself and me; my men were out of sight on the driveway. Iforgot our army and the war and everything else, and I caught her bandsin between mine, and said I, 'Why couldn't you let me be killed?'"

At his words I drew a quick breath, too. For a moment I was theSouthern girl with the red-gold hair. I could feel the clasp of theyoung officer's hands; I could hear his voice asking the rough, tenderquestion, "Why couldn't you let me be killed?"

"It was mighty still for a minute. Then she lifted up her eyes as I heldher fingers in a vise, and gave me a steady look. That was all--but itwas plenty. 

"I don't know how I got on my horse or what order I gave, but my headwas clear enough for business purposes, and I had to use it--quickly, too. There were thick woods near by, and I hurried my party into themand gave men and horses a short rest till I could decide what to do. TheConfederates were east of us, around Chancellorsville and in thetriangle between the Rapidan and the Rappahannock, so that It was unsafetravelling in that direction. It's the business of an aide-de-campcarrying despatches to steal as quietly as possible through an enemy'scountry, and the one fatal thing is to be captured. So I concluded Iwouldn't get into the thick of it till I had to, but would turn westand make a _détour_, crossing by Morton's Ford, farther up the Rapidan. Germania Ford lies in a deep loop of the river, and that made our ridelonger, but we found a road and crossed all right as I planned it, andthen we doubled back, as we had to, eastward. 

"It was a pretty ride in the May weather, through that beautifulVirginia country. We kept in the woods and the lonely roads as much aswe could and hardly saw a soul for hours, and though I knew we weregetting into dangerous parts again, I hoped we might work through allright. Of course I thought first about my errand, and my mind was onevery turn of the road and every speck in the landscape, but all thesame there was one corner of it--or of something--that didn't forgetthat red-headed girl--not an instant. I kept wondering if I'd ever seeher again, and I was mighty clear that I would, if there was enough leftof me by the time I could get off duty to go and look her up. The touchof her hands stayed with me all day. 

"About two o'clock or so we passed a house, just a cabin, but a neatsort of place, and I looked at it as I did at everything, and saw an oldnegro with grizzled hair standing some distance in front of it. Noweverything reminded me of that girl because she was on my mind, andinstantly I was struck with the idea, that the old fellow looked likethe servant who had been locking the bag in the house by Germania Ford. I wasn't sure it was the same darky, but I thought I'd see. There was apatch of woods back of the house, and I ordered the party to wait theretill I joined them, and I threw my bridle to a soldier and turned in atthe gate. The man loped out for the house, but I halted him. Then I wentalong past the negro to the cabin, and opened the door, which had beenshut tight. 

"There was a table littered with papers in the middle of the room, andbehind it, in a gray riding-habit, with a gray soldier-cap on her redhair, writing for dear life, sat the girl. She lifted her head quick, asthe door swung open, and then made a jump to get between me and thetable. I took off my cap, and said I:

"'I'm very glad to see you. I was just wondering if we'd ever meetagain. ' She only stared at me. Then I said: 'I'm sorry, but I'll have toask you for those papers. ' I knew by the look of them that they weresome sort of despatches. 

"At that she laughed in a kind of a friendly, cocksure way. She wasn'tafraid of anything, that girl. 'No, ' she threw at me--just likethat--'No. '" The General tossed back his big head and did a poorimitation of a girl's light tone--a poor imitation, but the way he didit was winning. "'No, ' said she, shaking her head sidewise. 'You can'thave those papers--not ever, ' and with that she swept them together andpopped them into a drawer of the table and then hopped up on the tableand sat there laughing at me, with her little riding-hoots swinging. 'Atleast, unless you knock me down, and I don't believe you'll do that, 'said she. 

"Well, I had to have those papers. I didn't know how important theymight be, but if this girl was sending information to the Southerncommanders I was inclined to think it would be accurate and worth while. It wouldn't do not to capture it. At the same time I wouldn't have laida finger on her, to compel her, for a million dollars. I stood andstared like a blockhead for a minute, at my wit's end, and she sat thereand smiled. All of a sudden I had an idea. I caught the end of the tableand tipped it up, and off slid the young lady, and I snatched at theknob of the drawer, and had the papers in a second. 

"It was simple, but it worked. Then it was her turn to look foolish. Ofcourse she had a temper, with that colored hair, and she was raging. Shelooked at me as if she'd like to tear me to pieces. There wasn'tanything she could say, however, and not lose her dignity, and I guessshe pretty nearly exploded for a minute, and then, in a flash, the jokeof it struck her. Her eyes began to dance, and she laughed because shecouldn't help it, and I with her. For a whole minute we forgot what abig business we were both after, and acted like two children. 

"'That's right, ' said I finally. 'I had to get them, but I did it in thekindest spirit. I see you understand that. '

"'Oh, I don't care, ' she answered with her chin up--a little way shehad. 'They're not much, anyway. I hadn't got to the important part. '

"'Won't you finish?' said I politely, and pretended to offer her thepapers--and then I got serious. 'What are you doing here?' I asked her. 'Where are you going?'

"She looked up at me, and--I knew she liked me. She caught her breathbefore she answered. 'What right have you got to ask me questions?' saidshe, making a bluff at righteous indignation. 

"But I just gripped her fingers into mine--it was getting to be a habit, holding her hand. 

"'And what are _you_ doing here?' she went on saucily, but her voice wasa whisper, and she let her hand lie. 

"'I'll tell you what I'm doing, ' said I. 'I'm obeying the Bible. MyBible tells me to love my enemies, and I'm going to. I do, ' said I. 'What does your Bible tell you?'

"'My Bible tells me to resist the devil and he will flee from me, ' sheanswered back like a flash, standing up straight and looking at mesquarely, as solemn as a church. 

"'Well, I guess I'm not that kind of a devil, ' said I. 'I don't want toflee worth a cent. '

"And at that she broke into a laugh and showed all her little teeth atme. That was one of the prettiest things about her, the row of smallwhite teeth she showed every time she laughed. 

"'Just at that second the old negro stuck his head in at the door. 'We're busy, uncle, ' said I. 'I'll give you five dollars for fiveminutes. '

"But the girl put her hand on my arm to stop me, 'What is it, UncleEbenezer?' she asked him anxiously. 

"'It's young Marse, Miss Lindy, ' the man said, 'Him'n Marse PhilipBreck'nridge 'n' Marse Tom's ridin' down de branch right now. Close tohyer--dey'll be hyer in fo'-five minutes. '

"She nodded at him coolly. 'All right. Shut the door, Uncle Ebenezer, 'said she, and he went out and shut it. 

"And before I could say Jack Robinson she was dragging me into the nextroom, and pushing me out of a door at the back. 

"'Go--hurry up--oh, go!' she begged. 'I won't let them take you. '

"Well, I didn't like to leave her suddenly like that, so I said, said I:'What's the hurry? I want to tell you something. '

"'_No_, ' she shot at me. 'You can't. Go--won't you, please go?' Then Ipicked up a little hand and hold it against my coat. I knew by now justhow she would catch her breath when I did it. "

At about this point the General forgot me. Such good comrades we werethat my presence did not trouble him, but as for telling the story tome, that was past--he was living it over, to himself alone, with everynerve in action. 

"'Look here, ' said I, 'I don't believe a thing like this ever happenedon the globe before, but this has. It's so--I love you, and I believeyou love me, and I'm not going till you tell me so. '

"By that time she was in a fit. 'They'll be here in two minutes; they'reConfederate officers. Oh, and you mustn't cross at Kelly's Ford--takethe ford above it'--and she thumped me excitedly with the hand I held. I laughed, and she burst out again: 'They'll take you--oh, please go!'

"'Tell me, then, ' said I, and she stopped half a second, and gaspedagain, and looked up in my eyes and said it. 'I love you, ' said she. Andshe meant it. 

"'Give me a kiss, ' said I, and I leaned close to her, but she pulledaway. 

"'Oh, no--oh, please go now, ' she begged. 

"'All right, ' said I, 'but you don't know what you're missing, ' and Islid out of the back door at the second the Southerners came in at thefront. 

"There were bushes back there, and I crawled behind them and lookedthrough into the window, and what do you suppose I saw? I saw thebiggest and best-looking man of the three walk up to the girl who'd justtold me she loved me, and I saw her put up her face and give him thekiss she wouldn't give me. Well, I went smashing down to the woods, making such a rumpus that if those officers had been half awake they'dhave been after me twice over. I was so maddened at the sight of thatkiss that I didn't realize what I was doing or that I was endangeringthe lives of my men. 'Of course, ' said I to myself, 'it's her brother orher cousin, ' but I knew it was a hundred to one that it wasn't, and Iwas in a mighty bad temper. 

"I got my men away from the neighborhood quietly, and we rode prettycautiously all that afternoon, I knew the road leading to Kelly's Ford, and I bore to the north, away from there, for I trusted the girl andbelieved I'd be safe if I followed her orders. She'd saved my life twicethat day, so I had reason to trust her. But all the time as I joggedalong I was wondering about that man, and wondering what the dickens shewas up to, anyway, and why she was travelling in the same direction thatI was, and where she was going--and over and over I wondered if I'd oversee her again. I felt sure I would, though--I couldn't imagine notseeing her, after what she'd said. I didn't even know her name, exceptthat the old negro had called her 'Miss Lindy. ' I said that a lot oftimes to myself as I rode, with the men's bits jingling at my buck andtheir horses' hoofs thud-thudding. 'Lindy--Miss Lindy--Linda--myLinda--I said it half aloud. It kept first-rate time to thehoof-beats--'Lindy--Miss Lindy. '

"I wondered, too, why she wouldn't let me cross the Rappahannock byKelly's Ford, for I had reason to think there'd be a Union post on theeast side of the river there, but there was a sense of brains andcapability about the girl, as well as charm--in fact, that's likely tobe a large part of any real charm--and so I trusted to her. 

[Illustration: "I got behind a turn and fired as a man came on alone. "]

"Well, late in the afternoon we were trotting along, feeling prettysecure. I'd left the Kelly's Ford road at the last turn, and wasbeginning to think that we ought to be within a few miles of the river, when all of a sudden, coming out of some woods into a small clearingwith a farmhouse about the centre of it, we rode on a strong outpost ofthe enemy, infantry and cavalry both. We were in the open before I sawthem, so there was nothing to do but make a dash for it and rush pastthe cabin before they could reach their arms, and we drew our revolversand put the spurs in deep and flew past with a fire that settled someof them. But a surprise of this sort doesn't last long, and it was onlya few minutes before they were after us--and with fresh mounts. Then itwas a horse-race for the river, and I wasn't certain of the roads. However, I knew a trick or two about this business, and I was sure someof the pursuers would forge ahead; so three times I got behind a turnand fired as a man came on alone. I dismounted several that way. Thisrelieved the strain enough so that I got within sight of the river withall my men. It was a quarter of a mile away when I saw it, and at thatpoint the road split, and which branch led to the ford for the life ofme I didn't know. There wasn't time for meditation, however, so I shotdown the turn to the left, on the gamble, and sure enough there was theford--only it wasn't any ford. The Rappahannock was full to the banksand perhaps two hundred yards across. The Confederates were withinrifle-shot, so there were exactly two things to do--surrender or swim. Igave my men the choice--to follow me or be captured--and I plunged in, without any of them. "

"What!" I demanded here, puzzled. "Didn't the men know how to swim?"

"Oh, yes, they knew how, " the General answered, and looked embarrassed. 

"Well, then, why didn't they?" It began to dawn on me, "Were theyafraid--was it dangerous--was the river swift?"

"Yes, " he acknowledged. "The river was swift--it was a foaming torrent. "

"They were afraid--all ten of them--and you weren't--you alone?" TheGeneral looked annoyed. "I didn't want to be captured, " he explainedcrossly. "I had the despatches besides. " He went on: "I slipped off myhorse, keeping hold of the bridle to guide him, and swam low beside him, because they were firing from the bank. But all at once the shotsstopped, and I heard shouting, and shortly after I got a glimpse, overmy horse's back, of a rider in the water near me, and there was a flashof a gray cap. One of the Southerners was swimming after me, and I wasdue for a tussle when we landed. I made it first. I scrambled to shoreand snatched out my sword--the pistols were wet--and rushed for theother man as he jumped to the bank, and just as I got to him--just intime--I saw him. It wasn't him--it was her--the girl. Heavens!" gaspedthe General; "she gave me a start that time. I dropped my sword on theground, I was so surprised, and stared at her with my mouth open. 

"'Oo-ee!' said that girl, shaking her skirt, as calm as a May morning. 'Oo-ee!' like a baby crowing. 'My, but that's a cold river!' And herteeth chattered. 

"Well, that time I didn't ask permission. I took her in my arms and heldher--I had to, to keep her warm. Couldn't let her stand there and clickher teeth--could I? And she didn't fight me. 'What did you do such acrazy thing for?' asked I. 

"'Well, you're mighty par-particular, ' said she as saucy as you please, but still shivering so she couldn't talk straight. 'They were poppingg-guns at you--that's what for. Roger's a right bad shot, but he mighthave hit you. '

"'And he might, have hit you, ' said I. 'Did you happen to think ofthat?'

"She just laughed. 'Oh, no--they wouldn't risk hitting me. I'm toovaluable--that's why I jumped in--to protect you. '

"'Oh!' said I. 'I'm a delicate flower, it seems. You've been protectingme all day. Who's Roger?'

"'My brother, ' said she, smiling up at me. 

"'Was that the man you kissed in the cabin back yonder?'

"'Shame!' said she. 'You peeped. '

"'Was it?' I insisted, for I wanted to know. And she told me. 

"'Yes, ' she told me, in that low voice of hers that was hard to hear, only it paid to listen. 

"'Did you ever kiss any other man?' said I. 

"'It's none of your business, ' said the girl. 'But I didn't--the way youmean. '

"'Well, it wouldn't make any difference, anyway--nothing would, ' I said. 'Except this--are you ever going to?'

"All this time that bright-colored head of hers was on my shoulder, Confederate cap and all, and I was afraid of my life to stir, for fearshe'd take it away. But when I said that I put my face down againsthers and repeated the question, 'Are you ever going to?'

"It seemed like ages before she answered and I was scared--yet shedidn't pull away, --and finally the words came--low, but I heard. 'One, 'said she. 'If he wants it. '

"Then--" the General stopped suddenly, and the splendid claret andhoney color of his cheeks went a dark shade more to claret. He had cometo from his trance, and remembered me. "I don't know why I'm telling youall these details, " he declared abruptly. "I suppose you're tired todeath listening. " His alert eyes questioned me. 

"General, " I begged, "don't stop like that again. Don't leave out asyllable. 'Then--'"

But he threw back his head boyishly and laughed with a touch ofself-consciousness. "No, madam, I won't tell you about 'then. ' I'llleave so much to your imagination. I guess you're equal to it. It wasn'ta second anyway before she gave a jump that took her six feet from me, and there she was tugging at the girth of her saddle. 

"'Quick--change the saddles!' she ordered me. 'I must be out of my mindto throw away time when your life's in danger. They're coming around bythe bridge, ' she explained, 'two miles down. And you have to have afresh mount. They'd catch you on that. ' She threw a contemptuous glanceat my tired brute, and began unbuckling the wet straps with her littlewet fingers. 

"'Don't do that, ' said I. 'Let me. ' But she pushed me away. 'Mustn'twaste time. ' She gave her orders as business-like as an officer. 'Doyour own saddle while I attend to this. Zero can run right away fromanything they're riding--from anything at all. Can't you, Zero?' and shegave the horse a quick pat in between unbuckling. He was a powerful, rangy bay, and not winded by his run and his swim. 'He's my father's, 'she went on. 'He'll carry you through to General Hooker's camp atFalmouth--he knows that camp. It's twenty-five miles yet, and you'veridden fifty to-day, poor boy. '

"I wish I could tell you how pretty her voice was when she said thingslike that, as if she cared that I'd had a strenuous day and was a littletired. 

"'How do you know I'm going to Falmouth? How do you know how far I'veridden?' I asked her, astonished again. 

"'I'm a witch, ' she said. 'I find out everything about you-all by magic, and then I tell our officers. They know it's so if I tell them. AskStonewall Jackson how he discovered the road to take his cavalry aroundfor the attack on Howard. I reckon I helped a lot at Chancellorsville. '

"'Do you reckon you're helping now?' I asked, throwing my saddle overZero's back. 'Strikes me you're giving aid and comfort to the enemy handover fist. '

"That girl surprised me whatever she did, and the reason was--I figuredit out afterward--that she let herself be what few people let themselvesbe--absolutely straightforward. She had the gentlest ways, but shealways hit straight from the shoulder, and that's likely to surprisepeople. This time she took three steps to where I stood by Zero andcaught my finger in the middle of pulling up the cinch and held to it. 

"'I'm not a traitor, ' she threw at me. 'I'm loyal to my people, andyou're my enemy--and I'm saving you from them. But it's you--it's you, 'she whispered, looking up at me. It was getting dark by now, but I couldsee her eyes. 'When you put your hand over mine this morning it was likesomebody'd telegraphed that the one man was coming; and then I looked atyou, and I knew he'd got there. I've never bothered about men--mostlythey're not worth while, when there are horses--but ever since I've beengrown I've known that you'd come some time, and that I'd know you whenyou came. Do you think I'm going to let you be taken--shot, maybe? Notmuch--I'll guard your life with every breath of mine--and I'll keep itsafe, too. '

"Now, wasn't that a strange way for a girl to talk? Did you ever hear ofanother woman who could talk that way, and live up to it?" he demandedof me unexpectedly. 

I was afraid to say the wrong thing and I spoke timidly. "What did youdo then?"

He gave me a glance smouldering with mischief. "I didn't do it. I triedto, but she wouldn't let me. 

"'Hurry, hurry, ' said she, in a panic all of a sudden. 'They'll becoming. Zero's fast, but you ought to get a good start. '

"And she hustled me on the horse. And just as I was off, as I bent fromthe saddle to catch her hand for the last time, she gave me two moreshocks together. " Silent reminiscent laughter shook him. 

"'When am I going to see you again?' asked I hopelessly, for I felt asif everything was mighty uncertain, and I couldn't bear to leave her. 

"'To-morrow, ' said she, prompt as taxes. 'To-morrow. Good-by, CaptainCarruthers. '

"And she gave the horse a slap that scared him into a leap, and off Iwent galloping into darkness, with my brain in a whirl as to where Icould see her to-morrow, and how under creation she knew my name. Thecold bath had refreshed me--I hadn't had the like of it for ninedays--and I galloped on for a while feeling fine, and thinking mightyhard about the girl I'd left behind me. Twenty-four hours before I'dnever seen her, yet I felt, as if I had known her all my life. I wassure of this, that in all my days I'd never seen anybody like her, andnever would. And that's true to this minute. I'd had sweetheartsa-plenty--in a way--but the affair of that day was the only time I wasever in love in my life. "

To tell the truth I had been a little scandalized all through thisstory, for I knew well enough that there was a Mrs. Carruthers. I hadnot met her--she had been South through the months which her husband hadspent in New York--but the General's strong language concerning thered-haired girl made me sympathize with his wife, and this lastsentiment was staggering. Poor Mrs. Carruthers! thought I--poor, staidlady, with this gay lad of a husband declaring his heart forever buriedwith the adventure of a day of long ago. Yet, a soldier boy oftwenty-three--the romance of war-time--the glamour of lost love--therewere certainly alleviating circumstances. At all events, it was not myaffair--I could enjoy the story as it came with a clear conscience. So Ismiled at the wicked General--who looked as innocent as a baby--and hewent on. 

"I knew every road on that side the river, and I knew the Confederateswouldn't dare chase me but a few miles, as it wasn't their country anylonger, so pretty soon I began to take things easy. I thought overeverything that had happened through the day, everything she'd said anddone, every look--I could remember it all. I can now. I wondered whounder heaven she was, and I kicked myself that I hadn't asked her name. 'Lindy'--that's all I knew, and I guess I said that over a hundredtimes. I wondered why she'd told me not to go to Kelly's Ford, but Iworked that out the right way--as I found later--that her party expectedto cross there, and she didn't want me to encounter them; and then theriver was too full and they tried a higher ford. And I'd run into them. Yet I couldn't understand why she planned to cross at Kelly's, anyway, because there was pretty sure to be a Union outpost on the east bankthere, and she'd have landed right among them. That puzzled me. Who wasthe girl, and why on earth was she travelling in that direction, andwhere could she be going? I went over that problem again and again, andcouldn't find an answer. 

"Meanwhile it was getting late, and the bracing effect of the coldwater of the Rappahannock was wearing off, and I began to feel thefatigue of an exciting day and a seventy-five-mile ride--on top ofnine other days with little to eat and not much rest. My wet clotheschilled me, and the last few miles I have never been able to rememberdistinctly--I think I was misty in my mind. At any rate, when I got toheadquarters camp I was just about clear enough to guide Zero throughthe maze of tents, and not any more, and when the horse stopped with hisnose against the front pole of the general's fly I was unconscious. "

I exclaimed, horrified: "It was too much for human nature! You must havebeen nearly dead. Did you fall off? Were you hurt?"

"Oh, no--I was all right, " he said cheerfully. "I just sat there. But anequestrian statue in front of the general's tent at 11 P. M. Wasn'tusual, and there was a small sensation. It brought out theadjutant-general and he recognized me, and they carried me into a tent, and got a surgeon, and he had me stripped and rubbed and rolled inblankets. They found the despatches in my boots, and those gave all theinformation necessary. They found the letter, too, which Stoneman hadgiven me to hand back to General Ladd, and they didn't understand that, as it was addressed simply to 'Miss Ladd, Ford Hall, ' so they left ittill I waked up. That wasn't till noon the next day. "

The General began chuckling contagiously, and I was alive with curiosityto know the coming joke. 

"I believe every officer in the camp, from the commanding general down, had sent me clothes. When I unclosed my eyes that tent was alive withthem. It was a spring opening, I can tell you--all sorts. Well, when Igot the meaning of the array, I lay there and laughed out loud, and anorderly appeared at that, and then the adjutant-general, and I reportedto him. Then I got into an assortment of the clothes, and did my duty bya pile of food and drink, and I was ready to start back to join mychief. Except for the letter of General Ladd--I had to deliver that inperson to give the explanation. General Ladd had been wounded, I found, at Chancellorsville, but would see me. So off I went to his tent, andthe orderly showed me in at once. He was in bed with his arm andshoulder bandaged, and by his side, looking as fresh as a rose and asmischievous as a monkey, sat a girl with red hair--Linda Ladd--MissLadd, of Ford Hall--the old house where I first saw her. Her fatherpresented me in due form and told me to give her the letter and--that'sall. "

The General stopped short and regarded me quietly. 

"Oh, but--" I stammered. "But that isn't all--why, I don'tunderstand--it's criminal not to tell the rest--there's a lot. "

"What do you want to hear?" he demanded, "I don't know any more--that'sall that happened. "

"Don't be brutal, " I pleaded. "I want to know, for one thing, how sheknew your name. "

"Oh--that. " He laughed like an amused child. "That was rather odd. Youremember I told you that when they were chasing us I took shelter andshot the horses from under some of the Southerners. "

"I remember. "

"Well, the first man dismounted was Tom Ladd, the girl's cousin, who'dbeen my classmate at the Point, and he recognized me. He ran back andtold them to make every effort to capture the party, as its leader wasCaptain Carruthers, of Stoneman's staff, and undoubtedly carrieddespatches. "

"Oh!" I said. "I see. And where was Miss Ladd going, travelling your wayall day?"

"To see her wounded father at Falmouth, don't you understand? She'd hadword from him the day before. She was escorted by a strong party ofConfederates, including her brother and cousin. She started out withjust the old negro, and it was arranged that she should meet the partyat the cabin where I found her writing. They were to go with her toKelly's Ford, where she was to pass over to the Union post on the otherbank--she had a safe-conduct. "

"Oh!" I assimilated this. "And she and her brother were Confederates, and the father was a Northern general--how extraordinary!"

"Not in the least, " the General corrected me. "It happened so in anumber of cases. She was a power in that campaign. She did more workthan either father or brother. A Southern officer told me afterward thatthe men half believed what she said--that she was a witch, and got newsof our movements by magic. Nothing escaped her--she had a wonderfulmind, and did not know what fear was. A wonderful woman!"

He was smiling to himself again as he sat, with his great shoulders bentforward and his scarred hand on his knee, looking into the fire. 

"General, " I said tentatively, "aren't you going to tell me what shesaid when she saw you come into her father's tent?"

"Said?" asked the General, looking up and frowning. "What could she say?Good-morning, I guess. "

I wasn't afraid of his frown or of his hammer-and-tongs manner. I'd gotbehind both before now. I persisted. 

"But I mean--what did you say to each other, like the day before--howdid it all come out?"

"Oh, we couldn't do any love-making, if that's what you mean, " heexplained in a business-like way, "because the old man was on deck. AndI had to leave in about ten minutes to ride back to join my command. That was all there was to it. "

I sighed with disappointment. Of course I knew it was just an idyll ofyouth, a day long, and that the book was closed forty years before. ButI could not bear to have it closed with a bang. Somewhere in thenarrative had come to me the impression that the heroine of it had diedyoung in those exciting war-times of long ago. I had a picture in mymind of the dancing eyes closed meekly in a last sleep; of the youngofficer's hand laid sorrowing on the bright halo of hair. 

"Did you ever see the girl again?" I asked softly. 

The General turned on me a quick, queer look. Fun was in it, and memorygave it gentleness; yet there was impatience, too, at my slowness, inthe boyish brown eyes. 

"Mrs. Carruthers has red hair, " he said briefly. 

THROUGH THE IVORY GATE

Breeze-filtered through shifting leafage, the June morning sunlight camein at the open window by the boy's bed, under the green shades, acrossthe shadowy, white room, and danced a noiseless dance of youth andfreshness and springtime against the wall opposite. The boy's headstirred on his pillow. He spoke a quick word from out of his dream. "Thekey?" he said inquiringly, and the sound of his own voice awoke him. Dark, drowsy eyes opened, and he stared half seeing, at the picture thathung facing him. Was it the play of mischievous sunlight, was it thedream that still held his brain? He knew the picture line by line, andthere was no such figure in it. It was a large photograph of Fairfield, the Southern home of his mother's people, and the boy remembered italways hanging there, opposite his bed, the first sight to meet his eyesevery morning since his babyhood. So he was certain there was no figurein it, more than all one so remarkable as this strapping little chap inhis queer clothes; his dress of conspicuous plaid with large blackvelvet squares sewed on it, who stood now in front of the oldmanor-house. Could it be only a dream? Could it be that a little ghost, wandering childlike in dim, heavenly fields, had joined the gay troop ofhis boyish visions and shipped in with them through the ivory gate ofpleasant dreams? The boy put his fists to his eyes and rubbed them andlooked again. The little fellow was still there, standing with sturdylegs wide apart as if owning the scene; he laughed as he held toward theboy a key--a small key tied with a scarlet ribbon. There was no doubt inthe boy's mind that the key was for him, and out of the dim world ofsleep he stretched his young arm for it; to reach it he sat up in bed. Then he was awake and knew himself alone in the peace of his own littleroom, and laughed shamefacedly at the reality of the vision which hadfollowed him from dreamland into the very boundaries of consciousness, which held him even now with gentle tenacity, which drew him backthrough the day, from his studies, from his play, into the strongcurrent of its fascination. 

The first time Philip Beckwith had this dream he was only twelve yearsold, and, withheld by the deep reserve of childhood, he told not evenhis mother about it, though he lived in its atmosphere all day andremembered it vividly days longer. A year after it came again; and againit was a June morning, and as his eyes opened the little boy came oncemore out of the picture toward him, laughing and holding out the key onits scarlet string. The dream was a pleasant one, and Philip welcomed iteagerly from his sleep as a friend. There seemed something sweet andfamiliar in the child's presence beyond the one memory of him, as againthe boy, with eyes half open to every-day life, saw him standing, smallbut masterful, in the garden of that old house where the Fairfields hadlived for more than a century. Half consciously he tried to prolong thevision, tried not to wake entirely for fear of losing it; but thepicture faded surely from the curtain of his mind as the tangible worldpainted there its heavier outlines. It was as if a happy little spirithad tried to follow him, for love of him, from a country lying close, yet separated; it was as if the common childhood of the two made italmost possible for them to meet; as if a message that might not bespoken, were yet almost delivered. 

The third time the dream came it was a December morning of the year whenPhilip was fifteen, and falling snow made wavering light and shadow onthe wall where hung the picture. This time, with eyes wide open, yetwith the possession of the dream strongly on him, he lay sub-consciouslyalert and gazed, as in the odd, unmistakable dress that Philip knew nowin detail, the bright-faced child swung toward him, always from thegarden of that old place, always trying with loving, merry efforts toreach Philip from out of it--always holding to him the red-ribboned key. Like a wary hunter the big boy lay--knowing it unreal, yet living itkeenly--and watched his chance. As the little figure glided close to himhe put out his hand suddenly, swiftly for the key--he was awake. Asalways, the dream was gone; the little ghost was baffled again; the twoworlds might not meet. 

That day Mrs. Beckwith, putting in order an old mahogany secretary, showed him a drawer full of photographs, daguerrotypes. The boy and hisgay young mother were the best of friends, for, only nineteen when hewas born, she had never let the distance widen between them; had heldthe freshness of her youth sacred against the time when he should shareit. Year by year, living in his enthusiasms, drawing him to hers, shehad grown young in his childhood, which year by year came closer to hermaturity. Until now there was between the tall, athletic lad and thestill young and attractive woman, an equal friendship, a common youth, which gave charm and elasticity to the natural tie between them. Yeteven to this comrade-mother the boy had not told his dream, for thedifficulty of putting into words the atmosphere, the compelling power ofit. So that when she opened one of the old-fashioned black cases whichheld the early sun-pictures, and showed him the portrait within, hestartled her by a sudden exclamation. From the frame of red velvet andtarnished gilt there laughed up at him the little boy of his dream. There was no mistaking him, and if there were doubt about the face, there was the peculiar dress--the black and white plaid with largesquares of black velvet sewed here and there as decoration. Philipstared in astonishment at the sturdy figure, the childish face with itswide forehead and level, strong brows; its dark eyes straight-gazing andsmiling. 

"Mother--who is he? Who is he?" he demanded. 

"Why, my lamb, don't you know? It's your little uncle Philip--mybrother, for whom you were named--Philip Fairfield the sixth. There wasalways a Philip Fairfield at Fairfield since 1790. This one was thelast, poor baby! and he died when he was five. Unless you go back theresome day--that's my hope, but it's not likely to come true. You are aYankee, except for the big half of you that's me. That's Southern, everyinch. " She laughed and kissed his fresh cheek impulsively. "But whatmade you so excited over this picture, Phil?"

Philip gazed down, serious, a little embarrassed, at the open case inhis hand. "Mother, " he said after a moment, "you'll laugh at me, butI've seen this chap in a dream three times now. "

"Oh!" She did laugh at him. "Oh, Philip! What have you been eating fordinner, I'd like to know? I can't have you seeing visions of yourancestors at fifteen--it's unhealthy. "

The boy, reddening, insisted. "But, mother, really, don't you think itwas queer? I saw him as plainly as I do now--and I've never seen thispicture before. "

"Oh, yes, you have--you must have seen it, " his mother threw backlightly. "You've forgotten, but the image of it was tucked away in somedark corner of your mind, and when you were asleep it stole out andplayed tricks on you. That's the way forgotten ideas do: they get evenwith you in dreams for having forgotten them. "

"Mother, only listen--" But Mrs. Beckwith, her eyes lighting with aswift turn of thought, interrupted him--laid her finger on his lips. 

"No--you listen, boy dear--quick, before I forget it! I've never toldyou about this, and it's very interesting. "

And the youngster, used to these wilful ways of his sister-mother, laughed and put his fair head against her shoulder and listened. 

"It's quite a romance, " she began, "only there isn't any end to it; it'sall unfinished and disappointing. It's about this little Philip here, whose name you have--my brother. He died when he was five, as I said, but even then he had a bit of dramatic history in his life. He was bornjust before war-time in 1859, and he was a beautiful and wonderful baby;I can remember all about it, for I was six years older. He was incarnatesunshine, the happiest child that ever lived, but far too quick andclever for his years. The servants used to ask him, 'Who is you, MarsePhilip, sah?' to hear him answer, before he could speak it plainly, 'I'mPhilip Fairfield of Fairfield'; he seemed to realize that, and hisresponsibility to them and to the place, as soon as he could breathe. Hewouldn't have a darky scolded in his presence, and every morning myfather put him in front of him in the saddle, and they rode togetherabout the plantation. My father adored him, and little Philip's sunshinyway of taking possession of the slaves and the property pleased him moredeeply, I think, than anything in his life. But the war came before thistime, when the child was about a year old, and my father went off, ofcourse, as every Southern man went who could walk, and for a year we didnot see him. Then he was badly wounded at the battle of Malvern Hill;and came home to get well. However, it was more serious than he knew, and he did not get well. Twice he went off again to join our army, andeach time he was sent back within a month, too ill to be of any use. Hechafed constantly, of course, because he must stay at home and farm, when his whole soul ached to be fighting for his flag; but finally inDecember, 1863, he thought he was well enough at last for service. Hewas to join General John Morgan, who had just made his wonderful escapefrom prison at Columbus, and it was planned that my mother should takelittle Philip and me to England to live there till the war was over andwe could all be together at Fairfield again. With that in view myfather drew all of his ready money--it was ten thousand dollars ingold--from the banks in Lexington, for my mother's use in the years theymight be separated. When suddenly, the day before he was to have gone, the old wound broke out again, and he was helplessly ill in bed at thehour when he should have been on his horse riding toward Tennessee. Wewere fifteen miles out from Lexington, yet it might be rumored thatfather had drawn a large sum of money, and, of course, he was well knownas a Southern officer. Because of the Northern soldiers, who held thecity, he feared very much to have the money in the house, yet he hopedstill to join Morgan a little later, and then it would be needed as hehad planned. Christmas morning my father was so much better that mymother went to church, taking me, and leaving little Philip, then fouryears old, to amuse him. What happened that morning was the point of allthis rambling; so now listen hard, my precious thing. "

The boy, sitting erect now, caught his mother's hand silently, and hiseyes stared into hers as he drunk in every word:

"Mammy, who was, of course, little Philip's nurse, told my motherafterward that she was sent away before my father and the boy went intothe garden, but she saw them go and saw that my father had a tin box--abox about twelve inches long, which seemed very heavy--in his arms, andon his finger swung a long red ribbon with a little key strung on it. Mother knew it as the key of the box, and she had tied the ribbon on itherself. 

"It was a bright, crisp Christmas day, pleasant in the garden--the boxhedges were green and fragrant, aromatic in the sunshine. You don't evenknow the smell of box in sunshine, you poor child! But I remember thatday, for I was ten years old, a right big girl, and it was a beautifulmorning for an invalid to take the air. Mammy said she was proud to seehow her 'handsome boy' kept step with his father, and she watched thetwo until they got away down by the rose-garden, and then she couldn'tsee little Philip behind the three-foot hedge, so she turned away. Butsomewhere in that big garden, or under the trees beside it, my fatherburied the box that held the money--ten thousand dollars. It shows howhe trusted that baby, that he took him with him, and you'll see how histrust was only too well justified. For that evening, Christmas night, very suddenly my father died--before he had time to tell my mother wherehe had hidden the box. He tried; when consciousness came a few minutesbefore the end he gasped out, 'I buried the money'--and then he choked. Once again he whispered just two words: 'Philip knows. ' And my mothersaid, 'Yes, dearest--Philip and I will find it--don't worry, dearest, 'and that quieted him. She told me about it so many times. 

"After the funeral she took little Philip and explained to him as wellas she could that he must tell mother where he and father had put thebox, and--this is the point of it all, Philip--he wouldn't tell. Shewent over and over it all, again and again, but it was no use. He hadgiven his word to my father never to tell, and he was too much of a babyto understand how death had dissolved that promise. My mother triedevery way, of course, explanations and reasoning first, then pleading, and finally severity; she even punished the poor little martyr, for itwas awfully important to us all. But the four-year-old baby wasabsolutely incorruptible, he cried bitterly and sobbed out:

"'Farver said I mustn't never tell anybody--never! Farver said PhilipFairfield of Fairfield mustn't _never_ bweak his words, ' and that wasall. 

"Nothing could induce him to give the least hint. Of course there wasgreat search for it, but it was well hidden and it was never found. Finally, mother took her obdurate son and me and came to New York withus, and we lived on the little income which she had of her own. Her hopewas that as soon as Philip was old enough she could make him understand, and go back with him and get that large sum lying underground--lyingthere yet, perhaps. But in less than a year the little boy was dead andthe secret was gone with him. "

Philip Beckwith's eyes were intense and wide. The Fairfield eyes, brownand brilliant, their young fire was concentrated on his mother's face. 

"Do you mean that money is buried down there, yet, mother?" he askedsolemnly. 

Mrs. Beckwith caught at the big fellow's sleeve with slim fingers. "Don't go to-day, Phil--wait till after lunch, anyway!"

"Please don't make fun, mother--I want to know about it. Think of itlying there in the ground!"

"Greedy boy! We don't need money now, Phil. And the old place will beyours when I am dead--" The lad's arm went about his mother's shoulders. "Oh, but I'm not going to die for ages! Not till I'm a toothless oldperson with side curls, hobbling along on a stick. Like this!"--shesprang to her feet and the boy laughed a great peal at the hag-likeeffect as his young mother threw herself into the part. She dropped onthe divan again at his side. 

"What I meant to tell you was that your father thinks it very unlikelythat the money is there yet, and almost impossible that we could find itin any case. But some day when the place is yours you can have it putthrough a sieve if you choose. I wish I could think you would ever livethere, Phil; but I can't imagine any chance by which you should. Ishould hate to have you sell it--it has belonged to a Philip Fairfieldso many years. "

A week later the boy left his childhood by the side of his mother'sgrave. His history for the next seven years may go in a few lines. School days, vacations, the four years at college, outwardly thecommonplace of an even and prosperous development, inwardly the infinitevariety of experience by which each soul is a person; the result of thetwo so wholesome a product of young manhood that no one realized underthe frank and open manner a deep reticence, an intensity, asensitiveness to impressions, a tendency toward mysticism which made thefibre of his being as delicate as it was strong. 

Suddenly, in a turn of the wheel, all the externals of his life changed. His rich father died penniless and he found himself on his own hands, and within a month the boy who had owned five polo ponies was ahard-working reporter on a great daily. The same quick-wittedness andenergy which had made him a good polo player made him a good reporter. Promotion came fast and, as those who are busiest have most time tospare, he fell to writing stories. When the editor of a large magazinetook one, Philip first lost respect for that dignified person, then feltashamed to have imposed on him, then rejoiced utterly over the check. After that editors fell into the habit; the people he ran against knewabout his books; the checks grew better reading all the time; a pointcame where it was more profitable to stay at home and imagine eventsthan to go out and report them. He had been too busy as the daysmarched, to generalize, but suddenly he knew that he was a successfulwriter; that if he kept his head and worked, a future was before him. Sohe soberly put his own English by the side of that of a master or twofrom his book-shelves, to keep his perspective clear, and then he workedharder. And it came to be five years after his father's death. 

At the end of those years three things happened at once. The young mansuddenly was very tired and knew that he needed the vacation he had gonewithout; a check came in large enough to make a vacation easy--and hehad his old dream. His fagged brain had found it but another worry todecide where he should go to rest, but the dream settled the vexedquestion off-hand--he would go to Kentucky. The very thought of itbrought rest to him, for like a memory of childhood, like a bit of hisown soul, he knew the country--the "God's Country" of its people--whichhe had never seen. He caught his breath as he thought of warm, sweet airthat held no hurry or nerve strain; of lingering sunny days whose hoursare longer than in other places; of the soft speech, the serene andkindly ways of the people; of the royal welcome waiting for him as forevery one, heartfelt and heart-warming; he knew it all from a daughterof Kentucky--his mother. It was May now, and he remembered she had toldhim that the land was filled with roses at the end of May--he would gothen. He owned the old place, Fairfield, and he had never seen it. Perhaps it had fallen to pieces; perhaps his mother had painted it incolors too bright; but it was his, the bit of the earth that belonged tohim. The Anglo-Saxon joy of land-owning stirred for the first timewithin him--he would go to his own place. Buoyant with the new thoughthe sat down and wrote a letter. A cousin of the family, of a youngerbranch, a certain John Fairfield, lived yet upon the land. Not in thegreat house, for that had been closed many years, but in a small housealmost as old, called Westerly. Philip had corresponded with him once ortwice about affairs of the estate, and each letter of the older man'shad brought a simple and urgent invitation to come South and visit him. So, pleased as a child with the plan, he wrote that he was coming on acertain Thursday, late in May. The letter sent, he went about in a dreamof the South, and when its answer, delighted and hospitable, camesimultaneously with one of those bleak and windy turns of weather whichmake New York, even in May, a marvellously fitting place to leave, hecould not wait. Almost a week ahead of his time he packed his bag andtook the Southwestern Limited, and on a bright Sunday morning he awokein the old Phoenix Hotel in Lexington. He had arrived too late the nightbefore to make the fifteen miles to Fairfield, but he had looked overthe horses in the livery-stable and chosen the one he wanted, for hemeant to go on horseback, as a Southern gentleman should, to his domain. That he meant to go alone, that no one, not even John Fairfield, knew ofhis coming, was not the least of his satisfactions, for the sight of theplace of his forefathers, so long neglected, was becoming suddenly asacred thing to him. The old house and its young owner should meet eachother like sweethearts, with no eyes to watch their greeting, their slowand sweet acquainting; with no living voices to drown the sound of theghostly voices that must greet his home-coming from those walls--voicesof his people who had lived there, voices gone long since into eternalsilence. 

A little crowd of loungers stared with frank admiration at the youngfellow who came out smiling from the door of the Phoenix Hotel, big andhandsome in his riding clothes, his eyes taking in the details ofgirths and bits and straps with the keenness of a horseman. 

Philip laughed as he swung into the saddle and looked down at thefriendly faces, most of them black faces, below, "Good-by, " he said. "Wish me good luck, won't you?" and a willing chorus of "Good luck, boss, " came flying after him as the horse's hoofs clattered down thestreet. 

Through the bright drowsiness of the little city he rode in the earlySunday morning, and his heart sang for joy to feel himself again acrossa horse, and for the love of the place that warmed him already. The sunshone hotly, but he liked it; he felt his whole being slipping intoplace, fitting to its environment; surely, in spite of birth andbreeding, he was Southern born and bred, for this felt like home morethan any home he had known!

As he drew away from the city, every little while, through statelywoodlands, a dignified sturdy mansion peeped down its long vista oftrees at the passing cavalier, and, enchanted with its beautifulsetting, with its air of proud unconsciousness, he hoped each time thatFairfield would look like that. If he might live here--and go to NewYork, to be sure, two or three times a year to keep the edge of hisbrain sharpened--but if he might live his life as these people lived, inthis unhurried atmosphere, in this perfect climate, with the best thingsin his reach for every-day use; with horses and dogs, with out-of-doorsand a great, lovely country to breathe in; with--he smiled vaguely--withsometime perhaps a wife who loved it as he did--he would ask from earthno better life than that. He could write, he felt certain, better andlarger things in such surroundings. 

But he pulled himself up sharply as he thought how idle a day-dream itwas. As a fact, he was a struggling young author, he had come South fortwo weeks' vacation, and on the first morning he was planning to livehere--he must be light-headed. With a touch of his heel and a word and aquick pull on the curb, his good horse broke into a canter, and then, under the loosened rein, into a rousing gallop, and Philip went dashingdown the country road, past the soft, rolling landscape, and under coolcaves of foliage, vivid with emerald greens of May, thoughts and dreamsall dissolved in exhilaration of the glorious movement, the nearestthing to flying that the wingless animal, man, may achieve. 

He opened his coat as the blood rushed faster through him, and a paperfluttered from his pocket. He caught it, and as he pulled the horse to atrot, he saw that it was his cousin's letter. So, walking now along thebrown shadows and golden sunlight of the long white pike, he fell towondering about the family he was going to visit. He opened the foldedletter and read:

"My dear Cousin, " it said--the kinship was the first thought in JohnFairfield's mind--"I received your welcome letter on the 14th. I amdelighted that you are coming at last to Kentucky, and I consider thatit is high time you paid Fairfield, which has been the cradle of yourstock for many generations, the compliment of looking at it. We closedour house in Lexington three weeks ago, and are settled out here now forthe summer, and find it lovelier than ever. My family consists only ofmyself and Shelby, my one child, who is now twenty-two years of age. Weare both ready to give you an old-time Kentucky welcome, and Westerly isready to receive you at any moment you wish to come. "

The rest was merely arrangement for meeting the traveller, all of whichwas done away with by his earlier arrival. 

"A prim old party, with an exalted idea of the family, " commented Philipmentally. "Well-to-do, apparently, or he wouldn't be having a winterhouse in the city. I wonder what the boy Shelby is like. At twenty-twohe should be doing something more profitable than spending an entiresummer out here, I should say. "

The questions faded into the general content of his mind at the glimpseof another stately old pillared homestead, white and deep down itsavenue of locusts. At length he stopped his horse to wait for a raggednegro trudging cheerfully down the road. 

"Do you know a place around here called Fairfield?" he asked. 

"Yessah. I does that, sah. It's that ar' place right hyeh, sah, by yo'hoss. That ar's Fahfiel'. Shall I open the gate fo' you, boss?" andPhilip turned to see a hingeless ruin of boards held together by thepersuasion of rusty wire. 

"The home of my fathers looks down in the mouth, " he reflected aloud. 

The old negro's eyes, gleaming from under shaggy sheds of eyebrows, watched him, and he caught the words. 

"Is you a Fahfiel', boss?" he asked eagerly. "Is you my young Marse?" Hejumped at the conclusion promptly. "You favors de fam'ly mightily, sah. I heard you was comin'"; the rag of a hat went off and he bowed low. "Hit's cert'nly good news fo' Fahfiel', Marse Philip, hit's mighty goodnews fo' us niggers, sah. I'se b'longed to the Fahfiel' fam'ly a hund'edyears, Marse--me and my folks, and I wishes yo' a welcome home, sah--welcome home, Marse Philip. "

Philip bent with a quick movement from his horse, and gripped thetwisted old black hand, speechless. This humble welcome on the highwaycaught at his heart deep down, and the appeal of the colored people toSoutherners, who know them, the thrilling appeal of a gentle, loyalrace, doomed to live forever behind a veil and hopeless withoutbitterness, stirred for the first time his manhood. It touched him to betaken for granted as the child of his people; it pleased him that heshould be "Marse Philip" as a matter of course, because there had alwaysbeen a Marse Philip at the place. It was bred deeper in the bone of himthan he knew, to understand the soul of the black man; the stuff he wasmade of had been Southern two hundred years. 

The old man went off down the white limestone road singing to himself, and Philip rode slowly under the locusts and beeches up the long drive, grass-grown and lost in places, that wound through the woodlandthree-quarters of a mile to his house. And as he moved through the park, through sunlight and shadow of these great trees that were his, he feltlike a knight of King Arthur, like some young knight long exiled, atlast coming to his own. He longed with an unreasonable seizure ofdesire to come here to live, to take care of it, beautify it, fill itwith life and prosperity as it had once been filled, surround it withcheerful faces of colored people whom he might make happy andcomfortable. If only he had money to pay off the mortgage, to put theplace once in order, it would be the ideal setting for the life thatseemed marked out for him--the life of a writer. 

The horse turned a corner and broke into a canter up the slope, and asthe shoulder of the hill fell away there stood before him the picture ofhis childhood come to life, smiling drowsily in the morning sunlightwith shuttered windows that were its sleeping eyes--the great whitehouse of Fairfield. Its high pillars reached to the roof; its big wingsstretched away at either side; the flicker of the shadow of the leavesplayed over it tenderly and hid broken bits of woodwork, patches ofpaint cracked away, window-panes gone here and there. It stood as if tooproud to apologize or to look sad for such small matters, as serene, asstately as in its prime. And its master, looking at it for the firsttime, loved it. 

He rode around to the side and tied his mount to an old horse-rack, andthen walked up the wide front steps as if each lift were an event. Heturned the handle of the big door without much hope that it would yield, but it opened willingly, and he stood inside. A broom lay in a corner, windows were open--his cousin had been making ready for him. There wasthe huge mahogany sofa, horse-hair-covered, in the window under thestairs, where his mother had read "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman. " Philipstepped softly across the wide hall and laid his head where must haverested the brown hair of the little girl who had come to be, first allof his life, and then its dearest memory. Half an hour he spent in theold house, and its walls echoed to his footsteps as if in ready homage, and each empty room whose door he opened met him with a sweet halffamiliarity. The whole place was filled with the presence of the childwho had loved it and left it, and for whom this tall man, her child, longed now as if for a little sister who should be here, and whom hemissed. With her memory came the thought of the five-year-old uncle whohad made history for the family so disastrously. He must see the gardenwhere that other Philip had gone with his father to hide the money onthe fated Christmas morning. He closed the house door behind himcarefully, as if he would not disturb a little girl reading in thewindow, a little boy sleeping perhaps in the nursery above. Then hewalked down the broad sweep of the driveway, the gravel crunching underthe grass, and across what had been a bit of velvet lawn, and stood fora moment with his hand on a broken vase, weed-filled, which capped thestone post of a gateway. 

All the garden was misty with memories. Where a tall golden flowernodded alone, from out of the tangled thicket of an old flower-bed, abright-haired child might have laughed with just that air of startled, gay naughtiness, from the forbidden centre of the blossoms. In themoulded tan-bark of the path was a vague print, like the ghost of afootprint that had passed down the way a lifetime ago. The box, halfdead, half sprouted into high unkept growth, still stood stiffly againstthe riotous overflow of weeds as if it yet held loyally to its businessof guarding the borders, Philip shifted his gaze slowly, lingering overthe dim contours, the shadowy shape of what the garden had been. Suddenly his eyes opened wide. How was this? There was a hedge as neat, as clipped, as any of Southampton in mid-season, and over it a glory ofroses, red and white and pink and yellow, waved gay banners to him intrim luxuriance. He swung toward them, and the breeze brought him forthe first time in his life the fragrance of box in sunshine. 

Four feet tall, shaven and thick and shining, the old hedge stood, andthe garnered sweetness of a hundred years' slow growth breatheddelicately from it toward the great-great-grandson of the man whoplanted it. A box hedge takes as long in the making as a gentleman, andwhen they are done the two are much of a sort. No plant in all thegarden has so subtle an air of breeding, so gentle a reserve, yet sogracious a message of sweetness for all of the world who will stop tolearn it. It keeps a firm dignity under the stress of tempest whenlighter growths are tossed and torn; it shines bright through the snow;it has a well-bred willingness to be background, with the well-bred giftof presence, whether as background or foreground. The soul of thebox-tree is an aristocrat, and the sap that runs through it is the blueblood of vegetation. 

Saluting him bravely in the hot sunshine with its myriad shiningsword-points, the old hedge sent out to Philip on the May breeze itsancient welcome of aromatic fragrance, and the tall roses crowded gaylyto look over its edge at the new master. Slowly, a little dazed at thisoasis of shining order in the neglected garden, he walked to the openingand stepped inside the hedge. The rose garden! The famous rose garden ofFairfield, and as his mother had described it, in full splendor ofcared-for, orderly bloom. Across the paths he stepped swiftly till hestood amid the roses, giant bushes of Jacqueminot and Maréchal Niel; ofpink and white and red and yellow blooms in thick array. The glory ofthem intoxicated him. That he should own all of this beauty seemed toogood to be true, and instantly he wanted to taste his ownership. Thethought came to him that he would enter into his heritage with stronghands here in the rose garden; he caught a deep-red Jacqueminot almostroughly by its gorgeous head and broke off the stem. He would gather abunch, a huge, unreasonable bunch of his own flowers. Hungrily he brokeone after another; his shoulders bent over them, he was deep in thebushes. 

"I reckon I shall have to ask you not to pick any more of those roses, "a voice said. 

Philip threw up his head as if he had been shot; he turned sharply witha great thrill, for he thought his mother spoke to him. Perhaps it wasonly the Southern inflection so long unheard, perhaps the sunlight thatshone in his eyes dazzled him, but, as he stared, the white figurebefore him seemed to him to look exactly as his mother had looked longago. Stumbling over his words, he caught at the first that came. 

"I--I think it's all right, " he said. 

The girl smiled frankly, yet with a dignity in her puzzled air. "I'mafraid I shall have to be right decided, " she said. "These roses areprivate property and I mustn't let you have them. "

"Oh!" Philip dropped the great bunch of gorgeous color guiltily by hisside, but still held tightly the prickly mass of stems, knowing hisright, yet half wondering if he could have made a mistake. He stammered:

"I thought--to whom do they belong?"

"They belong to my cousin, Mr. Philip Fairfield Beckwith"--the sound ofhis own name was pleasant as the falling voice strayed through it. "Heis coming home in a few days, so I want them to look their prettiest forhim--for his first sight of them. I take care of this rose garden, " shesaid, and laid a motherly hand on the nearest flower. Then she smiled. "It doesn't seem right hospitable to stop you, but if you will come overto Westerly, to our house, father will be glad to see you, and I willcertainly give you all the flowers you want. " The sweet and masterfulapparition looked with a gracious certainty of obedience straight intoPhilip's bewildered eyes. 

[Illustration: "I reckon I shall have to ask you not pick any more ofthose roses, " a voice said. ]

"The boy Shelby!" Many a time in the months after Philip Beckwithsmiled to himself reminiscently, tenderly, as he thought of "the boyShelby" whom he had read into John Fairfield's letter; "the boy Shelby"who was twenty-two years old and the only child; "the boy Shelby" whomhe had blamed with such easy severity for idling at Fairfield; "the boyShelby" who was no boy at all, but this white flower of girlhood, called--after the quaint and reasonable Southern way--as a boy iscalled, by the surname of her mother's people. 

Toward Westerly, out of the garden of the old time, out of the dimnessof a forgotten past, the two took their radiant youth and the brightnessof to-day. But a breeze blew across the tangle of weeds and flowers asthey wandered away, and whispered a hope, perhaps a promise; for as ittouched them each tall stalk nodded gayly and the box hedges rustleddelicately an answering undertone. And just at the edge of the woodland, before they were out of sight, the girl turned and threw a kiss back tothe roses and the box. 

"I always do that, " she said. "I love them so!"

Two weeks later a great train rolled into the Grand Central Station ofNew York at half-past six at night, and from it stepped a monstrosity--ayoung man without a heart. He had left all of it, more than he hadthought he owned, in Kentucky. But he had brought back with him memorieswhich gave him more joy than ever the heart had done, to his bestknowledge, in all the years. They were memories of long and sunshinydays; of afternoons spent in the saddle, rushing through grassy laneswhere trumpet-flowers flamed over gray farm fences, or trotting slowlydown white roads; of whole mornings only an hour long, passed in theenchanted stillness of an old garden; of gay, desultory searches throughits length and breadth, and in the park that held it, for buriedtreasure: of moonlit nights; of roses and June and Kentucky--and always, through all the memories, the presence that made them what they were, that of a girl he loved. 

No word of love had been spoken, but the two weeks had made over hislife; and he went back to his work with a definite object, a hopestronger than ambition, and, set to it as music to words, cameinsistently another hope, a dream that he did not let himself dwellon--a longing to make enough money to pay off the mortgage and putFairfield in order, and live and work there all his life--with Shelby. That was where the thrill of the thought came in, but the place was verydear to him in itself. 

The months went, and the point of living now were the mails from theSouth, and the feast days were the days that brought letters fromFairfield. He had promised to go back for a week at Christmas, and heworked and hoarded all the months between with a thought which he didnot formulate, but which ruled his down-sitting and his up-rising, thethought that if he did well and his bank account grew enough to justifyit he might, when he saw her at Christmas, tell her what he hoped; askher--he finished the thought with a jump of his heart. He never workedharder or better, and each check that came in meant a step toward thepromised land; and each seemed for the joy that was in it to quicken hispace, to lengthen his stride, to strengthen his touch. Early in Novemberhe found one night when he came to his rooms two letters waiting forhim with the welcome Kentucky postmark. They were in John Fairfield'shandwriting and in his daughter's, and "_place aux dames_" ruled ratherthan respect to age, for he opened Shelby's first. His eyes smiling, heread it. 

"I am knitting you a diamond necklace for Christmas, " she wrote. "Willyou like that? Or be sure to write me if you'd rather have me hunt inthe garden and dig you up a box of money. I'll tell you--there ought tobe luck in the day, for it was hidden on Christmas and it should befound on Christmas; so on Christmas morning we'll have another look, andif you find it I'll catch you 'Christmas gif'' as the darkies do, andyou'll have to give it to me, and if I find it I'll give it to you; sothat's fair, isn't it? Anyway--" and Philip's eyes jumped from line toline, devouring the clear, running writing. "So bring a little presentwith you, please--just a tiny something for me, " she ended, "for I'mcertainly going to catch you 'Christmas gif'. '"

Philip folded the letter back into its envelope and put it in hispocket, and his heart felt warmer for the scrap of paper over it. Thenhe cut John Fairfield's open dreamily, his mind still on the words hehad read, on the threat--"I'm going to catch you 'Christmas gif'. '" Whatwas there good enough to give her? Himself, he thought humbly, very farfrom it. With a sigh that was not sad he dismissed the question andbegan to read the other letter. He stood reading it by the fading lightfrom the window, his hat thrown by him on a chair, his overcoat stillon, and, as he read, the smile died from his face. With drawn brows heread on to the end, and then the letter dropped from his fingers to thefloor and he did not notice; his eyes stared widely at the high buildingacross the street, the endless rows of windows, the lights flashing intothem here and there. But he saw none of it. He saw a stretch of quietwoodland, an old house with great white pillars, a silent, neglectedgarden, with box hedges sweet and ragged, all waiting for him to comeand take care of them--the home of his fathers, the home he had meant, had expected--he knew it now--would be some day his own, the home hehad lost! John Fairfield's letter was to tell him that the mortgage onthe place, running now so many years, was suddenly to be foreclosed;that, property not being worth much in the neighborhood, no one wouldtake it up; that on January 2nd, Fairfield, the house and land, were tobe sold at auction. It was a hard blow to Philip Beckwith. With hishands in his overcoat pockets he began to walk up and down the room, trying to plan, to see if by any chance he might save this place heloved. It would mean eight thousand dollars to pay the mortgage. One ortwo thousand more would put the estate in order, but that might wait ifhe could only tide over this danger, save the house and land. An hour hewalked so, forgetting dinner, forgetting the heavy coat which he stillwore, and then he gave it up. With all he had saved--and it was a fairand promising beginning--he could not much more than half pay themortgage, and there was no way, which he would consider, by which hecould get the money. Fairfield would have to go, and he set his teethand clinched his fists as he thought how he wanted to keep it. A yearago it had meant nothing to him, a year from now if things went his wayhe could have paid the mortgage. That it should happen just thisyear--just now! He could not go down at Christmas; it would break hisheart to see the place again as his own when it was just slipping fromhis grasp. He would wait until it was all over, and go, perhaps, in thespring. The great hope of his life was still his own, but Fairfield hadbeen the setting of that hope; he must readjust his world before he sawShelby again. So he wrote them that he would not come at present, andthen tried to dull the ache of his loss with hard work. 

But three days before Christmas, out of the unknown forces beyond hisreasoning swept a wave of desire to go South, which took him off hisfeet. Trained to trust his brain and deny his impulse as he was, yetthere was a vein of sentiment, almost of superstition, in him which thethought of the old place pricked sharply to life. This longing wassomething beyond him--he must go--and he had thrown his decisions to thewinds and was feverish until he could get away. 

As before, he rode out from the Phoenix Hotel, and at ten o'clock inthe morning he turned into Fairfield. It was a still, bright Christmasmorning, crisp and cool, and the air like wine. The house stood bravelyin the sunlight, but the branches above it were bare and no softeningleafage hid the marks of time; it looked old and sad and desertedto-day, and its master gazed at it with a pang in his heart. It was his, and he could not save it. He turned away and walked slowly to thegarden, and stood a moment as he had stood last May, with his hand onthe stone gateway. It was very silent and lonely here, in the hush ofwinter; nothing stirred; even the shadows of the interlaced branchesabove lay almost motionless across the walks. 

Something moved to his left, down the pathway--he turned to look. Hadhis heart stopped, that he felt this strange, cold feeling in hisbreast? Were his eyes--could he be seeing? Was this insanity? Fifty feetdown the path, half in the weaving shadows, half in clear sunlight, stood the little boy of his life-long vision, in the dress with theblack velvet squares, his little uncle, dead forty years ago. As hegazed, his breath stopping, the child smiled and held up to him, as ofold, a key on a scarlet string, and turned and flitted as if a flowerhad taken wing, away between the box hedges. Philip, his feet moving asif without his will, followed him. Again the baby face turned itssmiling dark eyes toward him, and Philip knew that the child was callinghim, though there was no sound; and again without volition of his ownhis feet took him where it led. He felt his breath coming difficultly, and suddenly a gasp shook him--there was no footprint on the unfrozenearth where the vision had passed. Yet there before him, moving throughthe deep sunlit silence of the garden, was the familiar, sturdy littleform in its old-world dress. Philip's eyes were open; he was awake, walking; he saw it. Across the neglected tangle it glided, and into thetrim order of Shelby's rose garden; in the opening between the box wallsit wheeled again, and the sun shone clear on the bronze hair and freshface, and the scarlet string flashed and the key glinted at the end ofit. Philip's fascinated eyes saw all of that. Then the apparitionslipped into the shadow of the beech trees and Philip quickened his stepbreathlessly, for it seemed that life and death hung on the sight. Inand out through the trees it moved; once more the face turned towardhim; he caught the quick brightness of a smile. The little chap haddisappeared behind the broad tree-trunk, and Philip, catching hisbreath, hurried to see him appear again. He was gone. The little spiritthat had strayed from over the border of a world--who can say how far, how near?--unafraid in this earth-corner once its home, had slipped awayinto eternity through the white gate of ghosts and dreams. 

Philip's heart was pumping painfully as he came, dazed and staring, tothe place where the apparition had vanished. It was a giant beech tree, all of two hundred and fifty years old, and around its base ran a brokenwooden bench, where pretty girls of Fairfield had listened to theirsweethearts, where children destined to be generals and judges hadplayed with their black mammies, where gray-haired judges and generalshad come back to think over the fights that were fought out. There wereletters carved into the strong bark, the branches swung downwhisperingly, the green tent of the forest seemed filled with the memoryof those who had camped there and gone on. Philip's feet stumbled overthe roots as he circled the veteran; he peered this way and that, butthe woodland was hushed and empty; the birds whistled above, the grassesrustled below, unconscious, casual, as if they knew nothing of achild-soul that had wandered back on Christmas day with a Christmasmessage, perhaps, of good-will to its own. 

As he stood on the farther side of the tree where the little ghost hadfaded from him, at his feet lay, open and conspicuous, a fresh, deephole. He looked down absent-mindedly. Some animal--a dog, a rabbit--hadscratched far into the earth. A bar of sunlight struck a golden armthrough the branches above, and as he gazed at the upturned, brown dirtthe rays that were its fingers reached into the hollow and touched asquare corner, a rusty edge of tin. In a second the young fellow wasdown on his knees digging as if for his life, and in less than fiveminutes he had loosened the earth which had guarded it so many years, and staggering with it to his feet had lifted to the bench a heavy tinbox. In its lock was the key, and dangling from it a long bit ofno-colored silk, that yet, as he untwisted it, showed a scarlet threadin the crease. He opened the box with the little key; it turnedscrapingly, and the ribbon crumbled in his fingers, its long duty done. Then, as he tilted the heavy weight, the double eagles, packed closely, slipped against each other with a soft clink of sliding metal. The youngman stared at the mass of gold pieces as if he could not trust hiseyesight; he half thought even then that he dreamed it. With a quickmemory of the mortgage he began to count. It was all there--ten thousanddollars in gold! He lifted his head and gazed at the quiet woodland, theopen shadow-work of the bare branches, the fields beyond lying in thecalm sunlit rest of a Southern winter. Then he put his hand deep intothe gold pieces, and drew a long breath. It was impossible to believe, but it was true. The lost treasure was found. It meant to him Shelbyand home; as he realized what it meant his heart felt as if it wouldbreak with the joy of it. He would give her this for his Christmas gift, this legacy of his people and hers, and then he would give her himself. It was all easy now--life seemed not to hold a difficulty. And the twowould keep tenderly, always, the thought of a child who had loved hishome and his people and who had tried so hard, so long, to bring themtogether. He knew the dream-child would not visit him again--the littleghost was laid that had followed him all his life. From over the borderwhence it had come with so many loving efforts it would never comeagain. Slowly, with the heavy weight in his arms, he walked back to thegarden sleeping in the sunshine, and the box hedges met him with a waveof fragrance, the sweetness of a century ago; and as he passed throughtheir shining door, looking beyond, he saw Shelby. The girl's figurestood by the stone column of the garden entrance, the light shone on herbare head, and she had stopped, surprised, as she saw him. Philip's pacequickened with his heart-throb as he looked at her and thought of thelittle ghostly hands that had brought theirs together; and as he lookedthe smile that meant his welcome and his happiness broke over her face, and with the sound of her voice all the shades of this world and thenext dissolved in light. 

"'Christmas gif', ' Marse Philip!" called Shelby. 

THE WIFE OF THE GOVERNOR

The Governor sat at the head of the big black-oak table in his bigstately library. The large lamps on either end of the table stood in oldcloisonné vases of dull rich reds and bronzes, and their shades were ofthick yellow silk. The light they cast on the six anxious faces groupedabout them was like the light in Rembrandt's picture of The Clinic. 

It was a very important meeting indeed. A city official, who had formonths been rather too playfully skating on the thin ice of bare respectfor the law, had just now, in the opinion of many, broken through. Hehad followed a general order of the Governor's by a special order of hisown, contradicting the first in words not at all, but in spirit frombeginning to end. And the Governor wished to make an example ofhim--now, instantly, so promptly and so thoroughly that those who ranmight read, in large type, that the attempt was not a success. He wasyoung for a Governor--thirty-six years old--and it may be that care forthe dignity of his office was not his only feeling on the subject. 

"I won't be badgered, you know, " he said to the senior Senator of theState. "If the man wishes to see what I do when I'm ugly, I propose toshow him. Show me reason, if you can, why this chap shouldn't beindicted. "

To which they answered various things; for while they sympathized, andagreed in the main, yet several were for temporizing, and most of themfor going a bit slowly. But the Governor was impetuous and indignant. And here the case stood when there came a knock at the library door. 

The Governor looked up in surprise, for it was against all orders thathe should be disturbed at a meeting. But he spoke a "Come in, " andJackson, the stately colored butler, appeared, looking distressed andalarmed. 

"Oh, Lord! Gov'ner, suh!" was all he got out for a moment, fear at hisown rashness seizing him in its grip at the sight of the sixdistinguished faces turned toward him. 

"Jackson! What do you want?" asked the Governor, not so very gently. 

Jackson advanced, with conspicuous lack of his usual style andsang-froid, a tray in his hand, and a quite second-class-lookingenvelope upon it. "Beg pardon, suh. Shouldn't 'a' interrupted, Gov'nor;please scuse me, suh; but they boys was so pussistent, and it comed fumthe deepo, and I was mos' feared the railways was done gone on a strike, and I thought maybe you'd oughter know, suh--Gov'ner. "

And in the meantime, while the scared Jackson rambled on thus in anundertone, the Governor had the cheap, bluish-white envelope in hishand, and with a muttered "Excuse me" to his guests, had cut it acrossand was reading, with a face of astonishment, the paper that wasenclosed. He crumpled it in his hand and threw it on the table. 

"Absurd!" he said, half aloud; and then, "No answer, Jackson, " and theman retired. 

"Now, then, gentlemen, as we were saying before this interruption"--andin clear, eager sentences he returned to the charge. But a change hadcome over him. The Attorney-General, elucidating a point of importance, caught his chief's eye wandering, and followed it, surprised, to thatball of paper on the table. The Secretary of State could not understandwhy the Governor agreed in so half-hearted a way when he urged witheloquence the victim's speedy sacrifice. Finally, the august master ofthe house growing more and more distrait, he suddenly rose, and pickingup the crumpled paper--

"Gentlemen, will you have the goodness to excuse me for five minutes?"he said. "It is most annoying, but I cannot give my mind to businessuntil I attend to the matter on which Jackson interrupted us. I beg athousand pardons--I shall only keep you a moment. "

The dignitaries left cooling their heels looked at each other blankly, but the Lieutenant-Governor smiled cheerfully. 

"One of the reasons he is Governor at thirty-six is that he always doesattend to the matters that interrupt him. "

Meanwhile the Governor, rushing out with his usual impulsive energy, hadsent two or three servants flying over the house. "Where's Mrs. Mooney?Send Mrs. Mooney to me here instantly--and be quick;" and he waited, impatient, although it was for only three minutes, in a little roomacross the hall, where appeared to him in that time a square-shaped, gray-haired woman with a fresh face and blue eyes full of intelligenceand kindliness. 

"Mary, look here;" and the big Governor put his hand on the stout littlewoman's arm and drew her to the light. Mary and his Excellency werefriends of very old standing indeed, their intimacy having begunthirty-five years before, when the future great man was a rampant baby, and Mary his nurse and his adorer, which last she was still. "I want toread you this, and then I want you to telephone to Bristol at once. " Hesmoothed out the wrinkled single sheet of paper. 

"My dear Governor Rudd, " he read, --"My friends the McNaughtons ofBristol are friends of yours too, I think, and that is my reason fortroubling you with this note. I am on my way to visit them now, andexpected to take the train for Bristol at twenty minutes after eightto-night, but when I reached here at eight o'clock I found thetime-table had been changed, and the train had gone out twenty minutesbefore. And there is no other till to-morrow. I don't know what to do orwhere to go, and you are the only person in the city whose name I know. Would it trouble you to advise me where to go for the night--what hotel, if it is right for me to go to a hotel? With regret that I should haveto ask this of you when you must be busy with great affairs all thetime, I am, "Very sincerely, "LINDSAY LEE. "

Mary listened, attentive but dazed, and was about to burst out at oncewith voluble exclamations and questions when the Governor stopped her. 

"Now, Mary, don't do a lot of talking. Just listen to me. I thought atfirst this note was from a man, because it is signed by a man's name. But it looks and sounds like a woman, and I think it should be attendedto. I want you to telephone to Mr. George McNaughton, at Bristol, andask if Mr. Or Miss Lindsay Lee is a friend of theirs, and say that, ifso, he--or she--is all right, and is spending the night here. Then, inthat case, send Harper to the station with the brougham, and say that Ibeg to have the honor of looking after Mrs. McNaughton's friend for thenight. And you'll see that whoever it is is made very comfortable. "

"Indeed I will, the poor young thing, " said Mary, jumping at apicturesque view of the case. "But, Mr. Jack, do you want me totelephone to Mr. McNaughton's and ask if a friend of theirs--"

The Governor cut her short. "Exactly. You know just what I said, MaryMooney; you only want to talk it over. I'm much too busy. Tell Jacksonnot to come to the library again unless the State freezes over. Good-night. --I don't think the McNaughtons can complain that I haven'tdone their friend brown, " said the Governor to himself as he went backacross the hall. 

 * * * * *

Down at the station, beneath the spirited illumination of one whistlinggas-jet, the station-master and Lindsay Lee waited wearily for an answerfrom the Governor. It was long in coming, for the station-master's boys, the Messrs. O'Milligan, seizing the occasion for foreign travel offeredby a sight of the Executive grounds, had made a détour by the Executivestables, and held deep converse with the grooms. Just as the thought ofduty undone began to prick the leathery conscience of the older one, theorder came for Harper and the brougham. Half an hour later, at thestation, Harper drew up with a sonorous clatter of hoofs. Thestation-master hurried forward to interview the coachman. In a moment heturned with a beaming face. 

"It's good news for ye, miss. The Governor's sent his own kerridge forye, then. Blessed Mary, but it's him that's condescendin'. Get rightin, miss. "

Such a sudden safe harbor seemed almost too good to be true. Lindsay wasnearly asleep as the rubber-tired wheels rolled softly along through thecity. The carriage turned at length from the lights and swung up a longavenue between trees, and then stopped. The door flew open, and Lindsaylooked up steps and into a wide, lighted doorway, where stood a stoutwoman, who hastened to seize her bag and umbrella and take volublepossession of her. The sleepy, dazed girl was vaguely conscious of largehalls and a wide stair and a kind voice by her side that flowed ever onin a gentle river of words. Then she found herself in a big, pleasantbed-room, and beyond was the open door of a tiled bath-room. 

"Oh--oh!" she said, and dropped down sideways on the whiteness of thebrass bed, and put her arms around the pillow and her head, hat and all, on it. 

"Poor child!" said pink-checked, motherly Mrs. Mooney. "You're more thantired, that I can see without trying, and no wonder, too! I shan't sayanother word to you, but just leave you to get to bed and to sleep, andI'm sure it's the best medicine ever made, is a good comfortable bed anda night's rest. So I shan't stop to speak another word. But is thereanything at all you'd like, Miss Lee? And there, now, what am I thinkingabout? I haven't asked if you wouldn't have a bit of supper! I'll bringit up myself--just a bit of cold bird and a glass of wine? It will doyou good. But it will, " as Lindsay shook her head, smiling. "There'snothing so bad as going to sleep on an empty stomach when you're tired. "

"But I had dinner on the train, and I'm not hungry; sure enough, I'mnot; thank you a thousand times. "

Mrs. Mooney reluctantly took two steps toward the door, the room shakingunder her soft-footed, heavy tread. 

"You're sure you wouldn't like--" She stopped, embarrassed, and the blueeyes shone like kindly sapphires above the always-blushing cheeks. "I'mmortified to ask you for fear you'd laugh at me, but you seem like sucha child, and--would you let me bring you--just a slice of bread andbutter with some brown sugar on it?"

Lindsay had a gracious way of knowing when people really wished to dosomething for her. She flapped her hands, like the child she looked. "Oh, how did you think of it? I used to have that for a treat at home. Yes, I'd _love_ it!" And Mrs. Mooney beamed. 

"There! I thought you would! You see, Miss Lee, that's what I usedsometimes to give my boy--that's the Governor--when he was little andgot hungry at bedtime. "

Lindsay, left alone, took off her hat, and with a pull and screw at hernecktie and collar-button, dropped into a chair that seemed to hold itsfat arms up for her. She smiled sleepily and comfortably. "I'm having aright good time, " she said to herself, "but it's funny. I feel as if Ilived here, and I love that old housekeeper-nurse of the Governor's. Iwonder what the Governor is like? I wonder--" And at this point shebecame aware, with only slight surprise, of a little boy with a crownon his head who offered her a slice of bread and butter and sugar a yardsquare, and told her he had kept it for her twenty-five years. She wasabout to reason with him that it could not possibly be good to eat inthat case, when something jarred the brain that was slipping so easilydown into oblivion, and as her eyes opened again she saw Mrs. Mooney'ssolid shape bending over the tub in the bath-room, and a noise ofrunning water sounded pleasant and refreshing. 

"Oh, did I go to sleep?" she asked, sitting up straight and blinkingwide-open eyes. 

"There! I knew it would wake you, and I couldn't a-bear to do it, mydear, but it would never do for you to sleep like that in your clothes, and I drew your bath warm, thinking it would rest you better, but I canjust change it hot or cold as it suits you. And here's the little lunchfor you, and I feel as if it was my own little boy I was taking care ofagain; the year he was ten it was he ate so much at night. I saw himjust now, and he's that tired from his meeting--it's a shame how hard hehas to work for this State, time and time again. He said 'Good-night, Mary, ' he said, just the way he did years ago--such a little gentlemanhe always was. The dearest and the handsomest thing he was; they used tocall him 'the young prince, ' he was that handsome and full of spirit. Hetold me to say he hoped for the pleasure of seeing Miss Lee at breakfastto-morrow at nine; but if you should be tired, Miss Lee, or prefer yourbreakfast up here, which you can have it just as well as not, you know. And here I'm talking you to death again, and you ought to stop me, forwhen I begin about the Governor I never know when to stop myself. Justput up your foot, please, and I'll take your shoes off, " And while sheunlaced Lindsay's small boots with capable fingers she apologizedprofusely for talking--talking as much again. 

"There's nothing to excuse. It's mighty interesting to hear about him, "said Lindsay. "I shall enjoy meeting him that much more. Is there apicture of him anywhere around?" looking about the room. 

That was a lucky stroke. Mary Mooney parted the black ribbon that wastied beneath her neat white collar and turned her face up, all pleasedsmiles, to the girl, who leaned down to examine an ivory miniature setas a brooch. It was a sunny-faced little boy, with thick straight goldenhair and fearless brown eyes--a sweet childish face very easy to admire, and Lindsay admired it enough to satisfy even Mrs. Mooney. 

"I had it for a Christmas gift the year he was nine, " she said. Mary'scalendar ran from The Year of the Governor, 1. "He had whooping-coughjust after that, and was ill seven weeks. Dear me, what teeny littlefeet you have!" as she put on them the dressing-slippers from the bag, and struggled up to her own, heavily but cheerfully. 

Lindsay looked at her thoughtfully. "You haven't mentioned theGovernor's wife, " she said. "Isn't she at home?" and she leaned over topull up the furry heel of the little slipper. So that she missed seeingMary Mooney's face. Expression chased expression over that smilinglandscape--astonishment, perplexity, anxiety, the gleam of a new-bornidea, hesitation, and at last a glow of unselfish kindliness which oftenbefore had transfigured it. 

"No, Miss Lee, " said Mary. "She's away from home just now. " And then, unblushingly, "But she's a lovely lady, and she'll be very disappointednot to see you. "

Almost the next thing Lindsay knew she was watching dreamily spots ofsunlight that danced on a pale pink wall. Then a bird began to sing atthe edge of the window; there was a delicate rustle of skirts, and sheturned her head and saw a maid--not Mary Mooney this time--moving softlyabout, opening part way the outside shutters, drawing lip the shades abit, letting the light and shadow from tossing trees outside and the airand the morning in with gentle slowness. She dressed with deliberation, and, lo! it was a quarter after nine o'clock. 

So that the Governor waited for his breakfast. For ten minutes, whilethe paper lasted, waiting was unimportant; and then, being impatient bynature, and not used to it, he suddenly was cross. 

"Confound the girl!" soliloquized the Governor. "I'll have her indictedtoo! First she breaks up a meeting, then she gets the horses out at allhours, and now, to cap it, she makes me wait for breakfast. Why should Iwait for my breakfast? Why the devil can't she--Now, Mary, what is it? Iwarn you I'm cross, and I shan't listen well till I've had breakfast. I'm waiting for that young lady you're coddling. Where's that younglady? Why doesn't she--What?"

For the flood-gates were open, and the soft verbal oceans of Mary wereupon him. He listened two minutes, mute with astonishment, and then herose up in his wrath and was verbal also. 

"What! You told her I was _married_? What the dev--And you'reactually asking _me_ to tell her so _too_? Mary, are you insane?Embarrassed? What if she is embarrassed? And what do I care if--What?Sweet and pretty? Mary, don't be an idiot. Am I to improvise a wife, inmy own house, because a stray girl may object to visiting a bachelor?Not if I know it. Not much. " The Governor bristled with indignation. "Confound the girl, I'll--" At this point Mary, though portly, vanishedlike a vision of the night, and there stood in the doorway a smilingembodiment of the morning, crisp in a clean shirt-waist, and free fromconsciousness of crime. 

"Is it Governor Rudd?" asked Lindsay; and the Governor was, somehow, shaking hands like a kind and cordial host, and the bitterness was gonefrom his soul. "I certainly don't know how to thank you, " she said. "You-all have been very good to me, and I've been awfully comfortable. Iwas so lost and unhappy last night; I felt like a wandering Jewess. Ihope I haven't kept you waiting for breakfast?"

"Not a moment, " said the Governor, heartily, placing her chair, and itwas five minutes before he suddenly remembered that he was cross. Thenhe made an effort to live up to his convictions. "This is a mistake, " hesaid to himself. "I had no intention of being particularly friendly withthis young person. Rudd, I can't allow you to be impulsive in this way. You're irritated by the delay and by last night: you're bored to beobliged to entertain a girl when you wish to read the paper; you'reanxious to get down to the Capitol to see those men; all you feel is aperfunctory politeness for the McNaughtons' friend. Kindly rememberthese facts, Rudd, and don't make a fool of yourself gambolling on thegreen, instead of sustaining the high dignity of your office. " Soreasoned the Governor secretly, and made futile attempts at highdignity, while his heart became as wax, and he questioned of his soul atintervals to see if it knew what was going on. 

So the Governor sat before Lindsay Lee at his own table, momentarilymore surprised and helpless. And Lindsay, eating her grape-fruit withsatisfaction, thought him delightful, and wondered what his wife waslike, and how many children he had, and where they all were. It was atleast safe to speak of the wife, for the old house-keeper-nurse hadgiven her an unqualified recommendation. So she spoke. 

"I'm sorry to hear that Mrs. Rudd is not at home, " she began. "It mustbe rather lonely in this big house without her. "

The Governor looked at her and laughed. "Not that I've noticed, " hesaid, and was suddenly seized with a sickness of pity that was theinevitable effect of Lindsay Lee. She needed no pity, being healthy, happy, and well-to-do, but she had, for the punishment of men's sins, sad gray eyes and a mouth whose full lips curved sorrowfully down. Hercomplexion was the colorless, magnolia-leaf sort that is typicallySouthern; her dark hair lay in thick locks on her forehead as if alwaysdamp with emotion; her swaying, slender figure seemed to appeal tomasculine strength; and the voice that drawled a syllable to twice itslength here, to slide over mouthfuls of words there, had an upwardinflection at the end of sentences that brought tears to one's eyes. There was no pose about her, but the whole effect of her waspathetic--illogically, for she caught the glint of humor from every sidelight of life, which means pleasure that other people miss. The oldwarning against vice says that we "first endure, then pity, thenembrace"; but Lindsay differed from vice so far that people never had toendure her, but began with pity, finding it often a very short step tothe wish, at least, to embrace her. The Governor after fifteen minutes'acquaintance had arrived at pitying her, intensely and with his wholesoul, as he did most things. He held another interview with himself. "Lord! what an innocent face it is!" he said. "Mary said she would beembarrassed--the brute that would embarrass her! Hanged if I'll do it!If she would rather have me married, married I'll be. " He raised candideyes to Lindsay's face. 

"I'm afraid I've shocked you. You mustn't think I shall not be gladwhen--Mrs. Rudd--is here. But, you see, I've been very busy lately. I'vehardly had time to breathe--haven't had time to miss--her--at all, really. All the same--" Now what was the queer feeling in his throat andlungs--yes, it must be the lungs--as the Governor framed this sentence?He went on: "All the same, I shall be a happy man when--my wife--comeshome. "

Lindsay's face cleared. This was satisfactory and proper; there was nomore to be said about it. She looked up with a smile to where the oldbutler beamed upon her for her youth and beauty and her accent and hername. 

A handful of busy men left the Capitol in some annoyance that morningbecause the Governor had telephoned that he could not be there beforehalf past eleven. They would have been more annoyed, perhaps, if theyhad seen him dashing about the station light-heartedly just before theeleven-o'clock train for Bristol left. They said to each other: "It mustbe a matter of importance that keeps him. Governor Rudd almost neverthrows over an appointment. He has been working like the devil over thatstreet-railway franchise case; probably it's that. "

And the Governor stood by a chair in a parlor-car, his world cleared ofstreet railways and indictments and their class as if they had neverbeen, and in his hand was a small white oblong box tied with a tinselcord. 

"Good-by, " he said, "but remember I'm to be asked down for the gardenparty next week, and I'm coming. "

"I certainly won't forget. And I reckon I'd better not try to thank youfor--Oh, thank you! I thought that looked like candy. And bring Mrs. Rudd with you next week. I want to see her. And--Oh, get off, please;it's moving. Good-by, good-by. "

And to the mighty music of a slow-clanging bell and the treble ofescaping steam and the deep-rolling accompaniment of powerful wheels theGovernor escaped to the platform, and the capital city of that sovereignState was empty--practically empty. He noticed it the moment he turnedhis eyes from the disappearing train and moved toward Harper and thebrougham. He also noticed that he had never noticed it before. 

A solid citizen, catching a glimpse of the well-known, thoughtful facethrough the window of the Executive carriage as it bowled across towardthe Capitol, shook his head. "He works too hard, " he said to himself. "Afine fellow, and young and strong, but the pace is telling. He looksanxious to-day. I wonder what scheme is revolving in his brain at thismoment. "

And at that moment the Governor growled softly to himself. "I'veoverdone it, " he said. "She's sure to be offended. No one likes to betaken in. I ought not to have showed her Mrs. Rudd's conservatory; thatwas a mistake. She won't let them ask me down; I shan't see her. Hangedif I won't telephone Mrs. McNaughton to keep the secret till I've beendown. " And he did, before Lindsay could get there, amid much laughter atboth ends of the wire, and no small embarrassment at his own. 

And he was asked down, and having enjoyed himself, was asked again. Andagain. So that during the three weeks of Lindsay's visit Bristol sawmore of the Chief Executive officer of the State than Bristol had seenbefore, and everybody but Lindsay had an inkling of the reason. But thetime never came to tell her of the shadowy personality of Mrs. Rudd, andbetween the McNaughton girls and the Governor, whom they forced intounexpected statements, to their great though secret glee, Lindsay wasinformed of many details in regard to the missing first lady of thecommonwealth. Such a dialogue as the following would occur at the lunchtable:

_Alice McNaughton_ (speaking with ceremonious politeness from one end ofthe table to the Governor at the other end). "When is Mrs. Rudd coming, Governor?"

_The Governor_ (with a certain restraint). "Before very long, I hope, Miss Alice. Mrs. McNaughton, may I have more lobster? I've never in mylife had as much lobster as I wanted. "

_Alice_ (refusing to be side-tracked). "And when did you last hear fromher, Governor?"

_Chuck McNaughton_ (ornament of the Sophomore class at Harvard. In lovewith Lindsay, but more so with the joke. Gifted with a sledgehammerstyle of wit). "I've been hoping for a letter from her myself, Governor, but it doesn't come. "

_The Governor_ (with slight hauteur). "Ah, indeed!"

_Lindsay_ (at whose first small peep the Governor's eyes turn to hersand rest there shamelessly). "Why haven't you any pictures of Mrs. Ruddin the house, Mrs. McNaughton? The Governor's is everywhere and you alltell me how fascinating she is, and yet don't have her about. It lookslike you don't love her as much as the Governor. " (At the mention ofbeing loved, in that voice, cold shivers seize the Executive nerves. )

_Mrs. McNaughton_ (entranced with the airy persiflage, but knowing herown to be no light hand at repartee). "Ask the others, my dear. "

_Alice_ (jumping at the chance). "Oh, the reason of that is veryinteresting! Mrs. Rudd has never given even the Governor her picture. She--she has principles against it. She belongs, you see, to an ancientHebrew family--in fact, she is a Jewess" ("A wandering Jewess, " theGovernor interjected, _sotto voce_, his glance veering again toLindsay's face), "and you know that Jewish families have religiousscruples about portraits of any sort" (pauses, exhausted). 

_Chuck_ (with heavy artillery). "Alice, _taisez-vous_. You're doingpoorly. You can't converse. Your best parlor trick is your red hair. Miss Lee, I'll show you a picture of Mrs. Rudd some day, and I'll tellyou now what she looks like. She has exquisite melancholy gray eyes, amouth like a ripe tomato" (shouts from the table _en masse_, but Chuckploughs along cheerily), "hair like the braided midnight" (cries of"What's that?" and "Hear! Hear!"), "a figure slim and willowy as avaulting-pole" (a protest of "No track athletics at meals; that'sforbidden!"), "and a voice--well, if you ever tasted New Orleansmolasses on maple sugar, with 'that tired feeling' thrown in, perhapsyou'll have a glimpse, a mile off, of what that voice is like. " (Eagerexclamations of "That's near enough, " "Don't do it any more, Chuck, " and"For Heaven's sake, Charlie, stop. " Lindsay looks hard with the grayeyes at the Governor. )

_Lindsay_, "Why don't you pull your bowie-knife out of your boot, Governor? It looks like he's making fun of your wife, to me. Isn'tanybody going to fight anybody?"

And then Mr. McNaughton would reprove her as a bloodthirsty Kentuckian, and the whole laughing tableful would empty out on the broad porch. Atsuch a time the Governor, laughing too, amused, yet uncomfortable, andfeeling himself in a false and undignified position, would vow solemnlythat a stop must be put to all this. It would get about, into the paperseven, by horrid possibility; even now a few intimates of the McNaughtonfamily had been warned "not to kill the Governor's wife. " He wouldsurely tell the girl the next time he could find her alone, and then theabsurdity would collapse. But the words would not come, or if hecarefully framed them beforehand, this bold, aggressive leader of men, whose nickname was "Jack the Giant-killer, " made a giant of Lindsay'sdispleasure, and was afraid of it. He had never been afraid of anythingbefore. He would screw his courage up to the notch, and then, one lookat the childlike face, and down it would go, and he would ask her to gorowing with him. They were such good friends; it was so dangerous tochange at a blow existing relations, to tell her that he had beendeceiving her all these weeks. These exquisite June weeks that had flownpast to music such us no June had made before; days snowed under withroses, nights that seemed, as he remembered them, moonlit for a solidmonth. The Governor sighed a lingering sigh, and quoted, "Oh what a tangled web we weave When first we practise to deceive!"

Yes, he must really wait--say two days longer. Then he might be sureenough of her--regard--to tell her the truth. And then, a little later, if he could control himself so long, another truth. Beyond that he didnot allow himself to think. 

"Governor Rudd, " asked Lindsay suddenly as they walked their horses thelast mile home from a ride on which they had gotten separated--theGovernor knew how--from the rest of the party, "why do they bother youso about your wife, and why do you let them?"

"Can't help it, Miss Lindsay. They have no respect for me. I'm that sortof man. Hard luck, isn't it?"

Lindsay turned her sad, infantile gray eyes on him searchingly. "Ireckon you're not, " she said. "I reckon you're the sort of man peopledon't say things to unless they're right sure you will stand it. Theydon't trifle with you. " She nodded her head with conviction. "Oh, I'veheard them talk about you! I like that; that's like our men down South. You're right Southern, anyhow, in some ways. You see, I can pay youcompliments because you're a safe old married man, " and her eyes smiledup at him: she rarely laughed or smiled except with those lovely eyes. "There's some joke about your wife, " she went on, "that you-all won'ttell me. There certainly is. I _know_ it, sure enough I do, GovernorRudd. "

There is a common belief that the Southern accent can be faithfullyrendered in writing if only one spells badly enough. No amount of badspelling could tell how softly Lindsay Lee said those last two words. 

"I love to hear you say that--'Guv'na Rudd. ' I do, 'sho 'nuff, '" musedthe Governor out loud and irrelevantly. "Would you say it again?"

"I wouldn't, " said Lindsay, with asperity. "Ridiculous! If you are aGovernor! But I was talking about your wife. Isn't she coming homebefore I go? Sometimes I don't believe you have a wife. "

That was his chance, and he saw it. He must tell her now or never, andhe drew a long breath. "Suppose I told you that I had not, " he said, "that she was a myth, what would you say?"

"Oh, I'd just never speak to you again, " said Lindsay, carelessly. "Iwouldn't like to be fooled like that. Look, there are the others!" andoff she flew at a canter. 

It is easy to see that the Governor was not hurried headlong intoconfession by that speech. But the crash came. It was the night beforeLindsay was to go back home to far-off Kentucky, and with infiniteexpenditure of highly trained intellect, for which the State was payinga generous salary, the Governor had managed to find himself floating ona moonlit flood through the Forest of Arden with the Blessed Damozel. That, at least, is the rendering of a walk in the McNaughtons' wood withLindsay Lee as it appeared that night to the intellect mentioned. Butthe language of such thoughts is idiomatic and incapable of exacttranslation. A flame of eagerness to speak, quenched every moment by ashower-bath of fear, burned in his soul, when suddenly Lindsay trippedon a root and fell, with an exclamation. Then fear dried beneath theflames. It is unnecessary to tell what the Governor did, or what hesaid. The language, as language, was unoriginal and of strikingmonotony, and as to what happened, most people have had experience whichwill obviate the necessity of going into brutal facts. But when, trembling and shaken, he realized a material world again, Lindsay wasfighting him, pushing him away, her eyes blazing fiercely. 

"What do you mean? What _do_ you mean?" she was saying. 

"Mean--mean? That I love you--that I want you to love me, to be mywife!" She stood up like a white ghost in the silver light and shadow ofthe wood. 

"Governor Rudd, are you crazy?" she cried. "You have a wife already. "

The tall Governor threw back his head and laughed a laugh like a child. The people away off on the porch heard him and smiled. "They are havinga good time, those two, " Mrs. McNaughton said. 

"Lindsay--Lindsay, " and he bent over and caught her hands and kissedthem. "There isn't any wife--there never will be any but you. It was alla joke. It happened because--Oh, never mind! I can't tell you now; it'sa long story. But you must forgive that; that's all in the past now. Thequestion is, will you love me--will you love me, Lindsay? Tell me, Lindsay!" He could not say her name often enough. But there came noanswering light in Lindsay's face. She looked at him as if he were astriped convict. 

"I'll never forgive you, " she said, slowly. "You've treated me like achild; you've made a fool of me, all of you. It was insulting. All ajoke, you call it? And I was the joke; you've been laughing at me allthese weeks. Why was it funny, I'd like to know?"

"Great heavens, Lindsay--you're not going to take it that way? I insultyou--laugh at you! I'd give my life; I'd shoot down any one--Lindsay!"he broke out appealingly, and made a step toward her. 

"Don't touch me!" she cried. "Don't touch me! I hate you!" And as hestill came closer she turned and ran up the path, into the moonlight ofthe driveway, and so, a dim white blotch on the fragrant night, disappeared. 

When the Governor, walking with dignity, came up the steps of the porch, three minutes later, he was greeted with questions. 

"What have you done to Lindsay Lee, I'd like to know?" asked AliceMcNaughton. "She said she had fallen and hurt her foot, but she wouldn'tlet me go up with her, and she was dignified, which is awfully trying. Why did you quarrel with her, this last night?"

"Governor, " said Chuck, with more discernment than delicacy, "if youwill accept the sympathies of one not unacquainted with grief--" But atthis point his voice faded away as he looked at the Governor. 

The Governor never remembered just how he got away from the friendlyhatefulness of that porchful. An early train the next morning wasinevitable, for there was a meeting of real importance this time, and atall events everything looked about the same shade of gray to him; itmattered very little what he did. Only he must be doing something everymoment. He devoured work as if it were bread and meat and he werefamished. People said all that autumn and winter that anything like theGovernor's energy had never been seen. He evidently wanted a secondterm, and really he ought to have it. He was working hard enough to getit. About New-Year's he went down to Bristol for the first time sinceJune, for a dinner at the McNaughtons'. Alice McNaughton's friendlyface, under its red-gold hair, beamed at him from far away down thetable, but after dinner, when the men came in from the dining-room, shetook possession of him boldly. 

"Governor, I want to tell you about Lindsay Lee. I know you'll beinterested, though you did have some mysterious fight before she left. She's been awfully ill with pleurisy, a painful attack, and she'sgetting well very slowly. They have just taken her to Paul Smith's. I'mwriting her to-morrow, and I want you to send a good message; it wouldplease her. "

It was hard to stand with eighteen people grouped about him, all more orless with an eye on his motions, and be the Governor, calm anddignified, while hot irons were being applied to his heart by thissmiling girl. 

"But, Miss Alice, " he said, slowly, "I'm afraid you are wrong. I wasunfortunate enough to make Miss Lee very angry. I am afraid she wouldthink a message from me only an impertinence. "

"Sir, " said Alice, with decision, "I'm right sometimes, if I'm notGovernor; and it's better to be right than to be Governor, I'veheard--or something. You trust me. Just try the effect of a message, andsee if it isn't a success. What shall I say?"

The Governor was impetuous, and in spite of all the work he had done sofiercely, the longing the work had been meant to quiet surged up asstrong as ever. "Miss Alice, " he said, eagerly, "if you are right, would it do--do you think I might deliver the message myself?"

"Do I think? Well, if _I_ were a man! Faint heart, you know!"

And the Governor, at that choppy eloquence, openly seized the friendlyyoung hand and wrung it till Alice begged, laughing but bruised, formercy. When he came up, later, to bid her good-night, his face wasbright, and, "Good-night, Angel of Peace, " he said. 

 * * * * *

Mary Mooney, who through the dark days had watched with anxious thoughuncomprehending eyes her boy's dejection and hard effort to live itdown, and had applied partridges and sweetbreads and other forms ofdevotion steadily but unsuccessfully, saw at once and with, rapture thechange when the Governor greeted her the next morning. Light-heartedlyshe packed his traps two days later--she had done it jealously forthirty-five years, though almost over the dead body of the Governor'sman sometimes in these later days. And when he told her good-by she hadher reward. The man's boyish heart went out in a burst of gratitude tothe tireless love that had sought only his happiness all his life. Heput his arm around the stout little woman's neck. 

"Mary, " he said, "I'm going to see Miss Lee. "

Mary's pink cheeks were scarlet as she patted with a work-worn palm thestrong hand on her shoulder. "Then I know what will happen, " she said, "and I'm glad. And if you don't bring her back with you, Mr. Jack, Iwon't let you in. "

So the stately Governor went off like a schoolboy with his nurse'sblessing. And later like an arrow from a bow he swung around the cornerof the snowy piazza at Paul Smith's, where Mrs. Lee had told him hewould find her daughter. There was a bundle of fur in a big chair in thesunlight, dark against the white hills beyond, with their black lines ofpine-trees. As the impetuous steps came nearer, it turned, and--theGovernor's methods were again such that words do them no justice. Butthis time with happier result. Half an hour later, when some coherencywas established, he said:

"You waited for me! You've been _waiting_ for me!" as if it were themost astonishing fact in history. "And since when have you been waitingfor me, you--"

Lindsay laughed, not only with her eyes, but with her soft voice. "Eversince the morning after, your Excellency. Alice told me all about itbefore I left, and made me see reason. And I--and I was right sorry I'dbeen so cross. I thought you'd come some time--but you came right slow, "she said, and her eyes travelled over his face as if she were makingsure he was really there. 

"And I never dared to think you would see me!" he said. "But now!"

And again there were circumstances that are best described by a hiatus. 

The day after, when Mary Mooney, discreetly letting her soul's idol getinto his library before greeting him, trotted into that stately chamberwith soft, heavy footsteps, she was met with a kiss and a bear's hugthat, as she told Mrs. Rudd later, "was like the year he was nine. "

"I didn't bring her, Mary, " the Governor said, "but you'd better let mestay, for she's coming. "

THE LITTLE REVENGE

Suddenly a gust of fresh wind caught Sally's hat, and off it flew, awide-winged pink bird, over the old, old sea-wall of Clovelly, downamong the rocks of the rough beach, tumbling and jumping from one graystone to another, and getting so far away that, in the soft violettwilight, it seemed as lost as any ship of the Spanish Armada wreckedlong ago on this wild Devonshire coast. 

"Oh!" cried Sally distractedly, and clapped her hands to her head withthe human instinct to shut the stable door after the horse is gone. "Oh!" she cried again; "my pretty hat! And _oh_! it's in the water!"

But suddenly, out of somewhere in the twilight, there was a man chasingit. Sally leaned over the rugged, yellowish, grayish stone wall andexcitedly called to him. 

"Oh, thank you!" she cried, and "That's so good of you!"

The hat had tacked and was sailing inshore now, one stiff pink taffetasail set to the breeze. And in a minute, with a reckless splash into thedashing waves, the man had it, and an easy, athletic figure swung up thecauseway, holding it away from him, as if it might nip at him. He wore adark blue jersey, and loose, flapping trousers of a seaman. 

"He's only a sailor, " Sally said under her breath; "I'd better tip him. "Her hand slipped into her pocket and I heard the click of her purse. 

He looked from one to the other of us in the dim light inquiringly, ashe came up, and then off went his cap, and his face broke into thegentlest, most charming smile as he delivered the hat into Sally'soutstretched hands. 

"I'm afraid it's a bit damp, " he said. 

All dark-eyed, stalwart young fellows are attractive to me for the sakeof one like that who died forty years ago, but this sailor had a charmof manner that is a gift of the gods, let it fall to prince or peasant;the pretty deference of his few words, and the quick, radiant smile, were enough to win friendliness from me. More than that, something inthe set of his head, in the straight gaze of his eyes, held a likenessthat made my memory ache. I smiled back at him instantly. But Sally'sheart was on her hat; hats from good shops did not grow on trees forSally Meade. 

"I hope it isn't hurt, " she said, anxiously, and shook it carefully, andhardly glanced at the rescuer, who was watching with something thatlooked like amusement in his face. Then her good manners came back. 

"Thank you a thousand times, " she said, and turned to him brightly. "Youwere so quick--but, oh! I'm afraid you're wet. " She looked at him, and Isaw a little shock of surprise in her face. Beauty so striking will beadmired, even in a common sailor. 

"It's nothing, " he said, looking down at his sopping, wide trousers;"I'm used to it, " and as Sally's hand went forward I caught the flash ofsilver, and at the same moment another flash, from the man's eyes. 

It was enough to startle me for the fraction of a second, but, as Ilooked again, his expression held only a serious respect, and I was sureI had been mistaken. He took the money and touched his cap and said, "Thank you, miss, " with perfect dignity. Yet my imagination must havebeen lively, for as he slipped it in his pocket, his look turned towardme, and for another breath of time a gleam of mischief--certainlymischief--flashed from his dark eyes to mine. 

Then Sally, quite unconscious of this, perhaps imaginary, by-play, hadan idea. "Are you a sailor?" she asked. 

The man looked at her. "Yes--miss, " he answered, a little slowly. 

"We want to engage a boat and a man to take us out. Do you know of one?Have you a boat?"

The young fellow glanced down across the wall where a hull and mastgleamed indistinctly through the falling night, swinging at the side ofthe quay. "That's mine, yonder, " he said, nodding toward it. And then, with the graceful, engaging frankness that I already knew as his, "Ishall be very glad to take you out"--including us both in his glance. 

"Sally, " I said, five minutes later, as we trudged up the one steep, rocky street of Clovelly, --the picturesque old street that once ledEnglish smugglers to their caves, and that is more of a staircase than astreet, with rows of stone steps across its narrow width--"Sally, youare a very unexpected girl. You took my breath away, engaging that manso suddenly to take us sailing to-morrow. How do you know he isreliable? It would have been safer to try one of the men theyrecommended from the Inn. And certainly it would have been moredignified to let me make the arrangements. You seem to forget that I amolder than you. "

"You aren't, " said Sully, giving a squeeze to my arm that she held inthe angle of hers, pushing me with her young strength up the hill. "You're not as old, cousin Mary. I'm twenty-two, and you're onlyeighteen, and I believe you will never be any older. "

I think perhaps I like flattery. I am a foolish old woman, and I havenoticed that it is not the young girls who treat me with great deferenceand rise as soon as I come who seem to me the most charming, but theones who, with proper manners, of course, yet have a touch ofcomradeship, as if they recognized in me something more than a fossilexhibit. I like to have them go on talking about their beaux and theirwork and play, and let me talk about it, too. Sally Meade makes me feelalways that there is in me an undying young girl who has outlived all ofmy years and is her friend and equal. 

"I'm sorry if I was forward, cousin Mary, but the sailing is to be myparty, you know, and then I thought you liked him. He had a prettymanner for a common sailor, didn't he? And his voice--these low-classEnglish people have wonderfully well-bred, soft voices. I suppose it'sparticularly so here in the South. Cousin Mary, did you see the look hegave you with those delicious dark eyes? It's always the way--gentlemanor hod-carrier--no one has a chance with men when you are about. "

It is pleasant to me, old woman as I am, to be told that people likeme--more pleasant, I think, every year. I never take it for truth, ofcourse, but I believe it means good feeling, and it makes an atmosphereeasy to breathe. I purred like a contented cat under Sally's talking, yet, to save my dignity, kept up a protest. 

"Sally, my dear! Delicious dark eyes! I'm ashamed of you--a commonsailor!"

"I didn't smile at him, " said Sally, reflectively. 

So, struggling up the steep street of Clovelly, we went home to the "NewInn, " to cold broiled lobster, to strawberries and clotted Devonshirecream, and dreamless sleep in the white beds of the quiet rooms whosewindows looked toward the woods and cliffs of Hobby Drive on one side, and on the other toward the dark, sparkling jewel of the moon-lightedocean, and the shadowy line of Lundy Island far in the distance. 

That I, an inland woman, an old maid of sixty, should tell a story ofsailing and of love seems a little ridiculous. My nephews at collegebeguile me to talk about boats, and then laugh to hear me, for I thinkI get the names of things twisted. And as for what I know of theother--the only love-making to which I ever listened was ended fortyyears ago by one of the northern balls that fell in fiery rain onPickett's charge at Gettysburg. Yet, if I but tell the tale as it cameto me, others may feel as I did the thrill of the rushing of the keelthrough dashing salt water, the swing of the great white sail above, theflapping of the fresh wind in the slack of it, the exhilaration ofmoving with power like the angels, with the great forces of nature formuscles, the joy of it all expanding, pulsing through you, till it seemsas if the sky might crack if once you let your delight go free. And somemay catch, too, that other thrill, of the hidden feeling that glorifiedthose days. Few lives are so poor that the like of it has not brightenedthem, and no one quite forgets. 

It is partly Sally Meade's Southern accent that has made me love herabove nearer cousins, from her babyhood. The modulations of her voiceseem always to bring me close to the sound of the voice that went intosilence when Geoffrey Meade, her father's young kinsman, was killedlong ago. 

The Meades, old-time planters in Virginia, have been very poor since thedistant war of the sixties, and it has been one of my luxuries to giveSally a lift over hard places. Always with instant reward, for thesmallest bit of sunlight, going into her prismatic spirit, comes out amagnificent rainbow of happiness. So when the idea came that they mightlet me have the girl to take abroad that summer, her friend, the girlspirit in me, jumped for joy. There was no difficulty made; it was oneof the rare good things too good to be true, that yet are true. She didmore for me than I for her, for I simply spent some superfluous idlemoney, while she filled every day with a new enjoyment, the reflectionof her own fresh pleasure in every day as it came. 

So here we were prowling about the south of England with "Westward Ho!"for a guide-book; coaching through deep, tawny Devonshire lanes fromBideford to Clovelly; searching for the old tombstone of Will Cary'sgrave in the churchyard on top of the hill; gathering tales ofSalvation Yeo and of Amyas Leigh; listening to echoes of thethree-hundred-year-old time when the great sea-battle was fought in thechannel and many ships of the Armada wrecked along this Devonshirecoast. And always coming back to sleep in the fascinating little "NewInn, " as old as the hills, built on both sides of the one rocky ladderstreet of Clovelly, the street so steep that no horses can go in it, andat the bottom of whose breezy tunnel one sees the rolling floor of thesea. In so careless a way does the Inn ramble about the cliff that whenI first went to my room, two flights up from the front, I caught mybreath at a blaze of scarlet and yellow nasturtiums that faced methrough a white-painted doorway opening on the hillside and on a tinygarden at the back. 

The irresponsible pleasure of our first sail the next afternoon wasnever quite repeated. The boat shot from the landing like a high-strunghorse given his head, out across the unbordered road of silver water, and in a moment, as we raced toward the low white clouds, we turned andsaw the cliffs of the coast and the tiny village, a gay little pile ofwhite, green-latticed houses steeped in foliage lying up a crack in theprecipice. Above was the long stretch of the woods of Hobby Drive. Clovelly is so old that its name is in Domesday Book; so old, some say, that it was a Roman station, and its name was Clausa Vaillis. But it isa nearer ancientness that haunts it now. Every wave that dashes on therocky shore carries a legend of the ships of the Invincible Armada. Aswe asked question after question of our sailor, handsomer than everto-day with a red silk handkerchief knotted sailor-fashion about hisstrong neck, story after story flashed out, clear and dramatic, from hisanswers. The bunch of houses there on the shore? Yes, that had ahistory. The people living there were a dark-featured, reticent lot, different from other people hereabouts. It was said that one of theSpanish galleons went ashore there, and the men had been saved and hadsettled on the spot and married Devonshire women, but their descendantshad never lost the tradition of their blood. Certainly their speech andtheir customs were peculiar, unlike those of the villages near. He hadbeen there and had seen them, had heard them talk. Yes, they weredistinct. He laughed a little to acknowledge it, with an Englishman'sdistrust of anything theatrical. A steep cliff started out into thewaves, towering three hundred feet in almost perpendicular lines. Hadthat a name? Yes, that was called "Gallantry Bower. " No; it was not asentimental story--it was the old sea-fight again. It was said that anEnglish sailor threw a rope from the height and saved life after life ofthe crew of a Spaniard wrecked under the point. 

"You know the history of your place very well, " said Sally. The youngman kept his eyes on his steering apparatus and a slow half-smiletroubled his face and was gone. 

"I've had a bit of an education for a seaman--Miss, " he said. And then, after apparently reflecting a moment, "My people live near the Leighs ofBurrough Court, and I was playmate to the young gentlemen and was givena chance to learn with them, with their tutors, more than a common manis likely to get always. "

At that Sally's enthusiasm broke through her reserve, and I was only alittle less eager. 

"The Leighs! The real, old Leighs of Burrough? Amyas Leigh'sdescendants? Was that story true? Oh!--" And here manners andcuriosity met and the first had the second by the throat. She stopped. But our sailor looked up with a boyish laugh that illumined his darkface. 

"Is it so picturesque? I have been brought up so close that it seemscommonplace to me. Every one must be descended from somebody, you know. "

"Yes, but Amyas Leigh!" went on Sally, flushed and excited, forgettingthe man in his story. "Why, he's my hero of all fiction! Think of it, Cousin Mary--there are men near here who are his great--half-a-dozengreats--grandchildren! Cousin Mary, " she stopped and looked at meimpressively, oblivious of the man so near her, "if I could lay my handson one of those young Leighs of Burrough I'd marry him in spite of hisstruggles, just to be called by that name. I believe I would. "

"Sally!" I exclaimed, and glanced at the man; Sally's cheeks colored asshe followed my look. His mouth was twitching, and his eyes smoulderedwith fun. But he behaved well. On some excuse of steering he turned hisback instantly and squarely toward us. But Sally's interest wasirrepressible. 

"Would you mind telling me their names, Cary?" she asked. He had told usto call him Cary. "The names of the Mr. Leighs of Burrough. "

"No, Cary, " I said. "I think Miss Meade doesn't notice that she isasking you personal questions about your friends. "

Cary turned on me a look full of gentleness and chivalry. "Miss Meadedoesn't ask anything that I cannot answer perfectly well, " he said. "There are two sons of the Leighs, Richard Grenville, the older, andAmyas Francis, the younger. They keep the old names you see. Richard--Sir Richard, I should say--is the head of the family, hisfather being dead. "

"Sir Richard Grenville Leigh!" said Sally, quite carried away by thathistoric combination. "That's better than Amyas, " she went on, reflectively. "Is he decent? But never mind. I'll marry _him_, CousinMary. "

At that our sailor-man shook with laughter, and as I met his eyesappealing for permission, I laughed as hard as he. Only Sally wasapparently quite serious. 

"He would he very lucky--Miss, " he said, restraining his mirth with arespect that I thought remarkable, and turned again to his rudder. 

Sally, for the first time having felt the fascination of breathinghistoric air, was no longer to be held. The sweeping, free motion, therush of water under the bow as we cut across the waves, the wide sky andthe air that has made sailors and soldiers and heroes of Devonshire menfor centuries on end, the exhilaration of it all had gone to the girl'shead. She was as unconscious of Cary as if he had been part of his boat. I had seen her act so when she was six, and wild with the joy of anautumn morning, intoxicated with oxygen. We had been put for safety intothe hollow part of the boat where the seats are--I forget what they callit--the scupper, I think. But I am apt to be wrong on the nomenclature. At all events, there we were, standing up half the time to look at thewater, the shore, the distant sails, and because life was too intense tosit down. But when Sally, for all her gentle ways, took the bit in herteeth, it was too restricted for her there. 

"Is there any law against my going up and holding on to the mast?" sheasked Cary. 

"Not if you won't fall overboard, Miss, " he answered. 

The girl, with a strong, self-reliant jump, a jump that had an echo oftennis and golf and horseback, scrambled up and forward, Cary taking hisalert eyes a moment from his sailing, to watch her to safety, I thoughther pretty as a picture as she stood swaying with one arm around themast, in her white shirt-waist and dark dress, her head bare, and brown, untidy hair blowing across the fresh color of her face, and into herclear hazel eyes. 

"What is the name of this boat?" she demanded, and Cary's deep, gentlevoice lifted the two words of his answer across the twenty feet betweenthem. 

"The Revenge" he said. 

Then there was indeed joy. "The Revenge! The Revenge! I am sailing onthe Revenge, with a man who knows Sir Richard Grenville and Amyas Leigh!Cousin Mary, listen to that--this is the Revenge we're on--this!" Shehugged the mast, "And there are Spanish galleons, great three-deckers, with yawning tiers of guns, all around us! You may not see them, butthey are here! They are ghosts, but they are here! There is the greatSan Philip, hanging over us like a cloud, and we are--we are--Oh, Idon't know who we are, but we're in the fight, the most beautiful fightin history!" She began to quote:

 And half of their fleet to the right, and half to the left were seen, And the little Revenge ran on through the long sea-lane between. 

And then:

 Thousands of their sailors looked down from the decks and laughed; Thousands of their soldiers made mock at the mad little craft Running on and on till delayed By the mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons, And towering high above us with her yawning tiers of guns, Took the breath from our sails, and we stayed. 

The soft, lingering voice threw the words at us with a thrill and a leapforward, just us the Revenge was carrying us with long bounds, over theshining sea. We were spinning easily now, under a steady light wind, andCary, his hand on the rudder, was opposite me. He turned with a start asthe girl began Tennyson's lines, and his shining dark eyes stared up ather. 

"Do you know that?" he said, forgetting the civil "Miss" in hisearnestness. 

"Do I know it? Indeed I do!" cried Sally from her swinging rostrum. "Doyou know it, too? I love it--I love every word of it--listen, " And I, who knew her good memory, and the spell that the music of a noble poemcast over her, settled myself with resignation. I was quite sure that, short of throwing her overboard, she would recite that poem frombeginning to end. And she did. Her skirts and her hair blowing, her eyesfull of the glory of that old "forlorn hope, " gazing out past us to theseas that had borne the hero, she said it. 

 At Flores in the Azores, Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a frightened bird, came flying from far away; Spanish ships of war at sea, we have sighted fifty-three! Then up spake Sir Thomas Howard "'Fore God, I am no coward"--

She went on and on with the brave, beautiful story. How Sir Thomas wouldnot throw away his six ships of the line in a hopeless fight againstfifty-three; how yet Sir Richard, in the Revenge, would not leave behindhis "ninety men and more, who were lying sick ashore"; how at last SirThomas

 sailed away With five ships of war that day Till they melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven, But Sir Richard bore in hand All his sick men from the land, Very carefully and slow, Men of Bideford in Devon-- And he laid them on the ballast down below; And they blessed him in their pain That they were not left to Spain, To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord. 

The boat sailed softly, steadily now, as if it would not jar the rhythmof the voice telling, with soft inflections, with long, rushing meter, the story of that other Revenge, of the men who had gone from theseshores, under the great Sir Richard, to that glorious death. 

 And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, And not one moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came; Ship after ship, the whole night long, with their battle thunder and flame; Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame; For some they sunk, and many they shattered so they could fight no more. God of battles! Was ever a battle like this in the world before?

As I listened, though I knew the words almost, by heart too, my eyesfilled with tears and my soul with the desire to have been there, tohave fought as they did, on the little Revenge one after another of thegreat Spanish ships, till at last the Revenge was riddled and helpless, and Sir Richard called to the master-gunner to sink the ship for him, but the men rebelled, and the Spaniards took what was left of ship andfighters. And Sir Richard, mortally wounded, was carried on board theflagship of his enemies, and died there, in his glory, while thecaptains

 --praised him to his face. With their courtly Spanish grace. 

So died, never man more greatly, Sir Richard Grenville, of Stow inDevon. 

The crimson and gold of sunset were streaming across the water as sheended, and we sat silent. The sailor's face was grim, as men's faces arewhen they are deeply stirred, but in his dark eyes burned an intensitythat reserve could not bold back, and as he still stared at the girl alook shot from them that startled me like speech. She did not notice. She was shaken with the passion of the words she had repeated, andsuddenly, through the sunlit, rippling silence, she spoke again. 

"It's a great thing to be a Devonshire sailor, " she said, solemnly. "Awonderful inheritance--it ought never to be forgotten. And as for thatman--that Sir Richard Grenville Leigh--he ought to carry his name sohigh that nothing low or small could ever touch it. He ought never tothink a thought that is not brave and fine and generous. "

There was a moment's stillness and then I said, "Sally, my child, itseems to me you are laying down the law a little freely for Devonshire. You have only been here four days. " And in a second she was on her usualgay terms with the world again. 

"A great preacher was wasted in me, " she said. "How I could havethundered at everybody else about their sins! Cousin Mary, I'm comingdown--I'm all battered, knocking against the must, and the littletrimmings hurt my hands. "

Cary did not smile. His face was repressed and expressionless and in itwas a look that I did not understand. He turned soberly to his rudderand across the broken gold and silver of the water the boat drew in toshadowy Clovelly. 

It was a shock, after we had landed and I had walked down the quay a fewyards to inspect the old Red Lion Inn, the house of Salvation Yeo, tocome back and find Sally dickering with Cary. I had agreed that thissail should be her "party, " because it pleased the girl's proud spiritto open her small purse sometimes for my amusement. But I did not meanto let her pay for all our sailing, and I was horrified to find hertrying to get Cary cheaper by the quantity. When I arrived, Sally, alittle flustered and very dignified and quite evidently at the end of adiscussion as to terms, was concluding an engagement, and there was agleam in the man's wonderful eyes, which did much of his talking forhim. 

"You see the boat is very new and clean, Miss, " he was saying, "and Ihope you were satisfied with me?"

I upset Sally's business affairs at once, engaged Cary, and told him hemust take out no one else without knowing our plans. My handkerchieffell as I talked to him and he picked it up and presented it with asmuch ease and grace as if he had done such things all his life. It was aremarkable sailor we had happened on. A smile came like sunshine overhis face--the smile that made him look as Geoffrey Meade looked, half acentury ago. 

"I'll promise not to take any one else, ma'am, " he said. And then, withthe pretty, engaging frankness that won my heart over again each time, "And I hope you'll want to go often--not so much for the money, butbecause it is a pleasure to me to take you--both. "

There was mail for us waiting at the Inn. "Listen, Sally, " I said, as Iread mine in my room after dinner. "This is from Anne Ford. She wants tojoin us here the 6th of next month, to fill in a week between visits atcountry-houses. "

[Illustration: "You see, the boat is very new and clean, Miss, " he wassaying. ]

Sally, sitting on the floor before the fire, her dark hair loose and herletters lying about her, looked up attentively, and discreetly answerednothing. Anne Ford was my cousin, but not hers, and I knew withoutdiscussing it, that Sally cared for her no more than I. She was made ofshowy fibre, woven in a brilliant pattern, but the fibre was a littlecoarse, and the pattern had no shading. She was rich and a beauty and soused to being the centre of things, and largely the circumference too, that I, who am a spoiled old woman, and like a little place and a littleconsideration, find it difficult to be comfortable as spoke upon herwheel. 

"It's too bad, " I went on regretfully. "Anne will not appreciateClovelly, and she will spoil it for us. She is not a girl I care for. Idon't see why I should he made a convenience for Anne Ford, " I argued inmy selfish way. "I think I shall write her not to come. "

Sally laughed cheerfully. "She won't bother us, Cousin Mary. It would betoo bad to refuse her, wouldn't it? She can't spoil Clovelly--it's beenhere too long. Anne is rather overpowering, " Sally went on, a bitwistfully. "She's such a beauty, and she has such stunning clothes. "

The firelight played on the girl's flushed, always-changing face, fullof warm light and shadow; it touched daintily the white muslin and pinkribbons of the pretty negligee she wore, Sally was one of the poor girlswhose simple things are always fresh and right. I leaned over and pattedher rough hair affectionately. 

"Your clothes are just as pretty, " I said, "and Anne doesn't comparewith you in my eyes. " I lifted the unfinished letter and glanced overit. "All about her visit to Lady Fisher, " I said aloud, giving a résuméas I read. "What gowns she wore to what functions; what men were devotedto her--their names--titles--incomes too. " I smiled. "And--what isthis?" I stopped talking, for a name had caught my eye. I glanced overthe page. "Isn't this curious! Listen, my dear, " I said. "This willinterest you!" I read aloud from Anne's letter. 

"'But the man who can have me if he wants me is Sir Richard Leigh. He isthe very best that ever happened, and moreover, quite the catch of theseason. His title is old, and he has a yacht and an ancestral place ortwo, and is very rich, they say--but that isn't it. My heart is hiswithout his decorations--well, perhaps not quite that, but it'scertainly his with the decorations. He is such a beauty, Cousin Mary!Even you would admire him. It gives you quite a shock when he comes intoa room, yet he is so unconscious and modest, and has the most graceful, fascinatingly quiet manners and wonderful brown eyes that seem to talkfor him. He does everything well, and everything hard, is a dare-devilon horseback, a reckless sailor, and a lot besides. If you could see theway those eyes look at me, and the smile that breaks over his face as ifthe sun had come out suddenly! But alas! the sun has gone under now, forhe went this morning, and it's not clear if he's coming back or not. They say his yacht is near Bideford, where his home is, and Clovelly isnot far from that, is it?'"

I stopped and looked at Sally, listening, on the floor. She was staringinto the fire. 

"What do you think of that?" I asked. Sally was slow at answering; shestared on at the burning logs that seemed whispering answers to theblaze. 

"Some girls have everything, " she said at length. "Look at Anne. She'sbeautiful and rich and everybody admires her, and she goes about to bigcountry-houses and meets famous and interesting people. And now this SirRichard Leigh comes like the prince into the story, and I dare say hewill fall in love with her and if she finds no one that suits her bettershe will marry him and have that grand old historic name. "

"Sally, dear, " I said, "you're not envying Anne, are you?"

A quick blush rushed to her face. "Cousin Mary! What foolishness I'vebeen talking! How could I! What must you think of me! I didn't meanit--please believe I didn't. I'm the luckiest girl on earth, and I'mhaving the most perfect time, and you are a fairy godmother to me, except that you're more like a younger sister. I was thinking aloud. Anne is such a brilliant being compared to me, that the thought of herdiscourages me sometimes. It was just Cinderella admiring the princess, you know. "

"Cinderella got the prince, " I said, smiling. 

"I don't want the prince, " said Sally, "even if I could get him. Iwouldn't marry an Englishman. I don't care about a title. To be aVirginian is enough title for me. It was just his name, magnificent SirRichard Grenville's name and the Revenge-Armada atmosphere that took myfancy. I don't know if Anne would care for that part, " she added, doubtfully. 

"I'm sure Anne would know nothing about it, " I answered decidedly, andSally went on cheerfully. 

"She's very welcome to the modern Sir Richard, yacht and title and all. I don't believe he's as attractive as your sailor, Cousin Mary. Something the same style, I should say from the description. If youhadn't owned him from the start, I'd rather like that man to be mysailor, Cousin Mary--he's so everything that a gentleman is supposed tobe. How did he learn that manner--why, it would flatter you if he letthe boom whack you on the head. Too bad he's only a common sailor--sucha prince gone wrong!"

I looked at her talking along softly, leaning back on one hand andgazing at the fire, a small white Turkish slipper--Southern girls alwayshave little feet--stuck out to the blaze, and something in the leisurelyattitude and low, unhurried voice, something, too, in the reminiscentcrackle of the burning wood, invited me to confidence. I went to mydressing-table, and when I came back, dropped, as if I were anothergirl, on the rug beside her. "I want to show you this, " I said, andopened a case that travels always with me. From the narrow gold rim offrame inside, my lover smiled gayly up at her brown hair and my gray, bending over it together. 

None of the triumphs of modern photographers seem to my eyes sodelicately charming as the daguerrotypes of the sixties. As we tippedthe old picture this way and that, to catch the right light on the imageunder the glass, the very uncertainty of effect seemed to give it anelusive fascination. To my mind the birds in the bush have alwaysbrighter plumage than any in the hand, and one of these earlyphotographs leaves ever, no matter from what angle you look upon it, much to the imagination. So Geoff in his gray Southern uniform, youngand soldierly, laughed up at Sally and me from the shadowy lines beneaththe glass, more like a vision of youth than like actual flesh and bloodthat had once been close and real. His brown hair, parted far to oneside, swept across his forehead in a smooth wave, as was theold-fashioned way; his collar was of a big, queer sort unknown to-day;the cut of his soldier's coat was antique; but the beauty of the boyishface, the straight glance of his eyes, and ease of the broad shouldersthat military drill could not stiffen, these were untouched, wereidealized even by the old-time atmosphere that floated up from thepicture like fragrance of rose-leaves. As I gazed down at the boy, itcame to me with a pang that he was very young and I growing very old, and I wondered would he care for me still. Then I remembered that wherehe lived it was the unworn soul and not the worn-out body that counted, and I knew that the spirit within me would meet his when the day came, with as fresh a joy as forty years ago. And as I still looked, happy inthe thought, I felt all at once as if I had seen his face, heard hisvoice, felt the touch of his young hand that day--could almost feel ityet. Perhaps my eyes were a little dim, perhaps the uncertainty of theold daguerrotype helped the illusion, but the smile of the master of theRevenge seemed to shine up at me from my Geoff's likeness, and thenSally's slow voice broke the pause. 

"It's Cousin Geoffrey, isn't it?" she asked. Her father was GeoffreyMeade's cousin--a little boy when Geoff died, "Was he as beautiful asthat?" she said, gently, putting her hand over mine that held the velvetcase. And then, after another pause, she went on, hesitatingly; "CousinMary, I wonder if you would mind if I told you whom he looks like tome?"

"No, my dear, " I answered easily, and like an echo to my thought herwords came. 

"It is your sailor. Do you see it? He is only a common seaman, ofcourse, but I think he must have a wonderful face, for with all hisdare-devil ways I always think of 'Blessed are the pure in spirit' whenI see him. And the eyes in the picture have the same expression--do youmind my saying it, Cousin Mary?"

"I saw it myself the first time I looked at him, " I said. And then, aspeople do when they are on the verge of crying, I laughed. "Anne Fordwould think me ridiculous, wouldn't she?" and I held Geoff's picture inboth my hands. "He is much better suited to her or to you. A splendidyoung fellow of twenty-four to belong to an old woman like me--it isabsurd, isn't it?"

"He is suited to no one but you, dear, and you are just his age andalways will be, " and as Sally's arms caught me tight I felt tears thatwere not my own on my cheek. 

It was ten days yet before Anne was due to arrive, and almost every dayof the ten we sailed. The picturesque coast of North Devon, its deepbays, its stretches of high, tree-topped cliffs, grew to be home-like tous. We said nothing of Cary and his boat at the Inn, for we soon sawthat both were far-and-away better than common, and we were selfish. Nor did the man himself seem to care for more patronage. He was alwaysready when we wished to go, and jumped from his spick-and-span deck tomeet us with a smile that started us off in sunshine, no matter what theweather. And with my affection for the lovely, uneven coast and the seasthat held it in their flashing fingers, grew my interest in the winningpersonality that seemed to combine something of the strength of thehills and the charm of the seas of Devonshire. 

One day after another he loosed the ropes with practised touch, and thewind taught the sail with a gay rattle and the little Revenge flung offthe steep street and the old sea-wall and the green cliffs of Clovelly, and first yards and then miles of rippling ocean lay between us andland, and we sailed away, we did not need to know or care where, withour fate for the afternoon in his reliable hands. Little by little weforgot artificial distinctions in the out-of-doors, natural atmosphere, or that the man was anything but himself--a self always simple, alwaysright. Looking back, I see how deeply I was to blame, to have been soblind, at my age, but the figure by the rudder, swinging to the boat'smotion, grew to be so familiar and pleasant a sight, that I did notthink of being on guard against him. Little as he talked, his moods werevaried, grave or gay or with a gleam of daring in his eyes that madehim, I think, a little more attractive than any other way. Yet when awind of seriousness lifted the still or impetuous surface, I caught aglimpse, sometimes, of a character of self-reliance, of decision assolid as the depths under the shifting water of his ocean. There wasnever a false note in his gentle manner, and I grew to trust serenely tohis tact and self-respect, and talked to him freely as I chose. Which ofcourse I should not have done. But there was a temptation to which Iyielded in watching for the likeness in his face, and in listening for atone or two of his voice that caught my heart with the echo of a voicelong silent. 

One morning to our astonishment Cary sent up to break our engagement forthe afternoon. Something had happened so that he could not possibly getaway. But it was moonlight and warm--would we not go out in the evening?The idea seemed to me a little improper, yet very attractive, andSally's eyes danced. 

"Let's be bold and bad and go, Cousin Mary, " she pleaded, and we went. 

A shower of moonlight fell across the sea and on the dark masses of theshore; it lay in sharp patches against the black shadows of the sail; itturned Sally's bare, dark head golden, and tipped each splashing wavewith a quick-vanishing electric light. It was not earth or ocean, butfairyland. We were sailing over the forgotten, sea-buried land ofLyonesse; forests where Tristram and Iseult had ridden, lay under ourrushing keel; castles and towers and churches were there--hark! could Inot hear the faint bells in the steeples ringing up through the waves?The old legend, half true, half fable, was all real to me as I sat inthe shadow of the sail and stared, only half seeing them, at Sallystanding with her hands on the rudder and Cary leaning over her, teaching her to sail the Revenge. Their voices came to me clear andmusical, yet carrying no impression of what they were saying. Then I sawSally's little fingers slip suddenly, and Cary's firm hand close overthem, pushing the rudder strongly to one side. His face was toward me, and I saw the look that went over it as his hand held hers. It startledme to life again, and I sat up straight, but he spoke at once with quietself-possession. 

"I beg your pardon, Miss Meade. She was heading off a bit dangerously. "

And he went on with directions, laughing at her a little, scolding her alittle, yet all with a manner that could not be criticised. I stillwonder how he could have poised so delicately and so long on thatslender line of possible behavior. 

As the boat slipped over the shimmering ocean, back into the harboragain, most of the houses up the sharp ascent of Clovelly street weredark, but out on the water lay a mass of brilliant lights, rockingslowly on the tide. Sally was first to notice it. 

"There is a ship lying out there. Is it a ship or is it an enchantment?She is lighted all over. What is it--do you know?"

Cary was working at the sail and he did not look at us or at it as heanswered. 

"Yes, Miss--I know her. She is Sir Richard Leigh's yacht the Rose. Shewas there as we went out, but she was dark and you did not notice her. "

I exclaimed, full of interest, at this, but Sally, standing ghost-likein her white dress against the sinking sail, said nothing, but stared atthe lights that outlined the yacht against the deep distance of the sky, and that seemed, as the shadowy hull swung dark on the water, to startout from nowhere in pin-pricks of diamonds set in opal moonlight. 

Lundy Island lies away from Clovelly to the northwest seventeen milesoff on the edge of the world. Each morning as I opened my window at theInn, and looked out for the new day's version of the ocean, it lifted avague line of invitation and of challenge. Since we had been inDevonshire the atmosphere of adventure that hung over Lundy had hauntedme with the wish to go there. It was the "Shutter, " the tall pinnacle ofrock at its southern end, that Amyas Leigh saw for his last sight ofearth, when the lightning blinded him, in the historic storm thatstrewed ships of the Armada along the shore. I am not a rash person, yetI was so saturated with the story of "Westward Ho!" that I could not goaway satisfied unless I had set foot on Lundy. But it had the worst ofreputations, and landing was said to be hazardous. 

"It isn't that I can't get you there, " said Cary when I talked to him, "but I might not be able to get you away. "

Then he explained in a wise way that I did not entirely follow, how thepassage through the rocks was intricate, and could only be done with aright wind, and how, if the wind changed suddenly, it was impossible towork out until the right wind came again. And that might not be fordays, if one was unlucky. It had been known to happen so. Yet I lingeredover the thought, and the more I realized that it was unreasonable, themore I wanted to go. The spirit of the Devonshire seas seemed, to myfancy, to live on the guarded, dangerous rocks, and I must pay tributebefore I left his kingdom. Cary laughed a little at my one bit ofadventurous spirit so out of keeping with my gray hairs, but it was easyto see that he too wanted to go, and that only fear for our safety andcomfort made him hesitate. The day before Anne Ford was due we went. Itwas the day, too, after our sail in the moonlight that I half believed, remembering its lovely unreality, had been a dream. But as we sailedout, there lay Sir Richard Leigh's yacht to prove it, smart andimpressive, shining and solid in the sunlight as it had been etherealthe night before. I gazed at her with some curiosity. 

"Have you been on board?" I asked our sailor. "Is Sir Richard there?"

Cary glanced at Sally, who had turned a cold shoulder to the yacht andwas looking back at Clovelly village, crawling up its deep crack in thecliff. "Yes, " he said; "I've been on her twice. Sir Richard is living onher. "

"I suppose he's some queer little rat of a man, " Sally brought out inher soft voice, to nobody in particular. 

I was surprised at the girl's incivility, but Cary answered promptly, "Yes, Miss!" with such cheerful alacrity that I turned to look at him, more astonished. I met eyes gleaming with a hardly suppressed amusementwhich, if I had stopped to reason about it, was much out of place. Butyet, as I looked at him with calm dignity and seriousness, I felt myselfsorely tempted to laugh back. I am a bad old woman sometimes. 

The Revenge careered along over the water as if mad to get to Lundy, under a strong west wind. In about two hours the pile of fantastic rockslay stretched in plain view before us. We were a mile or more away--I ama very uncertain judge of distance--but we could see distinctly theclouds of birds, glittering white sea-gulls, blowing hither and thitherabove the wild little continent where were their nests. There arethousands and thousands of gulls on Lundy. We had sailed out fromClovelly at two in bright afternoon sunshine, but now, at nearly four, the blue was covering with gray, and I saw Cary look earnestly at thequick-moving sky. 

"Is it going to rain?" I asked. 

He stood at the rudder, feet apart and shoulders full of muscle and fullof grace, the handkerchief around his neck a line of flame between blueclothes and olive face. A lock of bronze hair blew boyishly across hisforehead. 

"Worse than that, " he said, and his eyes were keen as he stared at theuneven water in front of us. A basin of smoother water and the yellowtongue of a sand-beach lay beyond it at the foot of a line of highrocks. "The passage is there"--he nodded. "If I can make it before thesquall catches us"--he glanced up again and then turned to Sally. "Couldyou sail her a moment while I see to the sheet? Keep her just so. " Hishand placed Sally's with a sort of roughness on the rudder. "Are youafraid?" He paused a second to ask it. 

"Not a bit, " said the girl, smiling up at him cheerfully, and then hewas working away, and the little Revenge was flying, ripping the waves, every breath nearer by yards to that tumbling patch of wolf-gray water. 

As I said, I know less about a boat than a boy of five. I can neverremember what the parts of it are called and it is a wonder to me howthey can make it go more than one way. So I cannot tell in anyintelligent manner what happened. But, as it seemed, suddenly, while Iwatched Sally standing steadily with both her little hands holding therudder, there was a crack as if the earth had split, then, with aconfused rushing and tearing, a mass of something fell with a long-drawncrash, and as I stared, paralyzed, I saw the mast strike against thegirl as she stood, her hands still firmly on the rudder, and saw her godown without a sound. There were two or three minutes of which Iremember nothing but the roaring of water. I think I must have beencaught under the sail, for the next I knew I was struggling from beneathits stiff whiteness, and as I looked about, dazed, behold! we had passedthe reefs and lay rocking quietly. I saw that first, and then I sawCary's head as it bent over something he held in his arms--and it wasSally! I tried to call, I tried to reach them, but the breath must havebeen battered out of me, for I could not, and Cary did not notice me. Ithink he forgot I was on earth. As I gazed at them speechless, breathless, Sally's eyes opened and smiled up at him, and she turned herface against his shoulder like a child. Cary's dark cheek went downagainst hers, and through the sudden quiet I heard him whisper. 

"Sweetheart! sweetheart!" he said. 

Both heads, close against each other, were still for a long moment, andthen my gasping, rasping voice came back to me. 

"Cary!" I cried, "for mercy's sake, come and take me out of this jib!"

I have the most confused recollection of the rest of that afternoon. Cary hammered and sawed and worked like a beaver with the help of twomen who lived on Lundy, fishermen by the curious name of Heaven. Sallyand I helped, too, whenever we could, but all in a heavy silence. Sallywas wrapped in dignity as in a mantle, and her words were few andpractical. Cary, quite as practical, had no thought apparently foranything but his boat. As for me, I was like a naughty old cat. I fussedand complained till I must have been unendurable, for the emotionswithin me were all at cross-purposes. I was frightened to death when Ithought of General Meade; I was horrified at the picture stamped on mymemory of his daughter, trusted to my care, smiling up with thatunmistakable expression into the eyes of a common sailor. Horrified! Myblood froze at the thought. Yet--it was unpardonable of me--yet I felt athrill as I saw again those two young heads together, and heard thewhispered words that were not meant for me to hear. 

Somehow or other, after much difficulty, and under much mental strain, we got home. Sally hardly spoke as we toiled up the stony hill in thedark beneath a pouring rain, and I, too, felt my tongue tied in anembarrassed silence. At some time, soon, we must talk, but we both feltstrongly that it was well to wait till we could change our clothes. 

At last we reached the friendly brightness of the New Inn windows; wetrudged past them to the steps, we mounted them, and as the front dooropened, the radiant vision burst upon us of Anne Ford, come a day beforeher time, fresh and charming and voluble--voluble! It seemed the laststraw to our tired and over-taxed nerves, yet no one could have beenmore concerned and sympathetic, and that we were inclined not to beexplicit as to details suited her exactly. All the sooner could she getto her own affairs. Sir Richard Leigh's yacht was the burden of her lay, and that it was here and we had seen it added lustre to our adventures. That we had not been on board and did not know him, was satisfactorytoo, and neither of us had the heart to speak of Cary. We listenedwearily, feeling colorless and invertebrate beside this brilliantcreature, while Anne planned to send her card to him to-morrow, andconjectured gayeties for all of us, beyond. Sir Richard Leigh and hisyacht did not fill a very large arc on our horizon to-night. Sally cameinto my room to tell me good-night, when we went up-stairs, and shelooked so wistful and tired that I gave her two kisses instead of one. 

"Thank you, " she said, smiling mistily. "We won't talk to-night, willwe, Cousin Mary?" So without words, we separated. 

Next morning as I opened my tired eyes on a world well started for theday, there came a tap at the door and in floated Anne Ford, a fine birdin fine feathers, wide-awake and brisk. 

"Never saw such lazy people!" she exclaimed. "I've just been in to seeSally and she refuses to notice me. I suppose it's exhaustion fromshipwreck. But I wasn't shipwrecked, and I've had my breakfast, and it'stoo glorious a morning to stay indoors, so I'm going to walk down to thewater and look at Sir Richard's boat, and send off my card to him by asailor or something. Then, if he's a good boy, he will turn up to-day, and then--!" The end of Anne's sentence was wordless ecstasy. 

But the mention of the sailor had opened the flood-gates for me, and inrushed all my responsibilities. What should I do with this situationinto which I had so easily slipped, and let Sally slip? Should Iinstantly drag her off to France like a proper chaperone? Then how couldI explain to Anne--Anne would be heavy dragging with that lodestone of ayacht in the harbor. Or could we stay here as we had planned and not seeCary again? The unformed shapes of different questions and answers camedancing at me like a legion of imps as I lay with my head on the pillowand looked at Anne's confident, handsome face, and admired the freshnessand cut of her pale blue linen gown. 

"Well, Cousin Mary, " she said at last, "you and Sally seem both to bestruck dumb from your troubles. I'm going off to leave you till you canbe a little nicer to me. I may come back with Sir Richard--who knows!Wish me good luck, please!" and she swept off on a wave of good-humorand good looks. 

I lay and thought. Then, with a pleasant leisure that soothed my nervesa little, I dressed, and went down to breakfast in the quaintdining-room hung from floor to ceiling with china brought years ago fromthe far East by a Clovelly sailor. As I sat over my egg and toast Sallycame in, pale, but sweet and crisp in the white that Southern girls wearmost. There was a constraint over us for the reckoning that we knew wascoming. Each felt guilty toward the other and the result was a formalpoliteness. So it was a relief when, just at the last bit of toast, Anneburst in, all staccato notes of suppressed excitement. 

"Cousin Mary! Sally! Sir Richard Leigh is here! He's there!" noddingover her shoulder. "He walked up with me--he wants to see you both. But"--her voice dropped to an intense whisper--"he has asked to see MissWalton first--wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne wasin a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursingthrough her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want tosee you for alone--Cousin Mary?"

I could not imagine, either, yet it seemed quite possible that thisbeautiful creature had taken a susceptible man by storm, even sosuddenly. I laid my napkin on the table and stood up. 

"The chaperone is ready to meet the fairy prince, " I said, and we wentacross together to the little drawing-room. 

It was a bit dark as Anne opened the door and I saw first only a man'sfigure against the window opposite, but as he turned quickly and cametoward us, I caught my breath, and stared, and gasped and stared again. Then the words came tumbling over each other before Anne could speak. 

"Cary!" I cried. "What are you doing here--in those clothes?"

Poor Anne! She thought I had made some horrid mistake, and had disgracedher. But I forgot Anne entirely for the familiar brown eyes that weresmiling, pleading into mine, and in a second he had taken my hand andbending over, with a pretty touch of stateliness, had kissed it, and thecharm that no one could resist had me fast in its net. 

"Miss Walton! You will forgive me? You were always good to me--you won'tlay it up against me that I'm Richard Leigh and not a picturesqueDevonshire sailor! You won't be angry because I deceived you! The deviltempted me suddenly and I yielded, and I'm glad. Dear devil! I nevershould have known either of you if I had not. "

There were more of the impetuous sentences that I cannot remember, andsomewhere among them Anne gathered that she was not the point of them, and left the room like a slighted but still reigning princess. It wastoo bad that any one should feel slighted, but if it had to be, it wasbest that it should be Anne. 

Then my sailor told me his side of the story; how Sally's tip for therescue of her hat had showed him what we took him to be; how herquestion about a boat had suggested playing the part; how he had begunit half for the fun of it and half, even then, for the interest the girlhad roused in him--and he put in a pretty speech for the chaperone justthere, the clever young man! He told me how his yacht had come soonerthan he had expected, and that he had to give up one afternoon with herwas so severe a trial that he knew then how much Sally meant to him. 

"That moonlight sail was very close sailing indeed, " he said, his facefull of a feeling that he did not try to hide. "There was nearly ashipwreck, when--when she steered wrong. " And I remembered. 

Then, with no great confidence in her mood, I went in search of my girl. She is always unexpected, and a dead silence, when I had anxiously toldmy tale, was what I had not planned for. After a minute, "Well?" I asked. 

And "Well?" answered Sally, with scarlet cheeks, but calmly. 

"He is waiting for you down-stairs, " I said. 

Then she acted in the foolish way that seemed natural. She dropped onher knees and put her face against my shoulder. 

"Cousin Mary! I can't! It's a strange man--it isn't our sailor any more. I hate it. I don't like Englishmen. "

"He's very much the same as yesterday, " I said. "You needn't like him ifyou don't want to, but you must go and tell him so yourself. " I thinkthat was rather clever of me. 

So, holding my hand and trembling, she went down. When I saw RichardLeigh's look as he stood waiting, I tried to loosen that clutching handand leave them, but Sally, always different from any one else, held metight. 

"Cousin Mary, I won't stay unless you stay, " she said, firmly. 

I looked at the young man and he laughed. 

"I don't care. I don't care if all the world hears me, " he said, and hetook a step forward and caught her hands. 

Sally looked up at him. "You're a horrid lord or something, " she said. 

He laughed softly. "Do you mind? I can't help it. It's hard, but I wantyou to help me try to forget it. I'd gladly he a sailor again if you'dlike me better. "

"I did like you--before you deceived me. You pretended you were that. "

"But I have grievances too--you said I was a queer little rat of a man. "

Sally's laugh was gay but trembling. "I did say that, didn't I?"

"Yes, and you tried to underpay me, too. "

"Oh, I didn't! You charged a lot more than the others. "

Sir Richard shook his head firmly. "Not nearly as much as the Revengewas worth. I kept gangs of men scrubbing that boat till I nearly wentinto bankruptcy. And, what's more, you ought to keep your word, youknow. You said you were going to marry Richard Leigh--Richard GrenvilleCary Leigh is his whole name, you know. Will you keep your word?"

"But I--but you--but I didn't know, " stammered Sally, feebly. 

He went on eagerly. "You told me how he should wear his name--highand--and all that. " He had no time for abstractions. "He can never do italone--will you come and help him?"

Sally was palpably starching about for weapons to aid her losing fight. "Why do you like me? I'm not beautiful like Anne Ford. " He laughed. "I'mnot rich, you know, like lots of American girls. We're very poor"--shelooked at him earnestly. 

[Illustration: I felt myself pulled by two pairs of hands. ]

"I don't care if you're rich or poor, " he said. "I don't know ifyou're beautiful--I only know you're you. It's all I want. "

She shook a little at his vehemence, but she was a long fighter. "Youdon't know me very much, " she went on, her soft voice breaking. "Maybeit's only a fancy--the moonlight and the sailing and all--maybe you onlyimagine you like me. "

"Imagine I like you!"

And then, at the sight of his quick movement and of Sally's face Imanaged to get behind a curtain and put my fingers in my ears. No womanhas a right to more than one woman's love-making. And as I stood there, a few minutes later, I felt myself pulled by two pairs of hands, andSally and her lover were laughing at me. 

"May I have her? I want her very much, " he said, and I wondered if everany one could say no to anything he asked. So, with a word about Sally'sfar-away mother and father, I told him, as an old woman might, that Ihad loved him from the first, and then I said a little of what Sally wasto me. 

"I like her very much, " I said, in a shaky voice that tried to becasual. "Are you sure that you like her enough?" For all of his answer, he turned, not even touching her hands, and looked at her. 

It was as if I caught again the fragrance of the box hedges in thesouthern sunshine of a garden where I had walked on a spring morninglong ago. Love is as old-fashioned as the ocean, and us little changedin all the centuries. Its always yielding, never retreating arms lieabout the lands that are built and carved and covered with men'sprogress; it keeps the air sweet and fresh above them, and fromgeneration to generation its look and its depths are the same. That itis stronger than death does not say it all. I know that it is strongerthan life. Death, with its crystal touch, may make a weak love strong;life, with its every-day wear and tear, must make any but a strong loveweak. 

I like to think that the look I saw in Richard Leigh's eyes as he turnedtoward my girl was the same look I shall see, not so very many yearsfrom now, when I close mine on this dear old world, and open them, bythe shore of the ocean of eternity, on the face of Geoffrey Meade. 

 * * * * *

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