CHAPTER XXIV.

"Allin, Allin! Oh, let me—yes, let me free. I must tell you——"

"You must tell me nothing, save that you love me. I will listen to nothing else. Primrose, sweetest, dearest——"

"Oh, hush, Allin, let me think——"

If she did not mean to love him he would know it by some sure sign. The hesitation, the half yielding tells its own story.

And the very foolishness of love went to her heart. The vehemence, the ownership in its fearlessness, the persuasive certainty. Of course she had known it all along, she had feared now on the side of distance, now that he might speak too soon, then wondered if he would ever speak at all, while she was all the while putting him off, strange contradiction.

"Say that you love me. Just say it once and I will live on it for weeks."

"Oh, Allin, you would grow thin!" She gave a little half-hysterical laugh. And then something stole over her, an impression vague, inexplicable, that she did not quite belong to herself. Was there someone who had a better right than Allin? Before she gave herself irrevocably to this delightful young lover, she must be sure, quite sure.

"What is it, Primrose?" for he had noted the change, the almost paleness that drowned out the beautiful, radiant flush that was happiness, satisfaction.

"Oh, Primrose, surely you did not, do not love Captain Vane?"

There was a struggle in her soul, in her pulses, an unseen power that grasped her and for a moment almost rendered her breathless.

"No, I did not—love him—but he——"

"Oh, I know. It is hard winning what everyone wants," he answered moodily. "But tell me one good reason why you cannot love me."

As if there was no good reason she was silent.

"I really couldn't stand the uncertainty. I couldn't study. Oh, what would it all be worth—life, fame, fortune, or anything if I did not have you!"

"Do you love me as much as that. Would it make a great difference?"

"It would ruin all my life. It is in your hands. Oh, my darling!" For it was so delightful to be necessary.

It was not foolish to the ears of eighteen when the heart of eighteen had sometimes longed for the words. Good, sound sense is much amiss in lovemaking.

"And you do love me—a little?"

If he could make her admit that he would coax a great deal more.

"I—I can't tell in a moment."

"But you know you do? Will you deny utterly that you do?"

She could evade with pretty turnings and windings, but this, so simple, so to the point.

"Oh, wait," she cried. "I must think. Allin it is a lifelong thing. I want to be sure——"

"And then you will smile on someone else, and walk with someone else and dance and all that, and I shall be utterly miserable and never sure until you do promise."

She put her hand over his, her soft dimpled hand that thrilled and comforted him, and said in a beseeching tone, as if it was his to grant or not:

"Give me a month, Allin. I will not smile on anyone, since you think it so dangerous," with a touch of her old witchery.

"A month! As if you could not tell in a moment whether you loved or hated!"

"But I don't hate. I like you ever so much. I want to think it over. One must consider——"

"A week then. And after that we can be engaged for ever so long. It shall all be as you like then."

It proved very difficult to settle the point. He was so urgent, she so hesitating. The big old English clock in the hall struck ten, and gentlemen expected to keep good hours.

"Do not come in a whole week. No, do not kiss me again," and she held her dainty head up haughtily. "It was all very wrong. I should not have allowed such a thing until I was quite sure. Allin, perhaps I am a coquette."

"You may be anything if you are only mine."

"And then of course I should be steady and devoted, and—like Polly."

That was a maddening picture to hold out. But she would be a hundred times sweeter than Polly, than anyone's sister could possibly be, he thought as he went his way.

Was there a ghost in the room? Primrose shivered as she looked at her bed with the white curtains and her dressing table that all the girls were trimming up now with ruffling and bows. She was so glad to hear the chaise stop and to have the warm, ample presence in the room, to hear the cheerful voice.

"Poor old Mr. Jeffries fails fast," said madam. "It would be a sin to win his money now. And I grew so dull and sleepy that I wished myself home twenty times. Suppose one had an old husband like that? And years ago, about fifteen, I think, Mr. Ralph Jeffries asked for my hand."

She laughed softly and began to take out her pins and stick them carefully in the cushion. Pins were very precious then.

There were two rainy days, an autumnal storm. Then Sunday. Allin Wharton looked at Primrose across the church and spoke coming out. There were laces to mend and gowns to consider and poor to visit. And all the time Primrose Henry was thinking if—if a man who was nobleness and goodness and tenderness itself, loved her, and would never love anyone else, what ought she to do?

Thursday noon Phil came in to dinner. Polly was not very well and he was going out at three. Wouldn't Primrose come with him?

Primrose colored and looked oddly embarrassed,and said, in a confused sort of way, there was something she must do this afternoon, but to-morrow she would come out and spend two or three days with Polly. She sent her best and dearest love.

Yes, she must know once for all. If duty was demanded of her—if she loved Andrew less, or more, when it came to that. What was this romance and mystery, and incomprehensible thrill! Shedidexperience it for Allin, and alone by herself her face flushed and every pulse trembled. His foolish words were so sweet. His kisses—ah,hadshe any right to offer the cup of joy and delight to another when someone had drained the first sweetness?

But if Andrew loved her with the best and holiest love. Could she follow in her mother's steps? But her mother had singled Philemon Henry out of a world of lovers.

Primrose Henry put on her camlet cloak and took several skeins of yarn to one of the old ladies in the almshouses, to knit some stockings for some other poor. Afterward she sauntered round with a guilty feeling. She often ran in to see Phil and Andrew, and the one clerk always stared at the radiant vision. She hesitated on the broad sill, then she opened the door. There was a sort of counting room first, and that was vacant now. Andrew was in the apartment beyond.

There was her promise to Rachel. Oh, what must she do!

"Philemon has gone," and Andrew glanced up with tender gravity as he espied Primrose.

"Yes. I saw him. How is Aunt Lois, and Faith?"

"Very well." There was a different smile, now, a sense of amusement, and a peculiar light in the eyes like relief.

"What is it?" Her heart-beat almost strangled her.

"Rachel was in this morning. And you cannot guess—she is to be married presently."

"Married! And she cared so much for you," cried Primrose in consternation.

Andrew colored and moved his head with a slow negative.

"No, it could not have been. Andrew—I wonder what kind of a wife you would like?" turning her eyes away.

He could have reached out his hand and answered her with a clasp. But there was another who loved her very much, who was young and gay and full of ardent hopes. That would be better for the child.

"I shall not marry for years to come." His voice was very tranquil. "There is my mother, and now we are so much to each other."

"Andsheought to be a Friend. You would like a Friend best, Andrew? And no flighty young thing."

Wasshethinking of anything? Oh, she was too young and sweet. It would be putting a butterfly in a cage.

"That would be better, certainly. When two people elect to spend their lives together, it is best that they should have similar tastes and desires."

"But a sweet and pretty one, Andrew. One like Miss Whiting, who is intelligent and noble and reads a great many things and has a lovely garden of flowers. I want you to be very, very happy, Andrew."

"Thank you, little one. Let me wish the same for you. A gallant young lover with ambition, who can take his place in society and who will enjoy with you the youthful pleasures that are so much to you, and then grow older with you and come to ripe middle life and serene old age. I think I could put my finger on someone——"

Primrose's sweet face was scarlet, and her eyes suddenly fluttered down with tremulous lids.

"Thou hast been a dear little sister," going back to the Quaker speech. "Thy happiness will be much to me; thy pain, if any happened to thee, would be my pain. Thy prosperity will always be my prayer, for I think thou wert born for sunniness and clear sailing and joy, with someone bright and young like thyself."

"A little sister," she repeated softly. If it was that and only that, her conscience would be clear.

"Yes. Didst thou ever doubt it?"

He raised his serene brown eyes and smiled. He was not one to carry all his soul in his eyes.

"Nay, and I never shall." She pressed her lips to his forehead, which was as fair as any girl's. How long it had been since he kissed her! He might trust himself again on her wedding day.

"And now tell me about Rachel. We have queer talk of loves and such."

"He is a young man, a neighbor, the eldest of several sons. And Rachel hath a nice dower. I hope all will go well."

She was infinitely sorry for Rachel at that moment.

"You will come soon and see us. I send love to Aunt Lois," and Primrose turned.

"Fare thee well. Blessings attend thee, little one."

He sat there a long while, thinking how her mother had given up many worldly things for the man she loved. Primrose would do it, too, he said stoutly to himself, if she had loved. It was best this way. The sunshine did not rise up from the brown earth, but shone down out of the radiant blue sky.

Primrose Henry went home with a light heart. And that evening Allin Wharton had his answer.

Madam Wetherill shook her head, but said smilingly, "If you take the young woman you must take the old one, too. I will never give up Primrose."

The girl's soft arms were around her neck and the sweet young voice, with a rapture of emotion, cried, "Oh, madam, am I indeed so dear to you?"

The world goes on and the stories of life are repeated,but to each one comes that supreme taste of personal joy and rapture that is alone for itself; that is new, no matter how many times it may have been lived over.

There was a long, delightful engagement of the young people, who waited for Allin to take his degree, and his father felt justly proud of his standing. There was all the reckless happiness of two young people in that wonderful joyousness of youth when one apes sorrows for the sake of being comforted, indulges in dainty disagreements so that they can repent with fascinating sweetness, and are inconsequent, unreasonable, entrancing, and delightful, and gayety of any kind seems good, so that it goes hand and hand with love. Primrose danced and laughed through her April years, and then came May with bloom and more steadiness, and then peerless, magnificent June.

"I am but a sad trifler, after all," she would say to Madam Wetherill. "Shall I ever be like my dear mother or have any of the sober Henry blood in me?"

"Nay," was the answer. "We never find fault with the rose because it does not bear an ear of corn or a stalk of grain. And yet so great a thing as an oak tree is content to bear a small acorn."

And while they were being married and rejoicing in Phil's sturdy little boy and dainty, golden-haired baby girl called Primrose, old Philadelphia was making rapid strides. Indeed, in Washington's language, the United Colonies had now "the opportunity to become a respectable nation," and it came back to the city where it had first uttered its lusty young cry and protest. In May of 1787, in the old State House, assembled the delegates who were to frame a Constitution that would stand the wear and tear of time. Theirfour months' work has come down to us written in letters of imperishable glory, that were not to be too large for the Thirteen Colonies, and large enough for any multiple the nation might come to use in the course of its existence.

For the tardy treaty of peace had been signed, and though there were much discussion and various opinions, such as children of one family often have, it was all settled. And the next Fourth of July had a grand procession, for the times, and a ship of state was dragged proudly through the streets on a float, with some pretty boys for midshipmen; the great judges in their official robes, soldiers, and civilians, and, side by side, walked Andrew Henry and Philemon Henry, brothers indeed in all the wide and varied interests that go to make up brotherhood and not a little human love. The bells of Christ Church, that had once been taken down and hidden from vandal hands, were rehung, and rung at intervals all day long, while flags floated and bonfires blazed at night, and a grand supper was eaten by the dignitaries at Bush Hill.

While other and larger matters were being discussed, a President nominated, elected, and inaugurated, Philadelphia, like a prudent householder, was attending to her own affairs. When Washington passed through the city on his way to New York to receive the grandest compliment of the nation, she again paid him all honor in his reception.

The beautiful city with its greenery and quiet, of which William Penn had dreamed, and in many of whose footsteps the renowned Franklin had followed, had gone through curious changes, and was putting on new aspects with every year. But "Fairemount," with its homes that were to be handed down in storya hundred years later; Stenton, with its grand aspects; Lansdowne, with its woods and waters; the Logan House, the Shippens', and old Mount Pleasant, and so on stretching up the banks of the Schuylkill were to be left beautiful and tranquil and free from the thought of business invasion. For Old Philadelphia is like a dream, and there will always linger about it the youthful tenderness of William Penn's plan and his life story.

And then, to the chagrin of New York, came the transference of the Capital to Philadelphia. She had perked up and brightened up, stretched out her wharves, filled up her low places, cleared her streets of rubbish, and built rows of houses, had her library and her university, and it seemed as if she had been getting ready for this accession within her borders, the "Republican Court," as it was to be called.

A plain enough house, on High Street, it was, with a few fine old trees about, where many famous decisions were shaped by wisdom that seems wonderful to us now. When Congress was in session there were many gayeties, dinners, private balls, suppers, and dances for the young people, and then, to its ruler, the retirement of Mount Vernon.

With it all a sort of serene steadiness and refinement that never allowed pleasures to degenerate into a maddening whirl. A thrift and prudence, too, that had become a solid, underlying strand in the character of the city.

The bell still rang out on market mornings and mistresses were not above visiting the long, clean spaces, though there was much fault-finding about the dearness of things, and Mrs. Adams complained of the loneliness of Bush Hill, though she was afterward tobe comforted by being the first lady of the land at Washington, the final Capital.

Primrose Wharton was a pretty young wife and the mother of a golden-haired little girl when she next saw "Lady Washington," as she was often called. She had settled into a gracious, but still piquant, matron, and she and Allin enjoyed the theater and still dearly loved a dance. Madam Wetherill was yet a handsome and stately dame, and "foolish over the little one," she said.

There were many memories of the dismal winter of Valley Forge renewed when Mrs. Washington met some of the brave soldiers. And among them all there was no finer nor more attractive figure than that of Andrew Henry, now arrived at its full manliness. The Quaker costume became him as no other would, though the Continental attire was distinctive and well calculated to show off a man. Fair and fresh and strong, yet with well-bred gentleness and a cultivated mind, he was often singled out at the receptions, and more than one admiring girl would have gladly enacted Bessy Wardour's romance.

Was there any story in the eyes that gave a glimpse of the great heart back of them? tender, sweet, brave eyes? Sometimes Primrose Wharton thought so, and all her pulses stood still in awesome silence. She was very happy. She and Allin had had an April fling and had settled into May bloom, but—could anything have been different—better? Not for her, but for him. A little sister! Is she that?

He was very happy, now, in a larger house, with a study and book shelves, his mother a tender and tranquil woman, Faith a contented housekeeper with a servant, and hardly knowing which to adore the most,Polly Henry's merry madcap household, or Primrose Wharton's sunny-haired daughter.

The only thing Philemon Henry would undo are those years that he was hardly answerable for.

"Of course it was not your fault," Polly declares in her impetuous, fond, and justifying way. "I think it really braver, for it requires more courage to own that a man has been wrong, than to go along in a straight path already made for him. And I fell in love with you as a redcoat, I really did, and fought with myself in the nights when I was alone. For, of course, I couldn't have told Prim; she would have crossed me quite out of her books. And I wouldn't have dared hint such a thing to anybody. Now, truly, was I not a silly girl?"

A fond kiss is her answer.

If the war made enemies it also made brothers, informed with larger wisdom.

A hundred and more years ago! Yet there are storied places that will never die out and the old bell of freedom has clanged many a peal, and the State House had many a Pilgrim. Truly there are numberless worthies in the great beyond, who have left behind imperishable memories even in a city that has grown anew more than once, and added beauty to beauty.

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MISS ELLIOT'S GIRLS. A Story For Young Girls.By Mary Spring Corning.

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THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' VACATION ADVENTURES; or, Shirley Willing to the Rescue.

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MILDRED'S NEW DAUGHTER

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A Little Girl in Old New YorkA Little Girl of Long AgoA sequel to "A Little Girl in Old New York"A Little Girl in Old BostonA Little Girl in Old PhiladelphiaA Little Girl in Old WashingtonA Little Girl in Old New OrleansA Little Girl in Old DetroitA Little Girl in Old St. LouisA Little Girl in Old ChicagoA Little Girl in Old San FranciscoA Little Girl in Old QuebecA Little Girl in Old BaltimoreA Little Girl in Old SalemA Little Girl in Old Pittsburg

A Little Girl in Old New York

A Little Girl of Long AgoA sequel to "A Little Girl in Old New York"

A Little Girl in Old Boston

A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia

A Little Girl in Old Washington

A Little Girl in Old New Orleans

A Little Girl in Old Detroit

A Little Girl in Old St. Louis

A Little Girl in Old Chicago

A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

A Little Girl in Old Quebec

A Little Girl in Old Baltimore

A Little Girl in Old Salem

A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg

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A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERSNew York

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