Joel was aggrieved. For the second time in a month his sister was planning to desert him. Putting the claims of an unborn infant before his comfort, Persis had basely abandoned him to the wiles of Susan Fitzgerald. And now she had agreed, though reluctantly, to do a day's work for Mrs. Hornblower at the latter's home. That thrifty housewife had urged a lame knee as her reason for requesting Persis to depart so radically from her usual custom, and Persis had accepted the excuse with reservations.
"Fact is, Lena Hornblower can never get it into her head that I'm a dressmaker and not a sewing girl," Persis confided to Joel at the breakfast table. "I'm not saying that her knee ain't lame, but I guess if she can stand up to be fitted, she'd be equal to getting in and out of a buggy. Lena Hornblower's always looking for a chance to save a penny. She's got an idea that it's bound to be cheaper to have your sewing done at the house. All I can say," concluded Persis, buttering her toast, "is that she's going to find herself mistaken."
Joel's abstracted gaze indicated a total lack of interest in the subject.
"I've been thinking," he remarked with that suavity of manner as prophetic of a storm as thunder-claps in July, "that I might as well get me a room somewhere in the neighborhood. There's no sense in making a pretense that you're keeping house for me when you're gadding and gadding, here to-day and to-morrow off the Lord knows where. If I had a comfortable room, somewheres," continued Joel, with the noble resignation of conscious martyrdom, "and a little stove so's I could get my meals, then I'd know just what to expect, and I wouldn't have to ask no odds of nobody."
Persis had listened to similar propositions before. It was a perennial threat which in the passing of years had lost its power to terrify. Yet with the inevitable feminine impulse to smooth the feathers of ruffled masculinity, she began, "When I drove by Susan Fitzgerald's yesterday morning—"
Joel set down his coffee cup with an emphasis that splashed the table-cloth.
"That'll do, Persis. I'll tell you once for all that I won't have that woman here. I can go hungry if it comes to that, but I won't stand for your putting that old maid up to set her cap for me."
"Goodness, Joel, Susan hasn't any reason in life to want to marry—anybody." Persis had come very near an uncomplimentary frankness, but her native tact had suddenly asserted itself and made the statement general.
Joel smiled satirically.
"Maybe you know better'n I do about that, and then again, maybe you don't," he replied darkly. Then with a reversion to his air of injury, he added: "Here's Hornblower come for you already."
As a matter of fact, the thrifty Mrs. Hornblower had despatched her husband for Persis at the earliest hour permissible, resolved to prove the economy of her scheme by adding to the activities of the day at both ends. Persis, quite aware of her patron's purpose, smiled comprehendingly and proceeded to clear the table without undue haste or excitement. Mr. Hornblower had waited full thirty minutes before she came lightly down the path and with unruffled serenity bade him good morning.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, but you were half an hour ahead of the timeI said."
Robert Hornblower, who had that repressed and submissive air not infrequent in husbands whose wives make a boast of their womanly subjection, mumbled that it didn't matter. As he helped her to her seat, Persis noticed that he had lost flesh since she had seen him last, and that some plow-share, sharper than that of time, had deepened the furrows that criss-crossed his sagging cheeks. "How're the crops coming on?" she asked, as she settled herself beside him.
"Fine!" Mr. Hornblower spoke with a lack of reserve unusual in his pessimistic profession. "Potatoes ain't quite up to last year, but the corn crop's a record breaker."
"Mis' Hornblower's knee trouble her much?"
"Well, no, not to say trouble." Mr. Hornblower plucked his beard with his disengaged hand and cast a thoughtful glance at his companion. "She's a little oneasy in her mind though, Mis' Hornblower is. She's got an idea in her head and it keeps her as oneasy as a flea. If she should open up to you, maybe you'd see your way to say something kind of quieting."
"But what's she got to worry about?"
"That's what I say," said Mr. Hornblower, gesturing with his whip. "We're comf'table and prosperous, ain't we? Maybe there's a way to get more. I don't say there ain't. But what's the use of more, when you've got enough? The house suits me just as 'tis, and my victuals suit me, and my friends that I've summered and wintered with, forty years and over, they suit me, too. What do I want of a villa, or of trips to Europe, where the folks talk all kinds of heathenish gibberish instead of good United States!"
"But I don't see how—"
"Maybe she'll open up to you," repeated Mr. Hornblower, lowering his voice though such a precaution was obviously unnecessary. "Mind I don't say it ain't a pretty scheme. Anyhow, it looks good on paper. But with me the point's just here—enough's enough."
Persis found Mrs. Hornblower more communicative than her spouse. As all roads lead to Rome, so, with Mrs. Hornblower, all topics of conversation led directly to the subject uppermost in her thoughts. The inevitable discussion of the prevailing modes led by a short path to Persis' full enlightenment.
"I want it fixed real tasty, Persis, for all it's not a new dress. I've had it going on four years, but I've been sparing of it and careful, so it's not like a dress you wear for getting supper and for trailing round in the yard after the dew falls. Robert's always been fond of this dress. I s'pose I'm kind of foolish to humor him so, but I'm always careful about consulting his tastes. Seems as if a wife had ought to be satisfied if she dresses in a way that pleases her husband."
"Sometimes I've thought," replied Persis, as she turned the pages of her latest fashion magazine, "that when it comes to women's clothes, men don't know what they do like. If a man goes with his wife to buy a hat, nine times out of ten, he'll pick out the worst-looking thing in the shop, and then he'll wonder why she's falling off in her looks. Now, Mis' Hornblower, what do you think of this pannier style? Taking out the extra fulness from the back and using it in folds, I could hide where it's getting worn on the seams."
"I s'pose we'd have a better choice of styles by waiting for next month's book," said Mrs. Hornblower, regarding the model Persis had indicated with an evident lack of favor. "But my plans are so unsettled that I want to hurry through my dress-making. I dare say you've heard we're likely to leave Clematis 'most any time."
"I'd heard it hinted, but I didn't take much stock in it. Clematis would be sorry to lose you, and it would be pretty hard on you leaving Clematis."
Mrs. Hornblower smiled. "Oh, I haven't a thing against Clematis, Persis. Robert says that of course it doesn't give a man any kind of a chance to make money and I guess he's right. I believe in leaving such things for the men-folks to settle. These new-fangled women who are always setting up to know best and saying what they will do and what they won't do, can't have much of an opinion of the Bible. I'm sure it says as plain as the nose on your face 'wives obey your husbands,' and 'where thou goest I will go.'"
Persis scrutinized the back breadths of the lavender foulard. "But Ruth was talking to her mother-in-law," she objected, off her guard for the instant, since only the death of Mrs. Hornblower senior, had ended the hostilities between herself and her son's wife. Then regretting her tactless words, she hastened to say, "Don't you think that when a man gets to Mr. Hornblower's age, he does better in work he's used to than if he tries his hand at something new? It's easy enough transplanting a sapling, but an old tree's different."
"It all depends," replied Mrs. Hornblower coldly, piqued, as Persis had feared, by her reference to the delicate subject. But her desire to dazzle the plodding dressmaker with visions of her future prosperity, proved too much for her resentment. And soon, as they ripped and basted, Mrs. Hornblower was dilating on the unparalleled opportunity for wealth furnished by the Apple of Eden Investment Company. She quoted freely from its literature and outlined, with more or less detail, the care-free and opulent existence upon which the family of Hornblower would enter when the farm had been sold and the proceeds wisely invested.
"It's a disappointment to me that the whole thing isn't settled and done with by this time. But I always leave Robert to decide such matters, and Robert thought 'twas best to wait till Mr. Ware's visit. Ouch! My goodness gracious, Persis! You must take my arm for a pin-cushion."
This time Persis' contrition was not assumed.
"I'm awfully sorry, Mis' Hornblower. The lining's so thin. I'll have the sleeve off in a shake before it gets spotted."
"That'll have to be bandaged," exclaimed Mrs. Hornblower, surveying her injured arm in the mirror with a not unnatural annoyance. "A little prick is to be expected now and then when you're dress-making, but this was a regular jab. I don't know what ails you, Persis. Looks like your mind must have been running on Thomas Hardin."
Persis' unwonted humility was disarming, and by dinner-time Mrs.Hornblower was sufficiently recovered to be patronizing.
"Of course this foulard is a sort of make-shift, you might say, Persis. It'll do me till I have a chance to get something real up-to-date and dressy in Paris."
Persis, laying down her work as the clock struck twelve, had no reply to make, and Robert Hornblower, whose punctuality at meals was notable, a characteristic shared by all henpecked husbands, entered the house at that moment, casting a quick glance at his wife's face as a sailor watches the sky for signs of a squall.
"We've spent the morning fixing up your favorite gown, so as it'll be pretty near as good as new," Persis informed him, as she accepted a well-filled plate at his hands. Then as the farmer looked a little blank, she directed his attention to the renovated lavender foulard hanging over a chair.
Mr. Hornblower's expression was still vague. "Oh, you mean that pink—"
The women interrupted him with a derisive cry of "Pink!" But while Persis laughed, Mrs. Hornblower flashed upon her husband a look of ineffable scorn.
"As if I'd ever wore pink or ever would, a color for children."
"Them bright colors is all one to me," said the unhappy Mr. Hornblower, proceeding with fatal facility to make a bad matter worse. "They're all too kind of flashy. Now, my mother used to have a dress," he continued, meeting Persis' sympathetic gaze, "that suited me down to the ground. Satin, it was, or maybe 'twas silk or velvet. Anyhow, it looked rich. And it was sort of silvery, and then again, darker'n silver and sort of ripply and shiny—"
"Robert ain't very well posted on names," said Robert's wife with deadly calm. "But he knows what he likes, same as most men, and that lavender foulard has always been his special favorite. His special favorite," she repeated sternly, as she met her husband's wavering eye.
"Oh, the lavender foulard!" exclaimed Mr. Hornblower, with an unsuccessful attempt to give the impression that only at that moment had he discovered what they were talking about. "The lavender foulard, to be sure." He cut himself an enormous slice from the boiled beef and bowed his head over his plate, as if offering thanks for an excuse to retire gracefully from the conversation.
But this did not agree with Mrs. Hornblower's intentions. "Tired, ain't you, Robert?" Her solicitude was so marked as to suggest an ulterior motive.
"I guess this is about as busy a time of year as any," commented Persis.
And Mr. Hornblower, having now reached a point in his struggle with the boiled beef where he could make himself intelligible, began ponderously, "Oh, as far as that goes—"
"Robert realizes that he ain't as young as he was," said Mrs. Hornblower, taking the words from his mouth. "While he's not an old man yet, he feels that he's done his share of work. If there's a good time waiting for him, he means to get to it before he's so old it won't do him any good."
"Sometimes I think," observed Persis sententiously, "that enjoying one's self's a good deal like jam. You spread it on bread and butter, and you can eat a sight of it. But if you set down to a pot of jam and nothing else, it turns your stomach in no time."
The sudden illumination of Mr. Hornblower's heavy features indicated that he had grasped Persis' metaphor. He broke out eagerly. "Now, that's just what I was saying to my wife. If a man—"
"Robert looks at it this way," explained Mrs. Hornblower, deftly cutting in. "He says he couldn't enjoy himself just idling, but he don't look on travel and improving his mind in that light. Robert feels that enlarging your horizon, and getting culture and polish is a part of anybody's duty. Robert feels real strongly on that subject," concluded Mrs. Hornblower, looking hard at her husband, as if defying him to deny it.
The worm made a visible effort to turn. "Whatever you may say about Clematis," said Mr. Hornblower, apparently with the full intention of paying an impassioned tribute to his native town. But again the supports were cut from beneath his feet, and he was left dangling in midair.
"Robert thinks as well of Clematis as anybody," Mrs. Hornblower acknowledged generously. "He's got a real fondness for the town. But as he says, the world's a big place, and it don't stand to reason that all of it that's worth seeing is right under our noses. Robert says that some folks who think they're so dreadful patriotic are nothing in the world but narrow."
For a moment Mr. Hornblower seemed tempted to take up the gauntlet with himself, challenging his own forcibly expressed convictions. And then as if realizing the uselessness of such an attempt, he sighed heavily and sought consolation in the gravy. And Mrs. Hornblower demonstrated the sweeping character of her victory by saying plaintively: "Of course a woman always feels breaking off old associations the way a man can't understand. Robert laughs at me. He says he b'lieves I fairly get attached to a mop I've used and hate to change to a new one. But a woman can't be a good wife, Persis, and think of herself. She's just got to set aside her own feelings and preferences, and look at what's best for her husband."
It was characteristic of Mrs. Hornblower's shrewdness that supper was always late when she had a dressmaker in the house. The fire refused to draw. A scarcity of eggs necessitated a change in her plans for supper, and the new menu invariably demanded more time than that originally decided upon. Persis, left to herself, and thoroughly understanding the purpose back of these various delays and postponements, smiled grimly, yet not without a certain reluctant admiration, and retaliated by sewing more and more slowly. And for the hundredth time that day, her thoughts returned to Mrs. Hornblower's careless reference to a prospective visit. Mr. Ware! Could she have meant Justin? His connection with the apple company made this seem almost certain, and yet it was inconceivable that Lena Hornblower should refer to his coming with such nonchalant certainty when she herself was in the dark. Persis' capable hands dropped to her lap. For the minute she was a girl again, parting from the boy who loved her, lifting her tear-wet face for the comfort of his kisses. Twenty years! Twenty long hard years! And now Justin Ware was really coming home.
She put the question bluntly to Robert Hornblower as he drove her home after dark. "Your wife said something about a Mr. Ware's coming here before long. I used to go to school with somebody of that name, Justin Ware."
The depressed and silent Mr. Hornblower roused himself.
"It's the same one. The Wares never had nothing, but I guess this here Justin has cleaned up a lot of money. Don't follow that everybody could do the same in his place, though. Some folks have the luck, and some have got the pluck, and some have both." He sighed. "Of course you understand, Persis, that Lena wants me to do exactly as I think best. Only—only when a woman gets her heart set on a thing, a man feels like a brute to think of having his own way."
"Yes," Persis said gently, "I understand." And then with more optimism than she felt she added: "Maybe something will happen so she'll look at it different."
Thomas Hardin and Joel were awaiting her in the unsocial silence characteristic of their sex when no feminine incentive to conversational brilliancy is at hand. Thomas' eyes kindled as he said good evening. Joel, after two meals in which he had fended for himself, looked more than ever like an early Christian martyr. "There's a letter come for you," he said with marked coldness.
Persis whirled about, a wild foolish hope in her heart. "A letter?Where?"
"On the mantel, next the clock!" Joel's eyes followed his sister as she crossed the room with that quick light step, so reminiscent of girlhood. She pounced upon the letter and even her brother's eyes, dimmed by life-long self-absorption, could see that her face fell.
"I didn't know you knew anybody in Cleveland."
"Cleveland." In some mysterious manner, Persis' animation had returned. The confirmed meddler has one thing in her favor, that whatever the crisis of her own fortunes, there are always the affairs of other people to distract her thoughts. She dropped into a chair by the lamp and read the brief letter with breathless interest, too absorbed even to apologize.
"Miss Persis Dale,
"Clematis.
"Dear Madam—Yours of the 12th inst. received. I am at a loss to understand your very extraordinary inquiry, unless by some chance a letter intended for me has fallen into your hands. In that case I am enclosing stamps to have it forwarded by special delivery. I hardly need remind you that it is a serious offence in the eyes of the law to retain mail which is the property of another person.
"Yours truly,
"W. Thompson.
"Hollenden Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio."
Joel stared at his sister as she read down the page, her color rising, a curious, triumphant little smile playing about her lips. Thomas glowered at the floor. So this answer to the letter he himself had posted, was responsible for that look on her face.
"I guess I'll have to be going," he exclaimed, getting to his feet with the conviction that he had borne all that was possible for the time being.
Persis glanced up in surprise. "Already, Thomas? Well, give my love to Nellie when you see her." She crossed the room and placed the letter in her writing-desk, that triumphant smile still transforming her face.
It might have brought comfort to Thomas' heart if he had seen her an hour or two later, for the smile had disappeared. She stood before the plush-framed photograph upon the mantel, a strange wistful wonder on her face.
"Oh, Justin," she whispered as she looked. "Oh, Justin, Justin!" She put out her hands as if for all their capable strength they felt the need of a comforting touch. And then the amiable young face smiling back at her, blurred before her wet appealing eyes.
Persis had resolved on a new gown.
The livelier iris which in spring changes on the burnished dove, reveals nature's universal tactics. On looking over her wardrobe after her day at the Hornblower farm, Persis had been appalled by its manifest shortcomings. The black mohair, held to the light, betrayed an unmistakable greenish tinge. The navy blue was long since out of style. As for the wine-colored henrietta, it had never been becoming. The material had been presented Persis by a customer who had unexpectedly gone into mourning, and she had made it up and worn it with much the emotion of an old-time penitent in his hair-cloth shirt. And yet in twenty-four hours the mohair had not become perceptibly greener nor was the blue more strikingly passée. It was Persis herself who had changed.
As she stood before the mirror, fitting her own lining, she defended her course as the wisest women will do, though when judge, jury and advocate are all one, the verdict is a foregone conclusion. She tightened the seam under her arm, used the scissors discreetly here and there, and continued to argue the point, though there was none who had a right to question or to criticize.
"It's bad policy for a dressmaker to go around shabby. It's like a doctor with an invalid wife and sickly children. And anyway, I haven't had anything new for over a year, unless I count that blue chambray wrapper. As little as I spend on clothes, I guess when I do want a new gown it's nobody's business."
The argument was plausible, convincing. Any listener who had been on the point of accusing Persis of extravagance, must have humbly acknowledged his mistake and begged her pardon. But Persis had a harder task than to convince an outsider that she needed an addition to her wardrobe. She was striving, and without success, to alter her own uneasy conviction that the prospective visit of Justin Ware was responsible for her novel and engrossing interest in her personal appearance.
Persis, studying her reflection in the mirror, directed the point of the scissors toward her throat as if deliberating suicide. "I wonder," she mused, "how 'twould look to have it turn away at the neck in a V. 'Tisn't as if I was sixty."
The scissors, obedient to the suggestion, snipped a cautious line directly beneath Persis' chin. The cambric was folded back to give the desired V-effect, and Persis' countenance assumed an expression of complacence altogether justifiable. Then at this most inopportune moment, Joel entered.
"Persis, have you seen my bottle of Rand's Remedy?" Joel had reached the stage, perhaps the most dangerous in his unceasing round, when he was ready to accept implicitly the claims made for every patent panacea. He dosed himself without mercy. He had a different pill for every hour, pills for promoting digestion, for regulating the heart action, for producing flesh. He swallowed weird powders, before and after meals. He took a wine-glass of a sticky unwholesome-looking fluid before retiring. Every periodical that came into the house he scanned for advertisements of proprietary remedies, and his manner sometimes suggested a complete willingness to contract asthma or sciatica in order to have an excuse for testing the cures so glowingly endorsed.
The spectacle of his sister, becomingly arrayed in the lining of the new gown, temporarily eclipsed the claims of Rand's Remedy. Joel came to a jerky halt and stood open-mouthed.
"Dress-goods must be getting expensive." Having convinced himself that his eyes had not deceived him, Joel relieved his feelings by heavy sarcasm. "It's a pity you can't afford cloth enough to cover you. I guess it's true that modesty's getting to be a lost art when a woman of your age will flaunt around—"
The goaded Persis spoke to the point. "Seems to me I remember not so very long back when you were taking a constitutional out on the front lawn without much more'n a bath-towel between you and the public."
"What are you talking about?" Joel reddened angrily. "I'm a man, ain't I?"
"Well, we won't discuss that, seeing it's nothing to do with the case. But I will say that the very men who make the most fuss about women's dressing immodest, wouldn't mind riding through town on a band wagon with nothing on but a pair of tights. And I think they'd be in better business looking after the beams in their own eyes."
"That sort of thing is meant to allure." Joel pointed an accusing finger toward the V-neck. "It's 'stepping o'er the bounds of modesty,' as Shakespeare says, to entice your fellowmen."
"The jaw-bone of that ass that Samson killed a thousand Philistines with," returned Persis severely, "ain't to be compared for deadliness, it seems, with a woman's collar-bone. Looks to me as if 'twas high time to stop calling women the weaker sex when it takes so little to bring about a man's undoing. I've known plenty of foolish women in my time, but the most scatter-brained, silly girl I ever set my eyes on could see any number of men with their collars off and their trousers rolled up and not be any more allured than if she was looking at so many gate-posts. You men have certainly got to be a feeble sex, Joel. The wonder is you don't mind owning up to it."
"'Vanity of vanities,'" taunted Joel from the doorway, "'all is vanity.'" He withdrew hastily, carrying with him the uneasy conviction that he had come off second-best in the encounter. And Persis, her cheeks hot with indignation, cut the V-neck a good eighth of an inch lower than she had intended.
In spite of this inauspicious beginning, she was presently singing over her work. There was something distinctly exhilarating in the idea of devoting a week to her personal needs, keeping her customers waiting, if necessary, though she hardly thought this probable, as the season was still slack. And the elation of her mood reached its climax when Annabel Sinclair sent Diantha down to say that she wished her black net made over, and was in a hurry. Persis had heard nothing from Annabel since Diantha had worn home her first long dress. And though she had reckoned on the probability that the opening of the fall season would bring her irate patron to terms, Persis experienced vast satisfaction in returning a nonchalant reply to the peremptory message.
"Can't do a thing just now, Diantha. Next week, Friday, if your mother hasn't got anybody else—"
"Oh, she won't get anybody else, Miss Persis. Nobody else would suit her."
Diantha looked taller and more mature than ever in a plain, loosely fitting blue serge. Persis appraised it with judicial eye. "Ready made, ain't it, Diantha?"
The girl blushed tempestuously, "Yes, father bought it for me in the city. Mother said— That other dress, you know—"
"Yes, I s'pose your mother thought we'd ought to have consulted her, instead of going ahead. Well, tell her I'm busy for the rest of this week, Diantha, and for next, up till Friday."
If this were a dismissal, Diantha failed to accept it. She perched on the arm of the big chair and watched with fascinated eyes the heavy shears biting their way through a filmy fabric of a delicate gray shade. "How pretty!" Diantha murmured. Then with more animation. "Thad West says you're the best dressmaker anywhere around here. He says that you could make lots of money in the city."
"I'm quite set up by his good opinion—seeing he knows so much about it." That Persis' dry retort veiled sarcasm was far from Diantha's thought. She continued guilelessly.
"He's got such good taste, Thad has. Don't you think men have better taste than women, Miss Persis? All women care about is following the styles, and men think whether the way you do your hair is becoming or not. If a thing isn't pretty, they don't care a bit about its being stylish."
Persis glanced up from her cutting. She had noticed this phenomenon before, the impulse of the girl who feels a proprietary interest in some particular male, to indulge in sweeping generalities concerning the opposite sex. When Persis had schemed to bring about the dramatic encounter between Thad West and the Diantha newly emerged from the chrysalis stage, she had but one end in view; to show the young man the essential absurdity of any sentimental acquaintance between himself and the mother of this blooming maid. With a vague uneasiness she realized the possibility that she had overshot the mark.
"I think Thad dresses beautifully himself," Diantha purred on. "When you're little you can't see but what men's clothes are all alike. Isn't that funny? Now, Thad's neckties—"
There was a heavy step upon the porch, and Persis was spared further harrowing details. "Oh, it's the doctor," Diantha cried, with a sigh for her interrupted confidences. "Is anybody sick?"
"Nobody here," said Persis, and she echoed Diantha's sigh. The doctor's appearance suggested that she might be needed to act as nurse in some household too poor to pay for professional care. For a dozen years the old doctor had called on her freely for such gratuitous service, and his successor had promptly fallen into a similar practise. At this juncture Persis felt a most unchristian reluctance to act the part of ministering angel in any sick room. Nothing adds to a woman's apparent age so rapidly as working by day and caring for the sick at night. Persis had seen herself, on more than one occasion, take on ten years in a week of such double duty. And just now she wanted to appear youthful and pretty, not haggard and worn. She greeted the doctor less cordially than was her wont for the reason that in her heart she knew she must do whatever he asked.
Doctor Ballard shook hands with Persis, nodded casually to Diantha and waited openly for that ingenuous young person to take her departure. As the door closed behind her, he dropped into the armchair she had vacated, crossed his legs and sighed.
"Miss Persis, I'm up a tree. I want some advice."
"You're welcome to all I've got." Persis, regretting the reserve of her greeting, beamed upon him affectionately.
"Did you ever know a woman to die just because she'd decided that was the proper caper?"
"Trouble?" Persis questioned laconically.
"Lord, no! Everything comfortable. Husband who worships her. As far as I can diagnose the case, it's a sort of homesickness for the pearly gates."
"Kind of as if she'd got disgusted with this world," suggested Persis, with one of her flashes of intuition, "and wanted to get some place where things would be more congenial."
"You've hit it to a T. Now, what I want to know is this, can people keep up that kind of nonsense till they die of it? I've got a patient right now who's lost thirty pounds by it. She won't eat. She won't make an effort. She sits around smiling like an angel off on sick-leave, and the same as tells me I can't do anything for her because she's wanted over the river. Husband's about crazy."
"What's her name?"
Professional caution did not seal Doctor Ballard's tips. In many a sick room, by more than one deathbed, he and this keen-eyed woman had come to know each other with a completeness of understanding which even wedlock does not always bring. "It's Nelson Richards' wife," he said without hesitation, nor did he ask her to respect his confidence.
"Yes, I mistrusted it was Charlotte Richards. Goodness has always been Charlotte's specialty, so to speak, the kind of goodness," Persis explained carefully, "that ain't good for anything in particular. And she's lost thirty pounds?"
"I'd stake my professional reputation," said the doctor vehemently, "that nothing ails that woman except that she thinks Heaven would be a better background for her saintliness than earth. The question is whether she can carry it to the point of suicide."
"Of course she can, if she wants to. I've seen it happen more'n once. The thing to do is to give her a reason for wanting to stay on earth—to look after things." Persis stood motionless, the hand holding the shears extended in a fashion suggesting Lady Macbeth. A spark of light illumined her meditative eyes.
"Well?" said the doctor hopefully. He recognized the signs.
"I won't say that I haven't got an idea, but it'll bear thinking about"—Persis' favorite formula. "I'll try to find time to drop in and see Charlotte."
"She doesn't need cheering, you understand," said the doctor. "She's as cheerful as the devil himself. 'A very bad night, doctor, and the palpitation is worse. This morning my Heavenly home seems very near.'" He mimicked Mrs. Richards' sanctimonious tones with a skill which won even from the abstracted Persis the tribute of a smile.
"No, I won't try to cheer her," she promised. "Stirring up, not cheering up, is what Charlotte needs. And I don't say but what I've got an idea. I can't spare any time for a few days, though, Doctor. I need to do some sewing for myself, and I'm going to do it, come what may."
Vain boast. Persis was washing the dishes after the midday meal whenJoel entered the kitchen to announce a caller. "It's the Chase girl,Mildred I think her name is. Anyway, it's the oldest one. And I guessshe wants a dress made. She's got a bundle under her arm."
Persis thought this unlikely. "Those Chase girls make their own clothes and do pretty well at it, too. I've often wanted to give 'em a few hints about the shoulder seams, but except for that, they look real shipshape. And anyway, I can't do anything for a week yet. I'm going to attend to my own sewing."
Mildred Chase greeted Persis with a smile so radiant as to give a misleading impression of comeliness. She shook hands with the dressmaker, apparently struggling against an impulse to fall on her neck and kiss her. Persis, whose acquaintance with the girl was comparatively slight, viewed those indications of overmastering affection with perplexity.
Mildred did not wait to be questioned. Her volubility suggested that she could not have withheld information if she had tried.
"Oh, Miss Dale; I've got the greatest news to tell you. You'd never guess in the world. I'm going to be married."
"Well, all I can say is, Mildred, that it's not the most surprising news I ever heard," Persis answered kindly. There was something pleasant in the sight of this flushed, happy young creature who only the other day had been a dull heavy-eyed girl and soon would be a dull heavy-eyed wife. It was her little hour, her transient spring-time. Persis choked back a sigh.
Mildred was fumbling at the parcel in her lap. "I've always said one thing, that if ever I got married, Miss Dale was going to make my wedding dress. I can sew well enough for ordinary clothes, but a wedding dress is sort of special. That calls for a regular dressmaker, and there ain't but one dressmaker in Clematis that counts."
"When's the wedding to be?" Persis asked. A sudden sinking of the heart foretold the answer.
"It's a week from Saturday. It's so sudden that I can hardly believe it myself. We didn't think we could be married for a year, anyway, but Jim got a raise unexpected. They're going to send him West, and he's bound I shall go when he does."
The parcel was unwrapped at last, its shimmering white contents contrasting with the girl's shabby dress and work-roughened hands, much as the dreams of the wedding-day contrast with the hard realities that follow. Persis looked, hesitated, thought of the filmy gray, just cut and awaiting basting, thought of the hopes that linked the present with her lost girlhood, and ended as she had always ended, by unselfish surrender.
"It's pretty goods," she said, touching it lightly with the tips of her fingers. "And—and there's nothing I like better to make than wedding clothes, my dear."
Certain important details came up for discussion, interrupted frequently by the outgushing of Mildred's artless confidences, to all of which Persis listened patiently. And when the girl took her departure, the impulse which had manifested itself on her arrival proved too strong to resist. She kissed Persis good-by, and Persis returned the kiss.
The rudimentary beginnings of a new gray gown were bundled together and tucked away to wait their fate, while Persis worked till a late hour on Mildred Chase's wedding dress. But tired as she was, with that undercurrent of depression which sometimes most unjustly is the attendant on generous sacrifice, she found time to write a letter to a gentleman named Thompson, in care of the Hollenden Hotel, Cleveland.
"Mr. W. Thompson:
"Dear Sir—Yours received. Nothing could be further from my wish than to keep anything that belongs to somebody else, but you can understand that I don't feel like sending a young lady's letter to the first man who happens to ask for it, especially as Thompson is not what you would call an unusual name. If the young lady who wrote the letter will drop me a line asking me to forward it to you, I'll be happy to oblige her. She won't even have to write any thing but her first name, unless she likes.
"Yours truly,
"Persis Dale.
"P. S. If the young lady will tell me your full name, when she writes, it will make you a lot surer to get the letter. W. Thompson is a name that fits lots of people."
This epistolary weight off her conscience, Persis went up-stairs to bed, and for the first time in twenty years, she went without a good night to the photograph in the blue plush frame.
Justin Ware arrived in town the day Persis finished Mildred's wedding dress. She heard the news from Joel, who had been at the station when the train came in. This was not a happy accident, nor was it intended as a spontaneous welcome to the returning son of Clematis. Year in and year out, except when the state of his health prevented, Joel kept a standing engagement with the four-twenty train, and few left town or entered it without his knowledge.
"He's filled out considerable, Justin Ware has, but except for that he hasn't changed much. Got a seal ring and silk lining to his overcoat. He ain't what you call a flashy dresser, but he lays it all over the young chaps like Thad West who think they're so swell."
Persis listened without comment. She had worked unusually hard that week, and the tired lines of her face acknowledged as much. She set them at defiance in a peculiarly feminine fashion by dressing that evening in the unbecoming henrietta and doing her hair in the plainest, most severe fashion. At half past seven Thomas Hardin came.
"That Ware feller is going to put up at the Clematis House. He's a big bug all right. Wanted a private setting-room, he did," Thomas chuckled. "Guess he's the sort that can't remember back further than he feels like doing. Old man Ware's private setting-room was a keg o' nails in Sol Peter's store. Nobody else ever thought of taking that particular keg. Stood right back of the stove, I remember. You never caught old man Ware putting on any airs."
"Justin and me was always the best of friends," said Joel, puffing out his thin chest pompously, as if he felt himself vicariously honored by Mr. Ware's tendency to exclusiveness. "We took a shine to each other when we were little shavers. As Addison says:
"'Great souls by instinct to each other turnDemand alliance, and in friendship burn!'
"Yes, sir, it was a real David and Jonathan affair. That's his picture upon the mantel now."
Thomas Hardin turned his head. "'Tis so," he assented. "Hasn't changed such an all-fired lot only now he looks as if he'd cut his wisdom teeth quite a spell back." His gaze wandered to Persis, silently basting the breadths of a gray crêpe skirt. "You must have been acquainted with him, too," he said politely, striving to include her in the conversation.
"Yes, I knew him." Persis did not lift her eyes.
"All the family knew Justin," Joel explained. "Him and me being such friends, he was in and out of the house same as if he belonged here. I didn't speak to him to-day, because I never was one to cheapen myself by doing my visiting on a depot platform. We'll have plenty of chances to talk over old times.
"'There is nothing can equal the tender hoursWhen life is first in bloom.'"
It seemed to Persis during the next two days that wherever she turned she heard of Justin Ware. There was no escaping the subject. Without question Justin's business methods were the acme of up-to-date effectiveness. An outbreak of war could hardly have stirred the town to more seething excitement than the advent of this well-dressed young man with his self-confident air and full pocketbook. Clematis was apple-mad. The Apple of Eden Investment Company and its optimistic promises eclipsed in interest the combined fascinations of politics and scandal. The groups in those local lounging-places, which in rural communities are the legitimate successors of the Roman forum, passed over prospective congressional legislation and Annabel Sinclair's latest escapade in favor of apple orchards. The statistics which fell so convincingly from Ware's lips were quoted, derided, defended, denied. The hardest argument the objectors had to encounter was Ware himself. The atmosphere of prosperity surrounding him, his air of familiarity with luxury, could not be offset by logic. The program of the Clematis Woman's Club was fairly swamped by the eagerness of the members to question Mrs. Hornblower as to the possibilities of profit in this form of investment. Persis, who had come to the meeting late, went away early while the discussion was at its height and missed a paper by Gladys Wells entitled,No Knot at the End of the Thread.
Persis Dale was not lacking in self-respect. But for twenty years her self-respect had been identical with her loyalty. She could not fancy the one arrayed against the other. She clung desperately to the hope that Justin would explain. For half her lifetime she had found excuses for his silence, and the habit was too strong to be smothered overnight. But even her prejudiced tenderness recognized the insufficiency of the grounds on which she had exonerated the lover of her girlhood from blame. It was no longer possible to judge his faith by her own, scorning all doubt of him as she would have scorned the grossest of temptations. She could have borne the news of his death without outward evidence of emotion, but this bewilderment and uncertainty taxed her strength almost to the breaking point. Through the days, with the help of her work, she kept herself so well in hand as almost to believe that the victory was lasting. But as the dusk settled down, the old questioning began. Would he come? Could he stay away longer? He had been in town five days without seeing her, six days, seven. Against her will and her judgment, she found herself waiting, listening, hoping. Footsteps echoed outside, lagging feet, reluctant to leave comfort behind, swift feet, hurrying to keep some tryst with joy. She heard them pass and repass while her pulses leaped with a hope she knew to be folly, and then steadied to the old monotonous beat. She grew to hate the face of the tall clock in the corner ticking off the seconds glibly, leering as the time grew late, as if it alone knew her secret and mocked her disappointment. Thomas Hardin, coming in on one or two occasions, had exclaimed at the sight of her colorless face. Ordinarily she knew his step, but now her strained nerves misinterpreted the most familiar sights and sounds.
If the days were hard, the nights were torture. Even that poor, tormenting, futile hope that left her sick and shaken was better than hopelessness. There were no stars in the darkness that brooded over her heart after the sun went down. As she lay with clenched hands, counting the ten thousand woolly sheep whose agility in overleaping an obstructive wall is for some mysterious reason assumed to be soporific in its influence, she was conscious of a sort of terror of the thoughts lurking in ambush, ready to spring out upon her if she were off her guard for an instant. It was useless to tell herself that she was no poorer than before, that nothing had changed. In her heart she knew better. She had worked on through the gray years, facing a colorless future, without a word from her one-time lover, to tell her that he lived or ever thought of her, and yet a dream, too vague and illusory to be named hope, had been her stay and solace. Now as she stared wide-eyed into the dark, she asked herself what was left.
It was no wonder that the gray crêpe grew apace. For the first time in her well-disciplined life, Persis gave up the struggle with refractory nerves, left her bed night after night and sewed till daybreak. For whatever might fail, her work was left, that grim consoler, who, masking benignity by a scowl, has kept ten million hearts from breaking.
The gown was finished at daybreak, one bright October morning, and that evening Persis tried it on, in the apathetic mood that mercifully relieves tense feelings when the limit of endurance has been reached. It was late, according to Clematis standards. For almost twenty-four hours that dreadful, unbeaten hopefulness would be quiescent. Thomas Hardin had come and gone. Joel was in bed. Persis Dale put on her new gray gown and scrutinized herself in the mirror. She had lost interest in her personal appearance, but her professional instinct told her that the dress was a success.
"It would be real becoming if my hair wasn't strained back so. A dress can't do much for you when you look like a skinned rabbit, all on account of your hair." She recalled the coiffure in which Annabel Sinclair had presented herself the previous day, and loosening the coil of her hair, as glossy and abundant as ever, she imitated with a skill which surprised herself, Annabel's version of the latest mode. She was studying the effect when some one knocked.
It was quarter of nine. It occurred to Persis that some one of the neighbors must be ill. There seemed no other explanation for such a summons at that hour. She crossed the room hurriedly and opened the door.
A man stood outside, and after a moment of hesitation he entered, putting out his hand.
"Good evening, Miss Dale. I hope you haven't forgotten me."
Persis recalled afterward with the amazement self-discovery so frequently entails, that the one thought for which her mind had room was an intense thankfulness that she had arrayed herself in the gray dress. That emotion was infinitely removed from vanity. The new gown had become an armor. Except for its aid she would have been at too great a disadvantage in this encounter.
The hand she extended was quite steady. "Of course I haven't forgotten you, Justin. Won't you sit down?"
Justin pulled up a chair for her before seating himself. He had an impulse to gain time, the result of being taken by surprise. This was not quite the Persis he had expected to find. In recalling that early affair of the heart with the indulgent smile its absurdity demanded, Justin's imagination had drawn an unflattering sketch of the object of his boyish devotion. But his first glance told him that Persis Dale was still a good-looking woman, with an unmistakable dignity of manner, and, surprising as it seemed, some commendable ideas as to dress. His eyes dwelt on her with approval. He really wished he had called earlier.
They talked for a little of the most obvious matters as old friends will, meeting after many years. He was less at ease than she, and asked her permission to smoke, finding the manipulation of his cigarette a help in concealing if not overcoming his unwonted sense of embarrassment. The talk turned presently to common acquaintances, dangerous ground, he realized, though he asked himself what other interest they had in common. Persis was able to give him considerable information concerning friends, some of whose very names he had forgotten. She left him to direct the conversation as he would. He reflected that she was more quiet than he would have expected to find her, more reserved, but by no means a woman to laugh at. That had been his mistake.
He was lighting his second cigarette when he caught sight of the plush-framed photograph. He stared till his match went out, and rising, crossed the room. As he scrutinized the likeness of his callow self, he gave way to laughter, his first spontaneous expression of feeling since he entered the room.
"Upon my word, Persis," he cried gaily, using her name for the first time and seemingly unconscious that he had done so. "It's been extremely charitable of you to give this jay house-room for so long." He scratched another match, lit his cigarette and laughed again. "I wonder if I could have been such an unconscionable donkey as I looked."
Persis moved slightly in her chair, but failed to reassure him on that point.
"We really wore our hair in that style, didn't we?" he continued humorously. "And yet the thunderbolts spared us. And that classy thing in ties! By jove! Persis, you'll have to make me a present of this for old times' sake. This pretty picture of smiling innocence gets on my nerves. I shall feel easier when it has been consigned to the flames."
From the armchair Persis spoke. Her voice was low and distinct.
"Let that picture alone."
The accent of authority was unmistakable. Justin Ware turned, and stood transfixed by what he saw. Persis' cheeks were crimson, her eyes ablaze. His astonishment over the discovery that she was angry, blended with surprised admiration. Persis in a fury was almost a handsome woman.
He went back to his chair, a trifle uncertain as to the next move. He had made a study of women, too, but this country dressmaker baffled him for the moment. Her heated defense of his picture would have suggested a conclusion flattering to his vanity had it not been for the incongruous fact that seemingly her anger was directed against himself. There was a piquant flavor to the situation gratifying to his epicure's taste.
"It's good of you to stand up for the fellow, Persis. You always were kind-hearted, I remember. But really isn't this stretching charity too far? Such a Rube is meant to be laughed at. There's nothing else to do with him. And to think that he and I were one only—let's see, how many years has it been?"
"We won't talk about that picture any more."
He regarded her humorously through the haze of smoke. "And why not?"
"He's a friend of mine. I don't care to have him laughed at!"
"But you forget my relation to the gentleman, my dear Persis. If any one should be sensitive, it surely is I."
"You've nothing to do with him," Persis declared, biting off her words in peppery mouthfuls. "You're as much of a stranger to him as you are to me. We'll just let him alone. There's things enough to talk about, I should hope, without making fun of that poor boy."
"Suppose I give you one of my late photographs in exchange for the cherub with the curly locks."
"I don't want it."
Justin was a trifle taken aback. He had hardly made the offer before he had accused himself of indiscretion. To be sure Persis was taking a very proper attitude. She showed no inclination to presume on the sentimental phase of their former acquaintance. She had said distinctly that they were strangers. And yet it was as well to be guarded. The bluntness of her retort gave him an almost rueful conviction of the needlessness of caution.
The flame of Persis' anger had burned itself out almost immediately,but the red embers still glowed in her eyes, and her cheeks were hot.She changed the subject with no pretense at finesse: "You seen MinervaLeveridge yet?"
"I don't seem to recall any one of that name."
"She was Minerva Bacon, and she married Joe Leveridge, old Doctor Whitely's nephew. You must remember him. Quiet sort of boy with a cast in his eye."
"Oh, yes. I remember the fellow now. His name was Leveridge, was it?"
"Yes. He died six or seven years ago. He left Minerva comf'tably fixed, judging from the mourning she wore. When a widow's crêpe veil reaches to her heels it's pretty sure her husband left her some life insurance. You been to the Sinclairs' yet?"
"Why, yes." Justin looked a little guilty. As a matter of fact he had found time to drop in to see Annabel more than once. "I met Mrs. Sinclair on the street near the hotel one afternoon, and she asked me to call."
"That's why she was in such a hurry for the net," thought Persis. Aloud she said: "Her Diantha is an awfully pretty girl, as much of a belle as ever her mother was."
"No? I haven't happened to see the girl, but it's hard to think ofMrs. Sinclair as the mother of a grown daughter."
Ware realized with amazement that he would not again be allowed to broach the subject of the photograph. He had that fondness for playing with fire which so frequently survives in the adults of both sexes, and he gave the conversation a semi-sentimental twist more than once, only to be brought back sharply to practicalities by the lady in gray. There was no doubt that Persis meant to be mistress of the situation.
"I shall see you very soon again," he said, as he shook hands for good night. He would probably have said this in any case, such consolatory assurances being instinctive with him, but for a wonder he meant it. He had looked forward to this meeting with reluctance and had only made the call because even his complacent conscience had assured him that to omit it would be inexcusable. And virtue had been unexpectedly rewarded. He had enjoyed himself. He wanted to call again.
"Good night," said Persis, and neglected to assure him of her pleasure in the anticipation of his speedy return. She withdrew her hand. "Good night," she repeated. And if she recalled their last parting in that very room, she was not sure whether the contrast was a ground for laughter or for tears.
The night following Justin Ware's visit, Persis slept as soundly as a tired child. It was not that the interview had relieved her apprehensions nor in any way set her mind at rest, but after prolonged uncertainty, even the realization of one's worst forebodings may come as a relief. She slept late and rose more weary than when she went to bed. Yet in spite of that numbing sense of lassitude which clung like weights to her limbs, and for all her unaccustomed aversion to the thought of work, she knew her battle was won. Never again would she watch and listen and strangle at their birth, poor futile prayers for some assurance that a man's heart was still hers.
As if some evil spell had been broken, she recalled with pangs of self-reproach various duties she had neglected, in her unwonted self-absorption. She had not even kept her promise to Doctor Ballard to see his obdurate patient. Persis realized how completely she had regained her poise when she chuckled over the plan which had suggested itself as she listened to Doctor Ballard's diagnosis of Mrs. Richards' ailment.
"I'm so kind of headachy and restless that my sewing's bound to be a fizzle. I'll run in to see Charlotte this afternoon. It's a shame I haven't been there before. Don't know what the doctor'll think of me."
Considering that she was merely planning a little friendly call on a sick neighbor, Persis made her toilet with surprising care. In putting up her hair she again selected Annabel Sinclair as a model. She donned the gray crêpe, a startling innovation, for in Clematis to wear a new dress on week-days, for any occasion less important than a wedding or a funeral, argued constitutional extravagance. As a final step in her preparation she rubbed her cheeks violently with a rough crash towel, the resulting brilliant complexion successfully obliterating all traces of weariness, the flotsam and jetsam of anxious days and haunted nights. And then with a jauntiness remarkable under the circumstances, Persis departed, resolved by fair means or foul to distract the thoughts of Mrs. Nelson Richards from the occupancy of a reserved apartment in the Heavenly mansions.
Charlotte Richards had always been a pretty woman of that ethereal type of beauty that is not noticeably diminished by fragility. Persis, looking her over, estimated that the thirty pounds the doctor credited her with losing had been appreciably increased since he made his appeal for aid. At the same time, the dressmaker admitted with grudging admiration the effectiveness of the picture the invalid presented as she lay back in her rocking-chair, bright-colored pillows heaped about her, a slender figure in black, the wide blue eyes matched by the blue veins in the temples, and with violet shadows below. In the bright, prosaic little sitting-room she looked as out of place as a Raphael's cherub in a kindergarten, a creature unmistakably belonging to another sphere.
"Dear Persis," breathed Mrs. Richards, and extended a transparent hand."You'll forgive my not getting up," she added gently.
"Don't mention it." Persis' ringing tones had a heartiness which seemed plebeian contrasted with Mrs. Richards' subdued murmurs. "You look the picture of comfort in that big chair. I'd hate to have you disturb yourself."
The faintest imaginable shadow crossed the other's face.
"I have very little strength, Persis. Day by day I am growing weaker. But don't think I am complaining. I am quite happy as I lie here picturing the glories of the New Jerusalem."
"I've found that rare beef was the best thing in the world for that kind of thoughts," responded Persis. "I buy the round and scrape it. You can take it raw if it's ice-cold, but I like it best made into a ball and just scorched on both sides, enough to heat it through."
The invalid's smile was distinctly superior.
"You are trying to encourage me, Persis, but you have nursed too many of the sick not to see that I'm very near the river. Earthly remedies are of no avail," declared Mrs. Richards, who had the constitutional incapacity of numberless people to speak of death and the hereafter, and yet remain simple and unaffected. "But I do not find the thought depressing. Far from it. My heart is light when I think of the joys that await me."
"I didn't know but on your husband's account you'd feel like making an effort."
Mrs. Richards sighed.
"Poor Nelson! Yes, my heart bleeds when I think of Nelson left in his loneliness. But it won't be for long. He will soon follow me."
Persis elevated her brows.
"Well, no, Charlotte. Don't deceive yourself about that. Nelson will feel your going, and for a time he'll take on something terrible. But he won't die of it. He comes of good long-lived stock, Nelson does, and though he's no boy, he's likely got twenty-five or thirty years ahead of him. And that brings me around to what was in my mind when I came over."
She relapsed into silence, studying a figure in the carpet, and apparently not quite certain how to continue. "Well?" questioned Mrs. Richards, and for the first time during the interview there was a querulous note in her voice.
"It's about Nelson's future. Of course, as far as you're concerned, there's no reason to worry. There's some folks that are naturally constituted to enjoy Heaven, and there's others who seem to belong to this earth. Nelson's one sort and you're another." This time her pause was protracted.
"Well?" Mrs. Richards prompted feverishly. "Go on."
"I really don't know, Charlotte. Maybe I've been a little mite impulsive speaking out this way. Perhaps I'd better not say anything more."
"Anything more? You haven't said anything yet, as far as I can see," returned Mrs. Richards tartly. "Don't be mysterious, Persis."
"Well, for some days now, I've been deliberating opening up my mind to you. They do say that folks that are kind of on the border-line between the two worlds, can see things plainer than other people. But I won't say another word unless I get your solemn promise that what I tell you don't go any further."
"Of course I shall respect your confidence, Persis." Mrs. Richards swallowed impatiently. "I always tell Nelson everything, but except for him—"
"But Nelson's the very last one I want to hear this. Never mind, Charlotte. I see it was a crazy idea, my coming over this afternoon. I don't know what got into me. We won't talk about it any more. Did those dahlias grow in your garden, Charlotte? They're the finest I've seen this year."
"Persis Dale, you certainly can be an aggravating woman when you try.What about Nelson?"
"Do you promise you'll never breathe a word to any soul alive, least of all to Nelson himself?"
Mrs. Richards hesitated. But curiosity was not altogether foreign to her saintly nature, and Persis' reluctance to impart the confidence naturally increased her desire to hear it. "I promise," she agreed, with an effort to keep the eagerness out of her voice.
"Well, then, this is what I was coming at. Of course I see that as you lie here you're bound to be thinking about Nelson, and worrying over what's going to become of him while you're enjoying yourself on the other side."
"That is all arranged," Mrs. Richards interrupted. "His sister Hetty is coming to keep house for him."
"Hetty's no kind of companion for Nelson. He's a man who likes cheerful company, and Hetty's what I call a natural widow. You know some folks are born that way. They kind of hang crêpe on everything they touch. Hetty drizzles tears as easy as a sponge."
"Well, really, Persis, as long as Nelson and I are satisfied with the arrangement I don't know as you have any call to trouble yourself."
Persis met the invalid's irritated protest with an air of disarming frankness.
"Of course you wouldn't see, and that's just what I'm coming at. I suppose Nelson has told you that he and I had a little boy and girl affair when we was both of us too young to know our own minds."
Mrs. Richards' incredulous gasp indicated with sufficient clearness that she had not been favored with her husband's confidence regarding that chapter in his past.
"You and Nelson?"
"Yes. Now, I don't mean, Charlotte, that we was ever engaged. Mother thought I was too young to have steady company, and Nelson was just a boy, and he took her snubbings to heart more'n he would have done if he'd been older."
"He's always given me to understand," said the wife with dignity, "thatI was the only woman he ever cared for."
"I guess they generally say that, don't they, Charlotte? It's kind of like the 'honor and obey' in the marriage service. Women say it when they know theycan'thonor and theywon'tobey. It's just a form. But as far as Nelson goes," explained Persis thoughtfully, "I dare say he could fix that up with his conscience without any trouble, seeing our sweethearting never got beyond a few kisses at the gate. He did give me a ring once, but 'twas nothing but carnelian. Land! Who'd think of that twice?"
Mrs. Richards, breathing hard, had no comment to offer on that delicate point.
"Now the case is just this." Persis spoke briskly. "After you're dead and gone, Nelson's bound to marry again. A widower just can't help himself. What with all the women scheming to catch him, he's got about as much chance as a potato-bug turned loose in a chicken-yard. Queer thing, the difference between bachelors and widowers," mused Persis, straying temporarily into generalizations. "By the time a bachelor's as old as Nelson, the women have kind of given up on him. But if a man's been married once it proves that he's got a soft spot somewhere, and all that's needed is for them to keep on trying till they find it. But as I was saying. Charlotte, I thought that it might ease your mind to know that he ain't going to be allowed to throw himself away. While I don't want to seem boastful about it, I don't mind saying to you that there's not another woman in the town who would stand any show alongside me, if Nelson was free to pick and choose. And I'll give you my solemn promise that he shan't put anybody in your place that you'd be ashamed to acknowledge for your husband's second wife."
Forgetting her pitiful lack of strength, Mrs. Richards sat erect, her hollow cheeks aflame.
"Persis Dale, have you got the nerve to sit there and tell me to my face that you're going to set your cap for my husband after I'm dead?"
"Now lie down, Charlotte, till I explain." Persis' soothing tone suggested readiness to excuse the natural peevishness of an invalid. "You mustn't go to exciting yourself, and hastening the end."
Mrs. Richards promptly resumed her recumbent position.
"I've talked plain to you, Charlotte," Persis said, "because you're not of the same clay as most women. You've always been wrapped up in celestial things since you was a girl. But a woman can't live with a man as long as you've lived with Nelson and not feel responsible for him. And I've told you this so there won't be a single shadow on your mind these last days. I'll look out for Nelson." She spoke with the air of one accepting a sacred trust.
"I never heard of such a thing," breathed Mrs. Richards from the pillows.
"Of course while you were living, Charlotte," Persis continued, as if the release so cheerfully anticipated by the invalid had already been consummated, "I never should have allowed myself to think of Nelson twice. But I own I've blamed my mother more than once for sending him about his business the way she did. Nelson is a man in a thousand, steady and affectionate and a careful provider. If he's been so good to you, Charlotte, just think what the second wife has reason to expect!"
In muffled tones Mrs. Richards confided to the pillow that never in all her life—and seemed unable to proceed further.
"Well, I must be going." Suiting the action to the words, Persis rose."Send for me any time, Charlotte. Ever since I heard about your stateof health, I've felt drawn to you, same as if you were a sister. Mind,I'll drop my sewing and everything any time you want me. And as forNelson's future, don't you give yourself an anxious thought about that."
"Good-by," said Mrs. Richard's faintly, and closed her eyes. And with a commiserative glance in which lurked a spice of humor, Persis withdrew. At the door she encountered Nelson Richards hurrying home early from his work to spend as much time as possible with his wife. Anxiety had left its signature on Nelson's jovial face. He walked with dragging step and drooping shoulders, apprehension counterfeiting age. But at the sight of Persis he roused himself from his customary abstraction.
"Hello, Persis. Well, I declare you're a sight for sore eyes." He regarded her with frank admiration, an unconscious tribute to the effectiveness of the gray crêpe. "Looks like you was renewing your youth," he continued with heavy gallantry. "Ain't seen you look so handsome since you was sixteen."
Persis had not invented the episode of Nelson's boyish admiration. In all important details she had held rigidly to the truth, though it is doubtful whether those innocent, sexless kisses at the gate had been recalled in the past dozen years by either party to the transaction. But it was true that Nelson Richards had always had a warm spot in his affections for his first sweetheart, and the cordiality of his greeting was by no means perfunctory.