"They are not so far wrong. I never saw a decent opera yet in my life."
"Philip!" exclaimed Mrs. Barclay in the greatest surprise. "I never heard you say anything like that before."
"I suppose it makes a difference," he said thoughtfully, "with what eyes a man looks at a thing. And dancing—I don't think I care to see her dance."
"Philip! You are extravagant."
"I believe I should be fit to commit murder if I saw her waltzing with anybody."
"Jealous already?" said Mrs. Barclay slyly.
"If you like.—Do you see her as I see her?" he asked abruptly.
There was a tone in the last words which gave Mrs. Barclay's heart a kind of constriction. She answered with gentle sympathy, "I think I do."
"I have seen handsomer women," he went on;—"Madge is handsomer, in a way; you may see many women more beautiful, according to the rules; but I never saw any one so lovely!"
"I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Barclay.
"I never saw anything so lovely!" he repeated. "She is most like—"
"A white lily," said Mrs. Barclay.
"No, that is not her type. No. As long as the world stands, a rose just open will remain the fairest similitude for a perfect woman. It's commonness cannot hinder that. She is not an unearthly Dendrobium, she is an earthly rose—
'Not too goodFor human nature's daily food,'
—if one could find the right sort of human nature! Just so fresh, unconscious, and fair; with just such a dignity of purity about her. I cannot fancy her at the opera, or dancing."
"A sort of unapproachable tea-rose?" said Mrs. Barclay, smiling at him, though her eyes were wistful.
"No," said he, "a tea-rose is too fragile. There is nothing of that about her, thank heaven!"
"No," said Mrs. Barclay, "there is nothing but sound healthy life about her; mental and bodily; and I agree with you, sweet as ever a human life can be. In the garden or at her books,—hark! that is for supper."
For here there came a slight tap on the door.
"Supper!" cried Philip.
"Yes; it is rather late, and the girls promised me a cup of coffee, after your exertions! But I dare say everybody wants some refreshment by this time. Come!"
There was a cheery supper table spread in the dining-room; coffee, indeed, and Stoney Creek oysters, and excellently cooked. Only Charity and Madge were there; Mrs. Armadale had gone to bed, and Lois was attending upon her. Mr. DilIwyn, however, was served assiduously.
"I hope you're hungry! You've done a load of good this evening, Mr.Dillwyn," said Charity, as she gave him his coffee.
"Thank you. I don't see the connection," said Philip, with an air as different as possible from that he had worn in talking to Mrs. Barclay in the next room.
"People ought to be hungry when they have done a great deal of work,"Madge explained, as she gave him a plate of oysters.
"I do not feel that I have done any work."
"O, well! I suppose it was play to you," said Charity, "but that don't make any difference. You've done a load of good. Why, the children will never be able to forget it, nor the grown folks either, as far as that goes; they'll talk of it, and of you, for two years, and more."
"I am doubtful about the real worth of fame, Miss Charity, even when it lasts two years."
"O, but you've done so muchgood!" said the lady. "Everybody sees now that the white church can hold her own. Nobody'll think of making disagreeable comparisons, if they have fifty Christmas trees."
"Suppose I had helped the yellow church?"
Charity looked as if she did not know what he would be at. Just then in came Lois and took her place at the table; and Mr. Dillwyn forgot all about rival churches.
"Here's Mr. Dillwyn don't think he's done any good, Lois!" cried her elder sister. "Do cheer him up a little. I think it's a shame to talk so. Why, we've done all we wanted to, and more. There won't a soul go away from our church or school after this, now they see what we can do; and I shouldn't wonder if we got some accessions from the other instead. And here's Mr. Dillwyn says he don't know as he's done any good!"
Lois lifted her eyes and met his, and they both smiled.
"Miss Lois sees the matter as I do," he said. "These are capital oysters. Where do they come from?"
"But, Philip," said Mrs. Barclay, "you have given a great deal of pleasure. Isn't that good?"
"Depends—" said he. "Probably it will be followed by a reaction."
"And you have kept the church together," added Charity, who was zealous.
"By a rope of sand, then, Miss Charity."
"At any rate, Mr. Dillwyn, youmeantto do good," Lois put in here.
"I do not know, Miss Lois. I am afraid I was thinking more of pleasure, myself; and shall experience myself the reaction I spoke of. I think I feel the shadow of it already, as a coming event."
"But if we aren't to have any pleasure, because afterwards we feel a little flat,—and of course we do," said Charity; "everybody knows that. But, for instance, if we're not to have green peas in summer, because we can't have 'em any way but dry in winter,—things would be very queer! Queerer than they are; and they're queer enough already."
This speech called forth some merriment.
"You think even the dry remains of pleasure are better than nothing!" said Philip. "Perhaps you are right."
"And to have those, wemusthave had the green reality," said Lois merrily.
"I wonder if there is any way of keeping pleasure green," said Dillwyn.
"Vain, vain, Mr. Dillwyn!" said Mrs. Barclay. "Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe!don't you know? Solomon said, I believe, that all was vanity. And he ought to know."
"But he didn't know," said Lois quickly.
"Lois!" said Charity—"it's in the Bible."
"I know it is in the Bible that he said so," Lois rejoined merrily.
"Was he not right, then?" Mr. Dillwyn asked.
"Perhaps," Lois answered, now gravely, "if you take simply his view."
"What was his view? Won't you explain?"
"I suppose you ain't going to set up to be wiser than Solomon, at this time of day," said Charity severely. But that stirred Lois's merriment again.
"Explain, Miss Lois!" said Dillwyn.
"I am not Solomon, that I should preach," she said.
"You just said you knew better than he," said Charity. "How you should know better than the Bible, I don't see. It's news."
"Why, Charity, Solomon was not a good man."
"How came he to write proverbs, then?"
"At least he was not always a good man."
"That don't hinder his knowing what was vanity, does it?"
"But, Lois!" said Mrs. Barclay. "Go back, and tell us your secret, if you have one. How was Solomon's view mistaken? or what is yours?"
"These things were all given for our pleasure, Mrs. Barclay."
"But they die—and they go—and they fade," said Mrs. Barclay.
"You will not understand me," said Lois; "and yet it is true. If you are Christ's—then, 'all things are yours;… the world, or life, ordeath, or things present, or things to come: all are yours.' There is no loss, but there comes more gain."
"I wish you'd let Mr. Dillwyn have some more oysters," said Charity; "and, Madge, do hand along Mrs. Barclay's cup. You mustn't talk, if you can't eat at the same time. Lois ain't Solomon yet, if she does preach. You shut up, Lois, and mind your supper. My rule is, to enjoy things as I go along; and just now, it's oysters."
"I will say for Lois," here put in Mrs. Barclay, "that she does exemplify her own principles. I never knew anybody with such a spring of perpetual enjoyment."
"She ain't happier than the rest of us," said the elder sister.
"Not so happy as grandmother," added Madge. "At least, grandmother would say so. I don't know."
Mr. Dillwyn went away. Things returned to their normal condition at Shampuashuh, saving that for a while there was a great deal of talk about the Santa Clans doings and the principal actor in them, and no end of speculations as to his inducements and purposes to be served in taking so much trouble. For Shampuashuh people were shrewd, and did not believe, any more than King Lear, that anything could come of nothing. That he wasnotmoved by general benevolence, poured out upon the school of the white church, was generally agreed. "What's we to him?" asked pertinently one of the old ladies; and vain efforts were made to ascertain Mr. Dillwyn's denomination. "For all I kin make out, he hain't got none," was the declaration of another matron. "I don't b'lieve he's no better than he should be." Which was ungrateful, and hardly justified Miss Charity's prognostications of enduring fame; by which, of course, she meant good fame. Few had seen Mr. Dillwyn undisguised, so that they could give a report of him; but Mrs. Marx assured them he was "a real personable man; nice and plain, and takin' no airs. She liked him first-rate."
"Who's he after? Not one o' your gals?"
"Mercy, no! He, indeed! He's one of the high-flyers; he won't come to Shampuashuh to look for a wife. 'Seems to me he's made o' money; and he's been everywhere; he's fished for crocodiles in the Nile, and eaten his luncheon at the top of the Pyramids of Egypt, and sailed to the North Pole to be sure of cool lemonade in summer.Hewon't marry in Shampuashuh."
"What brings him here, then?"
"The spirit of restlessness, I should say. Those people that have been everywhere, you may notice, can't stay nowhere. I always knew there was fools in the world, but Ididn'tknow there was so many of 'em as there be. He ain't no fool neither, some ways; and that makes him a bigger fool in the end; only I don't know why the fools should have all the money."
And so, after a little, the talk about this theme died out, and things settled down, not without some of the reaction Mr. Dillwyn had predicted; but they settled down, and all was as before in Shampuashuh. Mr. Dillwyn did not come again to make a visit, or Mrs. Marx's aroused vigilance would have found some ground for suspicion. There did come numerous presents of game and fruit from him, but they were sent to Mrs. Barclay, and could not be objected against, although they came in such quantities that the whole household had to combine to dispose of them. What would Philip do next?—Mrs. Barclay queried. As he had said, he could not go on with repeated visits to the house. Madge and Lois would not hear of being tempted to New York, paint the picture as bright as she would. Things were not ripe for any decided step on Mr. Dillwyn's part, and how should they become so? Mrs. Barclay could not see the way. She did for Philip what she could by writing to him, whether for his good or his harm she could not decide. She feared the latter. She told him, however, of the sweet, quiet life she was leading; of the reading she was doing with the two girls, and the whole family; of the progress Lois and Madge were making in singing and drawing and in various branches of study; of the walks in the fresh sea-breezes, and the cosy evenings with wood fires and the lamp; and she told him how they enjoyed his game, and what a comfort the oranges were to Mrs. Armadale.
This lasted through January, and then there came a change. Mrs. Armadale was ill. There was no more question of visits, or of studies; and all sorts of enjoyments and occupations gave place to the one absorbing interest of watching and waiting upon the sick one. And then, that ceased too. Mrs. Armadale had caught cold, she had not strength to throw off disease; it took violent form, and in a few days ran its course. Very suddenly the little family found itself without its head.
There was nothing to grieve for, but their own loss. The long, weary earth-journey was done, and the traveller had taken up her abode where there is
"The rest begun,That Christ hath for his people won."
She had gone triumphantly. "Through God we shall do valiantly"—being her last—uttered words. Her children took them as a legacy, and felt rich. But they looked at her empty chair, and counted themselves poorer than ever before. Mrs. Barclay saw that the mourning was deep. Yet, with the reserved strength of New England natures, it made no noise, and scarce any show.
Mrs. Barclay lived much alone those first days. She would gladly have talked to somebody; she wanted to know about the affairs of the little family, but saw no one to talk to. Until, two or three days after the funeral, coming home one afternoon from a walk in the cold, she found her fire had died out; and she went into the next room to warm herself. There she saw none of the usual inmates. Mrs. Armadale's chair stood on one side the fire, unoccupied, and on the other side stood uncle Tim Hotchkiss.
"How do you do, Mr. Hotchkiss? May I come and warm myself? I have been out, and I am half-frozen."
"I guess you're welcome to most anything in this house, ma'am,—and fire we wouldn't grudge to anybody. Sit down, ma'am;" and he set a chair for her. "It's pretty tight weather."
"We had nothing like this last winter," said Mrs. Barclay, shivering.
"We expect to hev one or two snaps in the course of the winter," said Mr. Hotchkiss. "Shampuashuh ain't what you call a cold place; but we expect to see them two snaps. It comes seasonable this time. I'd rayther hev it now than in March. My sister—that's gone,—she could always tell you how the weather was goin' to be. I've never seen no one like her for that."
"Nor for some other things," said Mrs. Barclay. "It is a sad change to feel her place empty."
"Ay," said uncle Tim, with a glance at the unused chair,—"it's the difference between full and empty. 'I went out full, and the Lord has brought me back empty', Ruth's mother-in-law said."
"Who is Ruth?" Mrs. Barclay asked, a little bewildered, and willing to change the subject; for she noticed a suppressed quiver in the hard features. "Do I know her?"
"I mean Ruth the Moabitess. Of course you know her. She was a poor heathen thing, but she got all right at last. It was her mother-in-law that was bitter. Well—troubles hadn't ought to make us bitter. I guess there's allays somethin' wrong when they do."
"Hard to help it, sometimes," said Mrs. Barclay.
"She wouldn't ha' let you say that," said the old man, indicating sufficiently by his accent of whom he was speaking. "There warn't no bitterness in her; and she had seen trouble enough! She's out o' it now."
"What will the girls do? Stay on and keep the house here just as they have done?"
"Well, I don' know," said Mr. Hotchkiss, evidently glad to welcome a business question, and now taking a chair himself. "Mrs. Marx and me, we've ben arguin' that question out, and it ain't decided. There's one big house here, and there's another where Mrs. Marx lives; and there's one little family, and here's another little family. It's expensive to scatter over so much ground. They had ought to come to Mrs. Marx, or she had ought to move in here, and then the other house could be rented. That's how the thing looks to me. It's expensive for five people to take two big houses to live in. I know, the girls have got you now; but they might not keep you allays; and we must look at things as they be."
"I must leave them in the spring," said Mrs. Barclay hastily.
"In the spring, must ye!"
"Must," she repeated. "I would like to stay here the rest of my life; but circumstances are imperative. I must go in the spring."
"Then I think that settles it," said Mr. Hotchkiss. "I'm glad to know it. That is! of course I'm sorry ye're goin'; the girls be very fond of you."
"And I of them," said Mrs. Barclay; "but I must go."
After that, she waited for the chance of a talk with Lois. She waited not long. The household had hardly settled down into regular ways again after the disturbance of sickness and death, when Lois came one evening at twilight into Mrs. Barclay's room. She sat down, at first was silent, and then burst into tears. Mrs. Barclay let her alone, knowing that for her just now the tears were good. And the woman who had seen so much heavier life-storms, looked on almost with a feeling of envy at the weeping which gave so simple and frank expression to grief. Until this feeling was overcome by another, and she begged Lois to weep no more.
"I do not mean it—I did not mean it," said Lois, drying her eyes. "It is ungrateful of me; for we have so much to be thankful for. I am so glad for grandmother!"—Yet somehow the tears went on falling.
"Glad?"—repeated Mrs. Barclay doubtfully. "You mean, because she is out of her suffering."
"She did not suffer much. It is not that. I am so glad to think she has got home!"
"I suppose," said Mrs. Barclay in a constrained voice, "to such a person as your grandmother, death has no fear. Yet life seems to me more desirable."
"She has entered into life!" said Lois. "She is where she wanted to be, and with what she loved best. And I am very, very glad! even though I do cry."
"How can you speak with such certain'ty, Lois? I know, in such a case as that of your grandmother, there could be no fear; and yet I do not see how you can speak as if you knew where she is, and with whom."
"Only because the Bible tells us," said Lois, smiling even through wet eyes. "Not theplace;it does not tell us the place; but with Christ. That they are; and that is all we want to know.
'Beyond the sighing and the weeping.'
—It makes me gladder than ever I can tell you, to think of it."
"Then what are those tears for, my dear?"
"It's the turning over a leaf," said Lois sadly, "and that is always sorrowful. And I have lost—uncle Tim says," she broke off suddenly, "he says,—can it be?—he says you say you must go from us in the spring?"
"That is turning over another leaf," said Mrs. Barclay.
"But is it true?"
"Absolutely true. Circumstances make it imperative. It is not my wish.I would like to stay here with you all my life."
"I wish you could. I half hoped you would," said Lois wistfully.
"But I cannot, my dear. I cannot."
"Then that is another thing over," said Lois. "What a good time it has been, this year and a half you have been with us! how much worth to Madge and me! But won't you come back again?"
"I fear not. You will not miss me so much; you will all keep house together, Mr. Hotchkiss tells me."
"Ishall not be here," said Lois.
"Where will you be?" Mrs. Barclay started.
"I don't know; but it will be best for me to do something to help along. I think I shall take a school somewhere. I think I can get one."
"Aschool, my dear? Why should you do such a thing?"
"To help along," said Lois. "You know, we have not much to live on here at home. I should make one less here, and I should be earning a little besides."
"Very little, Lois!"
"Very little will do."
"But you do a great deal now towards the family support. What will become of your garden?"
"Uncle Tim can take care of that. Besides, Mrs. Barclay, even if I could stay at home, I think I ought not. I ought to be doing something—be of some use in the world. I am not needed here, now dear grandmother is gone; and there must be some other place where I am needed."
"My dear, somebody will want you to keep house for him, some of these days."
Lois shook her head. "I do not think of it," she said. "I do not think it is very likely; that is, anybodyIshould want. But if it were true," she added, looking up and smiling, "that has nothing to do with present duty."
"My dear, I cannot bear to think of your going into such drudgery!"
"Drudgery?" said Lois. "I do not know,—perhaps I should not find it so. But I may as well do it as somebody else."
"You are fit for something better."
"There is nothing better, and there is nothing happier," said Lois, rising, "than to do what God gives us to do. I should not be unhappy, Mrs. Barclay. It wouldn't be just like these days we have passed together, I suppose;—these days have been a garden of flowers."
And what have they all amounted to? thought Mrs. Barclay when she was left alone. Have I done any good—or only harm—by acceding to that mad proposition of Philip's? Some good, surely; these two girls have grown and changed, mentally, at a great rate of progress; they are educated, cultivated, informed, refined, to a degree that I would never have thought a year and a half could do. Even so!haveI done them good? They are lifted quite out of the level of their surroundings; and to be lifted so, means sometimes a barren living alone. Yet I will not think that; it is better to rise in the scale of being, if ever one can, whatever comes of it; what one is in oneself is of more importance than one's relations to the world around. But Philip?—I have helped him nourish this fancy—and it is not a fancy now—it is the man's whole life. Heigh ho! I begin to think he was right, and that it is very difficult to know what is doing good and what isn't. I must write to Philip—
So she did, at once. She told him of the contemplated changes in the family arrangements; of Lois's plan for teaching a district school; and declared that she herself must now leave Shampuashuh. She had done what she came for, whether for good or for ill. It was done; and she could no longer continue living there on Mr. Dillwyn's bounty.Nowit would be mere bounty, if she stayed where she was; until now she might say she had been doing his work. His work was done now, her part of it; the rest he must finish for himself. Mrs. Barclay would leave Shampuashuh in April.
This letter would bring matters to a point, she thought, if anything could; she much expected to see Mr. Dillwyn himself appear again before March was over. He did not come, however; he wrote a short answer to Mrs. Barclay, saying that he was sorry for her resolve, and would combat it if he could; but felt that he had not the power. She must satisfy her fastidious notions of independence, and he could only thank her to the last day of his life for what she had already done for him; service which thanks could never repay. He sent this letter, but said nothing of coming; and he did not come.
Later, Mrs. Barclay wrote again. The household changes were just about to be made; she herself had but a week or two more in Shampuashuh; and Lois, against all expectation, had found opportunity immediately to try her vocation for teaching. The lady placed over a school in a remote little village had suddenly died; and the trustees of the school had considered favourably Lois's application. She was going in a day or two to undertake the charge of a score or two of boys and girls, of all ages, in a wild and rough part of the country; where even the accommodations for her own personal comfort, Mrs. Barclay feared, would be of the plainest.
To this letter also she received an answer, though after a little interval. Mr. Dillwyn wrote, he regretted Lois's determination; regretted that she thought it necessary; but appreciated the straightforward, unflinching sense of duty which never consulted with ease or selfishness. He himself was going, he added, on business, for a time, to the north; that is, not Massachusetts, but Canada. He would therefore not see Mrs. Barclay until after a considerable interval.
Mrs. Barclay did not know what to make of this letter. Had Philip given up his fancy? It was not like him. Men are fickle, it is true; but fickle in his friendships she had never known Mr. Dillwyn to be. Yet this letter said nothing of love, or hope, or fear; it was cool, friendly, business-like. Mrs. Barclay nevertheless did not know how to believe in the business.Hehave business! What business? She had always known him as an easy, graceful, pleasure-taker; finding his pleasure in no evil ways, indeed; kept from that by early associations, or by his own refined tastes and sense of honour; but never living to anything but pleasure. His property was ample and unencumbered; even the care of that was not difficult, and did not require much of his time. And now, just when he ought to put in his claim for Lois, if he was ever going to make it; just when she was set loose from her old ties and marking out a new and hard way of life for herself, he ought to come; and he was going on business to Canada! Mrs. Barclay was excessively disgusted and disappointed. She had not, indeed, all along seen how Philip's wooing could issue successfully, if it ever came to the point of wooing; the elements were too discordant, and principles too obstinate; and yet she had worked on in hope, vague and doubtful, but still hope, thinking highly herself of Mr. Dillwyn's pretensions and powers of persuasion, and knowing that in human nature at large all principle and all discordance are apt to come to a signal defeat when Love takes the field. But now there seemed to be no question of wooing; Love was not on hand, where his power was wanted; the friends were all scattered one from another—Lois going to the drudgery of teaching rough boys and girls, she herself to the seclusion of some quiet seaside retreat, and Mr. Dillwyn—to hunt bears?—in Canada.
So they were all scattered. But the moving and communicating wires of human society seem as often as any way to run underground; quite out of sight, at least; then specially strong, when to an outsider they appear to be broken and parted for ever.
Into the history of the summer it is impossible to go minutely. What Mr. Dillwyn did in Canada, and how Lois fought with ignorance and rudeness and prejudice in her new situation, Mrs. Barclay learned but very imperfectly from the letters she received; so imperfectly, that she felt she knew nothing. Mr. Dillwyn never mentioned Miss Lothrop. Could it be that he had prematurely brought things to a decision, and so got them decided wrong? But in that case Mrs. Barclay felt sure some sign would have escaped Lois; and she gave none.
The summer passed, and two-thirds of the autumn.
One evening in the end of October, Mrs. Wishart was sitting alone in her back drawing-room. She was suffering from a cold, and coddling herself over the fire. Her major-domo brought her Mr. Dillwyn's name and request for admission, which was joyfully granted. Mrs. Wishart was denied to ordinary visitors; and Philip's arrival was like a benediction.
"Where have you been all summer?" she asked him, when they had talked awhile of some things nearer home.
"In the backwoods of Canada."
"The backwoods of Canada!"
"I assure you it is a very enjoyable region."
"Whatcouldyou find to do there?"
"More than enough. I spent my time between hunting—fishing—and studying."
"Studying what, pray? Not backwoods farming, I suppose?"
"Well, no, not exactly. Backwoods farming is not precisely in my line."
"What is in your line that you could study there?"
"It is not a bad place to study anything;—if you except, perhaps, art and antiquity."
"I did not know you studied anythingbutart."
"It is hardly a sufficient object to fill a man's life worthily; do you think so?"
"What would fill it worthily?" the lady asked, with a kind of dreary abstractedness. And if Philip had surprised her a moment before, he was surprised in his turn. As he did not answer immediately, Mrs. Wishart went on.
"A man's life, or a woman's life? What would fill it worthily? Do you know? Sometimes it seems to me that we are all living for nothing."
"I am ready to confess that has been the case with me,—to my shame be it said."
"I mean, that there is nothing really worth living for."
"Thatcannot be true, however."
"Well, I suppose I say so at the times when I am unable to enjoy anything in my life. And yet, if you stop to think, whatdoesanybody's life amount to? Nobody's missed, after he is gone; or only for a minute; and for himself—There is not a year ofmylife that I can remember, that I would be willing to live over again."
"Apparently, then, to enjoy is not the chief end of existence. I mean, of this existence."
"What do we know of any other? And if we do not enjoy ourselves, pray what in the world should we live for?"
"I have seen people that I thought enjoyed themselves," Philip said slowly.
"Have you? Who were they? I do not know them."
"You know some of them. Do you recollect a friend of mine, for whom you negotiated lodgings at a far-off country village?"
"Yes, I remember. They took her, didn't they?"
"They took her. And I had the pleasure once or twice of visiting her there."
"Did she like it?"
"Very much. She could not help liking it. And I thought those people seemed to enjoy life. Not relatively, but positively."
"The Lothrops!" cried Mrs. Wishart. "I can not conceive it. Why, they are very poor."
"That made no hindrance, in their case."
"Poor people, I am afraid they have not been enjoying themselves this year."
"I heard of Mrs. Armadale's death."
"Yes. O, she was old; she could not be expected to live long. But they are all broken up."
"How am I to understand that?"
"Well, you know they have very little to live upon. I suppose it was for that reason Lois went off to a distance from home to teach a district school. You know,—ordoyou know?—what country schools are, in some places; this was one of the places. Pretty rough; and hard living. And then a railroad was opened in the neighbourhood—the place became sickly—a fever broke out among Lois's scholars and the families they came from; and Lois spent her vacation in nursing. Then got sick herself with the fever, and is only just now getting well."
"I heard something of this before from Mrs. Barclay."
"Then Madge went to take care of Lois, and they were both there. That is weeks and weeks ago,—months, I should think."
"But the sick one is well again?"
"She is better. But one does not get up from those fevers so soon. One's strength is gone. I have sent for them to come and make me a visit and recruit."
"They are coming, I hope?"
"I expect them here to-morrow."
Mr. Dillwyn had nearly been betrayed into an exclamation. He remembered himself in time, and replied with proper self-possession that he was very glad to hear it.
"Yes, I told them to come here and rest. They must want it, poor girls, both of them."
"Then they are coming to-morrow?"
"Yes."
"By what train?"
"I believe, it is the New Haven train that gets in about five o'clock.Or six. I do not know exactly."
"I know. Now, Mrs. Wishart, you are not well yourself, and must not go out. I will meet the train and bring them safe to you."
"You? O, that's delightful. I have been puzzling my brain to know how I should manage; for I am not fit to go out yet, and servants are so unsatisfactory. Will you really? That's good of you!"
"Not at all. It is the least I can do. The family received me most kindly on more than one occasion; and I would gladly do them a greater service than this."
At two o'clock next day the waiting-room of the New Haven station held, among others, two very handsome young girls; who kept close together, waiting for their summons to the train. One of them was very pale and thin and feeble-looking, and indeed sat so that she leaned part of her weight upon her sister. Madge was pale too, and looked somewhat anxious. Both pairs of eyes watched languidly the moving, various groups of travellers clustered about in the room.
"Madge, it's like a dream!" murmured the one girl to the other.
"What? If you mean this crowd,mydreams have more order in them."
"I mean, being away from Esterbrooke, and off a sick-bed, and moving, and especially going to—where we are going. It's a dream!"
"Why?"
"Too good to be true. I had thought, do you know, I never should make a visit there again."
"Why not, Lois?"
"I thought it would be best not. But now the way seems clear, and I can take the fun of it. It is clearly right to go."
"Of course! It is always right to go wherever you are asked."
"O no, Madge!"
"Well,—wherever the invitation is honest, I mean."
"O, that isn't enough."
"What else? supposing you have the means to go. I am not sure that we have that condition in the present instance. But if you have, what else is to be waited for?"
"Duty—" Lois whispered.
"O, bother duty! Here have you gone and almost killed yourself for duty."
"Well,—supposing one does kill oneself?—one must do what is duty."
"That isn't duty."
"O, it may be."
"Not to kill yourself. You have almost killed yourself, Lois."
"I couldn't help it."
"Yes, you could. You make duty a kind of iron thing."
"Not iron," said Lois; she spoke slowly and faintly, but now she smiled. "It is golden!"
"That don't help. Chains of gold may be as hard to break as chains of iron."
"Who wants them broken?" said Lois, in the same slow, contented way."Duty? Why Madge, it's the King's orders!"
"Do you mean that you were ordered to go to that place, and then to nurse those children through the fever?"
"Yes, I think so."
"I should be terribly afraid of duty, if I thought it came in such shapes. There's the train!—Now if you can get downstairs—"
That was accomplished, though with tottering steps, and Lois was safely seated in one of the cars, and her head pillowed upon the back of the seat. There was no more talking then for some time. Only when Haarlem bridge was past and New York close at hand, Lois spoke.
"Madge, suppose Mrs. Wishart should not be here to meet us? You must think what you would do."
"Why, the train don't go any further, does it?"
"No!—but it goes back. I mean, it will not stand still for you. It moves away out of the station-house as soon as it is empty."
"There will be carriages waiting, I suppose. But I am sure I hope she will meet us. I wrote in plenty of time. Don't worry, dear! we'll manage."
"I am not worrying," said Lois. "I am a great deal too happy to worry."
However, that was not Madge's case, and she felt very fidgety. With Lois so feeble, and in a place so unknown to her, and with baggage checks to dispose of, and so little time to do anything, and no doubt a crowd of doubtful characters lounging about, as she had always heard they did in New York; Madge did wish very anxiously for a pilot and a protector. As the train slowly moved into the Grand Central, she eagerly looked to see some friend appear. But none appeared.
"We must go out, Madge," said Lois. "Maybe we shall find Mrs.Wishart—I dare say we shall—she could not come into the cars—"
The two made their way accordingly, slowly, at the end of the procession filing out of the car, till Madge got out upon the platform. There she uttered an exclamation of joy.
"O Lois!—there's Mr. Dillwyn?"
"But we are looking for Mrs. Wishart," said Lois.
The next thing she knew, however, somebody was carefully helping her down to the landing; and then, her hand was on a stronger arm than that of Mrs. Wishart, and she was slowly following the stream of people to the front of the station-house. Lois was too exhausted by this time to ask any questions; suffered herself to be put in a carriage passively, where Madge took her place also, while Mr. Dillwyn went to give the checks of their baggage in charge to an expressman. Lois then broke out again with,
"O Madge, it's like a dream!"
"Isn't it?" said Madge. "I have been in a regular fidget for two hours past, for fear Mrs. Wishart would not be here."
"I didn'tfidget," said Lois, "but I did not know how I was going to get from the cars to the carriage. I feel in a kind of exhausted Elysium!"
"It's convenient to have a man belonging to one," said Madge.
"Hush, pray!" said Lois, closing her eyes. And she hardly opened them again until the carriage arrived at Mrs. Wishart's, which was something of a drive. Madge and Mr. Dillwyn kept up a lively conversation, about the journey and Lois's condition, and her summer; and how he happened to be at the Grand Central. He went to meet some friends, he said coolly, whom he expected to see by that train.
"Then we must have been in your way," exclaimed Madge regretfully.
"Not at all," he said.
"But we hindered you from taking care of your friends?"
"No," he said indifferently; "by no means. They are taken care of."
And both Madge and Lois were too simple to know what he meant.
At Mrs. Wishart's, Lois was again helped carefully out and carefully in, and half carried up-stairs to her own room, whither it was decided she had better go at once. And there, after being furnished with a bowl of soup, she was left, while the others went down to tea. So Madge found her an hour afterwards, sunk in the depths of a great, soft easy-chair, gazing at the fanciful flames of a kennel coal fire.
"O Madge, it's a dream!" Lois said again languidly, though with plenty of expression. "I can't believe in the change from Esterbrooke here."
"It's a change from Shampuashuh," Madge returned. "Lois, I didn't know things could be so pretty. And we have had the most delightful tea, and something—cakes—Mrs. Wishart callswigs, the best things you ever saw in your life; but Mr. Dillwyn wouldn't let us send some up to you."
"Mr. Dillwyn!"—
"Yes, he said they were not good for you. He has been just as pleasant as he could be. I never saw anybody so pleasant. I like Mr. Dillwynverymuch."
"Don't!" said Lois languidly.
"Why?"
"You had better not."
"But why not? You are ungrateful, it seems to me, if you don't like him."
"I like him," said Lois slowly; "but he belongs to a different world from ours. The worlds can't come together; so it is best not to like him too much."
"How do you mean, a different world?"
"O, he's different, Madge! All his thoughts and ways and associations are unlike ours—a great way off from ours; and must be. It is best as I said. I guess it is best not to like anybody too much."
With which oracular and superhumanly wise utterance Lois closed her eyes softly again. Madge, provoked, was about to carry on the discussion, when, noticing how pale the cheek was which lay against the crimson chair cushion, and how very delicate the lines of the face, she thought better of it and was silent. A while later, however, when she had brought Lois a cup of gruel and biscuit, she broke out on a new theme.
"What a thing it is, that some people should have so much silver, and other people so little!"
"What silver are you thinking of?"
"Why, Mrs. Wishart's, to be sure. Who's else? I never saw anything like it, out of Aladdin's cave. Great urns, and salvers, and cream-jugs, and sugar-bowls, and cake-baskets, and pitchers, and salt-cellars. The salt-cellars were lined with something yellow, or washed, to hinder the staining, I suppose."
"Gold," said Lois.
"Gold?"
"Yes. Plated with gold."
"Well I never saw anything like the sideboard down-stairs; the sideboard and the tea-table. It is funny, Lois, as I said, why some should have so much, and others so little."
"We, you mean? What should we do with a load of silver?"
"I wish I had it, and then you'd see! You should have a silk dress, to begin with, and so should I."
"Never mind," said Lois, letting her eyelids fall again with an expression of supreme content, having finished her gruel. "There are compensations, Madge."
"Compensations! What compensations? We are hardly respectably dressed, you and I, for this place."
"Never mind!" said Lois again. "If you had been sick as I was, and in that place, and among those people, you would know something."
"What should I know?"
"How delightful this chair is;—and how good that gruel, out of a china cup;—and how delicious all this luxury! Mrs. Wishart isn't as rich as I am to-night."
"The difference is, she can keep it, and you cannot, you poor child!"
"O yes, I can keep it," said Lois, in the slow, happy accent with which she said everything to-night;—"I can keep the remembrance of it, and the good of it. When I get back to my work, I shall not want it."
"Your work!" said Madge.
"Yes."
"Esterbrooke!"
"Yes, if they want me."
"You are never going back to that place!" exclaimed Madge energetically. "Never! not with my good leave. Bury yourself in that wild country, and kill yourself with hard work! Not if I know it."
"If that is the work given me," said Lois, in the same calm voice."They want somebody there, badly; and I have made a beginning."
"A nice beginning!—almost killed yourself. Now, Lois, don't think about anything! Do you know, Mrs. Wishart says you are the handsomest girl she ever saw!"
"That's a mistake. I know several much handsomer."
"She tried to make Mr. Dillwyn say so too; and he wouldn't."
"Naturally."
"It was funny to hear them; she tried to drive him up to the point, and he wouldn't be driven; he said one clever thing after another, but always managed to give her no answer; till at last she pinned him with a point-blank question."
"What did he do then?"
"Said what you said; that he had seen women who would be called handsomer."
The conversation dropped here, for Lois made no reply, and Madge recollected she had talked enough.
It was days before Lois went down-stairs. She seemed indeed to be in no hurry. Her room was luxuriously comfortable; Madge tended her there, and Mrs. Wishart visited her; and Lois sat in her great easy-chair, and rested, and devoured the delicate meals that were brought her; and the colour began gently to come back to her face, in the imperceptible fashion in which a white Van Thol tulip takes on its hues of crimson. She began to read a little; but she did not care to go down-stairs. Madge told her everything that went on; who came, and what was said by one and another. Mr. Dillwyn's name was of very frequent occurrence.
"He's a real nice man!" said Madge enthusiastically.
"Madge, Madge, Madge!—you mustn't speak so," said Lois. "You must not say 'real nice.'"
"I don't, down-stairs," said Madge, laughing. "It was only to you. It is more expressive, Lois, sometimes, to speak wrong than to speak right."
"Do not speak so expressively, then."
"But I must, when I am speaking of Mr. Dillwyn. I never saw anybody so nice. He is teaching me to play chess, Lois, and it is such fun."
"It seems to me he comes here very often."
"He does; he is an old friend of Mrs. Wishart's, and she is as glad to see him as I am."
"Don't be too glad, Madge. I do not like to hear you speak so."
"Why not?"
"It was one of the reasons why I did not want to accept Mrs. Barclay's invitation last winter, that I knew he would be visiting her constantly. I did not expect to see himheremuch." Lois looked grave.
"What harm in seeing him, Lois? why shouldn't one have the pleasure? For it is a pleasure; his talk is so bright, and his manner is so very kind and graceful; andheis so kind. He is going to take me to drive again."
"You go to drive with Mrs. Wishart. Isn't that enough?"
"It isn't a quarter so pleasant," Madge said, laughing again. "Mr. Dillwyn talks, something one likes to hear talked. Mrs. Wishart tells me about old families, and where they used to live, and where they live now; what do I care about old New York families! And Mr. Dillwyn letsmetalk. I never have anything whatever to say to Mrs. Wishart; she does it all."
"I would rather have you go driving with her, though."
"Why, Lois? That's ridiculous. I like to go with Mr. Dillwyn."
"Don't like it too well."
"How can I like it too well?"
"So much that you would miss it, when you do not have it any longer."
"Miss it!" said Madge, half angrily. "I mightmissit, as I might miss any pleasant thing; but I could stand that. I'm not a chicken just out of the egg. I have missed things before now, and it hasn't killed me."
"Don't think I am foolish, Madge. It isn't a question of how much you can stand. But the men like—like this one—are so pleasant with their graceful, smooth ways, that country girls like you and me might easily be drawn on, without knowing it, further than they want to go."
"He does not want to draw anybody on!" said Madge indignantly.
"That's the very thing. You might think—or I might think—that pleasant manner means something; and it don't mean anything."
"I don't want it to 'mean anything,' as you say; but what has our being country girls to do with it?"
"We are not accustomed to that sort of society, and so it makes, I suppose, more impression. And what might mean something to others, would not to us. From such men, I mean."
"What do you mean by 'such men'?" asked Madge, who was getting rather excited.
"Rich—fashionable—belonging to the great world, and having the ways of it. You know what Mr. Dillwyn is like. It is not what we have in Shainpuashuh."
"But, Lois!—what are you talking about? I don't care a red cent for all this, but I want to understand. You said such a manner would mean nothing tous."
"Yes."
"Why not to us, as well as anybody else?"
"Because we are nobodies, Madge."
"What do you mean?" said the other hotly.
"Just that. It is quite true. You are nobody, and I am nobody. You see, if we were somebody, it would be different."
"If you think—I'll tell you what, Lois! I think you are fit to be the wife of the best man that lives and breathes."
"I think so myself," Lois returned quietly.
"And I am."
"I think you are, Madge. But that makes no difference. My dear, we are nobody."
"How?"—impatiently. "Isn't our family as respectable as anybody's?Haven't we had governors and governors, of Massachusetts andConnecticut both; and judges and ministers, ever so many, among ourancestors? And didn't a half-dozen of 'em, or more, come over in the'Mayflower'?"
"Yes, Madge; all true; and I am as glad of it as you are."
"Then you talk nonsense!"
"No, I don't," said Lois, sighing a little. "I have seen a little more of the world than you have, you know, dear Madge; not very much, but a little more than you; and I know what I am talking about. We are unknown, we are not rich, we have none of what they call 'connections.' So you see I do not want you to like too much a person who, beyond civility, and kindness perhaps, would never think of liking you."
"I don't want him to, that's one thing," said Madge. "But if all that is true, he is meaner than I think him; that's what I've got to say. And it is a mean state of society where all that can be true."
"I suppose it is human nature," said Lois.
"It's awfully mean human nature!"
"I guess there is not much true nobleness but where the religion ofChrist comes in. If you have got that, Madge, be content and thankful."
"But nobody likes to be unjustly depreciated."
"Isn't that pride?"
"One must have some pride. I can't make religioneverything, Lois. I was a woman before I was a Christian."
"If you want to be a happy woman, you will let religion be everything."
"But, Lois!—wouldn'tyoulike to be rich, and have pretty things about you?"
"Don't ask me," said Lois, smiling. "I am a woman too, and dearly fond of pretty things. But, Madge, there is something else I love better," she added, with a sudden sweet gravity; "and that is, the will of my God. I would rather have what he chooses to give me. Really and truly; I wouldratherhave that."
The conversation therewith was at an end. In the evening of that same day Lois left her seclusion and came down-stairs for the first time. She was languid enough yet to be obliged to move slowly, and her cheeks had not got back their full colour, and were thinner than they used to be; otherwise she looked well, and Mrs. Wishart contemplated her with great satisfaction. Somewhat to Lois's vexation, or she thought so, they found Mr. DilIwyn down-stairs also. Lois had the invalid's place of honour, in a corner of the sofa, with a little table drawn up for her separate tea; and Madge and Mr. Dillwyn made toast for her at the fire. The fire gave its warm light, the lamps glittered with a more brilliant illumination; ruddy hues of tapestry and white gleams from silver and glass filled the room, with lights and shadows everywhere, that contented the eye and the imagination too, with suggestions of luxury and plenty and sheltered comfort. Lois felt the shelter and the comfort and the pleasure, with that enhanced intensity which belongs to one's sensations in a state of convalescence, and in her case was heightened by previous experiences. Nestled among cushions in her corner, she watched everything and took the effect of every detail; tasted every flavour of the situation; but all with a thoughtful, wordless gravity; she hardly spoke at all.
After tea, Mr. Dillwyn and Madge sat down to the chess-board. And then Lois's attention fastened upon them. Madge had drawn the little table that held the chessmen into very close proximity to the sofa, so that she was just at Lois's hand; but then her whole mind was bent upon the game, and Lois could study her as she pleased. She did study Madge. She admired her sister's great beauty; the glossy black hair, the delicate skin, the excellent features, the pretty figure. Madge was very handsome, there was no doubt; Mr. Dillwyn would not have far to look, Lois thought, to find one handsomer than herself was. There was a frank, fine expression of face, too; and manners thoroughly good. They lacked some of the quietness of long usage, Lois thought; a quick look or movement now and then, or her eager eyes, or an abrupt tone of voice, did in some measure betray the country girl, to whom everything was novel and interesting; and distinguished her from the halfblasé, wholly indifferent air of other people. She will learn that quietness soon enough, thought Lois; and then, nothing could be left to desire in Madge. The quietness had always been a characteristic of Lois herself; partly difference of temperament, partly the sweeter poise of Lois's mind, had made this difference between the sisters; and now of course Lois had had more experience of people and the world. But it was not in her the result of experience, this fair, unshaken balance of mind and manner which was always a charm in her. However, this by the way; the girl herself was drawing no comparisons, except so far as to judge her sister handsomer than herself.
From Madge her eye strayed to Mr. Dillwyn, and studied him. She was lying back a little in shadow, and could do it safely. He was teaching Madge the game; and Lois could not but acknowledge and admire in him the finished manner she missed in her sister. Yes, she could not help admiring it. The gentle, graceful, easy way, in which he directed her, gave reproofs and suggestions about the game, and at the same time kept up a running conversation with Mrs. Wishart; letting not one thing interfere with another, nor failing for a moment to attend to both ladies. There was a quiet perfection about the whole home picture; it remained in Lois's memory for ever. Mrs. Wishart sat on an opposite sofa knitting; not a long blue stocking, like her dear grandmother, but a web of wonderful hues, thick and soft, and various as the feathers on a peacock's neck. It harmonized with all the rest of the room, where warmth and colour and a certain fulness of detail gave the impression of long-established easy living. The contrast was very strong with Lois's own life surroundings; she compared and contrasted, and was not quite sure how much of this sort of thing might be good for her. However, for the present here she was, and she enjoyed it. Then she queried if Mr. Dillwyn were enjoying it. She noticed the hand which he had run through the locks of his hair, resting his head on the hand. It was well formed, well kept; in that nothing remarkable; but there was a certain character of energy in the fingers which did not look like the hand of a lazy man. How could he spend his life so in doing nothing? She did not fancy that he cared much about the game, or much about the talk; what was he there for, so often? Did he, possibly, care about Madge? Lois's thoughts came back to the conversation.
"Mrs. Wishart, what is to be done with the poor of our city?" Mr.Dillwyn was saying.
"I don't know! I wish something could be done with them, to keep them from coming to the house. My cook turns away a dozen a day, some days."
"Those are not the poor I mean."
"They are poor enough."
"They are to a large extent pretenders. I mean the masses of solid poverty which fill certain parts of the city—and not small parts either. It is no pretence there."
"I thought there were societies enough to look after them. I know I pay my share to keep up the societies. What are they doing?"
"Something, I suppose. As if a man should carry a watering-pot toVesuvius."
"What in the world has turnedyourattention that way? I pay my subscriptions, and then I discharge the matter from my mind. It is the business of the societies. What has set you to thinking about it?"
"Something I have seen, and something I have heard."
"What have you heard? Are you studying political economy? I did not know you studied anything but art criticism."
"What do you do with your poor at Shampuashuh, Miss Madge?"
"We do not have any poor. That is, hardly any. There is nobody in the poorhouse. A few—perhaps half a dozen—people, cannot quite support themselves. Check to your queen, Mr. Dillwyn."
"What do you do with them?"
"O, take care of them. It's very simple. They understand that whenever they are in absolute need of it, they can go to the store and get what they want."
"At whose expense?"
"O, there is a fund there for them. Some of the better-off people take care of that."
"I should think that would be quite too simple," said Mrs. Wishart, "and extremely liable to abuse."
"It is never abused, though. Some of the people, those poor ones, will come as near as possible to starving before they will apply for anything."
Mrs. Wishart remarked that Shampuashuh was altogether unlike all other places she ever had heard of.
"Things at Shampuashuh are as they ought to be," Mr. Dillwyn said.
"Now, Mr. Dillwyn," cried Madge, "I will forgive you for taking my queen, if you will answer a question for me. What is 'art criticism'?"
"Why, Madge, you know!" said Lois from her sofa corner.
"I do not admire ignorance so much as to pretend to it," Madge rejoined. "What is art criticism, Mr. Dillwyn?"
"What is art?"
"That is what I do not know!" said Madge, laughing. "I understand criticism. It is the art that bothers me. I only know that it is something as far from nature as possible."
"O Madge, Madge!" said Lois again; and Mr. Dillwyn laughed a little.
"On the contrary, Miss Madge. Your learning must be unlearnt. Art is really so near to nature—Check!—that it consists in giving again the facts and effects of nature in human language."
"Human language? That is, letters and words?"
"Those are the symbols of one language."
"What other is there?"
"Music—painting—architecture—— I am afraid, Miss Madge, that is check-mate?"
"You said you had seen and heard something, Mr. Dillwyn," Mrs. Wishart now began. "Do tell us what. I have neither seen nor heard anything in an age."
Mr. Dillwyn was setting the chessmen again.
"What I saw," he said, "was a silk necktie—or scarf—such as we wear.What I heard, was the price paid for making it."
"Was there anything remarkable about the scarf?"
"Nothing whatever; except the aforesaid price."
"Whatwasthe price paid for making it?"
"Two cents."
"Who told you?"
"A friend of mine, who took me in on purpose that I might see and hear, what I have reported."
"Two cents, did you say? But that's no price!"
"So I thought."
"How many could a woman make in a day, Madge, of those silk scarfs?"
"I don't know—I suppose, a dozen."
"A dozen, I was told, is a fair day's work," Mr. Dillwyn said. "They do more, but it is by working on into the night."
"Good patience! Twenty-five cents for a hard day's work!" said Mrs. Wishart. "A dollar and a half a week! Where is bread to come from, to keep them alive to do it?"
"Better die at once, I should say," echoed Madge.
"Many a one would be glad of that alternative, I doubt not," Mr. Dillwyn went on. "But there is perhaps an old mother to be taken care of, or a child or two to feed and bring up."
"Don't talk about it!" said Mrs. Wishart. "It makes me feel blue."
"I must risk that. I want you to think about it. Where is help to come from? These are the people I was thinking of, when I asked you what was to be done with our poor."
"I don't know why you ask me.Ican do nothing. It is not my business."
"Will it do to assume that as quite certain?"
"Why yes. What can I do with a set of master tailors?"
"You can cry down the cheap shops; and say why."
"Are the dear shops any better?"
Mr. Dillwyn laughed. "Presumably! But talking—even your talking—will not do all. I want you to think about it."
"I don't want to think about it," answered the lady. "It's beyondme. Poverty is people's own fault. Industrious and honest people can always get along."
"If sickness does not set in, or some father, or husband, or son does not take to bad ways."
"How can I help all that?" asked the lady somewhat pettishly. "I never knew you were in the benevolent and reformatory line before, Mr. Dillwyn. What has put all this in your head?"
"Those scarfs, for one thing. Another thing was a visit I had lately occasion to make. It was near midday. I found a room as bare as a room could be, of all that we call comfort; in the floor a small pine table set with three plates, bread, cold herrings, and cheese. That was the dinner for a little boy, whom I found setting the table, and his father and mother. The parents work in a factory hard by, from early to late; they have had sickness in the family this autumn, and are too poor to afford a fire to eat their dinner by, or to make it warm, so the other child, a little girl, has been sent away for the winter. It was frostily cold the day I was there. The boy goes to school in the afternoon, and comes home in time to light up a fire for his father and mother to warm themselves by at evening. And the mother has all her housework to do after she comes home."
"That's better than the other case," said Mrs. Wishart.
"But what could be done, Mr. Dillwyn?" said Lois from her corner. "It seems as if something was wrong. But how could it be mended?"