"You think too much about success," said Joanna gravely; "the great thing, it seems to me, is to do one's duty, and not bother about the results. I can imagine failure's being a better thing than success, under certain circumstances."
Paul shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I can't; and at any rate I hope my portion in life will be the inferior one you call success."
"I am sure it will be," added Alice, "you are so awfully clever that there is no doubt that you will succeed in whatever you undertake, just as you have done in the boating."
"Which, as I said before, doesn't seem to me a sort of success worth having," said the unbending Joanna.
Joanna laboured under a not uncommon delusion that there is a special virtue in upholding any opinion in the face of opposition; and that the oftener one reiterates the opinion, and the more unacceptable it is, the greater is the virtue. To the masculine mind this habit of thought is trying; and Paul found it specially so when it ran right across his boyish enthusiasms. Though he was as yet too young to know all that he had learnt, the river had already taught him more than the schools; it had shown him the necessity for self-imposed discipline, implicit obedience, regular work, strong endurance, stern self-denial and unity of aim and interest; and even if he were unable as yet to realize all this—still less to express it—Joanna's disapproval of his greatest delight partook of the nature of sacrilege in Paul's eyes.
"It's no use talking to you of things which you don't understand," he said crossly; Paul's temper—like canal bridges—never being equal to bearing more than "the ordinary traffic of the district".
"I don't wonder that you enjoy rowing so much, Paul, for it must be so nice on the river these lovely afternoons," interpolated Alice, ever ready to make peace.
But Paul was not so easily appeased. "Nice on the river!" he grumbled, "what an expression! Girls never have an idea of anything better or higher than what they call nice."
Which was very unjust, as well as very disagreeable; for Joanna's visions of duty and Alice's dreams of love were quite equal, from an ethical point of view, to Paul's heroics; but of course Paul did not know this. If he had, he would have been thirty instead of twenty, and wise at that.
"If I were a man I should love to be big and strong," persisted the peacemaker. "It seems just as right for a man to be strong as for a woman to be beautiful."
"I wonder if beautiful women are much happier than plain ones," remarked Joanna.
"Of course they are," replied Alice, "because people love them more, and love is the only thing that really makes a woman happy."
Joanna shook her head. "I don't see that. Your own people will love you whether you are plain or whether you are pretty; and it seems to me to have a lot of outsiders fond of you would be a bother rather than a pleasure."
"But don't you like people to be fond of you?" asked Alice.
"Not unless I am fond of them. When comparative strangers kiss me and gush over me I feel so dreadfully uncomfortable I don't know what to do. There was a very gushing woman in our last circuit who used to hold my hand for hours together."
"I shouldn't have minded that," said Alice.
Joanna laughed. "But I did: I was simply paralyzed with terror; every time she gave my hand a squeeze, I squeezed back; and if my squeeze hadn't been quite as hard as hers, I felt as if I were in debt and ought to be county-courted."
Paul was dreadfully bored by this style of conversation. He was not sufficiently in love with Alice to care to discuss emotions with her; for a man does not like to talk about feelings, except to the woman he happens to be in love with—and then he only does it to please her, and wishes to goodness she would select some other topic.
It was a very happy life at Chayford just then, especially to Joanna. Each day was full—but not too full—of duties; and nearly every evening there was some mild religious excitement to take the minister's family out, and prevent life from ever seeming dull. There were the week-evening service and the class-meeting and the prayer-meeting and the Dorcas-meeting—four full nights for certain; and there often came little irregular and extra means of grace for the other evenings of the week; so that every day there was the pleasant feeling that something was going to happen after tea.
This cheerful and busy type of existence exactly suited Joanna; it satisfied her completely, and she had no longings for anything different—neither much patience with the people who had.
But Alice dreamed dreams of a fuller life, which was not hers at all, but Paul's; a life devoted to adoring Paul when he succeeded, and adoring him still more when he failed. She was content to stand afar off among the crowd who were eager to crown Paul as victor in the days of his triumph, if only she might have the right to come near and comfort him in times of failure and humiliation. She fully believed that Paul was one of the greatest men alive, and would prove himself such to the world in general; but she would not have loved him a whit less—but rather more—had she thought him doomed to fail in everything that he undertook. Paul was Paul—that was enough for her; if the world did not do him justice, so much the worse for the world.
As for Paul himself, he knew nothing of Alice's girlish devotion to him, and would not have thanked her for it if he had. He meant to succeed; so the love that beareth all things and never faileth, was not an article for which he had any use. The admiration that success is bound to command was more in his line at present; and that, of course, one demands as one's right, and never thanks anybody for. To Paul just then the love that endures and is patient was as uninteresting as chrysanthemums and china-asters would be in spring. There comes a time when we cherish chrysanthemums and china-asters—even of the most ordinary sort; but that is not till the violets and the roses and the lilies are all faded.
I'll take your part when you are wrong;I'll fight your battles to the end;I'll listen when you sing a song,And never count your tales too long;Because you are my friend.
It has a very pretty effect in dancing the Lancers when the dancers "set to corners"; but when our hearts, and the affections thereof, take it upon themselves to perform this particular figure, the effect is not so satisfactory. Yet it is a figure towards the dancing of which these members much incline. Therefore it happened that while Alice Martin was breaking her heart for love of Paul Seaton, Edgar Ford was breaking his for love of Alice Martin.
Surely Fate—when Fate is pleased to be ironical—displays a most ingenious and whimsical sense of humour. And it happened that Fate was just now sharpening this particular sense at the expense of Mr. and Mrs. Martin. This worthy couple generally liked things to be done at their expense, it sounded so lavish and princely; but this was carrying matters a little too far.
Paul, being poor, was anathema to Mr. and Mrs. Martin; and Edgar, being rich, was their hearts' desire; and yet Alice loved Paul and was indifferent to Edgar; and in consequence there appeared that disturbing little hollow in Alice's pretty cheek.
The Fords were the most important people in Chayford, and had been rich merchants there for several generations. Edgar's great-grandfather was a friend of John Wesley's; and the great little man had preached the gospel under the huge cedar on the lawn of Chayford House. Consequently at Chayford Chapel the Fords sat in the farthest-back pew, this being ever considered the most august seat—the Woolsack in fact—of Methodist chapels; and their place in the sanctuary was rendered yet more glorious by a brazen fence, wherefrom dangled a sort of short, red moreen petticoat, which ran all along the top of their pew, and so screened the prayers of the Ford family from the prying and plebeian eyes of the rest of the congregation. Mrs. Ford pronounced the "Open Sesame" at all the Wesleyan bazaars and sales-of-work within a radius of ten miles round Chayford; and on such occasions she was specially introduced to the divine notice by the officiating minister under the pseudonym of "an handmaid". As a child Edgar had no idea what this expression exactly meant (neither, perhaps, had the officiating minister), but he felt extremely proud of his mother when he heard her alluded to in this way; and when the minister's prayer was more than usually embracing, and included Edgar himself under the title of "her offspring," Edgar's spiritual arrogance knew no bounds.
If the Seatons were as the salt of Methodism, the Fords were as the cream of it. Their social position fitted them for this life, and their religious fervour for the next. They neither hated the world as did Mark Seaton, nor worshipped it as did Caleb Martin. On the whole they very fairly rendered to Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's, and to God the things that were God's; and to do this, men must know something about Cæsar and also something about God.
Edgar was now the only child of the house of Ford, two little sisters having exchanged earth for heaven, and taken their mother's heart along with them. Like all Nonconformists, Edgar Ford inclined to overscrupulousness rather than to laxity. He was ready to sacrifice everything to his principles—which was right; but he sometimes mistook his prejudices for his principles—which was tiresome. Looked at in the light of eternity, Edgar's conduct was always eminently satisfactory; but looked at in the light of earth, it was sometimes a little trying. A college friend of his once said that "Ford was suffering from fatty degeneration of the conscience"; and Edgar's conscience certainly was abnormally enlarged. When great issues were at stake, this extreme and sensitive conscientiousness made Edgar Ford a prince among men; but when one was dealing with less important matters, and lawfulness was not so much the question to be considered as expediency, Edgar's custom of hair-splitting was somewhat paralyzing in its effects. He would hardly let himself do right for fear of doing wrong; which morbid introspection was partly the result of a Puritan training and ancestry, and partly of a delicate digestion.
For the rest, Edgar was "a proper man as one shall see in a summer's day". He was fair and slight and good-looking; and the shyness and sensitiveness which caused his own feelings to be so often hurt, made him specially careful not to hurt other people's. He did not talk much; but always left one with the impression that he had been extremely interesting, though one could not recall a word that he had said. His silence was more interesting than most men's conversation; and his pride less aggressive than most men's humility. Yet he was very silent and excessively proud. For people in general he cared not at all; he was too shy to understand and too sensitive to defy them; but for the few for whom he did care, his patience was exhaustless and his love unfailing; nothing that they might do could estrange them from him.
Martha once remarked, "When Master Edgar dies of old age, Master Paul will shake in his shoes"; which was her cheerful and picturesque way of notifying the fact that Edgar was Paul's senior by only a few months. Owing to this similarity of age and diversity of temperament, a firm friendship had sprung up between the two boys, which grew with their growth and strengthened with their strength.
In every respect these two differed from each other. While Paul knew neither shyness nor self-consciousness, Edgar was a prey to both; while Paul took out his own feelings and examined them and talked about them, Edgar kept his shut up in the secret chambers of his soul. Paul was more sure of himself when he was in the wrong than Edgar was when he was in the right; and while Paul was inclined to ride rough-shod over other people, Edgar was as tender as the tenderest woman. When Paul made up his mind to take a certain path, he took it all the more determinedly if there were lions in the way, and regarded the worsting of these interfering beasts as the best part of the sport; but if there were lions in Edgar's way, he hesitated about taking that path at all—not because he was afraid of lions, or of anything else under the sun save sin, but because he regarded the presence of these "fearful wild-fowl" as a divine intimation that such a path was not for his treading. Consequently Paul possessed the elements of success, if by success one means fame and wealth and the getting of one's own way; while Edgar's was one of the natures foredoomed to failure, if by failure one means nothing in this world but knowledge of the truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Which are the common interpretations of the words success and failure as used among men.
With all the intensity of a deep and refined and somewhat narrow nature, Edgar Ford loved Alice. He did not inwardly examine himself to see the why and wherefore of this love, as Paul would have done; he merely knew that Alice Martin was all the world to him, and would be so, as long as he and the world lasted. It was characteristic of the two men that Paul analyzed his feelings, but took his motives for granted; while Edgar carefully weighed and examined his principles, and left his feelings to take care of themselves—knowing that they were strong enough to do that, and a good deal more into the bargain. Edgar always knew what he wanted, but not always what he ought to do; Paul, on the contrary, always knew what he thought right, but not always what he thought desirable.
Now if Edgar had been as wise as he was good, he would have carried on his love-making regardless of Paul, and would then and there have won Alice for himself. And that plan would have been the best for everybody concerned; for Alice was not capable of holding Paul, even if she could win him; and she was not the woman to make Paul happy, even if he deluded himself into fancying that he loved her; while Edgar was quite equal to supplanting Paul in Alice's affection, and making her and himself thereby happy ever after, if only he had realized that "all is fair in love and war," and had set about things in the right way. But unfortunately it was not Edgar's habit to set about things in the right way. First, he reasoned with himself that Alice's happiness was the great thing to be considered, and that Alice's happiness was bound up in Paul; for poor Edgar's eye had been as quick as Mrs. Martin's to discover that telltale little hollow in Alice's cheek; and that therefore his very love for Alice constrained him not to come between her and the thing she coveted. Then he further decided that, as Paul's friend, he was in honour bound not to stand in Paul's light, should Paul eventually discover how extremely pretty Alice was. And finally he made up his mind to immolate himself upon the joint altar of love and friendship; and it never occurred to him that the flames of this sacrifice were likely to burn up Paul and Alice's happiness as well as his own.
In Edgar's anxiety to leave Alice quite free, he strove his utmost to hide from her the fact that he loved her; he had an idea that in so doing he was taking the most honourable course towards her and towards Paul. And he pursued this course with such success that Alice thought him stuck-up and ill-tempered, and confided the same to Paul, who—with more common sense and equally little perception—decided that he was only bilious.
As for Paul, he had as yet no more idea that Edgar cared for Alice than that Alice cared for himself. Such things were as yet unknown to him, though it was gradually dawning upon him that Alice was extremely good-looking and very easy to talk to.
But the rest of the world were not so blind as Paul; and even Miss Drusilla Dallicot, the spinsterpar excellenceof Chayford, had some inkling as to how matters stood.
Miss Drusilla's "mind to her a kingdom was," and she prided herself upon the elegance of her diction and the refinement of her style. She was a very learned little lady, and never used a word of one syllable it a synonym of three could be found in the dictionary. She lived entirely in the literature of the past, and resolutely refused—on any pretext whatever—to come down later than the eighteenth century.
In addition to the kingdom of her mind, Miss Dallicot ruled over a nice fortune of her own, and she gave freely to "the cause" at Chayford. She was extremely particular in her habits; and while her godliness was indisputable, her cleanliness was virulent. No visitors were allowed to enter her abode until they had been rubbed down with a clothes-brush and a duster in the back-hall; and even then they were rarely admitted into the sanctum of her drawing-room, lest they should by their presence soil the chintz covers therein. What was to be seen underneath those chintz covers was an impenetrable secret. It was rumoured in Chayford that grass-green satin was the underlying texture, but this was as purely traditional as the site of the Garden of Eden, or the date of the building of Babel. No living man or woman had seen Miss Dallicot's drawing-room furniture face to face.
"My dear young friend," said Miss Drusilla to Joanna Seaton one day, when the minister's daughter was having tea with her in her spotless dining-room; preparation for the feast having been made by the spreading of a serviette all over the visitor's lap, and of a small floorcloth under the visitor's chair, lest an unwary crumb should escape from its moorings and rush headlong on to the carpet: "has it ever presented itself to your imagination that an attachment of a sentimental character might possibly arise between your gifted and talented brother and that amiable young creature, Alice Martin?"
"I believe that Alice thinks Paul very clever, and I know that Paul thinks Alice very pretty," replied Joanna guardedly.
"Perhaps it is scarcely seemly of me to introduce so romantic, though interesting, a subject to a person as yet as youthful and innocent as yourself; yet my deep reverence for my spiritual pastor, and my sincere attachment to his attractive family, cause me to experience the warmest concern in anything which affects either his interest or theirs."
"It is very good of you, dear Miss Dallicot, to take so friendly an interest in all of us; and your kind sympathy is fully appreciated. Father was saying only yesterday that he counts you among his truest, as well as his cleverest, friends; for he has never been disappointed either in your heart or your head. You know how he enjoys a chat about books with you, and how much good it does him."
"Your words, thus fitly spoken, are indeed as apples of gold in pictures of silver. The praise of so gifted a man as your father is too high a tribute to such feeble powers as I may possess; yet the suffrage of one who combines the noble qualities of a true gentleman with the high vocation of a minister of religion, is an encouragement to any thoughtful mind to follow his guidance into the realms of knowledge."
Now Joanna detested gossip above all things, having already learnt that no good can come of it, but much evil: so she wisely endeavoured to drive her hostess still further into the realms of knowledge, so as to keep her from inquisitively wandering into the fields of romance.
"Have you been reading anything new lately?" she asked with much subtlety.
"Nay, my dear Joanna, new books and new writers are alike abhorrent to my literary taste; and I dislike the one as cordially as I despise the other. To me my Plato and my Aristotle are ever fresh; and if I desire to provide my mind with suitable relaxation, are not Walter Scott and Jane Austen ever at hand to plume my wings for a flight into the world of fiction?"
"But don't you think that novels of all kinds—provided of course that they are good ones—help one to understand human nature?"
"You must first prove to me that a fuller understanding of human nature is a 'consummation devoutly to be wished'; for my own part I cannot see that it forms a specially interesting or instructive branch of study. That human nature is in but a sorry condition at present, is my conviction: that it will some day rise to a height unmeasured as yet, is my hope; but to watch it in its dilatory and intermittent ascent—to count its countless failures and to number its innumerable falls—is a pastime which does not recommend itself to my intelligence, nor render itself attractive to my fancy."
"Yet human nature is the most interesting thing and the most important thing in the whole world—except divine nature."
"To me, my dear Joanna, too lively an interest in the thoughts and emotions of one's fellow-creatures betokens a somewhat frivolous and unstable mind; and would be in danger of gradually degenerating into a gossiping habit, not becoming nor seemly in a professor of the Christian religion."
Joanna looked thoughtful. "Edgar Ford says that Alice and I talk and think too much about feelings," she said; "and that it is morbid and unhealthy of us."
"And doubtless, my dear child, there is some truth in the statement; sufficient, at any rate, to warn you against giving unbridled licence to a custom which, though innocuous at present, might eventually develop into a pernicious and dissipating habit of mind. Edgar Ford is a young man of excellent parts; as a son he is irreproachable, as a friend unexceptionable. And that reminds me, my love, have you ever perceived that he evinces a more tender interest than is consistent with mere friendship in our dear young friend, Alice Martin?"
Joanna's eyes opened wide with astonishment. "Good gracious, Miss Drusilla, such an idea never entered my head!"
"Well, take note when next you see the handsome young couple in each other's company, and I feel certain you will arrive at the conclusion that my suspicion is not without foundation."
"I am sure you are wrong—quite wrong! Edgar never speaks to Alice if he can help it. In fact, I don't think he likes her much. Alice is not at all clever, and Edgar thinks so much of cleverness."
"The ways of men are as a sealed book to me; and I cannot say that it is my desire ever to have the seals broken. Yet I have been led to believe that masculine minds are so constituted that mental charms do not appeal to them as powerfully as do mere physical attractions."
Joanna shook her head. "Edgar is different from other men. Paul might be taken with a pretty face, he is so impulsive and impressionable; but Edgar is too good and wise to care for any woman who would not be a companion to him in all his intellectual interests and pursuits. And though Alice is very dear and sweet and pretty, she is extremely stupid, you know."
"Yet I have heard that even good and wise men will condone the emptiness of a female head on account of the beauty of the face that appertains to it."
On her way home from Miss Dallicot's, Joanna fell in with Alice, and the two girls walked on together. After what a chairman would call "a few preliminary remarks," Joanna blurted out:
"Alice, do you think that Edgar Ford admires you? Miss Drusilla says he does."
Joanna had yet to learn that truths, like parcels, have to be neatly wrapped up before their vendors can dispose of them.
Alice stood still, so great was her astonishment. "Oh, dear no! I'm perfectly certain he doesn't. What an absurd idea for that dear old thing to get into her head! But she is so busy finding long words that her wits are apt to go wool-gathering, don't you think?"
"Yes, I do. She was delicious to-day. I did wish that you and Paul had been there too. It seemed a pity for her sweetness to be wasted on the desert air of my solitary self."
"Was she really fine?" asked Alice.
"I should just think she was. She was like a penny-a-liner and an eighteenth-century poet rolled in one.
"That really was an idiotic thing to say about Edgar; because, do you know, Joanna? he has been positively horrid to me lately."
"Has he?"
"Yes, something awful. I can't make out why, because I've never been nasty to him, that I know of."
"You never are nasty to anybody, dear."
"I never want to be," said Alice. "I am always so dreadfully anxious to be liked that I try my best to be nice to people; and when they don't like me it makes me so wretched that I want to cry."
"I never mind whether people like me or not."
"I wish I didn't," sighed Alice, "but I do, more than anything."
"Well, you are so pretty that you are sure of being liked, whatever you do. People always like pretty women," said Joanna.
"I don't think so. I'd much rather have been clever. People get tired of prettiness, but they never do of cleverness."
"Then do you think it is because you are not clever, but only pretty, that Edgar has got tired of you?" inquired the blunt Joanna, showing her inexperience of the ways of men by the use of so absurd an expression as "only pretty".
"I don't think that explains it. Of course I know that Edgar could not care much for anybody as stupid as I am, but I think it is horrid of him to positively dislike me for not being clever. It really isn't my fault. I try awfully hard to be clever, but I find it so difficult to understand things. And Edgar is generally so just to people, and so tender to their failings, that it makes it all the nastier for me."
"But are you sure he positively dislikes you? Perhaps you only bore him," suggested Joanna.
"Oh! I should not be a bit surprised if I bored him; in fact I should be surprised if I did anything else. Most people bore Edgar, you know, and yet he is always kind and courteous to them."
"And isn't he kind and courteous to you?"
Alice's pretty eyes filled with tears. "No, he isn't, and that shows how much he must hate me. He is more civil to his mother's housekeeper than he is to me; and I mind it dreadfully, because he and I used to be such friends."
"What does he do?"
"He won't speak to me if he can help it," replied Alice, fairly crying by this time, "and when he is obliged to say anything he does so in such a queer, hard voice that everybody round can see how he detests me. I often dare not speak to him when other people are there, for fear he should snub me before them and make me die of shame."
"Why don't you ask him if he is offended with you?"
"I did; and he said: 'Why should you suppose I am offended with you, Miss Martin? If my conduct has given rise to this suspicion, I must have been sadly wanting in courtesy, and I humbly apologize.' Then I felt ready to sink into the earth."
"How horrid of him!"
"He and I used to be so fond of each other when we were children. But lately he has put up palings all round himself, as if he were a tree in a park, and won't let me come near him."
"It really is queer!" agreed Joanna.
"I begin to think the real reason is that he considers us common," sobbed Alice. "Of course I know we don't belong to a good old family, like the Fords; but we are just the same as we always were; and it is unkind and snobbish of Edgar to throw over his old friends because he is ashamed of them!"
And all that time Edgar Ford was congratulating himself on behaving as a man of honour towards Paul and Alice; and he was positively wearing himself out with his superhuman efforts to hide from the latter the fact that he cared for her.
Truly the ways of a conscientious man are sometimes difficult to fathom!
Through whatsoever ills betideFor you I will be spent and spend:I'll stand for ever by your side,And naught shall you and me divide,Because you are my friend.
Perhaps one of the most noteworthy characteristics of "the people called Methodists" is theesprit de corps—the spirit of clannishness—which runs through the whole body. Is any sick, the rest are eager to pray; is any merry, the rest are delighted to sing psalms; and they will not only pray and sing in sympathy, which is comparatively easy, but they are ready to spend and to be spent for the brethren to any extent. Men may know that they are Methodists from the love they have one to another. And this love does not confine itself to the actual members of the Church, but extends to their descendants, to the third and fourth generation, even though these descendants may have forsaken the faith of their fathers, and embraced other forms of worship. This clannishness is not so much the spiritual bond of a common creed, as a more human—and so more indissoluble—bond, like the tie of country or of kinship; and therefore no variations in belief can break it.
If the children of Methodism, as they grow up and see the various phases of modern life, incline to a broader faith or a more ornate ritual than those which satisfied their fathers, their Mother-Church does not blame them as perverts nor brand them as apostates; they are still her children and she will be interested in them to the end. Though the daughter may forget her own people and her father's house, she herself is ever remembered in the old home, where there is no bitterness on account of her forgetfulness, such forgetfulness being but the fulfilment of a law of natural growth.
It is this spirit of kinship that accounts for the wonderful freemasonry among all Wesleyan Methodists; and their masonic sign—their Shibboleth, so to speak—is their pronunciation of their denominational name. If a man pronounces the word Wesleyan as if theswere az, and puts the accent upon the second syllable, one may safely conclude that that man has never been inside this particular fold; but if he sounds thessharply as if it were double s, and accentuates the first syllable of the word, all Wesleyans know that he is, or his father was before him, one of themselves, for his speech bewrayeth him.
When Paul had been at Oxford for upwards of two years, and seemed on the high road to success in all his undertakings, a sudden change came o'er the spirit of his dream. The bank in which Mrs. Seaton's fortune was invested stopped payment, and the heavy calls which her husband was obliged to pay left him with but a very small addition to his income as a "supernumerary". To many men of his age this would have been a crushing blow; but Mark Seaton's mind was so uniformly set upon things above, and so indifferent to all earthly considerations, that worldly misfortunes had little power to hurt him. But the stroke, nevertheless, fell heavily upon his wife; not that she was more worldly-minded than her husband, but because poverty always presses harder upon a woman than upon a man. Poverty meets a man face to face upon the battle-field of life, and he then and there either conquers or is conquered by it; but it waylays a woman in her home, lurking for her in the recesses of her wardrobe and jumping out upon her from her kitchen and her storeroom; and a secret foe is always worse than an open enemy.
The blow fell when Paul was down for the Long Vacation, and he saw far more clearly than his father did what it would mean to his mother and sister. With an intuition which was rare in so young a man, he realized how the daily struggle to make both ends meet—which hardly penetrated into the minister's study—would embitter Joanna's youth and render Mrs. Seaton's declining years but labour and sorrow to her; and with his accustomed decision he made up his mind that this burden must be lightened at all costs, even though the lightening taxed him to his uttermost farthing.
"Joanna," he said one day, when he and his sister were alone together, "I am not going back to Oxford."
"Not going back to Oxford, Paul? What do you mean?"
"Simply what I say. Instead of finishing my time there, I have decided to set about earning something at once, so as to make life a little less hard for you and mother."
"But there is no need for that," said Joanna. "Mother and I were saying only yesterday what a good thing it was that you had your scholarship and so were independent of us."
"That's all rot!" said Paul. "A fellow can't be independent of his own people in that sense; and I'm not going to have mother fagged to death over things if I can stop it."
"But, Paul, it would spoil your career if you left Oxford without taking your degree."
"Don't bother about that! And besides—career or no career—my mind is made up."
"Don't you know," urged Joanna, "that father and mother and I would gladly give up everything we have for the sake of you and your future?"
"Of course I do. And do you suppose I haven't the same consideration for you?"
"But, Paul, it seems such a shame!"
"It's no use arguing with me. I've made up my mind, I tell you. Of course I'm sorry to leave Oxford and throw up my chance of a First and all that that means; but, you know, there are some things a fellow can pay too dearly for, and that is one of them."
Joanna's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Paul! are you sure it is necessary?"
"Look here! I think it is necessary that I should set about earning some money as soon as possible."
"It is awfully good of you, dear!"
"Oh! I don't know much about the goodness of it; but I do know that a man couldn't very well act differently under the circumstances."
"But, Paul, think of your boating, and how you would miss that!"
For the first time in the conversation Paul's lip quivered. "Please don't let's talk about that! Besides, boating isn't everything."
After a few moments Joanna asked: "Then what shall you do instead of going back to Oxford?"
"I shall go and teach 'small Latin and less Greek' to Sir Richard Esdaile's son. I wrote to my tutor, telling him how matters stood, and asking him if he could put me in the way of getting a job. And he wrote back saying that old Esdaile—who is a chum of his—wanted somebody to teach his small boy and prepare him for Eton."
"And so he recommended you?"
"He said he should be pleased to recommend me to anybody, as I took a First in Mods, and was pretty sure to do the same in Greats if I'd stayed up. So I shall go to Esdaile Court after the summer holidays are over."
"I see."
"The pay is two hundred a year," continued Paul; "and I can send most of it home, as I shall have only my clothes to pay for."
"Oh, Paul, how good you are!"
"You see, even if I stayed on at Oxford and took my degree and went to the Bar, it would be ages before I could earn anything; and I feel I mustn't waste any more time. But I shall write articles and things for magazines in the intervals of teaching young Esdaile his A,B,C, and I hope in time to make a good thing out of my pen."
"But do you think you will like teaching?" asked Joanna.
"I can't say anything about that at present. Just now my idea of teaching anybody anything is to say it over and over again in the same words, but louder and louder each time, with the addition of a few epithets hurled at the stupidity of the pupil. But I daresay I shall warm to the work in time; and as what must be must be, there is no good talking any more about it."
So Paul Seaton renounced his heart's desire, and gave up his youthful dreams. It was no light matter to him thus to forego all the things that he had longed for from his youth up; but he was hopeful enough to believe that if a man can succeed in anything he can succeed in everything, and that success is a matter of character rather than a question of circumstance. Therefore Paul made up his mind that if he could not distinguish himself in law, he would distinguish himself in letters, and would be a great author as he might not be a great advocate; and in the meantime he worked and waited, and did all in his power to lighten the cloud which had fallen upon the little home at Chayford.
And things pressed heavily there at first, before Paul's salary had begun to come in, and before the necessary retrenchments had been put into practice: for one cannot reconstruct the management of a household in a day. But it was better for the Seatons than it might otherwise have been, because of that wonderful Methodist freemasonry.
"My husband and I want to know," said Mrs. Ford to the minister one day, "if—instead of renting another house, as you intend—you will do us the favour of living in our little cottage. We do not need it, as long as our son remains unmarried; and we should not like to let it, as Chayford Cottage has never been let. So it really will be a kindness to us if you and Mrs. Seaton will keep it warm for us till such time as we want it for Edgar and his wife."
The minister grasped her hand. "You are very good to us," he said, and his voice shook, "but I hardly like to take advantage of such generosity."
"Let me assure you that such a feeling is quite beside the mark. It is really far better for a house to be inhabited by gentlepeople than by caretakers; and yet I should not like to have any one living there with whom I was not on terms of the most intimate friendship. So you are really conferring the favour on us."
Mr. Seaton smiled. "There was once another great woman who builded a little chamber in the wall that a prophet might abide there, and who was careful for him with all care. And we do not read that the prophet's pride rebelled against the sense of obligation, nor that he hesitated to take a favour at the great woman's hands because she happened to be rich and he was poor."
"Because when one gets to the heart of life, and understands that nothing is one's own but that all things are God's, there is no such thing as a sense of obligation; such a sense is a mere vulgar superficiality," said Mrs. Ford.
"Precisely; therefore, dear Mrs. Ford, I accept your kind offer with more gratitude than I can express. I can never repay you and your husband for what you have done for me and mine; but, like the prophet of old, I can speak for you to the King and the Captain of the Host; and, believe me, I shall do that every time I am on my knees. And may God grant more abundantly than I can desire or conceive, all the prayers that I shall offer up on your behalf!"
So it was arranged that the Seatons should take up their abode at Chayford Cottage. Thus they were saved from paying rent—a heavy item in small homes; but, nevertheless, the incidental expenses of moving and so forth were so great that Mr. Seaton decided, with much sorrow, that he should be obliged to part with his library in order to meet them. On hearing of this decision, Miss Dallicot called at the minister's.
"Is it true, dear Mr. Seaton," she began, "that you are contemplating the sale of your interesting and valuable library? Mrs. Ford informed me that she believed such was the case, though she had no authority for making the statement beyond the sanction of rumour."
"It is true, I am grieved to say," replied the minister. "I have always made it my rule in life to pay ready money for all things, and never to run into debt even for a shilling's worth; therefore I am in need of some cash in hand to pay the expenses of our move into the cottage. My conscience would not allow me to borrow the necessary sum, so I see no alternative but to dispose of my books."
"Still you possess so many friends who would feel it a privilege to advance the sum you require, that it seems a matter of regret that you will not avail yourself of the loan."
"Do not tempt me, dear Miss Dallicot, to act against my principles. I have made a vow to owe no man anything, even for an hour; and I should not feel it consistent with my profession as a minister of Christ to run into debt on any pretext whatsoever."
"Then that being the case," said Miss Drusilla, "you will not deem it unseemly or commercial on my part to inform you that I have long viewed with feelings of envy your admirably selected collection of old books. I have come here to-day with the intention of making you a reasonable offer for the same; but I felt that such an offer would savour of impertinence if your mind were not as yet finally made up in favour of disposing of your valuable library."
Mr. Seaton looked pleased. "I am very glad to hear you say this. I confess it is a wrench to me to part with my books, and I cannot disguise from myself that I shall miss them sorely. Yet it is a great comfort to me to think that my carefully selected library will not be broken up, but will be in the possession of a cultured person capable of appreciating it."
"Then," said Miss Dallicot blushing, "may I be so mercenary as to mention the sum I should offer in exchange for your admirable collection of volumes?"
"Certainly, dear Miss Dallicot. I am, as you know, a child in these matters, and have no idea what my library is worth."
"The sum I should suggest is five hundred pounds; but if you think that insufficient, pray tell me so, and I will increase it at once."
"Nay, Miss Drusilla; that seems to me far too much. I could not take such a large sum as that for my little library."
"Believe me, dear Mr. Seaton, it is none too much," said Miss Dallicot, with more charity than veracity. "In fact I believe at a sale your books would command a far larger sum; but, as you remark, it would be a source of regret to see so carefully selected a collection ruthlessly resolved again into its integral parts."
The minister looked doubtful. "I am a poor hand at business, but I think you are too generous, dear friend."
"Quite the reverse. Take my word for it, Mr. Seaton, I am making what is vulgarly termed a bargain. To obtain a valuable library, which I have long coveted, for the comparatively trifling sum of five hundred pounds, is a stroke of good fortune such as does not generally fall to my portion."
Mark Seaton shook his head. "I trust that we are not deceiving ourselves, and letting your kindness of heart run away with us."
"Certainly not; have no doubts on that score, I entreat you. And now I have a favour to ask of you, if you will not think me importunate in so doing."
"By no means, dear Miss Drusilla. It will be the greatest pleasure to me to do anything in my power for so faithful a friend as you have proved yourself to be."
"The request I have to make is that you will grant me permission to keep my library under your roof for a time. As you will perceive, I have no space at present for any increase in my shelf-room. I may possibly add a small octagonal room to my present study, like the one at Chayford House; but until this arrangement is carried out, I must trespass on your kindness so far as to leave the library I have purchased from you in your keeping."
The minister's face glowed with innocent pleasure. He had no suspicion of any guile on the good spinster's part, and it rejoiced his heart to know that he and his beloved books would not be parted just yet.
"I shall be only too delighted to oblige you in this matter, Miss Dallicot; in fact," added he, with the air of one imparting a new view of the question, "I myself shall profit by the arrangement; for I am sure you will not have any objection to my using the books as long as they are in my charge."
"Of course not, dear Mr. Seaton; I trust you will avail yourself of the library just the same whether it is nominally in my possession or in yours. And it will be a source of unbounded satisfaction to me to feel that my treasured books are under such safe jurisdiction."
"I hope that I have not acted in a deceitful manner," said Miss Dallicot to herself on her way home, "but the worthy man would not have accepted help more openly bestowed, I fear; wherefore my little ruse was perhaps excusable. And I was not actually guilty of any untruth—at least I trust I was not. Surely the value of anything is what it happens to be worth to us; and the minister's library is worth far more than five hundred pounds to me, for it represents the earthly happiness of my dear friend and pastor. And it is undoubtedly true that I have no more book-room in my little home: my shelves are already so overcrowded that a new hymn-book would prove a superfluity to me at present. But I fear I overstepped the mark a little in my speech anent the octagonal enlargement; I have no actual intention of ever enlarging my borders, and I am sorely afraid I conveyed the impression that such an intention formed part of my immediate programme. I trust that I have not sinned in this, and done evil that good may come!" And the good lady sighed in much contrition of spirit, never having read how the recording angel blots out with a tear some entries even as he makes them.
But the entry against Miss Drusilla was not the only erasure that the recording angel had to make that day.
"Martha," said Mrs. Seaton to her faithful handmaiden, "it goes to my heart to say it, but I fear we cannot keep you with us any longer."
"Well to be sure, ma'am!" exclaimed Martha, in unfeigned surprise. "And what may have put such a notion as that into your head? You'll be talking about giving the minister notice next."
"The fact is, Martha, that we can no longer afford so valuable a maid as yourself. Now that our circumstances are changed, we can only keep one servant for the very rough work, and Miss Joanna and I must do the rest ourselves."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that it is the money-question that has put you thus beside yourself, ma'am, and not any dissatisfaction with me. Not that I should have left, even if such had been the case; I should have stayed with you for your own good, even though you had given me notice twenty times a day. Bless you, ma'am, if I wasn't here to look after you all, the whole place would go to rack and ruin."
"You are right, Martha. Home would not be home without you!"
"Then don't multiply words any more, ma'am, or talk nonsense about my going away. I have made up my mind to stay on with you all, and not to take any wages whatsoever: and when Martha Prosser puts her foot down, all the king's horses and all the king's men can't pick it up again."
"But, dear Martha, we can't let you go on serving us without wages."
"And why not, I should like to know? What do I want with wages? My face is too plain for me to care to spend money on my back—which is no secret, being there for all the world to see. And I don't hold with saving, ma'am. Money is like the manna, to my thinking; it is all very well to supply the needs of the passing day, but when you begin to save it up it doesn't improve with keeping."
"Yet we should all of us lay by what we can for our old age," suggested Mrs. Seaton.
"I don't hold with that, neither. It is a poor compliment, to my mind, to say, 'The Lord will provide'; and then to bolster Him up with a bank-book, as if He couldn't do His part of the business without our assistance. My conscience alive! If we'll only do our part properly, He'll do His, never fear!"
The minister's wife did not reply in words; but she threw her arms round Martha's neck, and sobbed out her griefs and her gratitude on that faithful breast.
As for Martha, when she had soothed and comforted her mistress, she armed herself with the wisdom of the serpent, and knocked at the door of the minister's study.
"If you please, sir," she said in a sepulchral tone, "I want to consult you about a spiritual difficulty."
"Certainly, Martha, certainly," replied Mr. Seaton with much warmth, feeling far more at home on eternal than on temporal ground. "Sit down and tell me all about it, and I will see how I can help you."
Thus adjured, Martha took a seat. "I used to think," she began, "that when one had got to a sensible age, one would have outgrown the snares and wiles of the devil; but, bless my soul! he has got them suited to fit all ages and sizes, as they say of ready-made clothes."
"He has indeed, my poor Martha; and it is when we think he has no longer the power to harm us that he is most to be dreaded. But tell me, what is the temptation that has been assailing you now?"
Martha's face was the picture of gloom as she replied: "I feel that covetousness and the love of money are creeping upon me in my old age; and we all know that the Lord hateth the covetous man, and that the love of money is the root of all evil."
Mr. Seaton's face was very tender as he answered: "I fancy that you are unduly distressing yourself. Surely I, who know you so well and with whom you have met in class all these years, should have perceived this fault in your character had it ever existed. Believe me, your conscience is over-sensitive, and now falsely accuses you."
But Martha shook her head. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," she replied, "and I want you to help me to conquer the devil, and not explain him away. As my Aunt Matilda Jane said, when the doctor told her she had nasal catarrh: 'It is a common cold in the head, and I haven't sent for you to christen it but to cure it'. That is what Aunt Matilda Jane said, and she had right on her side, to my thinking."
"Well, Martha, if, as you say, the sin of covetousness is lying in wait for your soul, I can only pray for you, and entreat you to watch as well as pray that you enter not into this temptation."
"That is not enough. There is more than prayer wanted in my case. Not that prayer is not sufficient for some, and I should be the last to say a word against it; but I want something more myself," replied the penitent.
"Then tell me what that more is," demanded Martha's spiritual adviser, in some perplexity.
"I want you to remove the temptation far from me, so that I can no longer behold the accursed thing. In fact I want you to take all my savings, and spend them, and never let me hear of them again, they being but filthy lucre at best, and amounting to one hundred and eleven pounds, fifteen shillings and sixpence in all," added the excited Martha, thrusting her bank-book into her master's hand. "If I keep them, they may draw my soul into perdition, and make me as them that have their portion in this life; while if you'll only take and spend them, you'll save my soul alive, and be able to have a fire in your bedroom all the winter, which the mistress ought never to be without, her being so rheumatic, bless her dear heart!"
Then at last the minister understood; and he also understood that when any pilgrim's face is set as though to go to Jerusalem, it is no sign of true apostleship to try to turn that pilgrim back. So he took Martha's bank-book into his keeping, until such time as he saw fit to return it to her.
"Thank you, Martha," he said, and his eyes were full of tears. "I will do as you bid me, and shall be able to see that your dear mistress lacks nothing during the coming winter, owing to your generosity. And you in your turn will always remember that in this household, as in the early Church, we have all things in common; and that whatever is ours is also yours."
"Then that's settled," replied Martha cheerfully; "and now I must go back to the kitchen to see the oven, which is apt to burn the pie-crust without baking it, unless duly warned and admonished by them that have authority. You'd wonder how an oven could burn without baking; but human nature is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and our kitchen oven is one of the worst."
"Yet, Martha, God is very good, and therefore human nature is sometimes very good likewise; I have certainly proved it of late."
"Well, you see, sir, it is in this way," expounded Martha. "God made man in His own image; and though man spoils himself in the making, and loses his proper pattern, and falls out of shape, the original mould is not broken yet—nor never will be, trust the Lord for that!"
I will crown you as my queenBy my soul's subjection,For you all your life have beenWhat I think perfection.
Paul felt leaving Oxford more than he would have cared to confess; and the weeks he spent at home would have been a dreary time had they not been brightened by the smiles and the sympathy of Alice Martin.
To Paul's vigorous and energetic nature, Alice was very soothing and restful. It was true that she did not understand more than half of what he said to her, but she listened to it all, which was nearly as good; and "a girl could not be expected to enter into a man's thoughts and feelings," Paul said to himself, not having yet graduated in Cupid's University. And Paul came very near to loving Alice in those days, with the sort of comfortable, common-place, every-day love which satisfies ninety-nine men and one woman out of every hundred. But Paul, unfortunately, happened to be the one, and Alice one of the ninety-nine; so there was not much chance of their making one another happy.
One day in the summer in which Paul left Oxford, he and Joanna, with Edgar Ford and Alice Martin, went for a picnic to Chayford Wood. Edgar had ceased to make himself disagreeable to Alice, no man being able to perform the impossible for too long a time at a stretch; and Alice sunned herself in his reawakened smiles, not even her love for Paul having the power to stamp out her desire for universal popularity.
As they were sitting by the lake Alice remarked: "Isn't it funny how a lovely scene like this makes one feel good and happy, and yet sad with longing for something that one has never heard of?"
"I am never sad with longing for what I never heard of," replied Joanna. "Whenever I feel sad, I always know it means that I want to see Mrs. Crozier again."
"Are you still very devoted to Mrs. Crozier?" inquired Alice.
"Of course I am. I'd do anything in the world for her."
"Anything wrong or foolish do you mean?" asked Edgar.
"Certainly not. She'd never want me to do anything wrong or foolish."
"That is not the question," said Edgar, who greatly loved to tease Joanna. "Would you if she did?"
"But she wouldn't. Would you do anything wrong or foolish for any one you cared much for?" inquired Joanna, turning the tables on her adversary.
Edgar thought for a moment. "Anything wrong, no; anything foolish, yes," he answered.
"I was reading a poem the other day," said Alice, "about a lady who threw her glove into the lions' den to test her lover's affection; he jumped into the den and rescued the glove, only to fling it into the lady's face. I cannot make up my mind whether he was right or not."
"Most certainly he was," replied Paul, in his highly superior manner. "To make an exhibition of so sacred a thing as a man's love proved the woman to be vain and frivolous, and incapable of seeing the deeper thing. Therefore the man was better without her than with her, and he did well to throw her over. There is nothing so revolting to a man as frivolity in a woman. When deep calleth unto deep, love reaches perfection; when shallow calleth unto shallow, there is not much harm done; but when deep calleth unto shallow, the tragedies of life begin."
"I am not sure that the lady was so frivolous," said Edgar thoughtfully. "Probably she was sick to death of the adulation of empty-headed and empty-hearted courtiers, and wanted to prove to herself and to the assembled court that this particular knight really cared for her. In which case the deep called unto shallow indeed; but the lady was the deep and the knight the shallow."
"I do not agree with you at all," answered Paul rather hotly, "she was vain and frivolous, and wanted to make the other women jealous by showing off the devotion of her young man. And I'd see a woman at Jericho before I'd make an exhibition of my love for her to excite the envy of her rivals."
"Gently, my young friend," said Edgar with his pleasant smile. "If you really loved a woman you'd give her your heart out and out; and whether she cherished it or played with it would be her concern, not yours."
"But no nice woman would want to play with it," remarked Joanna.
"I don't see that," replied Edgar. "Even nice women have their little vanities, and like to prove the extent of their power over men. Besides, if one really loved a woman, one would go on loving her just the same, even if she did the things that one did not consider nice; of course one would hate the things, but that would make no difference in loving the woman."
"Oh! yes, it would," cried Paul. "I should leave off loving a woman at; once if she did things that I did not approve of. I don't say that it would not hurt at the time; but the wrench of thrusting her out of my life then and there would not hurt half so much in the long run as letting her go on withering up my affections and knocking down my ideals. In the former case I should lose her and keep myself; in the latter I should lose both myself and her."
"But, my dear fellow, you wouldn't bother about yourself; you'd only know that you could not afford to lose the woman; so you would rescue her glove from the lions and then button it for her."
"Not I! I should teach her a lesson and then have done with her."
Edgar laughed. "My good Paul, who wants to teach women lessons? You talk as if they were schoolboys, and you really are old enough to know better."
"But do you mean to say, Edgar," asked Joanna, "that you would let any woman make a plaything or a door-mat of you?"
"By all means, if I loved her and she was so minded. If I really cared for her, you see, I should think it the greatest honour to be elevated to the uses of her playthings and her door-mats, and I should count myself unworthy to be adapted to such purposes."
"I call that unmanly," remarked Paul. "Even if a man does love a woman, he owes a duty to himself as well as to her."
Edgar merely chuckled.
"I see nothing to laugh at," quoth Paul severely. "I did not say anything humorous."
"Not intentionally," murmured Edgar.
"It seems to me," continued Paul, "that a man is unfair to himself and to the woman when he grovels at her feet. A sensible and equal affection is better for both of them."
"O noble judge! O excellent young man!" exclaimed Edgar.
"What I am saying is common sense," added Paul, "though you appear to think me harsh and unloving."
"Not harsh and unloving, my dear Paul; merely foolish and ignorant," replied Edgar.
"I cannot see the sense of throwing a glove among lions just for the sake of picking it up again," said the sensible Joanna. "It seems to me a most unnecessary and absurd action."
"It would be nice to feel that a man liked you well enough to perform unnecessary and absurd actions for your sake," added Alice wistfully.
Edgar looked at her, but he said nothing; he only understood.
"It would not please me if men did absurd things for my sake," persisted Joanna. "It would only please me if they did good and noble things to win my regard."
"Joanna is quite right," agreed Joanna's brother approvingly. "Vain women do men a lot of harm."
"Even if they like them?" suggested Alice.
"Of course; the more the men like them, the more harm they do. But the worst of women is," continued Paul, "that they are always wanting to see what will happen if they do certain things. They make a man angry just to see what he looks like when he is angry; and they make a man miserable just to see what he looks like when he is miserable; and they never realize how much gratuitous suffering all this entails upon the man."
"But they haven't the slightest idea how much it hurts," said Edgar. "They know that it is all a sort of histrionic performance or scientific experiment, and they expect the man to treat the matter from the same intellectual standpoint. While as for him, poor beggar! he only knows that he is being broken on the wheel, and he cannot for the life of him see the object of it, as you say."
Now Alice was a good girl as well as a pretty girl, and amiable and unselfish into the bargain; but she was not the reigning beauty of Chayford for nothing, and she now and again wanted—like other queens—to try on her regalia. So she said, in her sweet plaintive voice, "I should so like some of those water-lilies from the far side of the pool."
The said lilies grew under a steep and slippery bank which was the only approach to them, there being no boat on Chayford Pool at this particular time. Both men looked across the pool, and Paul shook his head.
"I'm afraid you can't have them," he said, "till there is a boat on the water. The bank is not really safe after the heavy rains we have had lately."
Alice pouted. "But I want them now; they will be all over by the time the boats are in use."
Edgar looked at her. "Do you really care very much about them?" he asked.
"Of course I do," replied Alice. "They are my favourite flowers, and I want some dreadfully."
"Then you shall have some," said Edgar quietly, walking off in the direction of the lilies, round the end of the pool.
Paul's brow grew very black. "Don't be a fool, Edgar!" he cried roughly. "That bank really is not safe; and a girl's whim is not worth the price of a wetting, especially to a delicate fellow like you. Alice, what are you thinking of? Tell him at once he is not to go."
But Alice's usually equable temper was so ruffled by Paul's brusqueness, and she would not do as he bade her.
"Alice, don't you hear what I am saying? Tell him that he is not to go," repeated Paul.
But Alice's gentle spirit was so sore from the effect of Paul's indifference to her, that she shut her pretty mouth obstinately and would not interfere.
"If Paul is so horrid to me he shall see that other men admire me," she said to herself; "and that will add to my importance in his eyes."
Finding that Alice was obdurate, Paul ran after Edgar to endeavour to dissuade him from so foolhardy an attempt; but before he reached him, Edgar was half-way down the slippery bank.
By keeping "one foot on sea and one on shore," and by grasping the overhanging bough of a birch tree, Edgar managed to gather a handful of the desired lilies; but when he tried to return, his shore foot slipped, and he fell into the water. By that time Paul had overtaken his friend, and was able to help Edgar out of the pool and up the bank; but not before the latter had suffered a thorough soaking, which brought on a severe chill.
Edgar was laid up for several days in consequence of his immersion in Chayford Pool, during which time Paul visited him constantly, and Alice as constantly sent him flowers and books and little scented notes; for her tender heart was wrung with remorse for the consequences of her vanity. Edgar quite understood this remorse and accepted it, for he knew Alice better than Paul did; but remorse was not the particular thing he was wanting from her just then.
"I say, old fellow," said Paul to him one day, "I shall never like Alice again, after the scurvy trick she played you."
"Oh! don't say that," besought Edgar, bravely fighting Alice's battle with Paul, though it was no easy task to him to do so. "It was only a little bit of feminine vanity on her part, which ninety-nine pretty girls out of every hundred would have indulged in."
"Then deliver me from ninety-nine pretty girls out of every hundred!" prayed Paul.
"It really isn't fair to blame her, old boy! She had no idea there was any risk in the thing, and she has been far more sorry for me and more kind to me than I deserve ever since."
"Oh! I don't mean to say that she deliberately planned to make you ill, nor do I deny that her penitence is sincere; all I say is that the shallow vanity which induces a woman to expose a man to danger, or even to discomfort, to gratify a mere whim of hers, is a thing which is simply revolting to me. It is not that I cannot forgive her: I could forgive far worse things than this, if they had their origin in something deeper—even if more dangerous—than mere vanity. I am not at war with her; but I know and feel that I shall never like her again."
Edgar puffed at his pipe in silence for some moments. "I used to think you cared for Alice," he said at last.
"I used to think so too, at one time," answered Paul slowly, "but I know now I was mistaken. I liked her beauty and her pretty sympathetic manner, and I found her very soothing when I was irritable and out of temper. But there was always something which disappointed me in her. She is charming and pleasant, like a walled flower garden; but there is no 'beyond' in Alice. The woman I love must not only have a garden in the front of her character to gladden my eyes every day, but there must also be glimpses of a view beyond, of sunny lands of Beulah and of mountains reaching up to heaven."
Edgar smoked in silence.
"There are three things which combine to produce love," continued Paul, in his youthfully didactic way; "moral excellence, intellectual companionship and physical charm. Of course if one can get the three in a line, one is right for all time; but generally one has to put up with only two. I respected Alice's character and I felt her charm; but intellectually she and I were never comrades; nevertheless I fancied that two conditions out of the three might prove enough. After her conduct the other day, however, I saw that, though sweet and amiable, there was something small and paltry in her nature. Therefore she has now ceased to appeal to the second side of me; and personal beauty alone is not sufficient to satisfy me in a wife. So out of my future life Alice goes."
"Then do you mean to say that, as far as you are concerned, another man has the right to try and win Alice?"
Paul looked up in surprise. "Of course! Why not? You don't mean to say that you care for her?"
"But I do," answered Edgar with his quiet smile; "I have cared for her all her life, and I shall continue to do so all mine. But I stood on one side because I thought you loved her." He was too chivalrous to say, "because I thought she loved you".
"Well, go in and win, old man!" cried Paul, grasping his friend's hand. "But don't you think that her action the other day was rather small and petty?"
"I think I would rather not discuss Alice even with you, my dear fellow. You see, I should knock down any man who dared to say a word against her, and I should be sorry if that man happened to be yourself."
"All right; I beg your pardon. All that I can say is that I think Alice is the luckiest girl I know."
"I'm afraid she won't think so."
"Why? don't you think she cares for you?" inquired the unperceiving Paul.
"I am sure she doesn't, worse luck for me!"
"Well then, she will soon learn to do so, there is no doubt of that, now that she has seen how much you care for her."
Edgar smiled rather sadly. "I have succeeded in teaching her that there is no one in the world but her; but I have not yet taught her that there is no one in the world but me."
"She will soon learn it, never fear! with such a schoolmaster."
But poor Edgar did not feel quite so sure.
And Alice all the time was telling herself that since Edgar loved her so much, Paul was certain to love her too; an illogical argument, perhaps, but one most convincing to the normal female mind. She did not know, poor child! that with her own hands she had shut the door of the Eden which she coveted; and that the hands which have power to shut have not necessarily the power to open again.
Alas for us all that the gate of Eden is so hard to seek, and that so few succeed in finding it! And those of us who are fortunate enough to discover it, must take heed to our ways lest it close with a spring, and open to us never again, knock we never so loudly.