The Cook Book
Presently, she found a warm, soft place behind a sand dune. She reared upon the dune a dark green parasol with a white border, and patted sand around the curved handle until it was, as she thought, firmly placed. Then she settled her skirts comfortably and opened her book, for the first time.
"It looks bad," she mused. "Wonder what a carbohydrate is. And proteids—where do you buy 'em? Albuminoids—I've been from Maine to Florida and have never seen any. They must be germs.
"However," she continued, to herself, "I have a trained mind, and 'keeping everlastingly at it brings success.' It would be strange if three hours of hard study every day, on the book the man in the store said was the best ever, didn't produce some sort of definite result. But, oh, how Allan would laugh at me!"
The book fell on the sand, unheeded. The brown eyes looked out past the blue surges to some far Castle in Spain. Her thoughts refused to phrase themselves in words, but herpulses leaped with the old, immortal joy. The sun had risen high in the shining East before she returned to her book.
"This isn't work," she sighed to herself; "away with the dreams."
Before long, she got out her note-book. "A fresh fish," she wrote, "does not smell fishy and its eyes are bright and its gills red. A tender chicken or turkey has a springy breast bone. If you push it down with your finger, it springs back. A leg of lamb has to have the tough, outer parchment-like skin taken off with a sharp knife. Some of the oil of the wool is in it and makes it taste muttony and bad. A lobster should always be bought when he is alive and green and boiled at home. Then you know he is fresh. Save everything for soup."
The Air of Knowing
"I will go out into the kitchen," mused Eloise, "and I will have the air of knowing all about everything. I will say: 'Mary Ann, I have ordered a lobster for you to boil. We will have a salad for lunch. And I trust you have saved everything that was left last night for to-night's soup.' Mary Ann will be afraid of me, and Allan will besoproud."
"'I thought I told you,' continued Eloise, to herself, 'to save all the crumbs. Doctor Conrad does not like to have everything salt and he prefers to make the salad dressing himself. Do not cook any cereal the morningswe have oranges or grape-fruit—the starch and acid are likely to make a disturbance inside. Four people are coming to dinner this evening. I have ordered some pink roses and we will use the pink candle-shades. Or, wait—I had forgotten that my hair is red. Use the green candle-shades and I will change the roses to white.'"
A Frolicsome Wind
A frolicsome little wind, which had long been ruffling the waves of Eloise's copper-coloured hair, took the note-book out of her lap and laid it open on the sand some little distance away. Then, after making merry with the green parasol, it lifted it bodily by its roots out of the sand dune and went gaily down the beach with it.
Eloise started in pursuit, but the wind and the parasol out-distanced her easily. Rounding the corner of another dune, she saw the parasol, with all sails set, jauntily embarked toward Europe. Turning away, disconsolate, she collided with a big blonde giant who took her into his arms, saying, "Never mind—I'll get you another."
When the first raptures had somewhat subsided, Eloise led him back to the place where the parasol had started from. "When and where from and how did you come?" she asked, hurriedly picking up her books.
"This morning, from yonder palatial hotel, on foot," he answered. "I thought you'dbe out here somewhere. I didn't ask for you—I wanted to hunt you up myself."
"But I might have been upstairs," she said, reproachfully.
"On a morning like this? Not unless you've changed in the last ten days, and you haven't, except to grow lovelier."
"But why did you come?" she asked. "Nobody told you that you could."
"Sweet," said Allan, softly, possessing himself of her hand, "did you think I could stay away from you two whole weeks? Ten days is the limit—a badly strained limit at that."
The colour surged into her face. She was radiant, as though with some inner light. The atmosphere around her was fairly electric with life and youth and joy.
Dr. Conrad
Doctor Allan Conrad was very good to look at. He had tawny hair and kind brown eyes, a straight nose, and a good firm chin. He wore eye-glasses, and his face might have seemed severe had it not been discredited by his mouth. He was smooth-shaven, and knew enough to wear brown clothes instead of grey.
Eloise looked at him approvingly. Every detail of his attire satisfied her fastidious sense. If he had worn a diamond ring or a conspicuous tie, he might not have occupied his present proud position. His unfailing good taste was a great comfort to her.
"How long can you stay?" she inquired.
"Nice question," he laughed, "to ask an eager lover who has just come. Sounds a good deal like 'Here's-your-hat-what's-your-hurry?' Before I knew you, I used to go to see a girl sometimes who always said, at ten o'clock: 'I'm so glad you came. When can you come again?' The first time she did it I told her I couldn't come again until I had gone away this time."
"And afterward?"
Forgetting the Clock
"I kept going away earlier and earlier, and finally it was so much earlier that I went before I had come. If I can't make a girl forget the clock, I have no call to waste my valuable time on her, have I?"
Assuming a frown with difficulty, Miss Wynne consulted her watch. "Why, it's only half-past eleven," she exclaimed; "I thought it was much later."
"You darling," said the man, irrelevantly. "What are you reading?" Before she could stop him, he had picked up the book and nearly choked in a burst of unseemly merriment.
"Upon my word," he said, when he could speak. "A cook book! A classmate of mine used to indulge himself in floral catalogues when he wanted to rest his mind with light literature, but I never heard of a cook book as among the 'books for Summer reading' that the booksellers advertise."
"Why not?" retorted Eloise, quickly.
"No real reason. Lots of worse things are printed and sold by thousands, but, someway, I can't seem to reconcile you—and your glorious voice—with a cook-book."
"Allan Conrad," said Miss Wynne, with affected sternness, "if you hadn't studied medicine, would you be practising it now?"
"No," admitted Allan; "not with the laws as they are in this State."
"If I had no voice and had never studied music, would I be singing at concerts?"
"Not twice."
"If a girl had never seen a typewriter and didn't know the first thing about shorthand, would she apply for a position as a stenographer?"
"They do," said Allan, gloomily.
Preparation
"Don't dissemble, please. My point is simply this: If every other occupation in the world demands some previous preparation, why shouldn't a girl know something about housekeeping and homemaking before she undertakes it?"
"But, my dear, you're not going to cook."
"I am if I want to," announced Eloise, with authority. "And, anyhow, I'm going to know. Do you think I'm going to let some peripatetic, untrained immigrant manage my house for me? I guess not."
"But cooking isn't theory," he ventured, picking up the note-book; "it's practice.What good is all this going to do you when you have no stove?"
"Don't you remember the famous painter who told inquiring visitors that he mixed his paints with brains? I am now cooking with my mind. After my mind learns to cook, my hands will find it simple enough. And some time, when you come in at midnight and have had no dinner, and the immigrant has long since gone to sleep, you may be glad to be presented with panned oysters, piping hot, instead of a can of salmon and a can-opener."
"Bless your heart," answered Allan, fondly. "It's dear of you, and I hope it'll work. I'm starving this minute—kiss me."
"'Longing is divine compared with satiety,'" she reminded him, as she yielded. "How could you get away? Was nobody ill?"
"Nobody would have the heart to be ill on a Saturday in June, when a doctor's best girl was only fifty miles away. Monday, I'll go back and put some cholera or typhoid germs in the water supply, and get nice and busy. Who's up yonder?" indicating the hotel.
"Nobody we know, but very few of the guests have come, so far."
"Guests"
"In all our varied speech," commented Allan, "I know of nothing so exquisitely ironical as alluding to the people who stop at a hotel as 'guests.' In Mexico, they call them 'passengers,' which is more in keeping with thefacts. Fancy the feelings of a real guest upon receiving a bill of the usual proportions. I should consider it a violation of hospitality if a man at my house had to pay three prices for his dinner and a tip besides."
"You always had queer notions," remarked Eloise, with a sidelong glance which set his heart to pounding. "We'll call them inmates if you like it better. As yet, there are only eight inmates besides ourselves, though more are coming next week. Two old couples, one widow, onedivorcée, and two spinsters with life-works."
"No galloping cherubs?"
"School isn't out yet."
Life-Works
"I see. It wouldn't be the real thing unless there were little ones to gallop through the corridors at six in the morning and weep at the dinner table. What are the life-works?"
"One is writing a book, I understand, onThe Equality of the Sexes. The other—oh, Allan, it's too funny."
"Spring it," he demanded.
"She's trying to have cornet-playing introduced into the public schools. She says that tuberculosis and pneumonia are caused by insufficient lung development, and that cornet-playing will develop the lungs of the rising generation. Fancy going by a school during the cornet hour."
"I don't know why they shouldn't putcornet-playing into the schools," he observed, after a moment of profound thought. "Everything else is there now. Why shouldn't they teach crime, and even make a fine art of it?"
"If you let her know you're a doctor," cautioned Eloise, "she'll corner you, and I shall never see you again. She says that she 'hopes, incidentally, to enlist the sympathies of the medical profession.'"
"She's beginning at the wrong end. Cornet manufacturers and the people who keep sanitariums and private asylums are the co-workers she wants. I couldn't live through the coming Winter were it not for pneumonia. It means coal, and repairs for the automobile, and furs for my wife—when I get one."
"Come," said Eloise, springing to her feet; "let's go up and get ready for luncheon."
"Have you told me all?" asked Allan, "or is there some gay young troubadour who serenades you in the evening and whose existence you conceal from me for reasons of your own?"
A Pathetic Little Woman
"Nary a troubadour," she replied. "I haven't seen another soul except a pathetic little woman who came up to the hotel yesterday afternoon to sell the most exquisite things you ever saw. Think of offering hand-made lingerie, of sheer, embroidered lawn and batiste and linen, tothatcrowd! The old ladies weren't interested, the spinsters sniffed, the widow wept, and only thedivorcéetook anynotice of it. The prices were so ridiculous that I wouldn't let her unpack the box. I'd be ashamed to pay her the price she asked. It's made by a little lame girl up the main road. I'm to go up there sometime next week."
"Fairy godmother?" asked Allan, good-naturedly. He had known Eloise for many years.
"Perhaps," she answered, somewhat shamefaced. "What's the use of having money if you don't spend it?"
A Human Interest
They went into the hotel together, utterly oblivious of the eight pairs of curious eyes that were fastened upon them in a frank, open stare. The rocking-chairs scraped on the veranda as they instinctively drew closer together. A strong human interest, imperatively demanding immediate discussion, had come to Riverdale-by-the-Sea.
Discouraging Prospects
Miriam had come home disappointed and secretly afraid to hope for any tangible results from Miss Wynne's promised visit. Nevertheless, she told Barbara.
"Wouldn't any of them even look at it, Aunty?"
"One of them would have looked at it and rumpled it so that I'd have had to iron it again, but she wouldn't have bought anything. This young lady said she was busy just then, and she wanted to come up and look over all the things at her leisure. She won't pay much, though, even if she buys anything. She said the price was 'ridiculous.'"
"Perhaps she meant it was too low," suggested Barbara.
"Possibly," answered Miriam. Her tone indicated that it was equally possible for canary birds to play the piano, or for ducks to sing.
"How does she look?" queried Barbara.
"Well enough." Enthusiasm was not one of Miriam's attractions.
"What did she have on?"
"White. Linen, I think."
"Then she knows good material. Was her gown tailor-made?"
"Might have been. Why?"
"Because if her white linen gowns are tailored she has money and is used to spending it for clothes. I'm sure she meant the price was too low. Did she say when she was coming?"
"Next week. She didn't say what day."
Waiting
"Then," sighed Barbara, "all we can do is to wait."
"We'll wait until she comes, or has had time to. In the meantime, I'm going to show my quilts to those old ladies and take down a jar or two of preserves. I wish you'd write to the people who left orders last year, and ask if they want preserves or jam or jelly, or pickles, or quilts, or anything. It would be nice to get some orders in before we buy the fruit."
Barbara put down her book, asked for the pen and ink, and went cheerfully to work, with the aid of Aunt Miriam's small memorandum book which contained a list of addresses.
"What colour is her hair, Aunty?" she asked, as she blotted and turned her first neat page.
"A good deal the colour of that old copper tea-kettle that a woman paid six dollars for once, do you remember? I've always thought she was crazy, for she wouldn't even let me clean it."
"And her eyes?"
"Brown and big, with long lashes. She looks well enough, and her voice is pleasant, and I must say she has nice ways. She didn't make me feel like a peddler, as so many of them do. P'raps she'll come," admitted Miriam, grudgingly.
"Oh, I hope so. I'd love to see her and her pretty clothes, even if she didn't buy anything." Barbara threw back a golden braid impatiently, wishing it were copper-coloured and had smooth, shiny waves in it, instead of fluffing out like an undeserved halo.
While Barbara was writing, her father came in and sat down near her. "More sewing, dear?" he asked, wistfully.
Writing Letters
"No, Daddy, not this time. I'm just writing letters."
"I didn't know you ever got any letters—do you?"
"Oh, yes—sometimes. The people at the hotel come up to call once in a while, you know, and after they go away, Aunt Miriam and I occasionally exchange letters with them. It's nice to get letters."
The old man's face changed. "Are you lonely, dear?"
"Lonely?" repeated Barbara, laughing; "why I don't even know what the word means. I have you and my books and my sewing and these letters to write, and I can sit in the window and nod to people who go by—how could I be lonely, Daddy?"
"I want you to be happy, dear."
"So I am," returned the girl, trying hard to make her voice even. "With you, and everything a girl could want, why shouldn't I be happy?"
Miriam went out, closing the door quietly, and the blind man drew his chair very near to Barbara.
Dreaming
"I dream," he said, "and I keep on dreaming that you can walk and I can see. What do you suppose it means? I never dreamed it before."
"We all have dreams, Daddy. I've had the same one very often ever since I was a little child. It's about a tower made of cologne bottles, with a cupola of lovely glass arches, built on the white sand by the blue sea. Inside is a winding stairway hung with tapestries, leading to the cupola where the golden bells are. There are lovely rooms on every floor, and you can stop wherever you please."
"It sounds like a song," he mused.
"Perhaps it is. Can't you make one of it?"
"No—we each have to make our own. I made one this morning."
"Tell me, please."
Love Never Lost
"It is about love. When God made the world, He put love in, and none of it has ever been lost. It is simply transferred from one person to another. Sometimes it takes a different form, and becomes a deed, which, at first, may not look as if it were made of love, but, in reality, is.
"Love blossoms in flowers, sings in moving waters, fills the forest with birds, and makes all the wonderful music of Spring. It puts the colour upon the robin's breast, scents the orchard with far-reaching drifts of bloom, and scatters the pink and white petals over the grass beneath. Through love the flower changes to fruit, and the birds sing lullabies at twilight instead of mating songs.
"It is at the root of everything good in all the world, and where things are wrong, it is only because sometime, somewhere, there has not been enough love. The balance has been uneven and some have had too much while others were starving for it. As the lack of food stunts the body, so the denial of love warps the soul.
"But God has made it so that love given must unfailingly come back an hundred-fold; the more we give, the richer we are. And Heaven is only a place where the things thathave gone wrong here will at last come right. Is it not so, Barbara?"
"Surely, Daddy."
"Then," he continued, anxiously, "all my loving must come back to me sometime, somewhere. I think it will be right, for God Himself is Love."
The blind man's sensitive fingers lovingly sought Barbara's face. His touch was a caress. "I am sure you are like your dear mother," he said, softly. "If I could know that she died loving me, and if I could see her face again, just for an instant, why, all the years of loving, with no answer, would be fully repaid."
"She loved you, Daddy—I know she did."
The Old Doubt
"I know, too, but not always. Sometimes the old, tormenting doubt comes back to me."
"It shouldn't—mother would never have meant you to doubt her."
"Barbara," cried the old man, with sudden passion, "if you ever love a man, never let him doubt you—always let him be sure. There is so much in a man's world that a woman knows nothing of. When he comes home at night, tired beyond words, and sick to death of the world and its ways, make him sure. When he thinks himself defeated, make him sure. When you see him tempted to swerve even the least from the straight path, make him sure. When the last parting comes, if he is leavingyou, give him the certainty to take with him into his narrow house, and make his last sleep sweet. And if you are the one to go first, and leave him, old and desolate and stricken, oh, Barbara, make him sure then—make him very sure."
A String of Pearls
The girl's hand closed tightly upon his. He leaned over to pat her cheek and stroke the heavy braids of silken hair. Then he felt the strand of beads around her neck.
"You have on your mother's pearls," he said. His fine old face illumined as he touched the tawdry trinket.
Barbara swallowed the hard lump in her throat. "Yes, Daddy." They had lived for years upon that single strand of large, perfectly matched pearls which Ambrose North had clasped around his young wife's neck upon their wedding day.
"Would you like more pearls, dear? A bracelet, or a ring?"
"No—these are all I want."
"I want to give you a diamond ring some day, Barbara. Your mother's was buried with her. It was her engagement ring."
"Perhaps somebody will give me an engagement ring," she suggested.
"I shouldn't wonder. I don't want to be selfish, dear. You are all I have, but, if you loved a man, I wouldn't try to keep you away from him."
"Prince Charming hasn't come yet, Daddy, so cheer up. I'll tell you when he does."
Thus she turned the talk into a happier vein. They were laughing together like two children when Miriam came in to say that supper was ready.
Alone
Afterward, he sat at the piano, improvising low, sweet chords that echoed back plaintively from the dingy walls. The music was full of questioning, of pleading, of longing so deep that it was almost prayer. Barbara finished her letters by the light of the lamp, while Miriam sat in the dining-room alone, asking herself the old, torturing questions, facing her temptation, and bearing the old, terrible hunger of the heart that hurt her like physical pain.
A little before nine o'clock, the blind man came to kiss Barbara good-night. Then he went upstairs. Miriam came in and talked a few minutes of quilts, pickles, and lingerie, then she, too, went up to begin her usual restless night.
Left alone, Barbara discovered that she did not care to read. It was too late to begin work upon the new stock of linen, lawn, and batiste which had come the day before, and she lacked the impulse, in the face of such discouraging prospects as Aunt Miriam had encountered at the hotel. Barbara steadily refused to admit, even to herself, that she was discouraged, butshe found no pleasure in the thought of her work.
A Light in the Window
She unfastened the front door, lighted a candle, and set it upon the sill of the front window. Within twenty minutes Roger had come, entering the house so quietly that Barbara did not hear his step and was frightened when she saw him.
"Don't scream," he said, as he closed the door leading into the hall. "I'm not a burglar—only a struggling young law student with no prospects and even less hope."
"I infer," said Barbara, "that the Bascom liver is out of repair."
"Correct. It seems absurd, doesn't it, to be affected by another man's liver while you are supremely unconscious of your own?"
"There are more things in other people's digestions than our philosophy can account for," she replied, with a wicked perversion of classic phrase. "What was the primary cause of the explosion?"
"It was all his own fault," explained Roger. "I like dogs almost as well as I do people, but it doesn't follow that dogs should mix so constantly with people as they usually are allowed to. I was never in favour of Judge Bascom's bull pup keeping regular office hours with us, but he has, ever since the day he waddled in behind the Judge with a small chain as the connecting link. I got so accustomed to hishowling in the corner of the office where he was chained up that I couldn't do my work properly when he was asleep. So all went well until the Judge decided to remove the chain and give the pup more room to develop himself in.
"Pethood"
"I tried to dissuade him, but it was no use. I told him he would run away, and he said, with great dignity, that he did not desire for a pet anything which had to be tied up in order to be retained. He observed that the restraining influence worked against the pethood so strongly as practically to obscure it."
"New word?" laughed Barbara.
"I don't know why it isn't a good word," returned Roger, in defence. "If 'manhood' and 'womanhood' and 'brotherhood' and all the other 'hoods' are good English, I see no reason why 'pethood' shouldn't be used in the same sense. The English language needs a lot of words added to it before it can be called complete."
"One wouldn't think so, judging by the size of the dictionary. However, we'll let it pass. Go on with the story."
"Things have been lively for a week or more. The pup has romped around a good deal and has playfully bitten a client or two, but the Judge has been highly edified until to-day. Fido got an important legal document which the Judge had just drafted, and literally chewedit to pulp. Then he swallowed it, apparently with great relish. I was told to make another, and my not knowing about it, and taking the liberty of asking a few necessary questions, produced the fireworks. It wasn't Fido's fault, but mine."
"How is Fido?" queried Barbara, with affected anxiety.
"He was well at last accounts, but the document was long enough and complicated enough to make him very ill. I hope he'll die of it to-morrow."
"Perhaps he's going to study law, too," remarked Barbara, "and believes, with Macaulay, that 'a page digested is better than a book hurriedly read.'"
"I think that will do, Miss North. I'll read to you now, if you don't mind. I would fain improve myself instead of listening to such childish chatter."
"Perhaps, if you read to me enough, I'll improve so that even you will enjoy talking to me," she returned, with a mischievous smile. "What did you bring over?"
A New Book
"A new book—that is, one that we've never seen before. There is a large box of father's books behind some trunks in the attic, and I never found them until Sunday, when I was rummaging around up there. I haven't read them—I thought I'd make a list of them first, and you can choose those you'd like to haveme read to you. I brought this little one because I was sure you'd like it, after readingEndymionandThe Eve of St. Agnes."
"What is it?"
"Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne."
The little brown book was old and its corners were dog-eared, but the yellowed pages, with their record of a deathless passion, were still warmly human and alive. Roger had a deep, pleasant voice, and he read well. Quite apart from the beauty of the letters, it gave Barbara pleasure to sit in the firelight and watch his face.
A Folded Paper
He read steadily, pausing now and then for comment, until he was half-way through the volume; then, as he turned a page, a folded paper fell out. He picked it up curiously.
"Why, Barbara," he said, in astonishment. "It's my father's writing."
"What is it—notes?"
"No, he seems to have been trying to write a letter like those in the book. It is all in pencil, with changes and erasures here and there. Listen:
The Letter
"'You are right, as you always are, and we must never see each other again. We must live near each other for the rest of our lives, with that consciousness between us. We must pass each other on the street and not speak unless others are with us; then we must bow, pleasantly, for the sake of appearances."'I hope you do not blame me because I went mad. I ask your pardon, and yet I cannot say I am sorry. That one hour of confession is worth a lifetime of waiting—it is worth all the husks that we are to have henceforward while we starve for more."'Through all the years to come, we shall be separated by less than a mile, yet the world lies between us and divides us as by a glittering sword. You will not be unfaithful to your pledge, nor I to mine. Nothing is changed there. It is only that two people chose to live in the starlight and bound themselves to it eternally, then had one blinding glimpse of God's great sun."'But, Constance, the stars are the same as always, and we must try to forget that we have seen the sun. The little lights of the temple must be the more faithfully tended if the Great Light goes out. When the white splendour fades, we must be content with the misty gold of night, and not mind the shadows nor the great desolate spaces where not even starlight comes. Your star and mine met for an instant, then were sundered as widely as the poles, but the light of each must be kept steadfast and clear, because of the other."'I do not know that I shall have the courage to send this letter. Everything was said when I told you that I love you, for that one word holds it all and there is nothing more.As you can take your heart in the hollow of your hand and hold it, it is so small a thing; so the one word 'love' holds everything that can be said, or given, or hungered for, or prayed for and denied."'And if, sometimes, in the starlight, we dream of the sun, we must remember that both sun and stars are God's. Past the unutterable leagues that divide us now, one day we shall meet again, purged, mayhap, of earthly longing for earthly love."'But Heaven, for me, would be the hour I held you close again. I should ask nothing more than to tell you once more, face to face and heart to heart, the words I write now: I love you—I love you—I love you.'"
"'You are right, as you always are, and we must never see each other again. We must live near each other for the rest of our lives, with that consciousness between us. We must pass each other on the street and not speak unless others are with us; then we must bow, pleasantly, for the sake of appearances.
"'I hope you do not blame me because I went mad. I ask your pardon, and yet I cannot say I am sorry. That one hour of confession is worth a lifetime of waiting—it is worth all the husks that we are to have henceforward while we starve for more.
"'Through all the years to come, we shall be separated by less than a mile, yet the world lies between us and divides us as by a glittering sword. You will not be unfaithful to your pledge, nor I to mine. Nothing is changed there. It is only that two people chose to live in the starlight and bound themselves to it eternally, then had one blinding glimpse of God's great sun.
"'But, Constance, the stars are the same as always, and we must try to forget that we have seen the sun. The little lights of the temple must be the more faithfully tended if the Great Light goes out. When the white splendour fades, we must be content with the misty gold of night, and not mind the shadows nor the great desolate spaces where not even starlight comes. Your star and mine met for an instant, then were sundered as widely as the poles, but the light of each must be kept steadfast and clear, because of the other.
"'I do not know that I shall have the courage to send this letter. Everything was said when I told you that I love you, for that one word holds it all and there is nothing more.As you can take your heart in the hollow of your hand and hold it, it is so small a thing; so the one word 'love' holds everything that can be said, or given, or hungered for, or prayed for and denied.
"'And if, sometimes, in the starlight, we dream of the sun, we must remember that both sun and stars are God's. Past the unutterable leagues that divide us now, one day we shall meet again, purged, mayhap, of earthly longing for earthly love.
"'But Heaven, for me, would be the hour I held you close again. I should ask nothing more than to tell you once more, face to face and heart to heart, the words I write now: I love you—I love you—I love you.'"
A Discovery
Roger put down the book and stared fixedly at the fire. Barbara's face was very pale and the light had gone from her eyes.
"Roger," she said, in a strange tone, "Constance was my mother's name. Do you think——"
He was startled, for his thought had not gone so far as her intuition. "I—do—not—know," he said.
"They knew each other," Barbara went on, swiftly, "for the two families have always lived here, in these same two houses where you and I were born. It was only a step across the road, and they——"
A Barrier
She choked back a sob. Something new and terrible seemed to have sprung up suddenly between her and Roger.
The blood beat hard in his ears and his own words sounded dull and far away. "It is dated June third," he said.
"My mother died on the seventh," said Barbara, slowly, "by—her—own—hand."
They sat in silence for a long time. Then, speaking of indifferent things, they tried to get back upon the old friendly footing again, but failed miserably. There was a consciousness as of guilt, on either side.
Roger tried not to think of it. Later, when he was alone, he would go over it all and try to reason it out—try to discover if it were true. Barbara did not need to do this, for, with a woman's quick insight, she knew.
Secretly, too, both were ashamed, having come unawares upon knowledge that was not meant for them. Presently, Roger went home, and was glad to be alone in the free outer air; but, long after he was gone, Barbara sat in the dark, her heart aching with the burden of her father's doubt and her dead mother's secret.
The rap at the Norths' front door was of the sort which would impel the dead to rise and answer it. Before the echo of the imperative summons had died away, Miriam had opened it and admitted Miss Mattie.
Bein' Neighbourly
"I was sewin' over to my house," announced the visitor, settling herself comfortably, "and I surmised as how you might be sewin' over here, so I thought we might as well set together for a spell. I believe in bein' neighbourly."
Barbara smiled a welcome and Miriam brought in a quilt which she was binding by hand. As she worked, she studied Miss Mattie furtively, and with an air of detachment.
"I come over on the trail Roger has wore in the grass," continued Miss Mattie, biting off her thread with a snap. "He's organised himself into sort of a travellin' library, I take it, what with transportin' books at all hours back and forth. After I go to bed, Roger lets himself out and sneaks over here, carryin' readin' matter both ways. But land's sake," shechuckled, "I ain't carin' what he does after I get sleepy. I was never one to stay up after nine o'clock for the sake of entertainment. If there's sickness, or anythin' like that, of course it's a different matter.
"Roger's pa was always a great one for readin', and we've both inherited it from him. Roger sits with his books and I sit with my paper, and we both read, never sayin' a word to each other, till almost nine o'clock. We're what you might call a literary family.
"Jewel of a Girl"
"I'm just readin' a perfectly beautiful story calledMargaret Merriman, or the Maiden's Mad Marriage. Margaret must have been worth lookin' at, for she had golden hair and eyes like sapphires and ruby lips and pearly teeth. I was readin' the description of her to Roger, and he said she seemed to be what some people would call 'a jewel of a girl.'
"Margaret Merriman's mother died when she was an infant in arms, just like your ma, Barbara, and left her to her pa. Her pa didn't marry again, though several was settin' their caps for him on account of him bein' young and handsome and havin' a lot of money. I suppose bein' a widower had somethin' to do with it, too. It does beat all how women will run after a widower. I suppose they want a man who's already been trained, but, speakin' for myself, I've always felt as if I'd rather have somethin' fresh and do myown trainin'—women's notions differ so about husbands.
Training Husbands
"Just think what it would be to marry a man, thinkin' he was all trained, and to find out that it had been done wrong. You'd have to begin all over again, and it'd be harder than startin' in with absolute ignorance. The man would get restless, too. When he thought he was graduated and was about ready to begin on a post-graduate course, he'd find himself in the kindergarten, studyin' with beads and singin' about little raindrops.
"Gettin' an idea into a man's head is like furnishin' a room. If you can once get a piece of furniture where you want it, it can stay there until it's worn out or busted, except for occasional dustin' and repairin'. You can add from time to time as you have to, but if you attempt to refurnish a room that's all furnished, and do it all at once, you're bound to make more disturbance than housecleanin'.
"It has to be done slow and careful, unless you have a likin' for rows, and if you're one of those kind of women that's forever changin' their minds about furniture and their husband's ideas, you're bound to have a terrible restless marriage.
"Roger's pa was fresh when I took him, but, unbeknownst to me, he'd done his own furnishin', and the pieces was dreadful set and hard to move. Some of 'em I slid out gentlyand others took some manouverin', but steady work tells on anythin'. He was thinkin' as I wanted him to about most things, though, when he died, and that's sayin' a good deal, for he didn't die until after we'd been married seven years and three months and eighteen days. If he wasn't really thinkin' right, he was pretendin' to, and that's enough to satisfy any reasonable woman.
The Will
"Margaret Merriman's pa died when she was at the tender age of ten, and he left all his money to a distant relation in trust for Margaret, the relative bein' supposed to spend the income on her. If Margaret died before she was of age, the relative was to keep it, and if she should marry before she was of age, the relative was to keep it, too. But, livin' to eighteen' and marryin' afterwards, it was all to be Margaret's, and the relative wasn't to have as much as a two-cent stamp with the mucilage licked off.
"This relative was a sweet-faced lady with a large mole on her right cheek. Margaret used to call her 'Moley,' when she was mad at her, which was right frequent. Her name was Magdalene Mather and she'd been married three times. She was dreadful careless with her husbands and had mislaid 'em all. Not bein' able to find 'em again, she just reckoned on their bein' dead and was thinkin' of marryin' some more.
Keeping Margaret Young
"Seems to me it's a mistake for anybody to marry more'n once. In one of Roger's books it says somethin' about a second marriage bein' the triumph of hope over experience. Magdalene Mather was dreadful hopeful and kept thinkin' that maybe she could get somebody who would stay with her without bein' chained up. Meanwhile it was to her interest to keep little Margaret as young as possible.
"Margaret thought she was ten when she went to live with Magdalene, but she soon learned that it was a mistake and she got to be only seven in less'n half an hour. Magdalene put shorter dresses on her and kept her in white and gave her shoes without any heels, and these little short socks that show a foot or so of bare leg and which is indecent, if fashionable.
"Margaret's birthdays kept gettin' farther and farther apart, and as soon as the neighbours begun to notice that Margaret wasn't agin' like everybody else, why, Magdalene would just pack up and go to a new place.
"She didn't go to school, but had private teachers, because it was in the will that she was to be educated like a real lady. Any teacher who thought Margaret was too far advanced for her age got fired the minute it was spoke of, and pretty soon Margaret got onto it herself. She used to tell teachers she liked to say that she was very backward in her studies, and tellthose she didn't like that Aunty Magdalene would be dreadful pleased to hear that she was improvin' in her readin' and 'rithmetic and grammar.
"Meanwhile Nature was workin' in Margaret's interest and she was growin' taller and taller every day. The short socks had to be took off because people laughed so, and Magdalene had to let her braid her hair instead of havin' it cut Dutch and tied with a ribbon. When she was eighteen, she thought she was thirteen, and she was wearin' dresses that come to her shoe tops, and her hair in one braid down her back, and dreadful young hats and no jewels, though her pa had left her a small trunk full of rubies and diamonds and pearls. Magdalene was wearin' the jewels herself. They were movin' around pretty rapid about this time, and goin' from city to city in order to find better teachers for 'the dear child' as Magdalene used to call her.
The Conductor
"One day, soon after they'd gone to a new city, Margaret was goin' down town to take her music lesson. She went alone because Magdalene was laid up with a headache and wanted the house quiet. When the conductor come along for the fare, Margaret was lookin' out of the window, and, absent-minded like, she give him a penny instead of a nickel.
"The conductor give it back to her, and asked her if she was so young she could go forhalf fare, and Margaret says, right sharp, when she give him the nickel, 'It's not so long since I was travellin' on half-fare.'
"The conductor says: 'I'd hate to have been hangin' up by the thumbs since you was,' says he. Of course this made Margaret good and mad, and she says to the conductor, 'How old do you think I am?'
"The conductor says: 'I ain't paid to think durin' union hours, but I imagine that you ain't old enough to lie about your age.'