Anderson, watching, saw presently, the bridal party emerge from the church. To his fancy, which naturally looked for similes to his beloved pursuits of life, he saw the bride like a white moth of the night, her misty veil, pendant from her head to her feet, carrying out the pale, slanting evanescence of the moth's wings. She moved with a slight wavering motion suggestive of the flight of the vague winged thing which flits from darkness to darkness when it does not perish in the candle beams. This moth, to Anderson, was doing the latter, fluttering possibly to her death, in the light of that awful primæval force of love upon which the continuance of creation hangs. Again, a great pity for her overwhelmed him, and a very fierceness of protection seized him at the sight of Charlotte following her sister in her bridesmaid's attire of filmy white over rose, with pink roses in her hair.
Anderson stood where he could see the faces of the bridal party quite plainly in the glare of the electric light. Charlotte, he saw, with emotion, had an awed, intensely sober expression on her charming face, but the bride's, set in the white mist of her thrown-back veil, was smiling lightly. He saw Arms bend over and whisper to her, and she laughed outright with girlish gayety. Anderson wondered what he said. Arms had smiled, yet his face was evidently moved. What he had said was simple enough: “Fighting Indians is nothing to getting married, honey.”
Ina laughed, but her husband's lips quivered a little. She herself realized a curious self-possession greater than she had ever realized in her whole life. It is possible that the world is so old and so many women have married in it that a heredity of self-control supports them in the midst of an occasion which has quickened their pulses in anticipation during their whole lives. But the bridegroom was not so supported. He was manifestly agitated and nervous, especially during the reception which followed the ceremony. He stood with forced amiability responding to the stilted congratulations and gazing with wondering admiration at his bride, whose manner was the perfection of grace.
“Lord, old man!” he whispered once to Carroll, “this part of it is a farce for an old fellow like me, standing in a blooming bower, being patted on the head like a little poodle-dog.”
Carroll laughed.
“She likes it, now,” whispered Arms, with a fond, proud glance at Ina.
“Women all do,” responded Carroll.
“Well, I'd stand here a week if she wanted to, bless her,” Arms whispered back, and turned with a successful grimace to acknowledge Mrs. Van Dorn's carefully worded congratulations. As she turned away she met Carroll's eyes, and a burning blush overspread her face to her pompadour crest surmounting her large, middle-aged face. She suddenly recalled, with painful acuteness, the only other occasion on which she had been in the house; but Carroll's manner was perfect, there was in his eyes no recollection whatever.
Mrs. Carroll was lovely in pale-mauve crape embroidered with violets, a relic of past splendors, remodelled for the occasion in spite of doubts on her part, and her beautiful old amethysts. Anna had urged it.
“I shall wear my cream lace, which no one here has ever seen, and I think, Amy, you had better wear that embroidered mauve crape,” she said.
“But, Anna,” said Mrs. Carroll, “doesn't it seem as if Ina's mother ought not to wear an old gown at the dear child's wedding? I would as lief, as far as I am concerned, but is it doing the right thing?”
“Why not?” asked Anna, rather tartly. Lately her temper was growing a little uncertain. Sometimes she felt as if she had been beset all her life by swarms of gnats. “No one here has ever seen the dress,” said she. “And what in the world could you have prettier, if you were to get a new one?”
“Oh, this Banbridge dressmaker is really making charming things,” said Mrs. Carroll, rather eagerly. She had a childish fondness for new clothes. “She would make me a beautiful dress, so far as that goes, Anna, dear.”
“She has all she can do with Ina's things.”
“I reckon she could squeeze in one for me, Anna. Don't you think so?”
“Then there is the extra expense,” said Anna.
“But she does not hesitate in the least to trust us,” said Mrs. Carroll. “But maybe you are right, Anna. That embroidered mauve is lovely, and perfectly fresh, and it is very warm to fuss over another, and then my amethysts look charming with that.”
Therefore, Mrs. Carroll wore the mauve and the amethysts, and was by many considered handsomer than either of her daughters. There had been some discussion about giving the amethysts to Ina for a wedding-gift, but finally a set of wonderful carved corals, which she had always loved and never been allowed to wear, were decided upon. Anna had given a pearl brooch, which had come down from her paternal grandmother, and Carroll had presented her with a large and evidently valuable pearl ring which had excited some wonder in the family.
“Why, Arthur, where did you get it?” his wife had cried, involuntarily; and he had laughed and refused to tell her.
Ina herself, while she received the ring with the greatest delight, was secretly a little troubled. “I am afraid poor papa ought not to have given me such a present as this,” she said to Charlotte, when the two girls were in their room that night. As she spoke she was holding the pearl to the lamp-light and watching the beautiful pink lights. It was a tinted pearl.
“It is a little different, because you are going away, and papa will never buy you things again,” said Charlotte. “I should not worry, dear.” For the few days before her marriage, Charlotte had gotten a habit of treating her sister with the most painstaking consideration for her nerves and her feelings, as if she were an invalid. She was herself greatly troubled at the thought that her father had overtasked his resources to purchase such a valuable thing, but she would not for worlds have intimated such a thing to Ina.
“Well, I do worry,” said Ina. “I cannot help it. It was too much for poor papa to do.” She even shed a few tears over the pearl, and Charlotte kissed and coddled her a good deal for comfort.
“It is such a beauty, dear,” she said. “Look at it and take comfort in it, darling.”
“Yes, it is a beauty,” sobbed Ina. “I never saw such a pearl except that one of poor papa's, the one he has in his scarf-pin that belonged to that friend of his who died, you know.”
“Yes, dear,” said Charlotte, “I know. It is another just such a beauty. Don't cry any more, honey. Think how happy you are to have it.”
But Charlotte herself, after she had gone to bed in her own little room, had sobbed very softly lest her sister should hear her, until Ina was asleep. Her sister's remarks had brought a suspicion to her own mind. “Poor papa!” she kept whispering softly, to herself. “Poor papa!” It seemed to her that her heart was breaking with understanding of and pity for her father.
Charlotte's own gift to Ina had been some pieces of embroidery. She was the only one in the family who excelled in any kind of handicraft. “Ina will like this better than anything,” she had told her aunt Anna, “and then it will not tax poor papa, either. It will cost nothing.”
Her aunt had looked at her a minute, then suddenly thrown her arms around her and kissed her. “Charlotte, you little honey, you are the best of the lot!” she had said.
Charlotte herself, the night of the wedding, was looking rather pale and serious. Many observed that she was the least good-looking of the family. Several Banbridge young men essayed to make themselves agreeable to her, but she did not know it. She was very busy. Besides their one maid there were the waiters sent by the caterer, and Eddy was exceedingly troublesome. He was a nervous boy, and unless directly under his father's eye, almost beyond restraint when impressed, as he was then, with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. His activities took especially the form of indiscriminate and superfluous helping the guests to refreshments, until the waiters waxed fairly murderous, and one of them even appealed to Anna Carroll, intimating in Eddy's hearing that unless the young gentleman left matters to them the supply of salad would run short.
“Why didn't we have more, then?” inquired Eddy, quite audibly, to the delight of all within ear-shot. “I thought we were going to have plenty for everybody this time.”
“Eddy dear,” whispered Charlotte, taking his little arm, “come with me into the hall and help me put back some roses that have fallen out of the big vase. I am afraid I shall get some water on my gown if I touch them, and I noticed just now that some one had brushed against them and jostled some out.”
“Charlotte, why didn't we have salad enough?” persisted Eddy, as he followed his sister, pulling back a little at her leading hand.
“Hush, dear; we have enough, only you had better leave it to the waiters, you know.”
“Everybody has taken it that I have passed it to,” said Eddy. “I have given that gentleman over there four plates heaped up.”
“Oh, hush, Eddy dear!” whispered Charlotte, in an agony.
By this time they were in the hall, and Eddy, still full of grievances, was picking up the scattered roses. “I suppose there won't be enough salad for my friend and his mother when they come,” said he, further.
“Who are your friend and his mother, darling?”
“Mr. Anderson and his mother,” declared Eddy, promptly. “He is the best man in this town, and so is his mother.”
“Mr. Anderson, dear?”
“Yes. You know who I mean. You ought to know. He always lets us have all we want out of his store. He and his mother are the nicest people in this town except us.”
Charlotte looked at her little brother and her face flushed softly. “But, dear,” she whispered, “they did not have any invitations to the reception.”
“Yes, they did,” declared Eddy, triumphantly.
“Why, who sent them?”
“I did,” said Eddy.
Charlotte regarded her little brother with a curious expression. It was amused, and yet strangely puzzled, but more as if the puzzle were in her own mind than elsewhere. It was as if she were trying to remember something.
“Don't you think he is a nice man?” asked Eddy, looking sharply at her.
“Yes, dear, I think so. I don't know anything to the contrary.”
“Don't you think he is handsome?”
Suddenly Charlotte saw Anderson's face in her thoughts for the first time very plainly. “Yes,” she said, “of course. Let us go in the other room, Eddy, and see if Amy doesn't want anything.” She led Eddy forcibly into the parlor.
“It is so late, I am afraid he won't come,” the little boy said, disappointedly, when the clock on the mantel struck eleven just as they entered.
It was not long after that when the company began to disperse. The bride and groom were to take a midnight-train, and the bride and her sister stole away up-stairs for the changing of the bridal for the travelling costume.
Charlotte unfastened her sister's wedding-gown, and she was striving her best to keep the tears back. Ina, on the contrary, was gayer than usual.
“It is very odd,” said she, as Charlotte hooked the collar of her gray travelling-gown, “how a girl looks forward to getting married, all her life, and thinks more of it than anything else, and how, after all, it is nothing at all. You can remember that I said so, Charlotte, when you come to get married. You needn't dread it as if it were some tremendous undertaking. It isn't, you know.”
“You speak exactly as if you had died, and were telling me not to dread dying,” said Charlotte. She laughed, and the laugh was almost a sob.
“What an idea!” cried Ina, laughing. “Of course I am very sad at leaving home and you all, you darling, but the getting married is not so much, after all. You will find that I am right.”
“I shall never get married,” said Charlotte.
“Nonsense, honey! 'Deed you will.”
“No, I shall not. I shall stay with papa.”
“Yes, you will. Say, honey, Robert”—Ina said Robert quite easily and prettily now—“Robert has a stunning cousin, young enough to be his son. His name is Floyd—Floyd Arms. Isn't that a dear name? And his father has just died, and he has the next place to ours.”
“Don't be foolish, dear.”
“Robert says he is a fine fellow.”
“I know all about him. I have seen Floyd Arms,” said Charlotte, rather contemptuously.
“Oh, so you have! He was home that last time you were in Acton, wasn't he? You spoke of him when you came home.”
“Yes, the last term I was at school,” said Charlotte. “Let me pin your veil, sweetheart.”
“Don't you think he was handsome?”
“No, I don't, not so very,” said Charlotte.
“Oh, Charlotte, where did you ever see a handsomer man, unless it was papa or Robert?”
“I have seen much handsomer men,” declared Charlotte, firmly, as she carefully pinned her sister's veil.
“Well, I would like to know where? Not in this town?”
“Yes, in this town.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Anderson.”
“The grocer?”
“Yes,” said Charlotte, defiantly. The veil was pinned, and Ina turned and looked at her, a rosy vision behind a film of gray lace. “You look lovely,” said Charlotte, who had a soft pink in her cheeks.
“I think this hat is a beauty,” said Ina. “Wasn't it lucky that New Sanderson milliner was so very good, and did not object to giving credit? Why, Mr. Anderson is the grocer! That is the man you mean, isn't it, honey?”
“Yes,” replied Charlotte, still with defiance.
“Oh, well, that doesn't count,” said Ina, turning for a last view of herself in the glass. “This dress fits beautifully.”
“I don't see what that has to do with it,” said Charlotte, as they left the room. She felt, even in the midst of parting, and without knowing why, a little indignation with her sister.
On the threshold, Ina paused suddenly and flung her arms around the other girl. “Oh, honey,” she said, with a half-sob—“oh, honey, how can we talk of who is handsome and who isn't, whether he is the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick-maker, when, when—” The two clung together for a minute, then Charlotte put her sister gently away.
“You will muss your veil, dearest,” said she, “and it is almost time to go, and Amy and papa will want the last of you.”
That night, after the bridal pair had departed and everybody else had gone to bed, Anna Carroll and her brother had a little conference in the parlor amid the débris of the wedding splendor. The flowers and greens were drooping, the room and the whole house had that peculiar phase of squalidness which comes alone from the ragged ends of festivities; the floors were strewn with rice and rose leaves and crumbs from the feast; plates and cups and saucers or fragments stood about everywhere; the chairs and the tables were in confusion. Anna, who had been locking up the silver for the night, had come into the parlor, and found her brother standing in a curious, absent-minded fashion in the middle of the floor.
“Why, Arthur!” said she. “I thought you had gone to bed.”
“I am going,” said he, but he made no move.
Anna looked at him, and her expression was weary and a little bitter. “Well, it is over,” said she.
Carroll nodded. “Yes,” he said, with a half-suppressed sigh.
Anna glanced around the room. “This house is a sight for one maid to wrestle with,” said she; and her brother, beyond a glance of the utmost indifference around the chaotic room, did not seem to notice her remark at all. However, that she did not resent. Indeed, she herself was so far from taking the matter to heart that she laughed a little as she continued to survey the ruins.
“Well, it went off well; it was a pretty wedding,” said she, with a certain tone of pleasure.
Carroll turned to her quite eagerly. “You think Ina was pleased?” he said. “It was all as she wished it to be?”
“What could a girl have wished more?” cried Anna. “Everything was charming, just as it should be. All I think about is—”
“What?” asked her brother.
“We have danced,” said Anna. “What I want to know is, is the piper to be paid, or shall we have to dance to another tune by way of reprisal.”
“The piper is paid,” replied Carroll, shortly. He turned to go, but his sister stepped in front of him.
“How?” she said.
Carroll looked down at her.
“Yes, you are quite right, Arthur,” said she. “I am afraid. You are, or may reasonably be, rather a desperate man. You have never taken quite kindly to straits. If the piper is paid, I want to know how, for my own peace of mind. By the piper I mean the creditors for all this”—she glanced around the room—“the wedding flowers and feast and carriages.”
“I earned enough honestly,” replied Carroll. He had a strangely straightforward, almost boyish way of meeting her sharp gaze.
“How?”
“You had better not press the matter, Anna.”
“I do. I am afraid.” She responded to his look with a certain bitter, sarcastic insistence. “I have reason to be,” said she. “You know I have, Arthur Carroll. We are all on the edge of a precipice, but I, for one, do not intend to let you drag me over, and I do not intend that Amy and the children shall go, either, if I can help it. I want to know where you got the money to pay for the wedding expenses, and I want to know where you got that pearl ring you gave Ina. It never cost a cent under three hundred dollars.”
Carroll, looking at her, smiled a little sadly.
“It was then,” said she, “Hart Lee's pearl that he left you when he died—your scarf-pin.”
Carroll smiled. Anna's face changed a little.
“I noticed that you had not worn it lately,” said she.
“Sooner or later it would have been the child's. It might as well be sooner,” said Carroll, with a slightly annoyed air.
“Eddy should have had it,” Anna said, with a jealous air.
“That child?”
“When he was older, of course.”
“That is a long way ahead,” said Carroll. He moved to go, but again Anna stood before him.
“Arthur,” said she, solemnly, “I am living with you and doing all I am able. I am giving my strength for you and yours. You know that as well as I do. You know upon whom the brunt here falls. I do not complain. The one who has the best strength should bear the burden, and I have the strength, such as it is. None of us Carrolls need brag of strength, God knows. But I want to know how you came by that money. Yes, I suspect, and I am not ashamed. I have a right to suspect. How did you get that money?”
“I sang and danced for it in a music-hall, blackened up as a negro,” said Arthur Carroll.
“Then that was you, Arthur!” gasped Anna.
“Yes. It was the one thing I could do to get that money honestly and pay the bills, and I did it. I would not let Arms pay.”
“I should think not,” cried Anna. “We have not fallen quite so low as that yet. But you—”
“Yes, I,” said Carroll. “Now let us go to bed, Anna.”
Anna stood aside, but as her brother turned to pass her she suddenly put up her arms, and as he stooped she kissed him. He felt her cheek wet against his. “Good-night, Arthur,” she said, and all the bitterness was gone from her voice.
It was a week to a day after the wedding, and Anderson had been to the office for the morning mail, and was just returning to the store when a watching face at a window of Madame Griggs's dress-making establishment opposite suddenly disappeared, and when Anderson was mounting the steps of the store piazza he heard a panting breath and rattle of starched petticoats, and turned to see the dress-maker.
“Good-morning,” she gasped.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Griggs,” returned Anderson.
“Can I see you jest a minute on business? I have been watching for you to come back from the office. I want to buy a melon, if it ain't too dear, before I go, but I want to see you jest a minute in the office first, if you ain't too busy.”
“Certainly. Come right in,” responded Anderson; but his heart sank, for he divined her errand.
The dress-maker followed him into the office with a nervous teeter and a loud rattle of starched cottons. That morning she was clad in blue gingham trimmed profusely with white lace, and her face looked infinitesimal and meagre in the midst of her puffs of blond frizzes.
“I should think that woman was dressed in paper bags by the noise she makes,” Sam Riggs remarked to the old clerk when the office door had closed behind her.
“I should think it would kinder take her mind off things she starts out to do,” remarked Price. The rattle of the oscillating petticoats had distracted his own mind from a nice calculation as to the amount of a bill for a fractional amount of citron at a fractional increase in the market-price. The old clerk was about to send a cost slip with some goods to be delivered to a cash customer.
“Yep,” responded Sam Riggs. “I should think she'd git rattled with sech a rattlin' of her petticoats.” The boy regarded this as so supernaturally smart that he actually blushed with modest appreciation of his own wit, and tears sprang to his eyes when he laughed. But when he glanced at his fellow-clerk, Price was calculating the cost of the citron, and did not seem to have noticed anything unusual in the speech. Riggs, who was easily taken down, felt immediately humiliated, and doubtful of his own humor, and changed the subject. “Say,” he whispered, jerking his index-finger towards the office door, “you don't suppose she is settin' her cap at the boss, do you?”
“Well, I guess she'd have to take it out in settin',” replied the old clerk, in scorn. He had now the price of the citron fixed in his head, and he trotted to the standing desk at the end of the counter to enter it.
“I guess so, too,” said Riggs. “Guess she'd have to starch her cap stiffer than her petticoats before she'd catch him.” Again Riggs thought he must be funny, but, when the other clerk did not laugh, concluded he must have been mistaken.
The conference in the office was short, and Price had hardly gotten the slip made out when Madame Griggs emerged. Indeed, she had not accepted Anderson's proffer of a chair.
“No,” said she, “I can't set down. I 'ain't got but a minute. Two of my girls is went on their vacation, an' I 'ain't got nobody but Bessie Starley, an' I've promised Mis' Rawdy she should have her new silk skirt before Sunday to wear to Coney Island. Mr. Rawdy has made so much on hiring his carriages for the weddin' that he has bought his wife a new black silk dress, an' now he is goin' to take her to Coney Island Sunday, and hire the Liscom boy to take his place drivin'. Now what I come in here for was—” Madame Griggs lowered her voice; she drew nearer Anderson, and her anxious whisper whistled in his ear. “What I want to know is,” said she, “here's Mr. Rawdy, an' I hear the caterer, were paid in advance, an' Blumenfeldt was paid the day after the weddin', an' I ain't, an' I wonder if I'm goin' to be.”
“Have you sent in your bill yet?” inquired Anderson.
“No, I 'ain't, but Captain Carroll asked Blumenfeldt for his bill an' he paid the others in advance, an' he 'ain't asked for my bill.”
“I do not see why you distress yourself until you have sent in your bill,” Anderson said, rather coldly.
“Now, don't you think so?”
“I certainly do not.”
“Well,” said she, “to tell the truth, I kinder hated to send it too quick. I hated to have it look as if I was scart. It's a pretty big bill, too, an' they seem like real ladies, an' the sister, the one that ain't married, is as nice a girl as I ever see—nicer than the other one, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. She ain't stuck up a mite. The rest of them don't mean to be stuck up, but they be without knowin' it. Guess they was brought up so; but Charlotte ain't. Well, I kinder hated, as I say, to send that bill, especially as it is a pretty big one. I made everything as reasonable as I could, but she had a good many things, an' Charlotte had her bridesmaid's dress, too, an' it's mounted up to considerable, an' I hated to have 'em think I was dreadful scart. I 'ain't never been in the habit of sendin' in a bill to nobody, not for some weeks after the things was did, an' I didn't like to this time. But I says to myself, as long as there had been so much talk round 'mongst folks about the Carrolls not payin' their bills, I'd wait a week an' then I'd send it in. Now it's jest a week ago to-day since the weddin', an' there ain't a word. I thought mebbe they'd ask for the bill the way they did with Blumenfeldt, an' now I want to know if you think I had better send the bill or wait a little while longer.”
Anderson replied that he thought it would do no harm, that he did not like to advise in such a case.
The dress-maker eyed him sharply and with a certain resentment. “Now, I want to know,” said she. “I want you to speak right out and tell me, if you think I'm imposin'.”
“I don't quite understand what you mean,” Anderson replied, in bewilderment. He was horribly annoyed and perplexed, but his manner was kind, for the memory of poor little Stella Mixter with her shower of blond curls was strong upon him, and there was something harrowingly pathetic about the combination of little, veinous hands twitching nervously in the folds of the blue gingham, the painstaking frizzes, the pale, screwed little face, and the illogical feminine brain.
But the dress-maker's next remark almost dispelled the pathos. “I want you to tell me right out,” said she, “if it would make any difference if I paid you. Of course I know you've given up law, an' I 'ain't thought of offerin' you pay for advice. I've traded all I can in your store, though I always think you are a little dearer, and I didn't know but you'd think that made it all right; but—”
“I do think it is all right,” Anderson returned, quickly, “I assure you, Mrs. Griggs, and I have never dreamed of such a thing as your paying me. Indeed, I have given you no advice which I should have felt justified in sending in a bill for, if I were practising my profession.”
“Well, I didn't think you had told me anything worth much,” said Madame Griggs, “but I know how lawyers tuck on for nothin', and I didn't know but you might feel—”
“I certainly do not,” said Anderson.
“Well,” said Madame Griggs, “I am very much obliged to you. I'll send the bill a week from to-day, and I feel a great deal better about it. I don't have nobody to ask, and sometimes I feel as if I didn't have a friend or a brother to ask whether I'd better do anything or not, I should give up. I'm very much obliged, Mr. Anderson.”
“You are very welcome to anything I have done,” replied Anderson, looking at her with a dismay of bewilderment. It was as if he had witnessed some mental inversion which affected his own brain. Anderson always pitied Madame Griggs, but never, after his conferences with her concerning the Carrolls, did he in his heart of hearts blame her husband for running away.
Madame Griggs's coquettish manner developed on the threshold of the office. She smirked until her little, delicate-skinned face was a net-work mask, and all the muscles quivered to the sight through the transparent covering. She moved her thin, crooked elbows with a flapping motion like wings as she smirked and thanked him again.
“I should think you'd like the grocery business a heap better than law,” said she, amiably, as she went out. “Oh, I want to get a melon if they ain't too dear.” She evidently expected Anderson himself to wait upon her, and was a little taken aback that he did not follow her. She lingered for a long time haggling with Price, with a watchful eye on the office door, and finally departed without purchasing.
Shortly after she had gone, Sam Riggs came for Anderson to inspect some vegetables which had been brought in by a farmer. “He's got some fine potatoes,” said he, “but he wants too much for 'em, Price thinks. He's got cabbages, too, and them's too high. Guess you had better look at 'em yourself, Price says.”
So Anderson went out to interview the farmer, sparsely bearded, lank, and long-necked and seamy-skinned, his face ineffectual yet shrewd, a poor white of the South strung on wiry nerves, instead of lax muscles, the outcome of the New Jersey soil. He shuffled determinedly in his great boots, heavy with red shale, standing guard over his fine vegetables. He nodded phlegmatically at Anderson. He never smiled. Occasionally his long facial muscles relaxed, but they never widened. He was indefinably serious by nature, yet not melancholy, and absolutely acquiescent in his life conditions. The farmer of New Jersey is not of the stuff which breeds anarchy. He is rooted fast to his red-clinging native soil, which has taken hold of his spirit. He is tenacious, but not revolutionary. He was as adamant on the prices of his vegetables, and finally Anderson purchased at his terms.
“You got stuck,” Price said, after the farmer, in his rusty wagon, drawn by a horse which was rather a fine animal, had disappeared down the street.
“Well, I don't know,” Anderson replied. “His vegetables are pretty fine.”
“Folks won't pay the prices you ought to ask to make a penny on it.”
“Oh, I am not so sure of that. People want a good article, and very few raise potatoes or cabbages or even turnips in their own gardens.”
“Ingram is selling potatoes two cents less than you, and I rather think turnips, too.”
“Not these turnips.”
“No, guess not. He has his from another man, but they look pretty good, and half the folks don't know the dif.”
“Well,” Anderson replied, “sell them for less, if you have to, rather than keep them. Selling a superfine article for no profit is sometimes the best and cheapest advertisement in the world.”
Anderson stood a while observing the display of vegetables and fruit piled on the sidewalk before his store and in the store window. He took a certain honest pleasure of proprietorship, and also an artistic delight in it. He observed the great green cabbages, like enormous roses, the turnips, like ivory carvings veined with purplish rose towards their roots, the smooth russet of the potatoes. There were also baskets of fine grapes, the tender pink bloom of Delawares, and the pale emerald of Niagaras, with the plummy gloss of Concords. There were enormous green spheres of watermelons, baskets of superb peaches, each with a high light of rose like a pearl, and piles of bartlett and seckel pears. There was something about all this magnificent plenty of the fruits of the earth which was impressive. It was to an ardent fancy as if Flora and Pomona had been that way with their horns of plenty. The sordid question of market value, however, was distinctly irritating, and yet it was justly so. Why should not a man sell the fruits of the earth for dollars and cents with artistic and honorable dignity as anything else? All commodities for the needs of mankind are marketable, are the instruments of traffic, whether they be groceries or books, boots and shoes, dishes or furniture, or pictures; whether they be songs or sermons or corn plasters or shaving-soap; whether they be food for the mind or the body. What difference did it make which was dispensed? It was all a question of need and supply. The minister preached his sermons for the welfare of the soul; the Jew hawked his second-hand garments; everything was interwoven. One must eat to live, to hear sermons, to hear songs, to love, to think, to read. One must be clothed to tread the earth among his fellows. There was need, and one supplied one need, one another. All need was dignified by the man who possessed, all supply was dignified if one looked at it in the right way. There was a certain dignity even about his own need of two cents more on those turnips, which were actually as beautiful as an ivory carving. Anderson finally returned to his office, feeling a little impatient with himself that, in spite of his own perfect contentment with his business, he should now and then essay to justify himself in his contentment, as he undoubtedly did. It was like a violinist screwing his instrument up to concert-pitch, below which it would drop from day to day.
Anderson had not been long in his office before he heard a quick patter of feet outside, the peculiar clapping sound of swift toes, which none but a child's feet can produce, and Eddy Carroll entered. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open and ran in with no ceremony. He was well in the room before he apparently remembered something. He stopped short, ran back to the door, and knocked.
Anderson chuckled. “Come in,” he said, in a loud tone, as if the door was closed.
Then Eddy came forward with some dignity. “I remembered after I got in that I ought to have knocked,” said he. “I hope you'll excuse me.”
“Certainly,” said Anderson. “Won't you have a seat?”
Eddy sat down and swung his feet, kicking the round of the chair, with his eyes fastened on Anderson, who was seated in the other chair, smoking. “How old were you when you began to smoke?” the boy inquired, suddenly.
“Very much older than you are,” replied Anderson.
Eddy sighed. “Is it very nice to smoke?” said he.
Anderson was conscious that he was distinctly at a loss for a reply, and felt like a defaulting Sunday-school teacher as he cast about for one.
“Is it?” said Eddy again.
“Different people look at it differently,” said Anderson, “and the best way is for you to wait until you are a man and decide for yourself.”
“Is it nicer to be a man than it was to be a boy?” inquired Eddy.
“That, also, is a matter of opinion,” said Anderson.
“You can do lots of things that a boy can't,” said Eddy. “You can smoke, and you can keep store, and have all the candy you want.” Eddy cast an innocent glance towards the office door as he spoke.
“Sam!” called Anderson; and when the young clerk's grinning face appeared at the door, “Will you bring some of those peppermint-drops here for this young man.”
“I'd rather have chocolates, if you can't sell 'em any better than the peppermint-drops,” Eddy said, quickly.
When Sam reappeared with chocolates in a little paper bag, Eddy was blissful. He ate and swung his feet. “These are bully,” said he. “I should think as long as you can have all the chocolates you want, you'd rather eat those than smoke a pipe.”
“It is a matter of taste,” replied Anderson.
“I'm always going to eat chocolates instead of smoking,” said Eddy. “He gave me a lot. Say, I don't see how a boy can steal candy, do you?”
“No. It is very wrong,” said Anderson.
“You bet 'tis. I knew a boy in New York State, where we used to live before we came here, that stole candy 'most every day, and he used to bring it to school and give the other boys. He used to give me much as a pound a day. Some days he used to give me much as five pounds.” Then Eddy Carroll, after delivering himself of this statement, could not get his young, black eyes away from the fixed regard of the man's keen, blue ones, and he began to wriggle as to his body, with his eyes held firm by that unswerving gaze. “What you looking at me that way for?” he stammered. “I don't think you're very polite.”
“How much candy did that boy give you every day?” asked Anderson.
Eddy wriggled. “Well, maybe he didn't give me more 'n half a pound,” he muttered.
“How much?”
“Well, maybe it wasn't more 'n a quarter. I don't know.”
“How much?” persisted Anderson.
“Well, maybe it might have been three pieces; it was a good many years ago. A fellow can't remember everything.”
“How much?” asked Anderson, pitilessly.
“One piece.”
“How much?”
“Well, maybe it wasn't any at all,” Eddy burst out, in desperation, “but I don't see what odds it makes. I call it an awful fuss about a little mite of candy, for my part.”
“Now about that boy?” inquired Anderson.
“Oh, shucks, there wasn't any boy, I s'pose.” Eddy gazed resentfully and admiringly at the man. “Say,” he said, without the slightest sarcasm, rather with affection and perfect seriousness, “you are awful smart, ain't you?”
Anderson modestly murmured a disclaimer of any especial smartness.
“Yes, you are awful smart,” declared Eddy. “Is it because you used to be a lawyer that you are so smart?”
“The law may make a difference in a man's skill for finding out the truth,” admitted Anderson.
“Say,” said the boy, “I've been thinking all along that when I was a man I would rather be a grocer than anything else, but I don't know but I'd rather be a lawyer, after all. It would be so nice to be able to find out when folks were not telling the truth, and trying to hide when they had been stealing and doing bad things. ‘No, you don't,’ I'd say; ‘no, you don't, mister. I see right through you.’ I rather think I'd like that better. Say?”
“What is it?” asked Anderson.
“Why didn't you come to the wedding? I saved a lot of things for you.”
“I told you I thought I should not be able to come. I was very much obliged for the invitation,” said Anderson, apologetically.
“I looked for you till eleven o'clock. You ought to have come, after I took all that trouble to get an invitation for you. I don't think you were very polite.”
“I am very sorry,” murmured Anderson.
“I think you ought to be. You don't know what you missed. Ina looked awful pretty, but Charlotte looked prettier, if she wasn't the bride. Don't you think Charlotte is an awful pretty girl?”
“Very,” replied Anderson, smiling.
“You'd better. I heard her say she thought you was an awful handsome man, the handsomest man in this town. Say, I think Charlotte would like to get married, now Ina is married. I guess she feels kind of slighted. Why don't you marry Charlotte?”
“Wouldn't you like some of those molasses-peppermints, now you have finished the chocolates?” asked Anderson.
“No, I guess not, thank you. I don't feel very well this morning. Say, why don't you? She's an awful nice girl—honest. And maybe I would come and live with you. I would part of the time, anyway, and I would help in the store.”
“You had better run out and ask Sam to give you some peppermints,” repeated Anderson, desperately.
“No, thank you. I'm real obliged, but I guess I don't feel like it now. But I tell you what I had a good deal rather have?”
“What is that?”
“What are you going to have for dinner?”
“Now, see here, my son,” said Anderson, laughing. “We are going to have a fine dinner, and I should be exceedingly glad to have you as my guest, but this time there must be no dining with me without your mother's knowledge.”
“Oh, Amy won't care.”
“Nevertheless, you must go home and obtain permission before I take you home with me,” said Anderson, firmly.
“I don't think you are very polite,” said Eddy; but it ended in his presently saying that, well, then, he would go home and ask permission; but it was not of the slightest use. “They would all want me to stay, if they thought anything of me. I know Amy would. Amy said this morning I was the worst off of them all, because I had such a misfortunate appetite.” The boy's ingenuous eyes met the man's fixed upon him with a mixture of amusement and compassion. “You see,” added Eddy, simply, “all the things left over from the wedding, the caterers let us have; papa said not to ask him, and Amy wouldn't, but Aunt Anna did, and there was a lot, though folks ate so much. There was one gentleman ate ten plates of salad—yes, he did. I saw him. He was the doctor, so I suppose he wasn't ill afterwards. But there was a lot left. Of course the ice-cream melted, but it was nice to drink afterwards, and there was a lot of salad and cake and rolls. The cakes and rolls lasted longest. I got pretty tired of them. But now those are all gone, and the butcher won't let us have any more meat, though he trusted us two days after the wedding, because he heard papa paid the florist and the liveryman, but now he has stopped again. Of course we have things from here, but you don't keep meat. Why don't you keep meat?”
The absurd pathos of the whole was almost too much for Anderson. He rose and went to the window and looked out as he replied that it was not unusual for a grocer to include meat in his stock of trade.
“I know it isn't,” said Eddy, “but it would be so nice for us if you did, and all the poor people the butcher wouldn't trust. Did you ever get real hungry, and have nothing except crackers and little gingersnaps and such things?”
“No, I don't know that I ever did.”
“Well, it is awful,” said Eddy, with emphasis. He started up. “Well,” he said, “I'm going to run right home and ask Amy. She'll let me come. What did you say you were going to have for dinner?”
“Roast beef,” replied Anderson.
“Goody!” cried the boy, and was off.
Anderson, left alone, sat down and thought disturbedly. The utter futility of any efforts to assist such a family was undeniable. Nothing could be done. For a vivid instant he had an idea of rushing to the market and setting up surreptitiously a term of credit for the Carrolls, by paying their bills himself, but the absurdity of the scheme overcame him. The ridiculousness of his actually feeding this whole family because of his weakness in giving credit when not another merchant in the town would do so struck him forcibly. Yet what else could he do? He had done a foolish thing in allowing his thoughts and imaginations which were not those of a youth, and were susceptible of control had he made the effort, to dwell upon this girl, who had never even thought of him in the same light. It was romance gone mad. He, an older man who had passed beyond the period when dreams are a part of the physical growth, and unrestrainable, had indulged himself in dreams, and now he must pay in foolish realities. He thought uneasily what a laughing-stock he would become if by any means the fact of his continued credit to this non-paying family were to become known, and he saw no earthly reason why it should not become known. However, no one could possibly suspect the reason for his unbusiness-like credulity. It was simply impossible that it should enter into any one's head to suspect him of a passion for that little Carroll girl, as they would express her. If he had been extending sentimental credit to the Egglestons, people might have been quick to discover the reason in a lurking and extremely suitable affection for one of them, but this was out of the question.
However, Anderson had not a very long time for his reflections, for Eddy Carroll was back, beaming. “Yes, Amy says I can come,” he announced.
“That is good,” Anderson replied, hospitably, but he eyed him sharply. “You went very quickly,” said he.
“Got a ride on the ice wagon,” said he. “The ice-man is a good feller. I asked him why he had stopped bringing us ice, and he said if he was running the business, instead of jest carting for the boss, he'd give us all the ice we wanted for nothing. He was going up past our house, and when we got there he gave me a big chunk of ice, and I went and got Marie, and we lugged it into the kitchen together. Lucky Aunt Anna or Charlotte didn't see me.”
“Why?” asked Anderson.
“Oh, nothing, only they wouldn't have let me take it. Say, Marie was crying. Her eyes looked as red as a rabbit's. I asked her what the matter was, and she said she hadn't been paid her wages. Say, isn't it too bad everybody makes such a fuss about being paid. It worries Aunt Anna and Charlotte awfully. Women are dreadful worriers, ain't they?”
“Perhaps they are,” replied Anderson, and got out a book with colored plates of South American butterflies. “I think you will like to look at these pictures,” said he. “I have some letters to write.”
“All right,” said Eddy, and spread his little knees to form a place for the big book. “I am glad I wasn't a girl,” he said, in pursuance of his train of thought. “Golly, what a whopper butterfly!”
“Yes, that is a big fellow,” said Anderson.
“I caught one once twice as big as that in a place where we used to live.”
“Don't talk any more, son,” said Anderson.
“All right,” returned Eddy, generously, and turned the pages in silence.
It was nearly noon when Sam Riggs came to the office door to announce Charlotte; but she followed closely behind, and saw her brother over the butterfly-book. She was so surprised that she scarcely greeted Anderson.
“Why, Eddy Carroll, you here?” said she.
“Yes, Charlotte,” replied Eddy, with a curious meekness.
“How long have you been here, dear?”
“Oh, quite a while, Charlotte. Mr. Anderson has given me this beautiful book to look at. It's full of butterflies.”
“That is very kind,” said Charlotte. “You must be very careful.”
“Yes, I am,” replied Eddy. “I ate up the candy before I touched it. Mr. Anderson gave me some bully candy, Charlotte.”
“That was kind,” Charlotte replied, smiling a little uneasily, Anderson thought.
Then she turned to him. She had been all the time fumbling with a dainty little green purse, and Anderson saw, with a comical dismay, a check appear. She held it fluttering between a rosy thumb and finger in his direction. “Mr. Anderson, I brought in this check,” she began, a little hesitatingly, “and—”
“You would like it cashed?” asked Anderson.
“No, not this time,” said she. “Papa left it this morning for my mother, and I— Mr. Anderson, I know we are owing you, and this is a check for twenty-five dollars, and I should like to pay it to you for your bill.” At the last Charlotte's hesitation vanished. She spoke with pride and dignity. In reality the child felt that she was doing a meritorious and noble thing. She was taking money which had been left to spend, to pay a bill. Moreover, she had not the slightest idea that the twenty-five dollars did not discharge the whole of the indebtedness to Anderson. She had quite a little dispute with her mother to obtain possession of it for that purpose.
“I think you are very foolish, dear,” Mrs. Carroll had said. “You might get Mr. Anderson to cash it, and then go to New York and get yourself a new hat. You really need a new hat, Charlotte.”
“I would rather pay that bill,” Charlotte replied.
“But I don't see why, dear. It would really be much wiser to pay the butcher's bill, and then we could have some meat for dinner. All we have is eggs. Don't you think Charlotte is very foolish, Anna?”
“I have nothing to say,” replied Anna Carroll.
“Why not, Anna? You act very singularly lately, dear.”
“I want Charlotte to do as she thinks best, and as you think best, Amy,” replied Anna Carroll, who was looking unusually worn, in fact ill, that morning.
“I think Charlotte had much better get the check cashed and go to New York and buy herself a new hat,” said Mrs. Carroll.
“No, I don't need a new hat,” said Charlotte, and it ended in her going with the check to Anderson to pay his bill.
In spite of his annoyance, the utter absurdity of the whole thing was too much for Anderson. He had little doubt that the check was no more valuable than its predecessors, and now in addition this was supposed to liquidate a bill of several times the amount which it was supposed to represent. But his mind was quickly made up. Rather than have brought a cloud over the happy, proud face of that girl, he would have sacrificed much more. He cast a glance around. Luckily Price, the elder clerk, was engaged in the front of the store, and Riggs was assisting the man who delivered the goods to carry some parcels to the wagon. Therefore no one witnessed this folly.
“Thank you, Miss Carroll,” he said, pleasantly, and took the check from the hand which trembled a little. Charlotte was pale that morning. It was quite true that she had not sufficient nourishing food for several days. But she was very proud and happy now, and she looked at Anderson as he received the check with a different expression from any which her face had hitherto worn for him. In fact, for the first time, although she was in reality simple and humble enough, she realized him on a footing with herself. And she could not have told what had led to this reversion of her feelings, nor would it have been easy for any one to have told. The forces which stir human emotions to one or another end are as mysterious often as are the sources of the winds which blow as they list. The check was indorsed by Anna Carroll, to whom it had been made payable. She had taken it from her brother that morning with a fierce nip of thumb and finger, as if she were a mind to tear it in two. She had no idea that it was of any value, but, in fact, at the moment of her receiving it the money was in the bank. Before Anderson had sent it in the account was again overdrawn. Arthur Carroll was getting in exceedingly deep waters, to which his previous ventures had been as shallows.
Charlotte smiled at Anderson as he took the check. She did not think of a receipt, and Anderson did not carry the matter to the farcial extent of giving her one. He put the check in his pocket-book and inquired whether she had any orders to give, and she did order some crackers, cheese, and eggs, which he called to Riggs to carry to the delivery wagon.
After that was settled, Charlotte turned again to Eddy. “When are you coming home, dear?” said she.
“Pretty soon,” replied Eddy, with an uneasy hitch.
Anderson, who had had his suspicions, spoke. “I have invited your brother to dine with me, and he has been home to ask permission, he tells me,” said Anderson, and Eddy cast a bitterly reproachful glance at him, as if he had been betrayed by an accomplice.
“Did you go home to ask permission, Eddy?” asked Charlotte, gravely.
Eddy nodded and hitched.
“Whom did you ask?”
Eddy hesitated. He was casting about in his mind for the lie likely to succeed.
“Whom?” repeated Charlotte.
“Amy.”
“Amy just asked me if I knew where you were,” said Charlotte, pitilessly.
Eddy looked intently at his butterfly-book. “This is a whopper,” said he.
“Come, Eddy,” said Charlotte.
“This is the biggest one of all,” said Eddy.
“Eddy,” said Charlotte.
Eddy looked up. “I'm going to dinner with Mr. Anderson,” said he.
“Aunt Anna said I might.”
“You said Amy said you might,” said Charlotte. “Eddy Carroll, don't you say another word. Come right home with me.”
Then suddenly the boy broke down. All his bravado vanished. He looked from her to Anderson and back again with a white, convulsed little face. Eddy was a slight little fellow, and his poor shoulders in their linen blouse heaved. Then he wept like a baby.
“I—want to—go,” he wailed. “Charlotte, I want to—g-o. He is going to have—roast beef for dinner, and I—am hungry.”
Charlotte turned whiter than Eddy. She marched up to her brother. She did not look at Anderson. “Begging!” said she. “Begging! What if you are hungry? What of it? What is that? Hunger is nothing. And then you have no reason to be hungry. There is plenty in the house to eat—plenty!” She glanced with angry pride at Anderson, as if he were to blame for having heard all this. “Plenty!” she repeated, defiantly.
“Plenty of old cake left over from Ina's wedding, and dry old crackers, and not enough eggs to go round,” returned Eddy. “I am hungry. I am, Charlotte. All I have had since yesterday noon is five crackers and three pickles and one egg and a piece of chocolate cake as hard as a brick, besides one little, round, dry cake with one almond on top in the middle. I'm real hungry, Charlotte. Please let me go!”
Anderson quietly went out of the office. He passed through the store door, and stood there when presently Charlotte and Eddy passed him.
“Good-morning,” said Charlotte, in a choked voice.
Eddy looked at him and sniffled, then he flung out, angrily, “What you going to take to our house?” he demanded of the consumptive man gathering up the reins of the delivery-wagon.
“Hush!” said Charlotte.
“I won't hush,” said Eddy. “I'm hungry. What are you taking up to our house? Say!”
“Some crackers and cheese and eggs,” replied the man, wonderingly.
“Crackers and cheese and old store eggs!” cried Eddy, with a howl of woe, and Charlotte dragged him forcibly away.
“What ails that kid?” Riggs asked of the man in the wagon.
“I believe them folks are half starved,” replied the man.
Riggs glanced cautiously around, but Anderson had returned to his office. “I don't believe anybody in town but us trusts 'em,” said he, in a whisper.
“Well, I'm sorry for his folks, but he'd ought to be strung up,” said the man. “Why in thunder don't he go to work. I guess if he was coughin' as bad as I be at night, an' had to work, he might know a little something about it. I ain't in debt, though, not a dollar.”
When a strong normal character which has consciously made wrong moves, averse to the established order of things, and so become a force of negation, comes into contact with weaker or undeveloped natures, it sometimes produces in them an actual change of moral fibre, and they become abnormal. Instead of a right quantity on the wrong track, they are a wrong quantity, and exactly in accordance with their environments. In the case of the Carroll family, Arthur Carroll, who was in himself of a perfect and unassailable balance as to the right estimate of things, and the weighing of cause and effect, who had never in his whole life taken a step blindfold by any imperfection of spiritual vision, who had never for his own solace lost his own sense of responsibility for his lapses, had made his family, in a great measure, irresponsible for the same faults. Except in the possible case of Charlotte, all of them had a certain measure of perverted moral sense in the direction in which Carroll had consciously and unpervertedly failed. Anna Carroll, it is true, had her eyes more or less open, and she had much strength of character; still it was a feminine strength, and even she did not look at affairs as she might have done had she not been under the influence of her brother for years. While she at times waxed bitter over the state of affairs, it was more because of the constant irritation to her own pride, and her impatience at the restraints of an alien and dishonest existence, than from any moral scruples. Even Charlotte herself was scarcely clear-visioned concerning the family taint. The word debt had not to her its full meaning; the inalienable rights of others faded her comprehension when measured beside her own right of existence and of the comforts and delights of existence. Even to her a new hat or a comfortable meal was something of more importance than the need of the vender thereof for reimbursement. The value to herself was the first value, her birthright, indeed, which if others held they must needs yield up to her without money and without price, if her purse happened to be empty. Her compunction and sudden awakening of responsibility in the case of Randolph Anderson were due to an entirely different influence from any which had hitherto come into her life. Charlotte, although she was past the very first of young girlhood, being twenty, was curiously undeveloped emotionally. She had never had any lovers, and the fault had been her own, from a strange persistence of childhood in her temperament. She had not attracted, from her own utter lack of responsiveness. She was like an instrument which will not respond to the touch on certain notes, and presently the player wearies.
She was a girl of strong and jealous affections, but the electric circuits in her nature were not yet established. Then, also, she had not been a child who had made herself the heroine of her own dreams, and that had hindered her emotional development.
“Charlotte,” one of her school-mates, had asked her once, “do you ever amuse yourself by imagining that you have a lover?”
Charlotte had stared at the girl, a beautiful, early matured, innocently shameless creature. “No,” said she. “I don't understand what you mean, Rosamond.”
“The next moonlight night,” said the girl, “Imagine that you have a lover.”
“What if I did?”
“It would make you very happy, almost as happy as if you had a real one,” said the girl, who was only a child in years, though, on account of her size, she had been put into long dresses. She had far outstripped the boys of her own age, who were rather shy of her.
Charlotte, who was still in short dresses, looked at her, full of scorn and a mysterious shame. “I don't want any lover at all,” declared she. “I don't want an imaginary one, or a real one, either. I've got my papa, and that's all I want.” At that time Charlotte still clung to her doll, and the doll was in her mind, but she did not say doll to the other girl.
“Well, I don't care,” said the other girl, defiantly. “You will sometime.”
“I sha'n't, either,” declared Charlotte. “I never shall be so silly, Rosamond Lane.”
“You will, too.”
“I never will. You needn't think because you are so awful silly everybody else is.”
“I ain't any sillier than anybody else, and you'll be just as silly yourself, so now,” said Rosamond.
After that, when Charlotte saw the child sitting sunken in a reverie with the color deepening on her cheeks, her lips pouting, and her eyes misty, she would pass indignantly. She remembered her in after years with contempt. She spoke of her to Ina as the silliest girl she had ever known.
Now the child's words of prophecy, spoken from the oldest reasoning in the world, that of established sequence and precedent, did not recur to Charlotte, but she was fulfilling them.
Ina's marriage and perhaps the natural principle of growth had brought about a change in her. Charlotte had sat by herself and thought a good deal after Ina had gone, and naturally she thought of the possibility of her own marriage. Ina had married; of course she might. But her emotions were very much in abeyance to her affections, and the conditions came before the dreams were possible.
“I shall never marry anybody who will take me far away from papa!” said Charlotte. “Perhaps I shall be less of a burden to poor papa if I am married, but I shall never go far away.”
It followed in Charlotte's reasoning that it must be a man in Banbridge. There had been no talk of their leaving the place. Of course she knew that their stay in one locality was usually short, but here they were now, and it must be a man in Banbridge. She thought of a number of the crudely harmless young men of the village; there were one or two not so crude, but not so harmless, who held her thoughts a little longer, but she decided that she did not want any of them, even if they should want her. Then again the face of Randolph Anderson flashed out before her eyes as it had done before. Charlotte, with her inborn convictions, laughed at herself, but the face remained.
“There isn't another man in this town to compare with him,” she said to herself, “and he is a gentleman, too.” Then she fell to remembering every word he had ever said to her, and all the expressions his face had ever taken on with regard to her, and she found that she could recall them all. Then she reflected how he had trusted them, and had never failed to fill their orders, when all the other tradesmen in Banbridge had refused, and that they must be owing him.
“I shouldn't wonder if we were owing him nearly twenty-five dollars,” Charlotte said to herself, and for the first time a thrill of shame and remorse at the consideration of debt was over her. She had heard his story. “There he had to give up his law practice because he could not make a living, and go into the grocery business, and here we are taking his goods and not paying him,” thought she. “It is too bad.” A feeling of indignation at herself and her family, and of pity for Anderson came over her. She made up her mind that she would ask her father for money to pay that bill at least. “The butcher can wait, and so can all the others,” she thought, “but Mr. Anderson ought to be paid.” Besides the pity came a faint realization of the other side of the creditor's point of view. “Mr. Anderson must look down upon us for taking his property and not paying our bills,” she thought. She knew that some of the wedding bills had been paid, and that led her to think that her father might have more money than usual, but she overheard some conversation which passed between Carroll and his sister on the morning when he gave her the check.
“Now about that?” Anna had asked, evidently referring to some bill.
“I tell you I can't, Anna,” Carroll replied. “I used the money as it came on those bills for the wedding. There is very little left.” Then he had hurriedly scrawled the check, which she took in spite of her incredulousness of its worth. Therefore Charlotte, when the check had been offered her for a new hat, for Anna had carelessly passed it over to her sister-in-law, had eagerly taken it to pay Anderson.
“I paid the grocery bill,” Charlotte told her aunt when she returned.
Anna was in her own room, engaged in an unusual task. She was setting things to rights, and hanging her clothes regularly in her closet, and packing her bureau drawers. Charlotte looked at her in astonishment after she had made the statement concerning the grocery bill.
“What are you doing, Anna?” said she.
Anna looked up from a snarl of lace and ribbons and gloves in a bureau drawer. “I am putting things in order,” said she.
Then Mrs. Carroll crossed the hall from her opposite room, and entered, trailing a soft, pink, China-silk dressing-gown. She sank into a chair with a swirl of lace ruffles and viewed her sister-in-law with a comical air of childish dismay. “Don't you feel well, Anna, dear?” asked she.
“Yes. Why?” replied Anna Carroll, folding a yard of blue ribbon.
“Nothing, only I have always heard that if a person does something she has never done before, something at variance with her character, it is a very bad sign, and I never knew you to put things in order before, Anna, dear.”
“Order is not at variance with my character,” said Anna. “It is one of my fundamental principles.”
“You never carried it out,” said Mrs. Carroll. “You know you never did, Anna. Your bureau drawers have always looked like a sort of chaos of civilization, just like mine. You know you never carried out the principle, Anna, dear.”
“A principle ceases to be one when it is carried out,” said Anna.
“Then you don't think you are going to die because you are folding that ribbon, honey?”
Anna took up some yellow ribbon. “There is much more need to worry about Charlotte,” said she, in the slightly bitter, sarcastic tone which had grown upon her lately.
Mrs. Carroll looked at Charlotte, who had removed her hat and was pinning up her hair at a little glass in a Florentine frame which hung between the windows. The girl's face, reflected in the glass, flushed softly, and was seen like a blushing picture in the fanciful frame, although she did not turn her head, and made no rejoinder to her aunt's remark.
“What has Charlotte been doing?” asked Mrs. Carroll.
“She has been doing the last thing which any Carroll in his or her senses is ever supposed to do,” replied Anna, in the same tone, as she folded her yellow ribbon.
“What do you mean, Anna, dear?”
“She has been paying a bill before the credit was exhausted. That is sheer insanity in a Carroll. If there is anything in the old Scotch superstition, she is fey, if ever anybody was.”
“What bill?” asked Mrs. Carroll.
“Mr. Anderson's,” replied Charlotte, faintly, still without turning from the glass which reflected her charming pink face in its gilt, scrolled frame.
“Mr. Anderson's?”
“The grocer's bill,” said Charlotte.
“Oh! I did not know what his name was,” said Mrs. Carroll.
“He probably is well acquainted with ours, on his books,” said Anna.
Mrs. Carroll looked in a puzzled way from her to Charlotte, who had turned with a little air of defiance. “Had he refused to let us have any more groceries?” said she.
“No,” said Charlotte.
“I told you he had not,” said Anna, shaking out a lace handkerchief, which diffused an odor of violet through the room.
“Then why did you pay him, honey?” asked Mrs. Carroll, wonderingly, of Charlotte.
“I paid him just because he had trusted us,” said she, in a voice which rang out clearly with the brave honesty of youth.
Suddenly she looked from her mother to her aunt with accusing eyes. “I don't believe it is right to go on forever buying things and never paying for them, just because a gentleman is kind enough to let you,” said she.
“I thought you said it was the grocer, Charlotte, honey,” said Mrs. Carroll, helplessly.
“He is a gentleman, if he is a grocer,” said Charlotte, and her cheek blazed.
Anna Carroll looked sharply at her from her drawer, then went on folding the handkerchief.
“He is a lawyer, and as well-educated as papa,” Charlotte said, further, in her clear, brave voice, and she returned her aunt's look unflinchingly, although her cheeks continued to blush.
Mrs. Carroll still looked bewildered. “How much did you pay him, Charlotte, dear?” she asked.
“Twenty-five dollars.”
“The whole of the check Arthur gave you?”
“Yes, Amy.”
“But you might have bought yourself a hat, honey, and you did need one. I can't quite understand why you paid the grocer, when he had not refused to let us have more groceries, and you might have bought a hat.”