"See how I put the key of my heart out of your reach," he said, seriously.
"And see how I stretch after it," she returned, demurely.
"I will come with you and reach it for you."
"How can you when you are demolishing plaster in Christopher Columbus' house or falling into the crater of Mt. Vesuvius? I may want to come here that very day."
"True; I will put it lower for you. Shall I put it under this stone so that you will have to stoop for it?"
"Mrs. Rheid said hang it over the window, that has been its place for generations. They lived here when they were first married, before they built their own house; the house doesn't look like it, does it? It is all made over new. I am glad he gave it to Will."
"He can build a house for Hollis," said he, watching her as he spoke.
"Let me see you put the key there," she returned, unconcernedly.
He hung the key on the nail over the small window and inquired if it were done to her satisfaction.
"Yes," she said. "I wonder how Linnet feels about going away from us all so far."
"She is with her husband," answered Morris. "Aren't you woman enough to understand that?"
"Possibly I am as much of a woman as you are."
"You are years ahead of me; a girl at eighteen is a woman; but a boy at eighteen is a boy. Will you tell me something out here among the wood? This wood pile that the old captain sawed and split ten years ago shall be our witness. Why do you suppose he gets up in winter before daylight and splits wood—when he has a pile that was piled up twenty years ago?"
"That is a question worthy the time and place and the wood pile shall be our witness."
"Oh, that isn't the question," he returned with some embarrassment, stooping to pick up a chip and toss it from him as he lifted himself. "Marjorie,doyou like Hollis better than you like me?"
"You are only a boy, you know," she answered, roguishly.
"I know it; but do you like me better than Hollis?"
His eyes were on the chips at his feet, Marjorie's serious eyes were upon him.
"It doesn't matter; suppose I don't know; as the question never occurred to me before I shall have to consider."
"Marjorie, you are cruel," he exclaimed raising his eyes with a flash in them; he was "only a boy" but his lips were as white as a man's would have been.
"I am sorry; I didn't know you were in such earnest," she said, penitently. "I like Hollis, of course, I cannot remember when I did not like him, but I am not acquainted with him."
"Are you acquainted with me?" he asked in a tone that held a shade of relief.
"Oh, you!" she laughed lightly, "I know what you think before you can speak your thought."
"Then you know what I am thinking now."
"Not all of it," she returned, but she colored, notwithstanding, and stepped backward toward the kitchen.
"Marjorie," he caught her hand and held it, "I am going away and I want to tell you something. I am going far away this time, and I must tell you. Do you remember the day I came? You were such a little thing, you stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes, with your sleeves rolled back and a big apron up to your neck, and you stopped in your work and looked at me and your eyes were so soft and sorry. And I have loved you better than anybody every day since. Every day I have thought: 'I will study like Marjorie. I will be good like Marjorie. I will help everybody like Marjorie.'"
She looked up into his eyes, her own filled with tears.
"I am so glad I have helped you so."
"And will you help me further by saying that you like me better thanHollis."
"Oh, I do, you know I do," she cried, impulsively. "I am not acquainted with him, and I know every thought you think."
"Now I am satisfied," he cried, exultantly, taking both her hands in his and kissing her lips. "I am not afraid to go away now."
"Marjorie,"—the kitchen door was opened suddenly,—"I'm going to take your mother home with me. Is the key in the right place."
"Everything is all right, Mrs. Rheid," replied Morris. "You bolt that door and we will go out this way."
The door was closed as suddenly and the boy and girl stood silent, looking at each other.
"Your Morris Kemlo is a fine young man," observed Mrs. Rheid as she pushed the bolt into its place.
"He is a heartease to his mother," replied Mrs. West, who was sometimes poetical.
"Does Marjorie like him pretty well?"
"Why, yes, we all do. He is like our own flesh and blood. But why did you ask?"
"Oh, nothing. I just thought of it."
"I thought you meant something, but you couldn't when you know how Hollis has been writing to her these four years."
"Oh!" ejaculated Hollis' mother.
She did not make plans for her children as the other mother did.
The two old ladies crossed the field toward the substantial white farmhouse that overlooked the little cottage, and the children, whose birthday it was, walked hand in hand through the yard to the footpath along the road.
"Must you keep on writing to Hollis?" he asked.
"I suppose so. Why not? It is my turn to write now."
"That's all nonsense."
"What is? Writing in one's turn?"
"I don't see why you need write at all."
"Don't you remember I promised before you came?"
"But I've come now," he replied in a tone intended to be very convincing.
"His mother would miss it, if I didn't write; she thinks she can't write letters. And I like his letters," she added frankly.
"I suppose you do. I suppose you like them better than mine," with an assertion hardly a question in his voice.
"They are so different. His life is so different from yours. But he is shy, as shy as a girl, and does not tell me all the things you do. Your letters are more interesting, butheis more interesting—as a study. You are a lesson that I have learned, but I have scarcely begun to learn him."
"That is very cold blooded when you are talking about human beings."
"My brain was talking then."
"Suppose you let your heart speak."
"My heart hasn't anything to say; it is not developed yet."
"I don't believe it," he answered angrily.
"Then you must find it out for yourself. Morris, I don't want to bein lovewith anybody, if that's what you mean. I love you dearly, but I am not in love with you or with anybody."
"You don't know the difference," he said quickly.
"How do you know the difference? Did you learn it before I was born?"
"I love my mother, but I am in love with you; that's the difference."
"Then I don't know the difference—and I do. I love my dear father and Mr. Holmes and you,—not all alike, but I need you all at different times—"
"And Hollis," he persisted.
"I do not know him," she insisted. "I have nothing to say about that. Morris, I want to go with Miss Prudence and study; I don't want to be a housekeeper and have a husband, like Linnet! I have so much to learn; I am eager for everything. You see youareolder than I am."
"Yes," he said, disappointedly, "you are only a little girl yet. Or you are growing up to be a Woman's Rights Woman, and to think a 'career' is better than a home and a man who is no better than other men to love you and protect you and provide for you."
"You know that is not true," she answered quietly; "but I have been looking forward so long to going to school."
"And living with Miss Prudence and becoming like her!"
"Don't you want me to be like her?"
"No," he burst out. "I want you to be like Linnet, and to think that little house and house-keeping, and a good husband, good enough for you. What is the good of studying if it doesn't make you more a perfect woman? What is the good of anything a girl does if it doesn't help her to be a woman?"
"Miss Prudence is a perfect woman."
Marjorie's tone was quiet and reasonable, but there was a fire in her eyes that shone only when she was angry.
"She would be more perfect if she stayed at home in Maple Street and made a home for somebody than she is now, going hither and thither finding people to be kind to and to help. She is too restless and she is not satisfied. Look at Linnet; she is happier to-day with her husband that reads only the newspapers, the nautical books, and his Bible, than Miss Prudence with all her lectures and concerts and buying books and knowing literary people! She couldn't make a Miss Prudence out of Linnet, but she will make a Miss Prudence twice over out of you."
"Linnet is happy because she loves Will, and she doesn't care for books and people, as we do; but we haven't any Will, poor Miss Prudence and poor Marjorie, we have to substitute people and books."
"You might have, both of you!" he went on, excitedly; "but you want something better, both of you,—higher, I suppose you think! There's Mr. Holmes eating his heart out with being only a friend to Miss Prudence, and you want me to go poking along and spoiling my life as he does, because you like books and study better!"
Marjorie laughed; the fire in Morris' blue eyes was something to see, and the tears in his voice would have overcome her had she not laughed instead. And he was going far away, too.
"Morris, I didn't know you were quite such a volcano. I don't believe Mr. Holmes stays here andpokesbecause of Miss Prudence. I know he is melancholy, sometimes, but he writes so much and thinks so much he can't be light-hearted like young things like us. And who does as much good as Miss Prudence? Isn't she another mother to Linnet and me? And if she doesn't find somebody to love as Linnet does Will, I don't see how she can help it."
"It isn't in her heart or she would have found somebody; it is what is in peoples' hearts that makes the difference! But when they keep the brain at work and forget they have any heart, as you two do—"
"It isn't Miss Prudence's brain that does her beautiful work. You ought to read some of the letters that she lets me read, and then you would see how much heart she has!"
"And you want to be just like her," he sighed, but the sigh was almost a groan.
Certainly, in some experiences he had outstripped Marjorie.
"Yes, I want to be like her," she answered deliberately.
"And study and go around and do good and never be married?" he questioned.
"I don't see the need of deciding that question to-day."
"I suppose not. You will when Hollis Rheid asks you to."
"Morris, you are not like yourself to-day, you are quarrelling with me, and we never quarrelled before."
"Because you are so unreasonable; you will not answer me anything."
"I have answered you truly; I have no other answer to give."
"Will you think and answer me when I come home?"
"I have answered you now."
"Perhaps you will have another answer then."
"Well, if I have I will give it to you. Are you satisfied?"
"No," he said; but he turned her face up to his and looked down into her innocent earnest eyes.
"You are a goosie, as Linnet says; you will never grow up, littleMarjorie."
"Then, if I am only eight, you must not talk to me as if I were eighty."
"Or eighteen," he said. "How far on the voyage of life do you supposeLinnet and Captain Will are."
"Not far enough on to quarrel, I hope."
"They will never be far enough for that, Will is too generous and Linnet will never find anything to differ about; do you know, Marjorie, that girl has no idea how Will loves her?"
Marjorie stopped and faced him with the utmost gravity.
"Do you know, Morris, that man has no idea how Linnet loves him?"
And then the two burst into a laugh that restored them both to the perfect understanding of themselves and each other and all the world. And after an early supper he shook hands with them all—excepting "Mother West," whom he kissed, and Marjorie, whom he asked to walk as far as "Linnet's" with him on his way to the train—and before ten o'clock was on board theLinnet, and congratulating again the bridegroom, who was still radiant, and the bride, who was not looking in the least bit homesick.
"Will," said Linnet with the weight of tone of one giving announcement to a mighty truth, "I wouldn't be any one beside myself foranything."
"And I wouldn't have you any one beside yourself foranything," he laughed, in the big, explosive voice that charmed Linnet every time afresh.
"Life's great results are something slow."—Howells.
Morris had said good-bye with a look that brought sorrow enough in Marjorie's eyes to satisfy him—almost, and had walked rapidly on, not once turning to discover if Marjorie were standing still or moving toward home; Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence had promised to start out to meet her, so that her walk homeward in the starlight would not be lonely.
But they were not in sight yet to Marjorie's vision, and she stood leaning over the gate looking at the windows with their white shades dropped and already feeling that the little, new home was solitary. She did not turn until a footstep paused behind her; she was so lost in dreams of Linnet and Morris that she had not noticed the brisk, hurried tread. The white rose had fallen from her hair and the one at her throat had lost several petals; in her hand was a bunch of daisies that Morris had picked along the way and laughingly asked her to try the childish trick of finding out if he loved her, and she had said she was afraid the daisies were too wise and would not ask them.
"Haven't you been home all this time?" asked Hollis, startling her out of her dream.
"Oh, yes, and come back again."
"Do you find the cottage so charming?"
"I find it charming, but I could have waited another day to come and see it. I came to walk part of the way with Morris."
She colored, because when she was embarrassed she colored at everything, and could not think of another word to say.
Among those who understood him, rather, among those he understood, Hollis was a ready talker; but, seemingly, he too could not think of another word to say.
Marjorie picked her daisies to pieces and they went on in the narrow foot path, as she and Morris had done in the afternoon; Hollis walking on the grass and giving her the path as her other companion had done. She could think of everything to say to Morris, and Morris could think of everything to say to her; but Morris was only a boy, and this tall stranger was a gentleman, a gentleman whom she had never seen before.
"If it were good sleighing I might take you on my sled," he remarked, when all the daisies were pulled to pieces.
"Is Flyaway in existence still?" she asked brightly, relieved that she might speak at last.
"'Stowed away,' as father says, in the barn, somewhere. Mr. Holmes is not as strict as he used to be, is he?"
"No, he never was after that. I think he needed to give a lesson to himself."
"He looks haggard and old."
"I suppose he is old; I don't know how old he is, over forty."
"Thatisantiquated. You will be forty yourself, if you live long enough."
"Twenty-two years," she answered seriously; "that is time enough to do a good many things in."
"I intend to do a good many things," he answered with a proud humility in his voice that struck Marjorie.
"What—for example?"
"Travel, for one thing, make money, for another."
"What do you want money for?" she questioned.
"What does any man want it for? I want it to give me influence, and I want a luxurious old age."
"That doesn't strike me as being the highest motives."
"Probably not, but perhaps the highest motives, as you call them, do not rule my life."
And she had been praying for him so long.
"Your mother seems to be a happy woman," was her reply, coming out of a thought that she did not speak.
"She is," he said, emphatically. "I wish poor old father were as happy."
"Do you find many happy people?" she asked.
"I find you and my mother," he returned smiling.
"And yourself?"
"Not always. I am happy enough today. Not as jubilant as old Will, though. Will has a prize."
"To be sure he has," said Marjorie.
"What are you going to do next?"
"Go to that pleasant home in Maple Street with Miss Prudence and go to school." She was jubilant, too, today, or she would have been if Morris had not gone away with such a look in his eyes.
"You ought to be graduated by this time, you are old enough. Helen was not as old as you."
"But I haven't been at school at all, yet," she hastened to say. "AndHelen was so bright."
"Aren't you bright?" he asked, laughing.
"Mr. Holmes doesn't tell me that I am."
"What will your mother do?"
"Oh, dear," she sighed, "that is what I ask myself every day. But she insists that I shall go, Linnet has had her 'chance' she says, and now it is my turn. Miss Prudence is always finding somebody that needs a home, and she has found a girl to help mother, a girl about my age, that hasn't any friends, so it isn't the work that will trouble me; it is leaving mother without any daughter at all."
"She is willing to let Linnet go, she ought to be as willing to let you."
"Oh, she is, and father is, too. I know I don't deserve such good times, but I do want to go. I love Miss Prudence as much as I do mother, I believe, and I am only forty miles from home. Mr. Holmes is about leaving, too. How father will misshim! And Morris gone! Mother sighs over the changes and then says changes must needs come if boys and girls will grow up."
"Where is Mr. Holmes going?"
"To California. The doctor says he must go somewhere to cure his cough.And he says he will rest and write another book. Have you read his book?"
"No, it is too dry for me."
"We don't think it is dry; Morris and I know it by heart."
"That is because you know the author."
"Perhaps it is. The book is everything but a story book. Miss Prudence has a copy in Turkey morocco. Do you see many people that write books?"
"No," he said, smiling at her simplicity. "New York isn't full of them."
"Miss Prudence sees them," replied Marjorie with dignity.
"She is a bird of their feather. I do not fly, I walk on the ground—with my eyes on it, perhaps."
"Like the man with the muck rake," said Marjorie, quoting from her old love,Pilgrims Progress, "don't you know there was a crown held above his head, and his eyes were on the ground and he could not see it."
"No, I do not know it, but I perceive that you are talking an allegory at me."
"Not at you,toyou," she corrected.
"You write very short letters to me, nowadays."
"Your letters are not suggestive enough," she said, archly.
"Like my conversation. As poor a talker as I am, I am a better talker than writer. And you—you write a dozen times better than you talk."
"I'm sorry I'm so unentertaining to-night. When Linnet writes she says: "'I wish I couldtalkto you,' and when I talk I think: 'I wish I could write it all to you.'"
"As some one said of some one who could write better than he talked, 'He has plenty of bank notes, but he carries no small change, in his pocket.'"
"It is so apt to be too small," she answered, somewhat severely.
"I see you are above talking the nonsense that some girls talk. What do you do to get rested from your thoughts?"
How Marjorie laughed!
"Hollis, do talk to me instead of writing. And I'll write to you instead of talking."
"That is, you wish me near to you and yourself far away from me. That is the only way that we can satisfy each other. Isn't that Miss Prudence coming?"
"And the master. They did not know I would have an escort home. But do come all the way, father will like to hear you talk about the places you have visited."
"I travel, I don't visit places. I expect to go to London and Paris by and by. Our buyer has been getting married and that doesn't please the firm; he wanted to take his wife with him, but they vetoed that. They say a married man will not attend strictly to business; see what a premium is paid to bachelorhood. I shall understand laces well enough soon: I can pick a piece of imitation out of a hundred real pieces now. Did Linnet like the handkerchief and scarf?"
"You should have seen her! Hasn't she spoken of them?"
"No, she was too full of other things."
"Marriage isn't all in getting ready, to Linnet," said Marjorie, seriously, "I found her crying one day because she was so happy and didn't deserve to be."
"Will is a good fellow," said Hollis. "I wish I were half as good. But I am so contradictory, so unsatisfied and so unsatisfying. I understand myself better than I want to, and yet I do not understand myself at all."
"That is because you aregrowing," said Marjorie, with her wise air. "I haven't settled down into a real Marjorie yet. I shouldn't know my own picture unless I painted it myself."
"We are two rather dangerous people, aren't we?" laughed Hollis. "We will steer clear of each other, as Will would say, until we can come to an understanding."
"Unless we can help each other," Marjorie answered. "But I don't believe you need to be pulled apart, but only to be let alone to grow—that is, if the germ is perfect."
"A perfect germ!" he repeated. Hollis liked to talk about himself to any one who would help him to self-analysis.
But the slowly moving figures were approaching, the black figure with bent shoulders and a slouched hat, the tall slight figure at his side in light gray with a shawl of white wool across her shoulders and drawn up over her hair, the fleecy whiteness softening the lines of a face that were already softened.
"O, Prudence, how far ahead we are of those two," exclaimed the school-master, "and they are wiser than we, perhaps, because they do not know so much."
"They do not know so much of each other, surely," she replied with a low laugh. That very day Mr. Holmes had quoted to her, giving it a personal application: "What she suffered she shook off in the sunshine."
He had been arguing within himself all day whether or not to destroy that letter in his pocket or to show it to her. Would it give her something else to shake off in the sunshine?
Hollis was wondering if this Marjorie, with her sweet, bright face, her graceful step and air of ladyhood, with modest and quick replies, not at all intruding herself, but giving herself, unconsciously, could be the same half-bashful little girl that he had walked with on a country road four years before; the little girl who fell so far behind his ideal, the little girl so different from city girls; and now, who among his small circle of girlhood at home could surpass her? And she was dressed so plainly, and there were marks of toil upon her fingers, and even freckles hidden beneath the fresh bloom of her cheek! She would hunt eggs tomorrow and milk the cows, she might not only weed in the garden, but when the potatoes were dug she might pick them up, and even assist her father in assorting them. Had he not said that Marjorie was his "boy" as well as her mother's girl? Had she not taken the place of Morris in all things that a girl could, and had she not taken his place with the master and gone on with Virgil where Morris left off?
"Marjorie, I don't see theneedof your going to school?" he was saying when they joined the others.
"Hollis, you are right," repeated the master, emphatically, "that is only a whim, but she will graduate the first year, so it doesn't matter."
"You see he is proud of his work," said Marjorie, "he will not give any school the credit of me."
"I will give you into Miss Prudence's keeping for a term of years, to round you off, to make you more of a woman and less of a student—like herself."
Marjorie's eyes kindled, "I wish Morris might hear that! He has been scolding me,—but that would satisfy him."
After several moments of light talk, if the master ever could be said to encourage light talk, he touched Miss Prudence, detaining her with him, and Marjorie and Hollis walked on together.
Marjorie and Hollis were not silent, nor altogether grave, for now and then her laugh would ripple forth and he would join, with a ringing, boyish laugh that made her forget that he had grown up since that day he brought her the plate.
But the two behind them were altogether grave; Miss Prudence was speaking, for Mr. Holmes had asked her what kind of a day she had had.
"To-morrow is to be one of our anniversaries, you know," she replied; "twenty-four years ago—to-morrow—was to have been to me what to-day is to Linnet. I wonder if Iwereas light hearted as Linnet."
"You were as blithe a maiden as ever trod on air," he returned smiling sadly. "Don't I remember how you used to chase me around that old garden. When we go back let us try another chase, shall we?"
"We will let Marjorie run and imagine it is I."
"Prudence, if I regain my strength out there, I am coming home to tell you something, may I?"
"I want you to regain your strength, but I am trembling when I think of anything to be told. Is it anything—about—"
"Jerome? Yes, it is about him and about my self. It is about our last interview when we spoke of you. Do you still believe that he is living?"
"Yes, we are living, why should he not be alive?"
"Do yon know how old he would be?"
"He was just twenty years older than I."
"Then he must be sixty-four. That is not young, Prudence, and he had grown old when I said goodbye to him on the steamer—no, it was not a steamer, he avoided the publicity, he went in a merchant ship, there was not even one passenger beside himself. He had a fine constitution and he knew how to take care of himself; it was the—worry that made him look old. He was very warm-hearted and lovable."
"Yes," escaped Miss Prudence's lips.
"But he was weak and lead astray—it seems strange that your silver wedding day might be almost at hand, and that tall boy and girl in front of you my brother's children to call me Uncle John."
"John," she sobbed, catching her breath.
"Poor child! Now I've brought the tears. I was determined to get that dead look out of your eyes that was beginning to come to-night. It shall go away to-night and you shall not awake with it in the morning. Do you know what you want? Do you want to tell me what you pray about on your wedding day?"
"Yes, and you can pray with me to-morrow. I always ask repentance and remission of sins for him and for myself that I may see him once more and make him believe that I have forgiven him."
"Did you ever wish that you had been his wife and might have shared his exile?"
"Not at first; I was too indignant; I did not forgive him, at first; but since I have wished it; I know he has needed me."
"But he threw you off."
"No, he would not let me share his disgrace."
"He did not love you well enough to keep the disgrace from you, it seems," said John Holmes, bitterly.
"No, I could not keep him from sin. The love of a woman is not the love of God. I failed as many a woman has failed. But I did not desert him; I went—but he would not see me."
"He was sorry afterward, he tried to write to you, but he always broke down and could not go on; you were so young and he had been a shame to you."
"You never told me this before."
"Because I hated him, I hated my brother, for disgracing you and disgracing my mother and myself; I have grown forgiving since, since God has forgiven me. He said that last day that you must not forget him."
"He knew I would not forget," said Miss Prudence, proudly.
"Did you ever hate him?"
"Yes, I think I did. I believed he hastened poor father's death; I knew he had spoiled all my life; yes, I hated him until my heart was softened by many sorrows—John, I loved that man who went away—so far, without me, but I held myself bound, I thought your brother would come back and claim [missing text] was while Jerome was in—before he went to Europe— and I said the shame and horror was too great, I could not become anybody's happy wife with that man who was so nearly my husband in such a place."
"Have you regretted that decision since?" he questioned in a dry hard tone.
"Yes."
How quiet her voice was! "I was sorry—when I read of his sudden death two years ago—and I almost hated your brother again for keeping so much from me—it is so hard not to hate with a bitter hatred when we have been so wronged. How I have prayed for a forgiving heart," she sighed.
"Have you had any comfort to-day?"
"Yes, I found it in my reading this morning. Linnet was up and singing early and I was sitting at my window over her head and I learned a lesson of how God waits before he comforts in these words that were given new to me. 'And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.'"
"I cannot see any comfort in that."
There was a broken sound in the master's voice that Miss Prudence had never heard before, a hopelessness that was something deeper than his old melancholy. Had any confession that she had made touched him anew? Was he troubled at that acknowledged hardness towards his brother? Or was it sorrow afresh at the mention of her disappointments? Or was it sympathy for the friend who had given her up and gone away without her?
Would Miss Prudence have been burdened as she never had been burdened before could she have known that he had lost a long-cherished hope for himself? that he had lived his lonely life year after year waiting until he should no longer be bound by the promise made to his brother at their parting? The promise was this; that he should not ask Prudence, "Prue" his brother had said, to marry him until he himself should be dead; in pity for the brother who had educated him and had in every way been so generous, and who now pleaded brokenly for this last mercy, he had given the promise, rather it had been wrung out of him, and for a little time he had not repented. And then when he forgot his brother and remembered himself, his heart died within him and there was nothing but hard work left to live for; this only for a time, he found God afterward and worked hard for him.
He had written to his brother and begged release, but no word of release had come, and he was growing old and his health had failed under the stress of work and the agony of his self-control, "the constant anguish of patience."
But the letter in his pocket was of no avail now, Prudence had loved him only as a brother all these long years of his suspense and hope and waiting; that friend whose sudden death had moved her so had been in her thoughts, and he was only her dear friend and—Jerome's brother.
It is no wonder that the bent shoulders drooped lower and that the slouched hat was drawn over a face that fain would have hidden itself. Prudence, his sister Prudence, was speaking to him and he had not heard a word. How that young fellow in front was rattling on and laughing as though hearts never ached or broke with aching, and now he was daring Marjorie to a race, and the fleet-footed girl was in full chase, and the two who had run their race nearly a quarter of a century before walked on slowly and seriously with more to think about and bear than they could find words for.
"I found comfort in that. Shall I tell you?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, "if you can make me understand."
"I think you will understand, but I shall not make you; I shall speak slowly, for I want to tell you all I thought. The Lord was dead; he had been crucified and laid away within the sepulchre three days since, and they who had so loved him and so trusted in his promises were broken-hearted because of his death. Our Christ has never been dead to us, John; think what it must have been to them to know himdead. 'Let not your heart be troubled' he said; but their hearts were troubled, and he knew it; he knew how John's heart was rent, and how he was sorrowing with the mother he had taken into his own home; he knew how Peter had wept his bitter tears, how Martha and Mary and Lazarus were grieving for him, how all were watching, waiting, hoping and yet hardly daring to hope,—oh, how little our griefs seem to us beside such grief as theirs! And the third day since he had been taken from them. Did they expect again to hear his footfall or his voice? He could see, all this time, the hands outstretched in prayer, he could hear their cries, he could feel the beating of every heart, and yet how slowly he was going forth to meet them. How could he stay his feet? Were not Peter and John running towards him? Was not Mary on her way to him? And yet he did not hasten; something must first be done, such little things; the linen clothes must be laid aside and the napkin that had been about his head must be wrapped together in a place by itself. Such a little thing to think of, such a little thing to do, before he could go forth to meet them! Was it necessary that the napkin should be wrapped together in a place by itself? As necessary as that their terrible suspense should be ended? As necessary as that Peter and John and Martha and Mary and his mother should be comforted one little instant sooner? Could you or I wait to fold a napkin and lay it away if we might fly to a friend who was wearying for us? Suppose God says: 'Fold that napkin and lay it away,' do we do it cheerfully and submissively, choosing to do it rather than to hasten to our friend? If a leper had stood in the way, beseeching him, if the dead son of a widow were being carried out, we could understand the instant's delay, if only a little child were waiting to speak to the Lord, but to keep so many waiting just to lay the linen clothes aside, and, most of all, to wrap together that napkin and lay it by itself. Only the knowing that the doing this was doing the will of God reconciles me to the waiting that one instant longer, that his mother need not have waited but for that. So, John, perhaps you and I are waiting to do some little thing, some little thing that we do not know the meaning of, before God's will can be perfect concerning us. It may be as near to us as was the napkin about the head of the Lord. I was forgetting that, after he died for us, there was any of the Father's will left for him to do. And I suppose he folded that napkin as willingly as he gave himself up to the cross. John, that does help me—I am so impatient at interruptions to what I call my 'work,' and I am so impatient for the Lord to work for me."
"Yes," he answered slowly, "it is hard to realize that wemuststop to do every little thing. But I do not stop, I pass the small things by. Prudence, I am burning up with impatience to-night."
"Are you? I am very quiet."
"If you knew something about Jerome that I do not know, and it would disturb me to know it, would you tell me?"
"If I should judge you by myself I should tell you. How can one person know how a truth may affect another? Tell me what you know; I am ready."
But she trembled exceedingly and staggered as she walked.
"Take my arm," he said, quietly.
She obeyed and leaned against him as they moved on slowly; it was too dark for them to see each other's faces clearly, a storm was gathering, the outlines of the house they were approaching, were scarcely distinguishable.
"We are almost home," she said.
"Yes, there! Our light is flashing out. Marjorie is lighting the parlor lamp. I have in my pocket a letter from Jerome; I have had it a week; you seemed so quiet and happy I had not the heart to disturb you. It was sent to the old address, I told him some one there would always find me. He has not written because he thought we did not care to hear. He has the name of an honest man there, he says."
"Is that all?" she questioned, her heart beating with a rapid pulsation.How long she had waited for this.
"He is not in Europe now, he is in California. His wife is dead and he has a little girl ten years old. He refers to a letter written twelve years ago—a letter that I never received; but it would have made no difference if I had received it. I wrote to him once begging him to release me from a promise that I made rashly out of great pity for him, it was cruel and selfish in him to force me to it, but I was not sure of myself then, and it was all that I could do for him. But, as I said, he released me when he chose to do it, and it does not matter. Perhaps it is better that I had the promise to bind me; you are happier for it, I think, and I have not been selfish in any demand upon you."
"John, I don't know what you mean," she said, perplexed.
"I don't mean anything that I can tell you."
"I hope he did not deceive her—his wife, that he told her all about himself."
"She died nine years ago, he writes, and now he is very ill himself and wishes to leave his little daughter in safe hands; her mother was an orphan, it seems, and the child has no relatives that he cares to leave her with; her mother was an English girl, he was married in England. He wishes me to come to him and take charge of the child."
"That is why you so suddenly chose California instead of Minnesota for your winter?"
"Yes."
"Have you written to him?"
"Yes."
"Is he very ill?"
"Yes; he may never receive my letter."
"I would like to write to him," said Miss Prudence.
"Would you like to see the letter?"
"No; I would rather not. You have told me all?" with a slight quiver in the firm voice.
"All excepting his message to you."
After a moment she asked: "What is it?"
"He wants you to take the guardianship of his child with me. I have not told you all—he thinks we are married."
The brave voice trembled in spite of his stern self-control.
"Oh!" exclaimed Prudence, and then: "Why should he think that?" in a low, hesitating voice.
"Because he knew me so well. Having only each other, it was natural, was it not?"
"Perhaps so. Then that is all he says."
"Isn't that enough?"
"No, I want to know if he has repented, if he is another man. I am glad I may write to him; I want to tell him many things. We will take care of the little girl, John."
"If I am West and you are East—"
"Do you want to keep her with you?"
"What could I do with her? She will be a white elephant to me. I am not her father; I do not think I understand girls—or boys, or men. I hardly understand you, Prudence."
"Then I am afraid you never will. Isn't it queer how I always have a little girl provided for me? Marjorie is growing up and now I have this child, your niece, John, to be my little girl for a long time. I wonder what her name is."
"He did tell me that! I may have passed over something else; you might better see the letter."
"No; handwriting is like a voice, or a perfume to me—I could not bear it to-night. John, I feel as if it wouldkillme. It is so long ago—I thought I was stronger—O, John," she leaned her head upon his arm and sobbed convulsively like a little child.
He laid his hand upon her head as if she were indeed the little child, and for a long time no words were spoken.
"Prudence, there is something else, there is the photograph of the little girl—her mother named her Jeroma."
"I will take that," she said, lifting her head, "and I will write to her to-night."
That night before she slept she wrote a long letter to the child with the brown eyes and sunny curls, describing the home in Maple Street, and promising to take her into her heart and keep her there always, to adopt her for her very own little daughter for her own sake and for her father's sake, whom she knew long ago, ending it thus:
"You cannot come to me too soon, for I am waiting for you with a hungry heart. I knew there was something good coming to me, and I know you will be my blessing.
"Your Loving Aunt Prue."
"Whom hast them pitied? And whom forgiven I"—Wills.
The child had risen early that she might have a good time looking at the sea lions; the huge creatures covered the rocks two hundred yards away from her, crawling and squirming, or lying still as if as dead as the rock itself, their pointed heads and shining bodies giving her a delightful shiver of affright, their howling and groaning causing her to run every now and then back to her father's chair on the veranda, and then she would dance back again and stand and watch them—the horrible, misshapen monsters—as they quarrelled, or suckled their young, or furious and wild as they tumbled about and rolled off the craggy cliffs into the sea. She left her chamber early every morning to watch them and never grew weary of the familiar, strange Bight. Not that this sight had been so long familiar, for her father was ever seeking new places along the coast to rest in, or grow strong in. Nurse had told her that morning that there was not any place for her papa to get well in.
He had breakfasted, as usual, upon the veranda, and, the last time that she had brought her gaze from the fascinating monsters to look back at him, he was leaning against the cushions of his rolling chair, with his eyes fixed upon the sea. He often sat for hours and hours looking out upon the sea.
Jeroma had played upon the beach every day last winter, growing ruddy and strong, but the air had revived him only for a little time, he soon sank back into weakness and apathy. He had dismissed her with a kiss awhile ago, and had seemed to suffer instead of respond to her caresses.
"Papa gets tired of loving me," she had said to Nurse last night with a quivering of the lip.
"Papa is very sick," Nurse had answered guardedly, "and he had letters to-day that were too much for him."
"Then he shouldn't have letters," said the child, decidedly. "I'll tell him so to-morrow."
As she danced about, her white dress and sunny curls gleaming in and out among the heliotrope and scarlet geranium that one of the flower-loving boarders was cultivating, her father called her name; it was a queer name, and she did not like it. She liked her second name, Prudence, better. But Nurse had said, when she complained to her, that the girls would call her "Prudy" for short, and "Jerrie" was certainly a prettier name than that.
"Jerrie," her father called.
The sound was so weak and broken by a cough that she did not turn her head or answer until he had called more than twice. But she flew to him when she was sure that he had called her, and kissed his flabby cheek and smoothed back the thin locks of white hair. His black eyes were burning like two fires beneath his white brows, his lips were ashy, and his breath hot and hurried. Two letters were trembling in his hand, two open letters, and one of them was in several fluttering sheets; this handwriting was a lady's, Jeroma recognized that, although she could not read even her own name in script.
"O, papa, those are the letters that made you sick! I'll throw them away to the lions," she cried, trying to snatch them. But he kept them in his fingers and tried to speak.
"I'll be rested in a moment, eat those strawberries—and then I have—something to talk to you about."
She surveyed the table critically, bread and fruit and milk; there was nothing beside.
"I've had my breakfast! O, papa, I've forgotten your flowers! Mrs. Heath said you might have them every morning."
"Run and get them then, and never wait for me to call you—it tires me too much."
"Poor papa! And I can howl almost as loud as the lions themselves."
"Don't howl at me then, for I might want to roll off into the sea," he said, smiling as she danced away.
The child seemed never to walk, she was always frisking about, one hardly knew if her feet touched the ground.
"Poor child! happy child," he groaned, rather than murmured, as she disappeared around the corner of the veranda. She was a chubby, roundfaced child, with great brown eyes and curls like yellow floss; from her childishness and ignorance of what children at ten years of age are usually taught, she was supposed by strangers to be no more than eight years of age; she was an imperious little lady, impetuous, untrained, self-reliant, and, from much intercourse with strangers, not at all shy, looking out upon the world with confiding eyes, and knowing nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. Nurse had been her only teacher; she could barely read a chapter in the New Testament, and when her father gave her ten cents and then five more she could not tell him how many cents she held in her hand.
"No matter, I don't want you to count money," he said.
Before he recovered his breath and self-possession she was at his side with the flowers she had hastily plucked—scarlet geranium, heliotrope, sweet alyssum, the gorgeous yellow and orange poppy, and the lovely blue and white lupine. He received them with a listless smile and laid them upon his knee; as he bade her again to eat the strawberries she brought them to his side, now and then coaxing a "particularly splendid" one into his mouth, pressing them between his lips with her stained fingers.
"Papa, your eyes shine to-day! You are almost well. Nurse doesn't know."
"What does Nurse say?"
"That you will die soon; and then where shall I go?"
"Would you like to know where you will go?"
"I don't want to go anywhere; I want to stay here with you."
"But that is impossible, Jerrie."
"Why! Who says so?" she questioned, fixing her wondering eyes on his.
"God," he answered solemnly.
"Does he know all about it?"
"Yes."
"Has itgotto be so, then?" she asked, awed.
"Yes."
"Well, what is the rest, then?"
"Sit down and I'll tell you."
"I'd rather stand, please. I never like to sit down."
"Stand still then, dear, and lean on the arm of my chair and not on me; you take my breath away,"
"Poor papa! Am I so big? As big as a sea lion?"
Not heeding her—more than half the time he heard her voice without heeding her words—he turned the sheets in his fingers, lifted them as if to read them and then dropped his hand.
"Jerrie, what have I told you about Uncle John who lives near the other ocean?"
Jerrie thought a moment: "That he is good and will love me dearly, and be ever so kind to me and teach me things?"
"And Prue, Aunt Prue; what do you know about her?"
"I know I have some of her name, not all, for her name is Pomeroy; and she is as beautiful as a queen and as good; and she will love me more than Uncle John will, and teach me how to be a lovely lady, too."
"Yes, that is all true; one of these letters is from her, written to you—"
"Oh, to me! tome."
"I will read it to you presently."
"I know which is hers, the thin paper and the writing that runs along."
"And the other is from Uncle John."
"To me?" she queried.
"No, this is mine, but I will read it to you. First I want to tell you about Aunt Prue's home."
"Is it like this? near the sea? and can I play on the beach and see the lions?"
"It is near the sea, but it is not like this; her home is in a city by the sea. The house is a large house. It was painted dark brown, years ago, with red about the window frames, and the yard in front was full of flowers that Aunt Prue had the care of, and the yard at the back was deep and wide with maples in it and a swing that she used to love to swing in; she was almost like a little girl then herself."
"She isn't like a little girl now, is she?"
"No, she is grown up like that lady on the beach with the children; but she describes herself to you and promises to send her picture!"
"Oh, good!" exclaimed the child, dancing around the chair, and coming back to stand quietly at her father's side.
"What is the house like inside? Like this house?"
"No, not at all. There is a wide, old-fashioned hall, with a dark carpet in it and a table and several chairs, and engravings on the walls, and a broad staircase that leads to large, pleasant rooms above; and there is a small room on the top of the house where you can go up and see vessels entering the harbor. Down-stairs the long parlor is the room that I know best; that had a dark carpet and dark paper on the walls and many windows, windows in front and back and two on the side, there were portraits over the mantel of her father and mother, and other pictures around everywhere, and a piano that she loved to play for her father on, and books in book cases, and, in winter, plants; it was not like any one else's parlor, for her father liked to sit there and she brought in everything that would please him. Her father was old like me, and sick, and she was a dear daughter like you."
"Did he die?" she asked.
"Yes, he died. He died sooner than he would have died because some one he thought a great deal of did something very wicked and almost killed his daughter with grief. How would I feel if some one should make you so unhappy and I could not defend you and had to die and leave you alone."
"Would you want to kill him—the man that hurt me?"
But his eyes were on the water and not on her face; his countenance became ashy, he gasped and hurried his handkerchief to his lips. Jeroma was not afraid of the bright spots that he sought to conceal by crumpling the handkerchief in his hand, she had known a long time that when her father was excited those red spots came on his handkerchief. She knew, too, that the physician had said that when he began to cough he would die, but she had never heard him cough very much, and could not believe that he must ever die.
"Papa, what became of the man that hurt Aunt Prue and made her father die?"
"He lived and was the unhappiest wretch in existence. But Aunt Prue tried to forgive him, and she used to pray for him as she always had done before. Jerrie, when you go to Aunt Prue I want you to take her name, your own name, Prudence, and I will begin to-day to call you 'Prue,' so that you may get used to it."
"Oh, will you?" she cried in her happy voice. "I don't like to be 'Jerrie,' like the boy that takes care of the horses. When Mr. Pierce calls so loud 'Jerry!' I'm always afraid he means me; but Nurse says that Jerry has ayin it and mine isie, but it sounds like my name all the time. But Prue is soft like Pussy and I like it. What made you ever call me Jerrie, papa?"
"Because your mamma named you after my name, Jerome. We used to call youRoma, but that was long for a baby, so we began to call you Jerrie."
"I like it, papa, because it is your name, and I could tell the girls at Aunt Prue's that it is my father's name, and then I would be proud and not ashamed."
"No, dear, always write it Prudence Holmes—forget that you had any other name. It is so uncommon that people would ask how you came by it and then they would know immediately who your father was."
"But I like to tell them who my father was. Do people know you in AuntPrue's city?"
"Yes, they knew me once and they are not likely to forget. Promise me,Jerrie—Prue, that you will give up your first name."
"I don't like to, now I must, but I will, papa, and I'll tell Aunt Prue you liked her name best, shall I?"
"Yes, tell her all I've been telling you—always tell her everything—never do anything that you cannot tell her—and be sure to tell her if any one speaks to you about your father, and she will talk to you about it."
"Yes, papa," promised the child in an uncomprehending tone.
"Does Nurse teach you a Bible verse every night as I asked her to do?"
"Oh, yes, and I like some of them. The one last night was about a name!Perhaps it meant Prue was a good name."
"What is it?" he asked.
"'A good name—a good name—'" she repeated, with her eyes on the floor of the veranda, "and then something about riches, great riches, but I do forget so. Shall I run and ask her, papa?"
"No, I learned it when I was a boy: 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.' Is that it?"
"Yes, that's it: 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.' I shan't forget next time; I'll think about your name, Jerome, papa; that is a good name, but I don't see how it is better thangreatriches, do you?"
The handkerchief was nervously at his lips again, and the child waited for him to speak.
"Jerrie, I have no money to leave you, it will all be gone by the time you and Nurse are safe at Aunt Prue's. Everything you have will come from her; you must always thank her very much for doing so much for you, and thank Uncle John and be very obedient to him."
"Will he make me do what I don't want to?" she asked, her lips pouting and her eyes moistening.
"Not unless it is best, and now you must promise me never to disobey him or Aunt Prue. Promise, Jerrie."
But Jerrie did not like to promise. She moved her feet uneasily, she scratched on the arm of his chair with a pin that she had picked up on the floor of the veranda; she would not lift her eyes nor speak. She did not love to be obedient; she loved to be queen in her own little realm of Self.
"Papa is dying—he will soon go away, and his little daughter will not promise the last thing he asks of her?"
Instantly, in a flood of penitent tears, her arms were flung about his neck and she was promising over and over, "I will, I will," and sobbing on his shoulder.
He suffered the embrace for a few moments and then pushed her gently aside.
"Papa is tired now, dear. I want to teach you a Bible verse, that you must never, never forget: 'The way of the transgressor is hard.' Say it after me."
The child brushed her tears away and stood upright.
"The way of the transgressor is hard," she repeated in a sobbing voice.
"Repeat it three times."
She repeated it three times slowly.
"Tell Uncle John and Aunt Prue that that was the last thing I taught you, will you?"
"Yes, papa," catching her breath with a little sob.
"And now run away and come back in a hour and I will read the letters to you. Ask Nurse to tell you when it is an hour."
The child skipped away, and before many minutes he heard her laughing with the children on the beach. With the letters in his hand, and the crumpled handkerchief with the moist red spots tucked away behind him in the chair, he leaned back and closed his eyes. His breath came easily after a little time and he dozed and dreamed. He was a boy again and it was a moonlight night, snow was on the ground, and he was walking home from town besides his oxen; he had sold the load of wood that he had started with before daylight; he had eaten his two lunches of bread and salt beef and doughnuts, and now, cold and tired and sleepy, he was walking back home at the side of his oxen. The stars were shining, the ground was as hard as stone beneath his tread, the oxen labored on slowly, it seemed as if he would never get home. His mother would have a hot supper for him, and the boys would ask what the news was, and what he had seen, and his little sister would ask if he had bought that piece of ginger bread for her. He stirred and the papers rustled in his fingers and there was a harsh sound somewhere as of a bolt grating, and his cell was small and the bed so narrow, so narrow and so hard, and he was suffocating and could not get out.
"Papa! papa! It's an hour," whispered a voice in his ear. The eyelids quivered, the eyes looked straight at her but did not see her.
"Ah Sing! Ah Sing! Get me to bed!" he groaned.
Frightened at the expression of his face the child ran to call Nurse and her father's man, Ah Sing. Nurse kept her out of her father's chamber all that day, but she begged for her letter and Nurse gave it to her. She carried it in her hand that day and the next, at night keeping it under her pillow.
Before many days the strange uncle came and he led her in to her father and let her kiss his hand, and afterward he read Aunt Prue's soiled letter to her and told her that she and Nurse were going to Aunt Prue's home next week.
"Won't you go, too?" she asked, clinging to him as no one had ever clung to him before.
"No, I must stay here all winter—I shall come to you some time."
She sobbed herself to sleep in his arms, with the letter held fast in her hand; he laid her on her bed, pressing his lips to her warm, wet face, and then went down and out on the beach, pacing up and down until the dawn was in the sky.