She sprang up, motioning with the broom, signalling the children to be still, and turned to see the doctor's wife leaning over the fence, and beckoning to her.
"What on earth is the matter?" asked that lady. "I've been watching you from my porch—"
She broke off, falling silent, at an energetic, imperative gesture from Sidney, and she moved along down the line of the fence, farther away from the garden, in response to Sidney's mysterious signals.
"Hush. Speak low," said Sidney, bending over the fence and speaking herself in a hoarse whisper, "Doris has got abeau!"
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Alexander under her breath, but not as yet much enlightened as to the cause of the extraordinary manœuvres which she had witnessed. "And who is it?"
"Old lady Gordon's grandson," said Sidney, trying vainly to keep the triumphant note out of her voice.
The doctor's wife involuntary pursed up her mouth; had she been a man, she certainly would have whistled. "Indeed!" was all she found to say.
"And whynot?" Sidney flashed out, replying to the look rather than to the word. "Whynot—I ask you, JaneAlexander? I have never gone around bragging about Doris's pretty looks and ladylike ways, which goodness knows she owes to the Lord and to Miss Judy, not to me; but if there's another girl in this whole Pennyroyal Region that can hold a candle to her—"
"Mercy sakes alive," gasped the doctor's wife. "What's the use of your going on like that to me, Sidney? You know as well as I do what the doctor and I have always thought of Doris."
But Sidney, aroused as only a slight—whether real or supposed—to a favorite child can arouse the most calmly philosophical mother, might have said a good deal more in support of Doris's smartness and sweet disposition—these and other things were in truth on the very tip of her tongue, when, fortunately for the doctor's wife, a sudden noise drew their attention toward the roof of the house. Uncle Watty had at last succeeded, after much difficulty and several unheard shouts, in getting his head out of the garret window close to the chimney, and, now catching sight of Sidney, he indignantly demanded to know why he could not open his door, and peremptorily ordered her to come at once and let him out. She went flying over nearer to the window and in a low-toned diplomatic parley persuaded him to wait a few minutes, finally even inducing him to take in his head until she could come. It was only a momentary interruption, but it gave Mrs. Alexander time to think, and, when Sidney returned to the fence, still holding herself with cold, resentful dignity, the doctor's wife was ready with a softening proposition inviting Kate and Billy to go home with her to help gather cherries on the shares.
"Very well," said Sidney, shortly. She was not by any means entirely placated, but she never rejected a good bargain merely on account of some private feeling. "There's no need, though, for them to go out through the front gate. They can just as well get through this hole in the fence. It's big enough if they squeeze tight," she added, still on guard.
She gave the children an assistant shove which carried them through the narrow space of the broken board, hushing them to continued silence by making a hissing sound through her teeth.
"There!" she exclaimed, under her breath, when the two trembling, bewildered culprits stood beside the doctor's wife in the big road, casting curious glances from their mother to the house. "Now, Jane, see that they whistle every minute of the time they are in the cherry tree; or I won't have a cherry and you won't have many, and these children will be drawn into double bow-knots. Mind now—don't let 'em stop whistling for a single minute."
Mrs. Alexander nodded understandingly as she took the children by the hand to lead them away; nevertheless, Sidney thought it best to make sure by giving the broom a last threatening flourish. Then she returned to her post on the tub, facing the house, however, during the rest of the hour through which she faithfully fulfilled sentinel duty.
The children thus flown like birds out of a cage, Sidney managed to get Uncle Watty down the stairs and off to his seat before the store door, all unobserved by the young couple, who were so absorbed in the bleeding-heart, so enchanted under the virgin's-bower, so enthralled by the heartsease. When at last Lynn Gordon himself was gone, Doris found her mother quietly at work in the kitchen, and saw no trace of the heroic measures which she had resorted to. Doris asked timidly why she had not come in while the visitor was there, feeling instinctively that this was what Miss Judy would have done. But Sidney answered quite promptly and conclusively that she was too busy to waste her time thinking of strange young men, so that Doris was more than ever abashed, and turned silently back to her sewing and to her thoughts.
Sidney now directed her own attention to the bumblebees. She went to the front gate and called Tom Watson's black boy, her strong, clear, fearless voice ringing out suddenly on the morning stillness. She had already hired him to come by promising to mend his Sunday jacket; if he would help her get rid of the bumblebees' nest. He accordingly appeared at once in answer to her call, which reached him in his master's stable, and he carried his fishing-rod in his hand, this also being a part of the bargain. He handed Sidney the rod, and taking from her a piece of rope, which she held in readiness, he went up the rough logs at the corner of the house, and ran over the roof as swiftly and as surely as any simian ancestors could have scampered through the green heights of the tropical forests. He let the rope down within Sidney's reach. She, meantime, had fetched a jug of boiling water from the kitchen, and when she had tied this uncorked vessel to the end of the rope, he drew it up again till the jug came close under the eaves and immediately below the dangerous bunch of gray gauze; whereupon he made the rope fast to one of the curling boards of the mossy roof, all according to Sidney's direction. This done, he sped over the roof again on his hands and knees and hastened down the wall for safety, knowing what was to come. Sidney barely gave him time to drop from the corner logs to the ground, and then, grasping the fishing-pole firmly in her strong hands, she gave the edge of the roof a sharp, quick blow. The bumblebees flew out in an angry cloud, but Sidney, the dauntless, stood at her post. She struck the roof another sharp, quick blow—and another, tap-tap-tap, like some gigantic and most industrious flicker. And forthwith the bumblebees began to go zip-zip-zip—straight into the steaming mouth of the crater. It was a short shrift, and, after it, a simple matter to punch down the nest itself with the fishing pole when the last bumblebee was drowned. That ended Sidney's interest in the programme, but the negro boy was still curious, so that he took the jug into the middle of the big road to pour out its contents, and he was much gratified, with the cruelty of his age and sex, to find something like a quart of boiled bumblebees.
Sidney, free now from pressing domestic affairs, bustled into the room where Doris sat undisturbed, singing softly over her sewing.
"I must go by Tom Watson's the first thing," Sidney said, putting on her bonnet, settling her ball of yarn under her left arm, and beginning to knit. "Anne seems to be at the end of her row, poor soul. I don't believe that Tom notices anybody's coming or going. I'm sure he doesn't mine. He just sits there with his awful eyes wandering up and down the big road. But if it comforts Anne the least bit to have me go, I'm perfectly willing to keep on trying. Anyway, I'll look in there a moment before starting out on my regular round."
"I hope you can get home early," said Doris, shyly. "Mr. Gordon spoke of coming again to-day, in the cool of the evening, to look at the moonflowers."
Sidney stopped suddenly in the middle of the floor, just as she had done earlier in the morning, and looked at Doris without making an immediate reply. She took off her bonnet and shook her hair down, twisting it up again with extreme tightness.
"Well! I reckon he, or anybody else, can look at the moonflowers just the same whether I'm here or not," she said, dryly, settling the huge horn comb with emphasis. Putting on her bonnet, she began to make her knitting-needles fly, as she moved toward the door.
"Please, ma'am," pleaded Doris, bashfully. She was smiling, yet quite in earnest, in her request.
"I'll be here in plenty of time," replied Sidney, diplomatically.
She went straight across to the doctor's house, and, calling its mistress to the gate, asked in a low voice if she would be so neighborly as to keep Billy and Kate until bedtime, or until she herself came by for them. Mrs. Alexander was surprised; she had never before known Sidney to ask, or even to accept, any help in the care of her children. She had always been scrupulously careful to avoid troubling any one with them. For this reason the doctor's wife agreed readily enough to keep Kate and Billy all night, if so doing would oblige Sidney in the slightest. She would have said the same at any time, but she was especially glad to get such an early opportunity to make up the misunderstanding of an hour or two before. So far as she knew, Sidney never had actually fallen out with any one; but Mrs. Alexander had nevertheless no wish to risk such a calamity, knowing full well how dull life in Oldfield would be without a daily chat with Sidney. And then, above all, she really liked and admired and respected her. So that, altogether, she was quite warm and even cordial in her willingness to keep Kate and Billy. She told Sidney that the doctor was away on one of his long trips, and that it would be company to have the children; the obligation would be wholly on her side.
Sidney then went on down the big road well content, her knitting-needles flying faster and faster, as they always were under any unusual stress of thought. She nodded to Anne Watson, calling out as she hurried by, that she would come back to see Tom as soon as she could go to the store to speak to Uncle Watty. She found the old man sitting in his accustomed place on the goods-box at the shady side of the store door. She paused close beside him, fanning herself with her bonnet, after she had taken it off to let down and twist up her hair. For she knew very well that all the tact and art at her command would be needed to persuade Uncle Watty not to come home to supper, and to stay at the store—open and shut—till bedtime. Uncle Watty was never the one to give up his own wishes, if he could help it, or to sacrifice his supper without a struggle.
"But you can have a real good, comfortable supper right here," urged Sidney, lowering her voice, so that Mr. Pettus and his one customer might not hear. "You're mighty fond of cheese and crackers. I'll see that you have as much of both as you can eat." She hesitated, and then, seeing that she was to be pushed to the limit of her resources, and knowing from long experience that Uncle Watty would exact the full pound of flesh, she added; "And I'll tell Mr. Pettus to give you a glass of apple toddy, too, real strong and piping hot!"
"Till the court-house clock strikes nine, then, and not a minute later," growled Uncle Watty.
Sidney was quite satisfied. She was used to getting what she wanted under difficulties. It always made her happy to succeed at all, and it never made her bitter to fail, even after much trying—this real village philosopher. How invincible she was that June day! How her knitting-needles flashed in the sunlight, flying ever faster and faster! And yet, full as her thoughts were of her own affairs, she did not forget or neglect Tom Watson. Indeed, not one of the day's regular engagements was forgotten or slighted or over-looked. She talked also as usual about almost everything under the shining sun; but her thoughts were always of the moonflowers and of Doris and of old lady Gordon's grandson.
At sundown she went to take supper with Miss Pettus, an agreement to that effect having been entered into upon the day of the truce. But she said as soon as she entered the house, that she must leave immediately after supper, as it was absolutely necessary for her to see Miss Judy before going to bed that night. Miss Pettus, whose curiosity was excessive, did not ask what she must see Miss Judy about. No one ever asked Sidney questions about her own private affairs, freely as everybody always questioned her about public matters. This may perhaps have been one of the secrets of her memorable success. Miss Pettus was merely a little miffed to see how absent-minded Sidney was. What was the use of having cream muffins when Sidney hardly noticed what she was eating! Then when Sidney asked to be allowed to leave the basket—which had been well filled for the children and Uncle Watty—till she came for it the next morning, this was such an unheard-of request that Miss Pettus's curiosity could hardly be held in leash; yet Sidney went her way without saying a word in explanation.
Dusk was already falling, and the gathering clouds in the west hastened the gloaming. Sidney passed her own house, taking care to walk on the other side of the big road, but she could make out Doris's slim white figure moving among the flowers, and she also recognized the tall, dark form near by, notwithstanding the dim light. The murmur of the gay young voices, too, musically melted into the scented stillness. Sidney did not know that she was smiling as she listened, and went on wondering what they were talking about. And she did not ask herself why she was glad that the honeysuckle smelt so sweet that night, and that so many of the great white moths were fluttering among the moonflowers.
She found Miss Judy sitting in the passage with Miss Sophia, as they were always to be found at that time on a warm evening. They were talking to each other as usual; that is to say, Miss Judy was talking of Becky, and Miss Sophia was listening, with the never-flagging interest and complete content which they ever found in one another's conversation and society. Nevertheless, they were heartily pleased to greet Sidney, and Miss Judy was particularly gratified by her coming in just at that moment. The little lady had seen Lynn Gordon passing up the big road early in the morning, and—quite in a quiver—had asked Miss Sophia if she thought he was on the way to call on Doris. Of course, she did not dream of asking Sidney anything about it, but she knew that she would tell her without being asked, in the event that he had gone to see Doris. And Sidney did tell her at once, since the telling was precisely what she had come for—that, and a consultation concerning such future steps as Miss Judy might think must needs be taken. Miss Judy hung upon every prosaic word, coloring it with her own romantic fancy, blushing rosily in the sheltering dimness of the passage, glowing with the new warmth which was fast gathering around her gentle heart. It was a bit of a disappointment that Sidney did not say what the young gentleman himself had said, or what he did or how he looked while with the dear, dear child. Miss Judy almost asked, she wanted so much to know everything there was to tell. It did not occur to her that Sidney had not been present. It did not occur to Sidney that she could have been—much less that she should have been. So utterly unlike were these two good, honest women, who were giving their whole minds to the happiness and welfare of the girl whom they both loved with their whole hearts. Most of all Miss Judy was longing to know whether Lynn had said anything of making another call. She could tell a good deal from that, she thought guiltily, feeling herself a very Machiavelli. Yet she hesitated to ask. It might possibly seem a little indelicate, a little inconsiderate of Doris, in case the young gentleman had not named another time.
"I don't think it will rain before morning," she said, observing Sidney's glance at the clouds. "Young Mr. Gordon does seem real friendly," she went on tentatively. "Perhaps he will come again—sometime."
"He's there now—twice to-day!" said Sidney, triumphantly. With the training of her profession she had awaited the most impressive moment for this crowning announcement.
Miss Judy was stunned; there was a tremor of alarm in her voice when she spoke, after a momentary silence of frightened bewilderment. "Do you mean to say, Sidney, that Mr. Gordon is at your house—with Doris now—to-night?"
Sidney nodded coolly, trying not to show the complacency which she could not help feeling. "Yes. I saw him in the garden with Doris as I came down the big road—on the other side."
Miss Judy tried to think for a space. Then she said, delicately but uneasily, "Are you quite sure that Uncle Watty and the children will—will know how to do the honors?"
"Well, they can't do any harm! I've taken care that they couldn't. They're not there—not a blessed one of 'em! The children are over at the doctor's. Uncle Watty is down at the store, and he'll stay there, too, till bedtime—open or shut!"
As Sidney thus told what she had done, she tossed her yellow head, giving free rein to what she honestly felt to be just pride.
Miss Judy sprang up with a smothered scream. "SidneyWendall!Doyou mean to tell me that you have left Doris—that poor, poor child—to receive a perfect stranger entirely alone? Oh—oh—we must run to her. What will he think now? The other was bad enough, but this can never be made right! Run!"
She sank back in the chair, pressing her hand to her heart, which was fluttering, as it always fluttered under agitation, like some winged thing trying to escape, as perhaps it was.
"You go—don't wait for me," she gasped. "I'll—explain and—and—beg your pardon—when I get my breath. Go—go—go!"
Sidney had risen in blank amazement, which swiftly changed to high dudgeon under Miss Judy's incoherent reproaches. From the agitated outburst to the breathless close she had not the vaguest comprehension of the cause of Miss Judy's excitement and distress. But she saw that they were serious, and her anger vanished forthwith. She had long since fallen into the habit of doing whatever Miss Judy wished, even when she could not understand; no matter whether it agreed with her own views or not, and wholly regardless of her own stalwart opinion of that little lady's fastidious ideas, which she thought of as Miss Judy's "pernickety notions." In anything and everything concerning Doris, especially, Sidney always gave way at once without an instant's demur, and she did so now, as soon as she had sufficiently recovered from her amazement to comprehend what it was that Miss Judy wished her to do. Her good humor, too, came back quickly; it was never absent long, and she cheerfully started toward home without more urging. She went at once, stepping out of Miss Judy's sight with long, swinging strides, but soon slacking her pace, unconsciously smiling now as she sauntered. A woman who has been married is apt to smile at an unmarried woman's views of love and courtship and kindred matters. Sidney stood ready to defer to Miss Judy in most things, humbly conscious of her own ignorance and honestly willing at all times to confess it. When, however, it came to men-folks—laughing silently, Sidney loitered on up the big road, knitting much faster than she walked, for her needles flew just as swiftly and surely in the darkness as in the light.
Miss Judy shed a few gentle tears in the gloom of the passage. Her first distinct feeling was acute distress for the child of her heart. Then it was a cruel personal disappointment to have her plans for Doris's social advancement so shockingly upset. But presently Miss Judy's cheerful spirits began to rally; the tea might perhaps still place Doris properly before old lady Gordon's grandson, but it would be much harder now, owing to Sidney's distressing thoughtlessness.
"Yet she is not so much to blame, after all, poor thing," said Miss Judy, wiping her eyes, as her heart began to beat more naturally. "Sidney was not brought up as we were; we are bound in fairness to consider that, sister Sophia," pleaded Miss Judy, as if fearing that Miss Sophia might be too hard on Sidney.
Miss Sophia straightened up and opened her eyes, surprised to find Sidney gone; but she responded as usual with firm promptness. Indeed, when she had thus responded several times, more and more decidedly, as Miss Judy went on arguing with herself and thinking that she was discussing the situation with Miss Sophia, the former came gradually to feel that all would yet be well with Doris—as Miss Sophia believed and said.
The storm-clouds piled higher and blacker, and the lightning flashes lit them now and then; but Miss Judy, looking out the open door of the passage, said that she thought the cloud-bank lay too far south for them to get a shower, that it had drifted too far away from the rain quarter. The darkness deepened fast, however. Sudden gusts of wind stirred the dust of the big road, and set little columns of it whirling along the darkening highway; but there was still nothing to disturb the little sisters, sitting peacefully, contented, close together in their low rocking-chairs. Miss Judy was now chirruping quite like herself, and Miss Sophia listening and nodding alternately in happy content. Nearly asleep, she did not hear the soft rustle of Miss Judy's bombazine skirt as it slipped off in the darkness.
"You don't mind, do you, sister Sophia?" said Miss Judy, feeling, nevertheless, bound to apologize in respect for her sister. "It's too dark for any one passing to see. And it does make the back breadths so shiny to sit on them, no matter how lightly you try to sit down," she added, as if she could sit any other way, dear little atom of humanity!
Nine o'clock was their bedtime, winter and summer, although it must be said that Miss Sophia was always perfectly willing to go to bed earlier. That night they arose, as they always did, on the solemn, lonesome stroke of the court-house clock, and turned up their little rocking-chairs side by side, with the seats to the wall, tilting them so that the cat could not make a bed of the patchwork cushions, and thus be tempted from her plain duty of attending to the mice in the garret and the rats in the kitchen. The chairs being thus settled, as if for the saying of their prayers all night, Miss Judy bent down, and, taking both hands, rolled the cannon-ball out of the hollow which it had worn in the daytime, and sent it rumbling into the hollow which it had worn in the night-time. Shutting the door, she then dropped the wooden bar across it as a mere matter of routine propriety, and, after this was done, the little sisters began to undress with their backs to one another. When they were at last quite ready to retire, when Miss Sophia was in bed and Miss Judy was on the point of ascending by means of the chair, before blowing out the candle, there was some polite discussion and a good deal of hesitation whether or not to close the window at the foot of the bed. The ultimate decision was to leave it open, Miss Judy thinking this best on account of the night's being so warm, and the clouds having drifted so far round that there appeared little likelihood of rain before morning; and Miss Sophia's thinking that she thought as Miss Judy did, in this as in everything else. The window was accordingly left open, and this final question being settled, the little sisters laid themselves down side by side, and bade one another a formal good night, and wished one another pleasant dreams, and were soon sleeping the sleep of gentle innocence and of sweet peace with the whole world.
But while they slept it happened unluckily that the clouds drifted back to the rain quarter. An ominous murmur arose louder and louder, coming nearer and nearer; the branches of the old elm suddenly swept the mossy old roof, and about midnight the tempest broke in its utmost fury. At the same instant two little nightcaps with wide ruffles lifted themselves from the pillows, unseen and unheard by each other in the darkness of the night and the crash of the storm. Both the little sisters were terrified. They were always very much afraid of a storm, and this one was terrifying indeed. But love gives courage to the most timid. And they were very, very tender of one another, these two gentle, little old sisters. Miss Judy thought of Miss Sophia's rheumatism, with the wind furiously beating the rain clear across the room, almost to the very bed. Miss Sophia thought of Miss Judy's heart trouble, which she had had a touch of that very night, and she dreaded, for her sister's sake, lest the lightning begin to flash, as the thunder boomed nearer and louder. But the loving are the daring, and each forgot her own terror in fear for the other. At precisely the same moment the two little old sisters began to get up and to leave their opposite sides of the high bed. Miss Judy, usually much quicker of movement than Miss Sophia, now moved so slowly in order not to disturb her, that she was longer than ever before in reaching the floor by way of the chair. Miss Sophia, on the other hand, hurried down the dwarf staircase backward, like a fleeing crab, fairly driven by alarm and her loving concern for Miss Judy. So that—still utterly unaware of one another's being awake, much less astir, such was the uproar of the blast and the downpour of the rain—they crept tremblingly round the opposite corners at the foot of the bed, in the blackness of the room, with tightly shut eyes, with outstretched arms guarding their faces, and thus ran into violent collision.
Neither Miss Judy nor Miss Sophia could ever recall very clearly what happened after that. The neighbors remembered only hearing, above the tumult of the tempest, blood-curdling screams and shrieks of fire, and murder, and theft, in tones which none of them recognized. The Oldfield people, men, women, and children, alarmed and panic-stricken, sprang from their beds, and rushed to the rescue through the storm and darkness in their nightclothes. The doctor alone was dressed, as he had not gone to bed, having just got home from the country. It was he—thus already afoot—who led all the rest, catching up his lantern, which was still lighted, and clubbing his umbrella for a weapon as he ran, as much alarmed as any one of all those who were rushing to the rescue. A single kick from his great boot shattered the wooden bar and burst open the front door. The outcry continuing, led him and those who followed close upon his heels to the bedchamber. When he held up the lantern, there stood the little sisters, locked together in a death-grip and quite out of their senses with fright. Their gentle little hands, which had never touched one another nor any living creature save with kindness, were fiercely clutched in each other's gray hair, hooked like bird-claws through the shreds of their tattered nightcaps; their mild eyes, which had seen only love in all their tranquil lives, were still closed against the first horrors which they had ever encountered; their soft voices, which had never before been harsher than the cooing of doves, now shrilled by wordless terror, still pierced the roar of the tempest with ceaseless shrieking. Thus it was that all the horrified neighbors found them. The doctor never knew whether he was laughing or crying when he picked them both up—one on each arm—and put them to bed as though they had been his own babies.
Dear little Miss Judy! Poor little Miss Sophia! That night comes back to most of us with a smile that is tenderly close to tears.
But there never was any open smiling over the events of that memorable night. Miss Judy herself regarded what had happened far too gravely to allow of its seeming trivial or amusing to any one else. Indeed, she so plainly shrank from all mention of it that it was rarely spoken of at all. Everybody saw how pale she turned whenever it was mentioned, and how she pressed her little hand to her heart. So that, as no one ever knowingly gave the little lady pain, the memory soon dropped into kind oblivion.
The only reminder of it was the more frequent pressure of Miss Judy's hand to her heart, which had always been a weak, soft, fluttering little thing, and a new paleness of her sweet face which merely made its delicate blushes more lovely. The shock had been very great, there could be no doubt of that, and there was not much likelihood of her forgetting it; but it was ever Miss Judy's way to put painful things behind her as quickly as possible, and to turn her face toward sweetness and peace as naturally as a flower turns toward the sunlight.
And she really was very happy during those first days following the fright. Her happiness always came at second hand, as perhaps the purest happiness always comes. She was happy because Doris was happy—young, beautiful, joyous, sparkling with health and spirits. Seeing this, Miss Judy found nothing lacking in her own life. And then she was so delightfully busy in building air-castles. She was, to be sure, nearly always busy in doing this, but she seemed now to have a firmer foundation to build upon than usually came within her reach. Doris and Lynn met at her house on these bright summer days, almost every day, and sometimes twice a day. Doris came at first oftener than she had ever come before, and stayed longer, on account of her own and her mother's anxiety about the effect of the shock upon Miss Judy's health. They knew how frail was the small tenement housing Miss Judy's quenchless spirit. They almost held their breath for days after that unmentionable night. The entire community, indeed, was alarmed; even old lady Gordon thought it worth while to send her grandson to see how Miss Judy was, and to warn him against saying why he came lest he frighten her. Finding Doris with Miss Judy, the young man naturally went again on the next day—and the next and the next—without being sent. Thus gradually it came about in the natural order of events that Doris and Lynn met daily in Miss Judy's house; that she saw them constantly together, and that her greatest, loveliest air-castle thus grew apace. Every day added to its height and its beauty, till its crystal minarets, towering through rainbow clouds, touched at last the sapphire key-stone of the arching heavens.
Doris and Lynn knew nothing of all this. They were merely drifting—as youth usually drifts—with the sweet summertide. In those glowing, fragrant days the season was at its greenest and sweetest. The crystalline freshness of spring still lingered in the dustless air, which was just beginning to gather the full fervor of the summer sunshine. Nature now was at her busiest, her kindest, and her cruelest—glad, blossoming, bewildering, alluring—wreathing her single relentless purpose with gayest flowers and most intoxicating perfume. The vivid beauty of the full leafage, gold-flecked by the glorious flood of sunlight, was not yet dimmed to the browning of a leaf's tip; every emerald blade of grass held its brimming measure of sap; the rank grass under foot, the thick foliage overhead, the earth and the air alike, teemed with life and pulsated with wings. And every living thing, seen or unseen, high or low, was being swept onward by the same resistless power toward the common altar. The lacelike white of the flowering elder covered the whole earth with a delicate bridal veil. Here, there, everywhere, floated the snowy foam of myriad blossoms—the crest of creation's tidal wave.
And the young man and the young maid also went the way of all innocent healthy young creatures in ripening summer, thinking little more of the titanic forces moving the world, than the birds and the bees and the butterflies. Lynn was wiser and older than Doris; yet he too was still young, and still far from any real maturity of wisdom. His knowledge of life was such as may be gained by a student who goes through a great university with a definite ambition steadily before him; and who comes from it into the world with a clear, clean, and upright conception of what a man who earnestly means to hold a high place in it should be and should do. But he was only a boy grown tall after all, and he had never seen so beautiful a girl as Doris was, or any one of such indefinable charm or of such ineffable grace.
He looked down at her as she walked by his side one day, going up the big road. They took daily walks together now without objection from any source. Only dear little Miss Judy, with her funny notions of chaperonage—which nobody understood any more than many other of the little lady's dainty whims, and which everybody indulged and quietly smiled at, as at many another of her odd, sweet ways—would ever have thought of objecting. It was, indeed, an old, well-established, and highly respected custom of the country for young men and young maids to walk alone together. Seeing them do this, the Oldfield people merely smiled kindly, as kind people do at young lovers anywhere—and sometimes nodded at one another, thus silently saying that all was well, that this was just as it should be. The very fact of these daily walks alone together made everything perfectly open and clear. Even Miss Judy's rigid scruples on the score of propriety gradually relaxed, as Doris and Lynn went so openly and frankly from her side to stroll toward the graveyard, day after day.
From time immemorial the graveyard had been the favorite trysting-place of Oldfield lovers. Perhaps the graveyard of every far-off old village always is the lovers' chosen resort. It is certainly nearly always the most beautiful and the most retired spot, yet it is also usually close by, for in death, as in life, humanity holds closer together in the country than in town, and the dead are not laid so far from the living. And then, to the young everywhere, death itself always seems so distant that its earthly habitations have no real terrors. No sadness ever comes to happy youth from the mere nearness to the Eternal Silence; nothing of the Great Mystery, vast as the universe and inscrutable as life, ever sounds for the happy young with the sighing of the wind over the long, long, green, green grass growing only over country graves, the saddening sound which older and less happy ears always hear. None of that unutterable feeling of the pain of living, and the peace of dying, ever wrings the hearts of happy lovers at the moan of the gentlest breeze through the graveyard cedars, where it seems to those who are older and sadder to moan as it never does elsewhere.
Certainly, neither of the two young people, sitting that day on the rustic benches under the tallest cedar, either heard or thought of any of these sad things. Lynn heard mainly the music of the mating birds, and thought mostly of the exquisite curve of the fair cheek almost touching his arm. It was so satiny in its smoothness, so velvety in its softness, and so delicately tinted with the faint, yet warm, glow of rich, rare red, which gleams out of the deep heart of a golden tea-rose. And the glory of her wonderful hair! He felt, as he looked down upon her radiant head, so close to his shoulder, that he had never realized how wonderful its dazzling crown was, until he saw it now with the wondrous light of the sunset re-gilding its fine gold, and with the south wind ruffling its loveliness into more bewitching disorder. As he gazed, a sudden gust leaped over the far green hilltops and lifted the wide brim of her white hat, thus revealing the full beauty of her face.
Lynn saw it, with a sharp indrawing of his breath. A yearning so keen, so deep and tender, as to cross the narrow border between pleasure and pain, rushed into the young man's heart. It has been said what an ardent lover of beauty he was. The feeling which swept over him now was the yearning that every true lover of the beautiful feels at the sight of great beauty: the hopeless desire to hold it forever unchanged—be it the delicate flush on an exquisite cheek, which must go as quickly as it comes, the freshness of a perfect flower which must fade with the rising of the sun, or the miracle of the dawn which must soon vanish before the noontide glare. Doris seemed to him Beauty's very self, to be worshipped with all his beauty-worshipping soul, not merely a beautiful girl to be loved with all his human young heart.
She wore that day a dress of faded pink muslin, very thin, very soft, very scant, so that it clung close to her slender, supple form—a poor old dress, so old that no one could remember whose it had been first. The bodice opened daintily at the throat in the pretty old fashion known as "surplice" to the Oldfield people; and on the glimpse of snow which drifted between the modest edges of the opening—where the lily of her fairness lay under the rose of the muslin ruffles, just where the sweet curve of her throat melted into the lovely roundness of her bosom—there nestled a little cross of jet held by a narrow band of black velvet, tied around her neck and whitening its whiteness as jet whitens pearl. Such a poor little ornament! Such a poor old dress! And yet the picture that they made when Doris wore them!
Looking at her, Lynn knew well enough that he had but to loose his firm hold upon himself ever so little, to love her as he might never be able to love another woman. He never had seen, and never expected to see, such beauty as this of Doris's, for the true lover of beauty knows its rarity. And nothing else in the world so appealed to him; no charm of mind, or heart, or spirit, could ever quite make up for the lack of it, notwithstanding that he valued these qualities also, and held them higher than thoughtless youth often holds them. And yet, despite his frank recognition of the truth, he still had no thought of allowing himself to love Doris Wendall. Perhaps, all unsuspected even by himself, the instinct of the Brahmin was in him too; of a certainty, what is bred in the bone is apt to come out in the flesh. But if this were true, if he were influenced by any feeling of caste, he certainly did not suspect it. He was not vain, with the common, harmless vanity of most young men; nor was there in him any unbecoming pride of birth or position. He thought that he was held back solely by his determination to let nothing turn him from his life plans. He was wholly sincere in believing that he was strong enough to stand firm, to keep himself from loving Doris, as he knew he could love her. The thought that she might love him had never crossed his mind. The thought of being able to win her was as far from him as the thought of reaching out his arms to gather a star—so high above all earthly things had his beauty-worship enshrined her.
"I wonder what you are thinking about," he said suddenly, that day, with his eyes still on the curve of her cheek. "Of late I have begun to believe that you don't any longer think Miss Judy's thoughts exclusively," he went on, banteringly, in the freedom which now existed between them. "More than once I have seen unmistakable signs of thoughts of your own, thoughts which, moreover, were not in the least like Miss Judy's."
Doris turned with a dimpling smile, and lifted her wide-open, frank brown eyes to his darker ones. "You must not laugh at dear Miss Judy. I never allow anybody to do that. I can only wish my thoughts were always as good and sweet as hers."
"I haven't made any comparison. I've merely mentioned a difference," Lynn said, laughing teasingly, in the hope that the rare tinge of color might linger longer on her fair cheek.
And yet, in a way, he had been quite in earnest in what he had said. It was a fact that he had marked a great change in Doris, that he had come gradually to see that a simple, sound strength of mind, a sort of wholesome common sense, lay under her gentle purity as solid white rock lies under a limpid brook.
"Well, it is quite true, I suppose, that Miss Judy never thought, in all her life, of what I was thinking of just then, and what I have been thinking of a great deal lately," Doris said, slowly, shyly, as if approaching a difficult subject.
"And what is that? What were you thinking or dreaming of, when I awakened you just now," the young man asked.
"I wasn't dreaming at all. I was wide awake. I was wondering how—" with an effort, after a momentary hesitation, and in a tone so low that he barely heard, "how a girl might earn a living for several persons—for a whole family." And then, after a longer pause, a quick breath, and a sudden deepening of the rare red of her cheek, "So that her mother need not work so hard."
It was the first time that she had spoken to him of this secret wish, so long cherished. She had, indeed, seldom mentioned her mother to him in any manner whatever. The reserve was not in the least because she was ashamed of her—such a feeling was unknown to Doris. She respected her mother and loved her, knowing, as no one else could know, how good a mother she was, how utterly unselfish, how absolutely upright, before the perpetual necessity which drove her to earn the family's bread in the only way that she knew. With her whole heart Doris loved and honored her mother. But, alas! their tastes were so unlike, their thoughts were so different, their whole lives were so far apart. And neither love nor honor nor any other of all the tenderest, noblest feelings of the truest heart, can ever bring together those whom cruel nature has set forever apart. For it is one of the mysteries of the sorrow of living that the deep rivers of many earnest lives are thus set to run side by side, and yet forbidden ever to mingle from the beginning to the end; from the unknown fountain of life to the unsounded sea of death.
Lynn had noticed more than once that a shadow fell over Doris's gentle spirits whenever, on their strolls together, they caught a glimpse of Sidney. It was usually in the distance that they saw her, going up or down the big road, with her long, free, fearless step, her bonnet on the back of her head, and her knitting-needles flying as she walked. For, notwithstanding that Lynn had gone to her house almost daily now for weeks past, she had managed, by hook or by crook,—as she would have expressed it,—to hold to her original intention of keeping out of the way, of giving him a fair field and no favor, as she said to herself. Yet the young man had gathered, nevertheless, although he scarcely knew how, a tolerably correct impression of the compelling personality of Doris's mother. Little by little he had begun, consequently, to perceive the unusual and contending influences which had made this beautiful girl what she was; and the knowledge caused him to wonder what she would become, now that she was beginning to be herself, now that the strong forces of her own character were already in revolt.
He had also divined something of Doris's dislike of her mother's means of earning a living; but he was still far from knowing how strong the feeling was, or that it had grown with her growth, gradually and steadily, until it had taken a great sudden leap—thus coming as close to bitterness as her gentle nature could ever come—soon after she had met himself. Nor had he observed that day, as they climbed the hillside to the graveyard, that Doris had seen her mother far off and that a shadow had fallen at once over the brightness of her innocent talk, through which a soft gayety often shone as color gleams out of the whiteness of the pearl.
"Do you know any girls who work? That is what I was thinking about," she went on timidly, turning her eyes away and looking toward the hills enfolding the valley; the near green hills beyond which she had never been, the far empurpled hills rimming all that she knew of the world.
"Doyou know any working girls?" she repeated. "White girls, I mean, of course. I was wondering—I thought that if so—perhaps you might know what kind of work they do. The kind of work that might be done by a young gentlewoman of good breeding."
It was quaintly charming to hear the last thing that Miss Judy would have thought of, or dreamed of saying, so staidly uttered, in that little lady's own prim manner and in that little lady's own old-fashioned words. Lynn could not help smiling, although there was no doubting Doris's earnestness, and notwithstanding that there was something in her look and tone which touched him.
"I'll have to think," he said, half in jest and half in earnest. "No, on the spur of the moment, I am almost sure that I don't know any working girl who might be described in just those terms. There are doubtless many working girls who are ladies, but they would scarcely be likely to call themselves by such an antiquated name. They wouldn't even know themselves by so antiquated a description."
She did not smile; silently, gravely, she turned her dark eyes on his face; her own face was lovelier than ever in its wistfulness, and her dark eyes softer than ever in their unconscious appeal.
"But I am in earnest," she persisted. "Have you ever known any—any girl—like me—who worked?"
His eyes were grave too, now, and they were looking straight down into hers. "I have known very few girls of any kind," he said gently. "And I have never known one—in the least like you."
A rosy light, bright as the reflection of the sunset's glow, flashed over her face and beamed from her eyes. She did not know why she suddenly felt so happy. She bent down in sweet confusion and gathered a handful of the long, green grass, and began braiding the emerald blades with trembling fingers. Lynn watched her hands in the false security of his own strength, heedless of the spell which they were innocently weaving. He followed every movement of the little white fingers, so delicately tapering and so exquisitely tipped with rose and pearl; and he saw—as he saw all beauty—the rosy velvet of the soft little palms, and then his greedy gaze roved further and fed upon the perfection of the small feet which neither the poor little slippers nor the long grass could hide. The intensity of his gaze unconsciously brought a sort of nervous flutter into the little hands; the girl felt it, although she was not thinking of it, and her hands dropped suddenly on her lap. Her gaze, uplifted, met his again, helplessly entreating, almost with the look of a frightened child groping its way through the dark.
"But there must be girls who work. I must find out what they do. I must learn how to do it too—whatever it is. Won't you help me?"
Her lips were quivering and her eyes were full of tears.
"My dear child! Dear, dear Doris! How can I help you? You to enter the arena to struggle with brutal gladiators for the spoils which belong to the strongest and the fiercest? Helpyouto do this—you soft, lovely, tender little thing!"
He did not know that love thrilled in every tone of his voice, that passion barbed his words, winging them straight home to the girl's awakened heart. He did not know that—for her—love all at once shone out of his eyes, dazzlingly, blindingly, as a great wide door opens suddenly upon a chilly twilight, revealing all the alluring warmth, all the glowing flame of the home firelight within.
"Dear little one," he went on, blindly, with infinite tenderness, "the only work appointed for one like you is to make a paradise out of a home. A woman like you was created to be carried over life's rough places in a good man's strong arms. There is only one place in the world for you. Only one—only the warm, sweet corner of the household fire, safe behind the heads of children."
Doris was leaning toward him with her transparent face upturned, and he saw a sudden tender light tremble over its sweetness as dawning sunbeams run over rippling water, and—startled, fascinated, awed—he watched its deepening wonder, its growing radiance, its wondrous illumination, as the white curtain fell away from the lighted shrine of a spotless soul. There now followed an instant's tense waiting, with the girl's rose-red lips apart and a-quiver; with the starry darkness of her eyes softly aglow, as the evening star glows through the warm twilight; with her exquisite face sensitively alight, as the spring's tender new leaves stir, and dimple, and shimmer under a sudden shower of golden sunlight,—and then swiftly a shadow fell, as a wind-swept cloud covers the sun, sweeping all the quivering sunbeams out of sight.
Unexpectedly as a swallow darts downward, Doris bent to gather up the forgotten braid of long green grass. Lifting it with a queer little laugh, she held it out to him with a movement which was almost mocking and wholly unlike her gentle self. Her dark eyes, grown suddenly very bright, seemed actually to be laughing at him.
"Is this the kind of braids that the mermaids wear hanging down their backs?" she said, lightly. "No, I remember that their locks of seaweed flow loose, but I am sure that they are no greener than this."
He took the braid and stared at it unseeingly, as if it had been in truth some such marvel as a mermaid's hair. He did not see that she hardly knew what she was saying. In a crisis such as this it is nearly always the woman who first recovers herself, no matter how young and innocent she may be, nor how wise the man in the ways of the world. And Lynn Gordon was young, too, and far from being wise—almost as far as Doris Wendall was. He knew little of women; he had not had experience to teach him the subtlety of the simplest feminine creature; he had forgotten for the moment that even the dove is artful enough to lure danger away from her love secret.
He himself was agitated, confused, perplexed, and, most distinctly and painfully of all, he was wounded by a vague sense of injury—really hurt by a feeling that Doris had trifled with him, that she had not met his sincerity with the earnestness which he felt that he had a right to expect. He had spoken from his very heart; he had meant every word that he had said,—meant it as tenderly and as truly as the fondest, most faithful of elder brothers could speak to the most well-beloved of sisters. And yet Doris had turned from him carelessly, almost floutingly, with this light, meaningless talk about the mermaid's hair. In offended, wounded silence he gave the braided grass again into her hand, and she took it laughingly, and looked at it absently for a moment,—at this long, long, green, green grass springing from human dust,—and then she tossed it into the air so that the wind caught it, bore it a little way, and, tiring, softly laid it down on a tombstone, thus giving back its own to the dead.
Doris stood up, and the breeze bent the faded muslin about her slender young body in longer and more enchanting curves. She pointed, still smiling, to the purple clouds now pinnacling the west, and said that it was time to be going homeward. As they went down the grassy path which wound around the hillside, she talked quietly of indifferent things, much as she always did, somewhat less at random, perhaps, yet with all the accustomed gentleness and kindness and brightness and sweetness.
So that, although Lynn had little to say in response, his composure came back and his feeling of injury went away. By the time they had reached the silver poplars, dulled under the falling dusk, the chill had entirely passed, and happiness again warmed his honest heart. For such is the foolishness of love that knoweth not itself. For such a dull fellow is this giant Ambition, who must ever be vanquished by Love, the boy.
The fluttering of Miss Judy's heart still kept her from fixing a day for the tea-party, anxious as she was to do so. Certain small domestic irregularities also interfered with her plan. For some time past she had been much disturbed and perplexed by Merica's disappearing at unusual hours and in a most unaccountable manner, so that her simple and methodical household affairs had lately become gravely disordered.
On the morning after she had seen Doris and Lynn returning through the fragrant dusk from their visit to the graveyard, she felt so happy and strong that she resolved to give the tea-party on the following day, no matter how her heart might misbehave. It was really silly, as she said to Miss Sophia, to give up important things merely because your heart tried, every now and then, to jump out of your mouth and sometimes would hardly beat at all. It was so silly that she did not intend to do it any longer. But on going to the kitchen, in order to put her plans in motion at once, she was dismayed to find Merica missing, as she had been very often of late. Miss Judy saw, too, that the fire had not been kindled behind the gooseberry bushes; that not a single spiral of blue smoke arose above the thick green screen. She consequently began worrying in her mild way, wondering where Merica could be, and what the girl could mean by such unheard-of neglect of duty, especially on Monday morning. Hurrying around the house, the little lady went to the gate and looked anxiously up and down the big road. No one was in sight except Tom Watson, sitting in his accustomed place; but the sight of him always brought Miss Judy to an humble and almost frightened sense of her own mercies. She shook her head, and then bent it reverently, making with her little hand an unconscious gesture, which called up thoughts of the sign of the cross.
Ashamed to be worrying over such a small matter with Tom Watson's affliction in view, she forgot all about Merica, and, following her instinct to do something for those who were suffering, she went into the house to hold a consultation with Miss Sophia as to whether they had anything which they might send to Tom Watson, since they could do nothing else for him.
"There's that pretty tender little head of late lettuce," said Miss Judy, tentatively. "I am afraid, though, that Tom won't care much about it, but I can't think of anything else. And it's only to show our sympathy, anyway," she pleaded, seeing the reluctance in Miss Sophia's face and misunderstanding its meaning. "It would really make quite a picture if we were to put it on mother's best china plate, the one with the wreath of roses. And it would please poor Anne, whether poor Tom notice or not."
So busy was Miss Judy by this time, bustling about, preparing the little offering, that she hardly observed Merica's sudden reappearance, and did not think to hold her to an accounting for her absence. Merely telling her to make haste in starting the fire behind the gooseberry bushes, so that she might run across the big road with the plate of lettuce as soon as possible, Miss Judy thought only of giving pleasure to her neighbors. When the rose-wreathed green gift was ready the girl said, rather sullenly, that she did not see how she could be taking things to everybody all over the neighborhood and watching the boiling of the clothes at the same time, Miss Judy replied gently, though with a vivid blush, that she herself would watch the wash-kettle. This was an unpleasant task which the little lady had rarely attempted, but now she bravely entered upon it without flinching.
The white mysteries of the wash-kettle were by this time thickly veiled by a snowy cloud of steam. Its contents, boiling furiously, lifted big bubbles dangerously close to the dry, hot edge of the great black kettle. Miss Judy gingerly took up the wet stick which Merica had laid down, and timidly tried to push the bubbles away; but the harder her weak little hand pushed, the higher and bigger the bubbles arose. Frightened, and not knowing what else to do, Miss Judy knelt beside the steaming caldron, looking amid the smoke and steam like some pretty little witch working some good incantation, and tremblingly drew one of the blazing brands from beneath the kettle. As she moved the brand, a fountain of sparks from it shot upward, to come showering down, and one of these fell upon the biggest and whitest of the bubbles. Miss Judy saw this as it settled, and, although the kettle's contents were an indistinguishable, foaming mass, she knew instinctively that it was not one of Miss Sophia's or one of her own garments, which had been burned. She sank down on Merica's stool, near the gray border of spice pinks, with her limbs shaking so that she could not stand, and her heart beating as it had never beaten before or since the night of the fright. When she could move to get up, she crept over to the kettle and firmly pushed the black spot out of sight. But she said nothing to Merica about it, when the maid returned, more sour and sullen than she had gone away. In silence and dejection Miss Judy went back to the house, and tried to think what was best to do. Ordinarily she turned to Miss Sophia for advice in trouble or perplexity, resting with perfect trust upon the counsel which she thought she received. But this serious accident, which must distress her sister, she now locked in her own bosom. Had Lynn Gordon's shirts been ordinary shirts she felt that the matter would have been very much simpler. By severer economy, she thought that she might possibly have been able to buy him a new garment; although it was hard even for Miss Judy to see how the economy which they practised could be severer than it always was. But the little pension for their father's military services would not be due for another six months, and, moreover, Miss Judy would not have known where or how to get the costly, mysterious garment had she had the money, or how to find the fine tucks and the finer embroidery, which she had admired so greatly, though secretly, of course. She knew how fine the needle-work was, because she herself had been an expert needle-woman in the days when her blue eyes were stronger. For a moment a wild hope of copying the burned shirt, of working the same little rim of delicate tracery around the button holes, darted thrillingly across her troubled mind; but in another instant it was dismissed—wholly gone—with a sigh. She remembered, blushingly, that she had once heard Sidney say that the Queen of Sheba could not make a shirt that the King of Sheba would wear. Miss Judy did not remember ever having read in the Scriptures anything about the King of Sheba, but she had confidence in Sidney's opinions of a good many matters which she felt herself to be no judge of. No, there was plainly nothing to be done, except to darn the hole as neatly as possible, and to tell Lynn the simple truth. Luckily, Miss Judy had reason to believe that the injury had not been to the splendid, embroidered, tucked, and ruffled bosom. She blushed again more vividly—and then she turned very white as a sudden thought stabbed her like a dagger. Ah, the poor little heart! It was fluttering indeed now, and beating its soft wings like a caged wild bird.
The effect of the accident upon Doris's prospects—that was the dread which suddenly struck terror to Miss Judy's heart! What would the young gentleman and his worldly, critical grandmother think, when they thus knew that she and Miss Sophia were aware of what was going on behind the gooseberry bushes? Up to this crisis the means by which Merica earned the larger portion of her wages had seemed so distinctly apart from Miss Judy's own affairs, that she had felt no personal concern about it, beyond an occasional and passing embarrassment. Now, however, the matter became, all at once, widely different. How could she offer Doris the disrespect of making an explanation? Come what would that must be avoided, for Doris's dear sake, let the cost be what it may. A few gentle tears trickled down Miss Judy's cheeks as she sat patiently darning Miss Sophia's stockings, while the latter rocked and nodded, observing nothing unusual.
Many fanciful, impractical schemes flitted through Miss Judy's mind, rather sadly at first, but gradually turning toward her natural hopefulness. The end of her thoughts now, as always, was self-sacrifice, and the sparing of others, her sister and Doris above all. If the worst came to the worst, she could get the doctor to buy a new garment; he would know what to get and where to get it,—he would even loan her the money if she were forced to borrow. Meantime, with innate optimism, she was hoping for the best, relying upon being able to mend the burned hole, which might not be so large or so black, after all. Miss Judy's cheerful spirit could no more be held down by ill luck than an unweighted cork can be kept under water. When she laid her little head beside Miss Sophia's that night, her brain was still busily turning ways and means. If the severest economy became necessary, her sister still need not know. Once before (when their father's funeral expenses were to be met), she had been entirely successful in keeping the straits to which they were reduced from Miss Sophia's knowledge. Fortunately that hard time had come in the winter, and a turkey sent them by Colonel Fielding as a Christmas present stayed hard frozen, except as it was cooked, a piece at a time, for Miss Sophia, till the whole immense turkey had been eaten in sections by that unsuspecting lady. Miss Judy chuckled in triumph, lying there in the darkness, remembering how artful she had been in keeping Miss Sophia from observing that she herself had not tasted the turkey, and of her deep diplomacy in merely allowing Miss Sophia to think it a fresh one, every now and then, without telling an actual fib. It was warm weather now, to be sure, which made a difference—and poor Colonel Fielding could send no more presents, but the way would open nevertheless, somehow; dear Miss Judy was always sure that the way would open. No matter how severely they might have to economize in order to spare Doris a great mortification, Miss Sophia need not be deprived of her few comforts. And it was for this, to spare her sister, that Miss Judy resolved to remain silent, much as she valued Miss Sophia's advice. In the darkness of the big old room a little thin hand reached out and softly patted Miss Sophia's broad back with a protecting tenderness, full of the true mother-love.
At midnight Miss Judy arose, and creeping cautiously from her sister's side, noiselessly crossed the big, dark room, a ghostly little white figure. It was not hard to find her thimble, needles and thread, and her father's near-by spectacles, even in the darkness, since everything in that orderly old house was always in the same place; and when she had found them, she softly took up the candle and matches from the chair beside the pillow, and with her trembling hands thus filled, she stole across the passage toward the parlor. She opened the door as stealthily as any expert burglar, and closed it behind her without the faintest creak. Then, softly putting down the other things, she lighted the candle, and shading it with a shaking hand, looked around for the basket of rough-dry clothes, which, for privacy more than for any other reason, was always put in the parlor over night between washing and ironing. The stiffness with which some of the well-starched garments asserted themselves rather daunted Miss Judy when she first caught sight of them. Nevertheless, she went resolutely on, and soon found what she sought. She blushed as she gingerly drew it from among the rest, the delicate color tinting her whole sweet face, from its pretty chin to its silver frame of flossy curls. Turning the shirt over, she gave an unconscious sigh of relief to find how small the burned place really was. Burned it was, however, and she threaded her smallest needle with her finest thread and set about darning it then and there, with infinite patience and exquisite skill. As she worked, sitting on a low footstool beside the great basket, with the candle flickering upon a chair (such a pretty, pathetic little figure!) her thread involuntarily wrought delicate embroidery. While she thus wrought, she wished that she knew where gentlemen usually had their monograms embroidered on garments of this description. She could not remember ever having seen any on her father's—and she had never seen anybody else's, she remembered, suddenly blushing again. Yet she could not help feeling a little bashful pride in her handiwork. She even held it up and looked at it critically, with her curly head in its quaint little nightcap on one side,—like a bird listening to its own song,—before putting the garment back in the basket exactly where she had found it, as a measure of precaution against Merica's observing any change and gossiping about it. Every care must be taken on Doris's account. And then this being secure, Miss Judy blew out the candle and stole like a shadow back to her place by her sleeping sister, and lay down with a last sigh of relief; feeling to have done the best she could for her, for Doris, and for Lynn. She did not think of herself.
With her mind thus temporarily at rest, she soon fell asleep and dreamed a radiant vision of Doris. There was some new and wondrous glory around the girl's beautiful head, but Miss Judy could not make out what it was, though she gazed through the sweet mist of her soft dream with all her loving heart in her eager eyes. There also seemed to be some wonderful little white thing in Doris's lovely arms, resting on her breast as a bud rests against a rose; and as the light shone brighter and brighter over the rose-clouds of the silvery dream, Miss Judy saw that the rays about the girl's head were the aureole of motherhood.
"How strange our dreams are," she said to Miss Sophia, smiling and blushing, while they were engaged in the usual polite conversation over their frugal breakfast. "We dream of things we never thought of."
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, who never dreamt at all unless she had the nightmare.
But the feeling of causeless happiness with which Miss Judy awakened on that morning passed by degrees into a renewed sense of uneasiness. The sound of Merica's irons banging in the kitchen appeared to arouse scruples which had merely slumbered through the night. Was it, after all, ever right to do wrong to one person in order to benefit another, even though the injured might never know of the injury? So she wondered in new alarm. It was the first time in Miss Judy's simple, gentle, unselfish life that she had been fronted by this common question, which fronts most of us sooner or later and more or less often; and she knew even less how to meet it than do those who meet it more frequently. Deeply troubled, hopelessly perplexed, she silently debated the right and the wrong of what she had done and was doing, through all the long hours of that peaceful summer day. It would have comforted her greatly to have asked Miss Sophia's advice, but she felt that any knowledge of the accident, however remote, must be distressing, and she still spared her in this as in everything else.
"Don't you think, sister Sophia, that many of poor Becky's mistakes came from not knowing just what was right? It isn't always easy for any of us to tell. We can't be so much to blame—when we are unable to see our way," she said, after a long silence, hanging wistfully upon Miss Sophia's reply.
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with such decisive firmness as made Miss Judy feel for the moment that there could be no uncertainty; that it surely must be as Miss Sophia said.
But the sight of Doris and Lynn strolling by on their daily walk set the balance wavering again. She felt the constraint in her own manner while she chatted with them over the gate. She saw the wondering and somewhat anxious gaze which Doris fixed upon her, and she tried to laugh and speak naturally. But in spite of all that she could do, the uneasy sense of wrong-doing grew steadily. She had not before fully realized how fine the young man's linen was—till she guiltily regarded it over the gate. Its very fineness and the number of its tucks filled her with a conviction of guilt toward him. She was strongly tempted to call the young couple back and make a clean breast of it. Then the fear of some possible humiliation of Doris held her from it. So that she went on, sorely troubled, still turning the matter this way and that, till a sudden thought gave her a fresh shock of fear. When the young man saw the darned place, as he was bound to do some time or other, he would be sure to think it Merica's doing. There could be no two sides to the right or wrong of allowingthatto happen. Quite in a panic now, fairly driven into a corner, from which there was no escape, Miss Judy sprang up, and rushed out to stop the doctor, who chanced to be passing at that very moment.
He got down from his horse and came up to the fence, throwing the bridle over his arm, always willing and glad to have a word with Miss Judy, no matter how weary he might be. He saw at once that she was deeply agitated, and that her blue eyes were full of tears. A country doctor of the noblest type—as this one was—is the tower of strength on which many a community leans. He touches most of the phases of life, perhaps; certainly he comes in contact with every phase of his own environment. He is, therefore, seldom to be taken completely by surprise, however strange a story he may hear. Yet Dr. Alexander now looked at Miss Judy for a moment in utter bewilderment after she had poured out hers; his thoughts—astonishment, amusement, sympathy, understanding, and, above all, affection—coming out by turns on his rugged, open face, like rough writing on parchment.
"God bless my soul!" he said. "Who ever heard of such a thing! My dear, dear little lady! Why, you'd do that young jackanapes the honor of his life if you burnt his shirt off his back!"
Miss Judy blushed and showed how shocked she was at such loud and indelicate mention of such an intimate article of clothing.
"But I am really in great trouble," she urged gently, her eyes filling again. "If you would only tell Lynn, doctor. It seems an indelicate thing for a lady to speak of to a gentleman. If you would only break it to him, and explain to him how it happened, and that Merica was not to blame—and—and that Doris knew nothing—nothing in the world—about Merica's business."
"Of course I'll tell him," the doctor agreed heartily. "I'll tell him every word that you've told me," he said, mounting his tired old horse, which was almost as tired as he was himself. "And let the young rascal so much as crack a single smile, if he dares;" the doctor added to himself, as he rode off, looking back and carrying his shabby hat in his big hand, as long as he could see the quaint, pathetic little figure standing at the gate.