"No, you won't. Stay where you are—don't let him come, Madge."
The two young men raced down the path, Juno scampering after them. John, who could outrun any man at Dartmouth, vaulted over the fence and had hold of the brass handle before Oliver could open the gate.
"Fair-play!" cried Oliver, and they each grasped a handle—either one could have held it out at arm's length with one hand—and brought it up the garden-path, puffing away in pantomime as if it weighed a ton, and into the house. There they deposited it in the bedroom that was to be Oliver's during the two days of his visit at Brookfield Farm, Margaret clapping her hands in high glee, and her mother holding back the door for them to pass in.
Silas Grant watched the young fellows until they disappeared inside the door, lifted himself slowly from his seat by his long arms, stretched himself, with a yawn, to his full height, and said aloud to himself as he pushed his chair back against the wall:
"His father's got a negro for body-servant, has he, and a negro for butler—just like 'em. They all want somebody to wait on 'em."
At dinner Oliver sat on Mrs. Grant's right—her best ear, she said—Margaret next, and John opposite. The father was at the foot, in charge of the carving-knife.
During the pauses in the talk Oliver's eyes wandered around the room, falling on the queer paper lining the walls—hunting-scenes, with red-coated fox-hunters leaping five-barred gates; on the side-board covered with silver, but bare of a decanter—only a pitcher filled with cider which Hopeful Prime, the servant, a woman of forty in spectacles, and who took part in the conversation, brought from the cellar; and finally on a family portrait that hung above the fireplace. A portrait was always a loadstone to Oliver.
Mrs. Grant had been watching his glance.
"That's Mr. Grant's great-uncle—old Governor Shaw," she said, with a pleased smile; "and the next one to it is Margaret's great-grandmother This one—" and she turned partly in her chair and pointed to a face Oliver thought he had seen before, where, he couldn't remember—"is John Quincy Adams. He was my father's most intimate friend," and a triumphant expression overspread her face.
Oliver smiled, too, inwardly, to himself. The talk, to his great surprise, reminded him of Kennedy Square. Family portraits were an inexhaustible topic of conversation in most of its homes. He had never thought before that people at the North had any ancestors—none they were very proud of.
John looked up and winked. "Great scheme naming me after his Royal Highness," he said, in an undertone. "Sure road to the White House; they thought I'd make a good third."
Mrs. Grant went on, not having heard a word of John's aside: "This table you're eating from, once belonged to Mr. Adams. He gave it to my father, who often spent a week at a time with him in the White House."
"And I wish he was there now," interrupted Silas from the foot of the table. "He'd straighten out this snarl we're drifting into. Looks to me as if there would be some powder burnt before this thing is over. What do your people say about it?" and he nodded at Oliver. He had served the turkey, and was now sharpening the carver for the boiled ham, trying the edge with his thumb, as Shylock did.
"I haven't been at home for some time, sir," replied Oliver, in a courteous tone—he intended to be polite to the end—"and so I cannot say. My father's letters, seem to be very anxious, but mother doesn't think there'll be any trouble; at least she said so in her last letter."
Silas looked up from under the tufts of cotton-wool. Were the mothers running the politics of the South, he wondered?
"And there's another thing you folks might as well remember. We're not going to let you break up the Union, and we're not going to pay you for your slaves, either," and he plunged the fork into the ham that the spectacled waitress had laid before him and rose in his chair, the knife poised in his hand to carve it the better.
"Mr. Horn hasn't got any slaves to sell, father—didn't you hear him say so? His father freed his," laughed Margaret. Her father's positiveness never really worried her. She rather liked it at times. It was only because she had read in Oliver's face the impression her father was making upon him that she essayed to soften the force of his remarks.
"I heard him, Margaret, I heard him. Glad of it—but he's the only man from his parts that I ever heard who did. The others won't give 'em up so easy. They hung John Brown for trying to help the negroes free themselves, don't forget that." Oliver looked up and knitted his brows. Silas saw it. "I'm not meaning any offence to you, young man," he said quickly, waving the knife toward Oliver. "I'm taking this question on broad grounds. If I had my way I'd teach those slave-drivers—" and he buried the knife in the yielding ham, "that—"
"They did just right to hang him," interrupted John. "Brown was a fanatic, and ought to have stayed at home. No one is stronger than the law. That's where old Ossawatomie Brown made a mistake." Everybody was entitled to express his or her opinion in this house except the dear old mother. Margaret's fearless independence of manner and thought had been nurtured in fertile soil.
Mrs. Grant had been vainly trying to get the drift of the conversation, her hand behind her ear.
"Parson Brown, did you say, John? He married us, sir," and she turned to Oliver. "He lived here over forty years. The church that you passed was where he preached."
John laughed, and so did Silas, at the old lady's mistake, but Oliver only became the more attentive to his hostess. He was profoundly grateful to the reverend gentleman for coming out of his grave at this opportune moment and diverting the talk into other channels. Why did they want to bother him with all this talk about slavery and the South, when he was so happy he could hardly stay in his skin? It set his teeth on edge—he wished that the dinner were over and everybody down at the bottom of the sea but Margaret; he had come to see his sweetheart—not to talk slavery.
"Yes, I saw the church," and for the rest of the dinner, Oliver was entertained with the details in the life of the Rev. Leonidas Brown, including his manner of preaching; the crowds who would go to hear him; the number converted under the good man's ministrations; to all of which Oliver listened with a closeness of attention that would have surprised those who knew him unless they had discovered that his elbow had found Margaret's during the recital, and that the biography of every member of Brown's congregation might have been added to that of the beloved pastor without wearying him in the slightest degree.
When the nuts were served—Silas broke his with his fingers—his host made one more effort to draw Oliver into a discussion, but Margaret stopped it by exclaiming, suddenly:
"Where shall Mr. Horn smoke, mother?" She wanted Oliver to herself—the family had had him long enough.
"Why, does he want to SMOKE?" she answered, with some consternation.
"Yes, of course he does. All painters smoke."
"Well, I don't know; let me see." The old lady hesitated as if seeking the choice between two evils. "I suppose in the sitting-room. No—the library would be better."
"Oh, I won't smoke at all if your mother does not like it," Oliver protested, springing from his chair.
"Oh, yes, you will," interrupted John. "I never smoke, and father don't, but I know how good a pipe tastes. Let's go into the library."
Margaret gave Oliver the big chair and sat beside him. It was a small room, the walls almost hidden with books; the windows filled with flowering plants. There was a long table piled up with magazines and pamphlets, and an open fireplace, the wall above the mantel covered with framed pictures of weeping-willows worked out with hair of dead relatives, and the mantel itself with faded daguerreotypes propped apart like half-opened clam-shells.
Mr. Grant on leaving the dining-room walked slowly to the window without looking to the right or left, dropped into a chair and gazed out through the leaves of a geranium. The meal was over. Now he wanted rest and quiet. When Mrs. Grant entered the library and saw the wavy lines of tobacco-smoke that were drifting lazily about the room she stopped, evidently annoyed and uneasy. No such sacrilege of her library had taken place for years; not since her Uncle Reuben had come home from China. The waves of smoke must have caught the expression on her face, for she had hardly reached Oliver's chair before they began stealing along the ceiling in long, slanting lines until they reached the doorway, when with a sudden swoop, as if frightened, and without once looking back, they escaped into the hall.
The dear lady laid her hand on Oliver's shoulder, bent over him in a tender, motherly way, and said:
"Do you think it does you any good?"
"I don't know that it does."
"Why should you do it, then?"
"But I won't if you'd rather I'd not." Oliver sprang to his feet, took his pipe from his mouth, and was about to cross the room to knock the ashes from it into the fireplace when Margaret laid her hand on his arm.
"No, don't stop. Mother is very foolish about some things—smoking is one of them."
"But I can't smoke, darling," he said, in an undertone, "if your mother objects." The mother law was paramount, to say nothing of the courtesy required of him. Then he added, with a meaning look in his eyes—"Can't we get away some place where we can talk?" Deaf mothers are a blessing sometimes.
Margaret pressed his hand—her fingers were still closed over the one holding the pipe.
"In a moment, Ollie," and she rose and went into the adjoining room.
Mrs. Grant went to her husband's side, and in her gentle mission of peace put her arm around his neck, patting his shoulder and talking to him in a low tone, her two yellow-white curls streaming down over the collar of his coat. Silas slipped his hand over his wife's and for an instant caressed it tenderly with his cold, bony fingers. Then seeing Oliver's eyes turning his way he drew in his shoulders with a quick movement and looked askance at his guest. Any public show of affection was against Silas's creed and code. If people wanted to hug each other, better do it upstairs, he would say, not where everybody was looking on, certainly not this young man, who was enough of a mollycoddle already.
John, now that Margaret had gone, moved over from the lounge and took her seat, and the two young men launched out into a discussion of flies and worms and fish-bait, and whether frog's legs were better than minnows in fishing for pickerel, and what was the best-sized shot for woodcock and Jack-snipe. Oliver told of the ducking-blinds, of the Chesapeake, and of how the men sat in wooden boxes sunk to the water's edge, with the decoy ducks about them, and shot the flocks as they flew over. And John told of a hunting trip he had made with two East Branch guides, and how they went loaded for deer and came back with a bear and two cubs. And so congenial did they find each other's society that before Margaret returned to the room—she had gone into her studio to light the lamp under the tea-kettle—the two young fellows had discovered that they were both very good fellows indeed, especially Oliver and especially John, and Oliver had half promised to come up in the winter and go into camp with John, and John met him more than half-way with a promise to accept Oliver's invitation for a week's visit in Kennedy Square the next time he went home, if that happy event ever took place, when they would both go down to Carroll's Island for a crack at a canvas-back.
This had gone on for ten minutes or more—ten minutes is an absurdly long period of time under certain circumstances—when Margaret's voice was heard in the doorway:
"Come, John, you and Mr. Horn have talked long enough; I want to show him my studio if you'll spare him a moment."
John knew when to spare and when not to—oh, a very intelligent brother was John! He did not follow and talk for another hour of what a good time he would have duck-shooting, and of what togs he ought to carry—spoiling everything; nor did he send his mother in to help Margaret entertain their guest. None of these stupid things did John do. He said he would go down to the post-office if Oliver didn't mind, and would see him at supper, and Margaret said that that was a very clever idea, as nobody had gone for the mail that day, and there were sure to be letters, and not to forget to ask for hers. Awfully sensible brother was John. Why aren't there more like him?
Entering Margaret's studio was like going back to Moose Hillock. There were sketches of the interior of the school-house, and of the children, and of the teacher who had taught the year before. There was Mrs. Taft sitting on that very porch, peeling potatoes, with a tin pan in her lap—would they ever forget that porch and the moonlight and the song of the tree-toads, and the cry of the loon? There was Hank in corduroys, with an axe over his shoulder; and Hank in a broad straw hat and no shoes, with a fishing-pole in one hand; and Hank chopping wood; the chips littering the ground. There was Ezra Pollard sitting in his buckboard with a buffalo-robe tucked about him, and Samanthy by his side. And best of all, and in the most prominent place, too, there was the original drawing of the Milo—the one she was finishing when Oliver upset Judson, and which, strange to say, was the only Academy drawing which Margaret had framed—besides scores and scores of sketches of people and things and places that she had made in years gone by.
The room itself was part of an old portico which had been walled up. It had a fireplace at one end, holding a Franklin stove, and a skylight overhead, the light softened by green shades. Here she kept her own books ranged on shelves over the mantel; and in the niches and corners and odd spaces a few rare prints and proofs—two Guido Renis and a Leonardo, both by Raphael Morghen. Against the wall was an old clothes-press with brass handles, its drawers filled with sketches, as well as a lounge covered with chintz and heaped up with cushions. The door between the studio and library had been taken off, and was now replaced by a heavy red curtain. Margaret had held it aside for Oliver to enter, and it had dropped back by its own weight, shutting them both safely in.
I don't know what happened when that heavy red curtain swung into place, and mother, father, sea, sky, sun, moon, stars, and the planets, with all that in them is, were shut out for a too brief moment.
And if I did know I would not tell.
We go through life, and we have all sorts of sensations. We hunger and are fed. We are thirsty, and reach an oasis. We are homeless, and find shelter. We are ill, and again walk the streets. We dig and delve and strain every nerve and tissue, and the triumph comes at last, and with it often riches and honor. All these things send shivers of delight through us, and for the moment we spread our wings and soar heavenward. But when we take in our arms the girl we love, and hold close her fresh, sweet face, with its trusting eyes, and feel her warm breath on our cheeks, and the yielding figure next our heart, knowing all the time how mean and good-for-nothing and how entirely unworthy of even tying her shoe-strings we are, we experience a something compared with which all our former flights heavenward are but the flutterings of bats in a cave.
And the blessed John did not come back until black, dark night!—not until it was so dark that you couldn't see your hand before you or the girl beside you, which is nearer the truth; not until the stout woman in spectacles with the conversational habit, had brought in a lard-oil lamp with a big globe, which she set down on Margaret's table among her books and papers. And when John did come, and poked his twice-blessed head between the curtains, it was not to sit down inside and talk until supper-times but to say that it was getting cold outside and that they ought to have a fire if they intended to sit in the studio after supper. (Oh, what a trump of a brother!) And if they didn't mind he'd send Hopeful right away with some chips to start it. All of which Miss Hopeful Prime accomplished, talking all the time to Margaret as she piled up the logs, and not forgetting a final word to Oliver as she left the room, to the effect that she "guessed it, must be kind o' comfortin' to set by a fire"—such luxuries, of course, to her thinking, being unknown in his tropical land, where the blacks went naked and the children lay about in the sun munching watermelons and bananas.
What an afternoon it had been! They had talked of the woods and their life under the trees; of the sketches they made and how they could improve them, and would; of the coming winter and the prospect of the school being opened and what it meant to them if it did, and how much more if it did not, and she be compelled to remain in Brookfield with Oliver away all winter in New York, and of a thousand and one other things that lay nearest their hearts and with which neither you nor I have anything to do.
It was good, Margaret thought, to talk to him in this way, and see the quick response in his eyes and feel how true and helpful he was.
She had dreaded his coming—dreaded the contrasts which she knew his presence among them would reveal. She knew how punctiliously polite he was, and how brusque and positive was her father. She realized, too, how outspoken and bluff was John, and how unaccustomed both he and her dear deaf mother were to the ways of the outside world. What would Oliver think of them? What effect would her home life have on their future? she kept saying to herself.
Not that she was ashamed of her people, certainly not of her father, who really occupied a higher position than any of his neighbors. He was not only a deacon in the church and chairman of the School Board, but he had been twice sent to the Legislature, and at one time had been widely discussed as a fitting candidate for Governor. Nobody in Brookfield thought the less of him because of his peculiarities—many of his neighbors liked him the better for his brusqueness; they believed in a man who had the courage of his convictions and who spoke out, no matter whose toes he trod on.
Nor could she be ashamed of her brother John—so kind to everybody; so brave and generous, and such a good brother. Only she wished that he had some of Oliver's courtesy, and that he would take off his hat when a lady spoke to him in the road, and keep it off till she bade him replace it, and observe a few of the other amenities; but even with all his defects of manner—all of which she had never before noticed—he was still her own dear brother John, and she loved him dearly.
And as for her mother—that most gentle and gracious of women—that one person in the house who was considerate of everybody's feelings and tolerant of everybody's impatience! What could Oliver find in her except what was adorable? As she thought of her mother, a triumphant smile crossed her face. "That's the one member of the Grant family," she said to herself, "whom my fine gentleman must admit is the equal of any one of his top-lofty kinsfolk in Kennedy Square or anywhere else." Which outburst the scribe must admit to himself was but another proof of the fact that no such thing as true democracy exists the world over.
None of these thoughts had ever crossed her mind up to the time she met Oliver on the bridge that first sunny morning. He had never discussed the subject of any difference between their two families, nor had he ever criticised the personality of anyone she knew. He had only BEEN HIMSELF. The change in her views had come gradually and unconsciously to her as the happy weeks flew by. Before she knew it she had realized from his talk, from his gestures, even from the way he sat down or got up, or handled his knife and fork, or left the room or entered it, that some of her early teachings had led her astray, and that there might be something else in life worth having outside of the four cardinal virtues—economy, industry, pluck, and plain-speaking. And if there were—and she was quite certain of it now—would Oliver find them at Brookfield Farm? This was really the basis of her disquietude; the kernel of the nut which she was trying to crack.
If any of these shortcomings on the part of his entertainers had been apparent to Oliver, or if he had ever drawn any such deductions, or noted any such contrasts, judged by the Kennedy Square code, no word of disappointment had passed his lips.
Some things, it is true, during his visit at the farm, had deeply impressed him, but they were not those that Margaret feared. He had thought of them that first night when going over the events of the day as they passed in review before him. One personality and one incident had made so profound an impression upon him that he could not get to sleep for an hour thinking about them. It was the stalwart figure of John Grant in his broad-brimmed straw hat and heavy boots striding up the garden-path with his scythe over his shoulder. This apparition, try as he might, would not down at his bidding.
"Think of that young fellow," he kept repeating to himself. "The eldest son and heir to the estate no doubt, a college-bred man and a most charming gentleman, working like a common laborer in his father's field. And proud of it, too—and would do it again and talk about it. And yet I was so ashamed of working with my hands that I had to run away from home for fear the boys would laugh at me."
Margaret heard the whole story from Oliver's lips the next morning with many adornments, and with any amount of good resolutions for the future. She listened quietly and held his hand the closer, her eyes dancing in triumph, the color mounting to her cheeks, but she made no reply.
Neither did she return the confidence and tell Oliver how she wished her father could see some things in as clear a light, and be more gentle and less opinionated. She was too proud for that.
And so the days, crowded thick with emotions, sped on.
The evening of their first one came and passed, with its half-hours when neither spoke a word and when both trembled all over for the very joy of living; and the morning of the second arrived, bringing with it a happiness she had never known before, and then the morning of the third—and the last day.
They had kept their secret even from John. Oliver wanted to inform her father at once of his attachment, telling her it was not right for him to accept the hospitality of her parents unless they understood the whole situation, but she begged him to wait, and he had yielded to her wishes.
They had all discussed him at their pleasure.
"Nice chap that young Horn," John had said to her the night before. "We had three or four of 'em in my class, one from Georgia and two from Alabama. They'd fight in a minute, but they'd make up just as quick. This one's the best of the lot." He spoke as if they had all belonged to another race—denizens of Borneo or Madagascar or the islands of the Pacific.
"I have sent my love to his mother, my dear," Mrs. Grant had confided to her early that same morning. "I am sure he has a good mother. He is so kind and polite to me, he never lets me remember that I am deaf when I talk to him," and she looked about her in her simple, patient way.
"Yes—perhaps so," said Silas, sitting hunched up in his chair. "Seems sort of skippy-like to me. Something of a Dandy Jim, I should say. Good enough to make men painters of, I guess." Artists in those days had few friends North or South.
None of these criticisms affected Margaret. She didn't care what they thought of him. She knew his heart, and so would they in time.
When Oliver had said all his public good-byes to the rest of the family—the good-byes with which we have nothing to do had been given and taken in the studio with the curtains drawn—he joined Margaret at the gate.
They were standing in the road now, under the giant elm, waiting for the stage. She stood close beside him, touching his arm with her own, mournfully counting the minutes before the stage would come, her eyes up the road. All the light and loveliness of the summers all the joy and gladness of life, would go out of her heart when the door of the lumbering vehicle closed on Oliver.
His good-byes said, one absorbing thought now filled Oliver's mind—to reach Kennedy Square on the wings of the wind and there to pour into the ears of his mother and Miss Lavinia, and of anyone else who would listen, the whys and wherefores of his love for Margaret, with such additional description of her personal charms, qualities, and talents as would bring about, in the shortest possible time, the most amicable of relations between Kennedy Square and Brookfield Farm. He was determined that his mother should know her at once. He knew how strong her prejudices were and what her traditions would cause her to think of a woman who led the life that Margaret did, but these things did not deter him. A new love now filled his heart—another and a different kind of love from the one he bore his mother. One that belonged to him; one that was his own and affected his life and soul and career. He was prepared to fight even harder for this desire of his soul than for his art.
There being no air-ships available for immediate charter, nor big balloons waiting for passengers, with sand-bags ready for instant unloading, nor any underground pneumatic tubes into which he could be pumped and with a puff landed on his own doorstep in Kennedy Square, the impatient lover was obliged to content himself with the back seat of the country stage and a night ride in the train down the valley.
Then came a delay of a week in New York waiting for the return of Mr. Slade to the city—"whom you must by all means see before coming home," so his mother's letter ran. This delay was made bearable by Waller, Bowdoin, and old Professor Cummings who went into spasms of delight over the boys' sketches. Waller especially predicted a sure future for him if he would have the grit to throw overboard every other thing he was doing and "stick it out and starve it out" until he pulled through and became famous.
Mr. Slade, while welcoming him with both hands, was not so cheering. The financial and political situations were no better, he said. They had really become more alarming every day. The repudiation of Northern accounts by Southern merchants had ceased—at least some of Morton, Slade & Co.'s customers had redeemed their obligations and had forwarded them their overdue remittances, tiding them over for a time—but no one could say what was in store for any firm whose business lay largely in the Southern States. He would, however, make his word good. Oliver's situation was still open, and he could again occupy his desk as soon as he returned from Kennedy Square. The length of his service depended entirely on whether the country would go to war or whether its difficulties could be satisfactorily settled in the next Congress.
But none of these things—none of the more depressing ones—dulled for an instant the purpose or chilled the enthusiasm of our young lover. Wars, pestilence, financial panics and even social tidal-waves might overwhelm the land and yet not one drop of the topmost edge of the flood could wet the tips of his high-stepping toes: Margaret was his; he trod an enchanted realm.
An enthusiasm of equal intensity, but of quite a different kind, had taken possession of the Horn mansion as the hour of Oliver's arrival approached, as anyone would have noticed who happened to be inside its hospitable walls. Something out of the common was about to happen. There was an unusual restlessness in Malachi totally at variance with his grave and dignified demeanor. His perturbation was so great that he even forgot the time-honored custom of wheeling his master's chair into position and the equally time-honored salutation of "yo' chair's all ready, Marse Richard." It was noticed, too, that he could not keep out of the hall. Richard had to speak to him twice and Mrs. Horn had lifted her head in astonishment when that hitherto attentive darky handed her Richard's spectacles instead of her own. Or he would start to enter the dining-room, his hands laden with plates, or the library, his arms filled with logs to replenish the fire, and then stop suddenly and listen with one foot raised, standing like an old dog locating a partridge. So nervous did he become as the twilight deepened, and he began to set the table for supper, that he dropped a cup, smashing it into atoms, a thing that had not happened to him before in twenty years—one of the blue and gilt—priceless heirlooms in the family, and only used when a distinguished guest was expected. At another time he would have dropped the whole tray with everything upon it, had not Aunt Hannah saved it in time. How she came to be in the pantry with her two eyes on the front door, when her place was in the kitchen with both of them on the pots and kettles, no one could tell. Everything seemed to be at sixes and sevens in the old house that night.
And the other members of the household inside the drawing-room seemed just as restless. Richard, who had raked the coals of his forge, closed the green door of his workshop, and had dressed himself an hour earlier than usual, much to Malachi's delight, became so restless that he got up from his easy-chair half a dozen times and roamed aimlessly about the room, stopping to pick up a book, reading a line and laying it down again. Mrs. horn dropped so many stitches that she gave up in despair, and said she believed she would not knit.
Malachi heard him first.
"Dat's him—dat's Marse Ollie," he cried. "I know dat knock. Here he is, Mistis. Here he is!" He sprang forward, threw wide the door and had him by the hand before the others could reach him.
"Fo' Gawd, Marse Ollie, ain't ol' Malachi glad ter git his han's on yer once mo'!"
It was unseemly and absurd how the old man behaved!
And the others were not far behind.
"My boy," exclaimed Mrs. Horn, as she held him close to her breast.There are few words spoken in times like this.
Richard waited behind her until that imperceptible moment of silence had passed—the moment a mother gets her arms around the son she loves. Then when the sigh of restful relief that always follows had spent itself, and she had kissed him with his cheek held fast to hers, Oliver loosened his hold and threw his arms about his father's neck, patting him between his shoulder-blades as he kissed him.
"Dear old dad! Oh, but it's good to get home! And Aunt Hannah, you there?" and he extended his hand while his other arm was still around his father's neck.
"Yas, Marse Oilie, dat's me; dat's ol' Hannah," and she stepped closer and grasped his outstretched hand, smoothing it as she spoke. "Lord, Marse Ollie, but ain't you filled out? You is de probable son, sho', honey, come home to yo' people."
But Oliver was not through with Malachi. He must take both of his hands this time and look into his eyes. It was all he could do to keep from hugging him. It would not have been the first time.
"Been well, Mallie?"
Of course he had been; he saw it in his face. It was only to say something to which the old darky could reply to—to keep in touch with him—to know that he was speaking to this same old Malachi whom he had so dearly loved.
"Middlin' po'ly, yas—middlin' po'ly, suh."
Malachi had not the slightest idea what he was talking about. He had not been sick a minute since Oliver left. His heart was too near bursting with pride at his appearance and joy over his return for his mind to work intelligently.
"Dem Yankees ain't sp'iled ye; no, dey ain't. Gor-a-mighty, ain't Malachi glad." Tears were standing in his eyes now. There was no one but Richard he loved better than Oliver.
No fatted calf was spitted and roasted this night on Aunt Hannah's swinging crane for this "probable son," but there was corn-pone in plenty and a chafing dish of terrapin—Malachi would not let Aunt Hannah touch it; he knew just how much Madeira to put in; Hannah always "drowned" it, he would say. And there was sally-lunn and Maryland biscuit; here, at last, Aunt Hannah was supreme—her elbows told the story. And last of all there was a great dish of escalloped oysters cooked in fossil scallop shells thousands of years old, that Malachi had himself dug out of the marl-banks at Yorktown when he was a boy, and which had been used in the Horn family almost as many times as they were years old. Oh, for a revival of this extinct conchological comfort! But no! It is just as well not to recall even the memories of this toothsome dish. There are no more fossils, neither at Yorktown nor anywhere else, and no substitute in china, tin, or copper will be of the slightest use in giving their flavor.
Supper served and over, with Oliver jumping up half a dozen times to kiss his mother and plumping himself down again to begin on another relay of pone or terrapin or oysters, much to Malachi's delight ("He do eat," he reported to Aunt Hannah. "I tell ye. He's bearin' very heavy on dem scallops. Dat's de third shell.")—the doors were opened with a flourish, and the three, preceded by Malachi, entered the drawing-room in time to welcome the neighbors.
Nathan, who was already inside sitting by the fire, his long, thin legs stretched out, his bunchy white hair, parted in the middle, falling to his collar's edge, sprang up and shook Oliver's hand heartily. He had charged Malachi, when he admitted him, to keep his presence secret. He wanted them to have Oliver all to themselves.
Miss Clendenning entered a moment later with both hands held out. She would not stop in the hall to unwind her nubia or take off her little fur boots, but motioned Oliver to her knees after she had kissed him joyously on both cheeks, and held out those two absurd little feet for his ministrations, while Mrs. Horn removed her nubia and cloak.
The rat-a-tat at the door was now constant. Judge Bowman and old Dr. Wallace and four or five of the young men, with the young girls, entered, all with expressions of delight at Oliver's return home, and later, with the air of a Lord High Mayor, Colonel John Clayton, of Pongateague, with Sue on his arm. Clayton was always a picture when he entered a room. He stood six feet and an inch, his gray hair brushed straight back, his goatee curling like a fish-hook at its end. "Handsome Jack Clayton" was still handsome at sixty.
After the Colonel had grasped Oliver's hand in his warmest manner, Sue laid all of her ten fingers in his. It was as good as a play to watch the little witch's face as she stood for a moment and looked Oliver over. She had not written to him for months. She had had half a dozen beaus since his departure, but she claimed him all the same as part of her spoils. His slight mustache seemed to amuse her immensely.
"Are you glad to see me, Ollie?" she asked, looking archly at him from under her lashes.
"Why, Sue!"
Of course he was glad—for a minute—not much longer. How young she is, he thought, how provincial. As she rattled on he noticed the mass of ringlets about her face and the way her head was set on her shoulders. Her neck, he saw, was much shorter than Margaret's, and a little out of drawing. Nor was there anything of that fearless look or toss of the head like a surprised deer, which made Margaret so distinguished. Oliver had arrived at that stage in his affection when he compared all women to one.
All this time Sue was reading his mind. Trust a young girl for that when she is searching a former lover's eyes for what lies behind them. She was evidently nettled at what she found and had begun by saying "she supposed the Yankee girls had quite captured his heart," when the Colonel interrupted her by asking Oliver whether the Northern men really thought they could coerce the South into giving up their most treasured possessions.
He had been nursing his wrath all day over a fresh attack made on the South by some Northern paper, and Oliver was just the person to vent it upon—not that he did not love the lad, but because he was fresh from the despised district.
"I don't think they want to, sir. They are opposed to slavery and so are a good many of us. You have a wrong idea of the life at the North, Colonel. You have never been North, I believe?"
"No, my dear Oliver, and I never intend to. If ever I go it will be with a musket. They have had it all their own way lately with their Harriet Stowes, William Lloyd Garrisons, and John Browns; it is our turn now."
"Who do you want to run through the body, Clayton?" asked Richard, joining the group and laying his hands affectionately on the Colonel's shoulders.
"Anybody and everybody, Richard, who says we are not free people to do as we please."
"And is anybody really saying so?"
"Yes; you see it every day in every Northern editorial—another to-day—a most villainous attack which you must read. These Puritans have been at it for years. This psalm-singing crew have always hated us. Now, while they are preaching meekness and lowliness and the rights of our fellow-men—black ones they mean—they are getting ready to wad their guns with their hymn-books. It's all a piece of their infernal hypocrisy!"
"But why should they hate us, Clayton?" asked Richard in a half-humorous tone. He had no spirit of contention in him to-night, not with Oliver beside him.
"Because we Cavaliers are made of different stuff; that's why! All this talk about slavery is nonsense. These Nutmeg fellows approved of slavery as long as they could make a dollar out of the traffic, and then, as soon as they found out that they had given us a commercial club with which to beat out their brains, and that we were really dominating the nation, they raised this hue and cry about the downtrodden negro and American freedom and the Stars and Stripes and a lot of such tomfoolery. Do you know any gentleman who beats his negroes? Do you beat Malachi? Do I beat my Sam, whom I have brought up from a boy and who would lay down his life any day for me? I tell you, Richard, it is nothing but a fight for financial and political mastery. They're afraid of us; they've been so for years. They cried 'Wolf' when the fugitive slave law was passed and they've kept it up ever since."
"No, I don't believe it," exclaimed Richard, with a positive tone in his voice "and neither do you, Clayton. It's largely a question of sentiment. They don't believe one man should hold another in bondage."
"That's where you are wrong. They don't care a fippenny bit about the negro. If they ever succeed in their infernal purpose and abolish slavery, and set the negro adrift, mark my words, they won't live with him, and they won't let him come North and work alongside of their own people. They'll throw him back on us after they have made a beggar and a criminal of him. Only a Southerner understands the negro, and only a Southerner can care for him. See what we have done for them! Every slave that landed on our shores we have changed from a savage into a man. They forget this."
Judge Bowman joined in the discussion—so did Dr. Wallace. The Judge, in his usual ponderous way, laid down the law, both State and National—the Doctor, who always took the opposite side in any argument, asking him rather pointed questions as to the rights of the Government to control the several States as a unit.
Richard held his peace. He felt that this was not the night of all others to discuss politics, and he was at a loss to understand the Colonel's want of selfrestraint. He could not agree with men like Clayton. He felt that the utterance of such inflammatory speeches only added fuel to the smouldering flame. If the ugly jets of threatening smoke that were creeping out everywhere because of the friction between the two sections were in danger of bursting into flame, the first duty of a patriot, according to his creed, was to stand by with pails of water, not with kegs of gunpowder. So, while Clayton's outspoken tirade still filled the room, he with his usual tact did all he could to soften the effect of his words. Then again, he did not want Oliver's feelings hurt.
Malachi's entrance with his tray, just as the subject was getting beyond control, put a stop to the discussion. The learned group of disputants with the other guests quickly separated into little coteries, the older men taking their seats about an opened card-table, on which Malachi had previously deposited several thin glasses and a pair of decanters, the ladies sitting together, and the younger people laughing away in a corner, where Oliver joined them.
Richard and Nathan, now that the danger was averted (they were both natural born peace-makers), stepped across the room to assist in entertaining Miss Clendenning. The little lady had not moved from the chair in which she sat when Oliver relieved her of her fur boots. She rarely did move when once she had chosen a place for herself in a drawing-room. She was the kind of woman who could sit in one place and still be surrounded—by half-moons of adorers if she sat against the wall, by full moons if she sat in the open. She had learned the art when a girl.
"If Clayton would go among these people, my dear Lavinia," saidRichard, in a deprecating tone, drawing up a chair and seating himself,beside her, "he would find them very different from what he thinks.Some of the most delightful men I have ever met have come from theStates north of us. You know that to be so."
"That depends, Richard, on how far North you go," Miss Clendenning answered, spreading her fan as she spoke, looking in between the sticks as if searching for specimens. "In Philadelphia I find some very delightful houses, quite like our own. In New York—well, I rarely go to New York. The journey is a tiresome one and the hotels abominable. They are too busy there to be comfortable, and I do not like noisy, restless people. They give me a headache."
"Oliver has met some charming people, he tells me," said Richard. "Mr.Slade took him into his own home and treated him quite like a son."
"Of course he did; why not?" Miss Clendenning was erect now, her eyes snapping with roguish indignation. "Anybody would be glad to take Oliver into their home, especially when they have two marriageable daughters. Oliver's bow as he enters a room is a passport to any society in the world, my dear Richard. My Lord Chesterfield Clayton has no better manners nor any sweeter smile than our own Lorenzo. Watch Oliver now as he talks to those girls."
Richard had been watching him; he had hardly taken his eyes from him.Every time he looked at him his heart swelled the more with pride.
"And you think, Lavinia, Mr. Slade invited him because of his manners?"He was sure of it. He only wanted her to confirm it.
"Of course. What else?" and she cut her eye at him knowingly. "How many of the other clerks did he invite? Not one. I wanted to find out and I made Ollie write me. They are queer people, these Northerners. They affect to despise good blood and good breeding and good manners. That's all fol-de-rol—they love it. They are eternally talking of equality—equality; one man as GOOD as another. When they say that one man is as GOOD as another, Richard, they mean that THEY are as good, never the other poor fellow."
"Now, my dear Lavinia, stop a moment," laughed the inventor in protest."You do not mean to say there are really no gentlemen north of us?"
"Plenty of gentlemen, Richard, but few thoroughbreds. There is a distinction, you know."
"Which do you value most?"
"Oh, the thoroughbred. A gentleman might some time offend you by telling you the truth about yourself or your friends. The thoroughbred, never," and she lifted her hands in mock horror.
"And he could be a rogue and yet his manners would save him?"
"Quite true, dear Richard, quite true. The most charming man I ever met except your dear self"—and she smiled graciously and lowered her voice as if what she was about to tell was in the strictest confidence—"was a shrivelled-up old prince who once called on my father and myself in Vienna. He was as ugly as a crab, and walked with a limp. There had been some words over a card-table, he told me, and the other man fired first. I was a young girl then, but I have never forgotten him to this day. Indeed, my dear Nathan," and she turned to the old musician and laid her wee hand confidingly on his knee, "but for the fact that the princess was a most estimable woman and still alive, I might have been—well, I really forget what I might have been, for I do not remember his name, but it was something most fascinating in five or six syllables. Now all that man ever did to make that unaccountable impression upon me was just to pick up my handkerchief. Oh, Nathan, it really gives me a little quiver to this day! I never watch Oliver bow but I think of my prince. Now I have never found that kind of quality, grace, bearing, presence—whatever you may choose to call it—in the Puritan. He has not time to learn it. He despises such subtle courtesies. They smack of the cavalier and the court to him. He is content with a nod of the head and a hurried handshake. So are his neighbors. They would grow suspicious of each other's honesty if they did more. Tut, tut, my dear Richard! My prince's grooms greeted each other in that way."
Richard and Nathan laughed heartily. "And you only find the manners of the ante-chamber and the throne-room South?" asked the inventor.
"Um—not always. It used to be so in my day and yours, but we are retrograding. It is unpardonable in our case because we have known better. But up there" (and she pointed in the direction of the North Star) "they never did know better; that's some excuse for them."
"Ah, you incorrigible woman, you must not talk so. You have not seen them all. Many of the men who do me the honor to come to my workroom are most delightful persons. Only last week there came one of the most interesting scientists that I have met for—"
"Of course, of course, I have not a doubt of it, my dear Richard, but I am talking of men, my friend, not dried mummies."
Again Richard laughed. One of his greatest pleasures was to draw Miss Clendenning out on topics of this class. He knew she did not believe one-half that she said. It was the way she parried his thrusts that delighted him.
"Well, then, take Mr. Winthrop Pierce Lawrence. No more charming gentleman ever entered my house. You were in London at the time or you would certainly have dined with him here. Mr. Lawrence is not only distinguished as a statesman and a brilliant scholar, but his manners are perfect."
Miss Clendenning turned her head and looked at Richard under her eyelashes. "Where did you say he was from?"
"Boston."
"Boston?" A rippling, gurgling laugh floated through the room.
"Yes, Boston. Why do you laugh?"
"Bostonians, my dear Richard, have habits and customs, never manners. It is impossible that they should. They are seldom underbred, mind you, they are always overbred, and, strange to say, without the slightest sense of humor, for they are all brought up on serious isms and solemn fads. The excitement we have gone through over this outrageous book of this Mrs. Stowe's and all this woman movement is but a part of their training. How is it possible for people who believe in such dreadful persons as this Miss Susan Anthony and that Miss—something-or-other—I forget her name—to know what the word 'home' really means and what graces should adorn it? They could never understand my ugly prince, and he?—well, he would be too polite to tell them what he thought of them. No, my dear Richard, they don't know; they never will know, and they never will be any better."
Oliver had crossed the room and had reached her chair.
"Who will never be any better, you dear Midget?" he cried.
"You, you dear boy, because you could not. Come and sit by me where I can get my hand on you. If I had my way you would never be out of reach of my five fingers."
Oliver brought up a stool and sat at her feet.
"Your Aunt Lavinia, Ollie," said Richard, rising to his feet (this relationship was of the same character as that of Uncle Nathan Gill), "seems to think our manners are retrograding."
"Not yours?" protested Oliver, with a laugh, as he turned quickly toward Miss Clendenning.
"No, you sweetheart, nor yours," answered Miss Clendenning, with a sudden burst of affection. "Come, now, you have lived nearly two years among these dreadful Yankees—what do you think of them?"
"What could I think of people who have been so kind to me? Fred Stone has been like a brother, and so has everybody else."
Mrs. Horn had joined the group and sat listening.
"But their manners, my son," she asked. "Do you see no difference between them and—and—and your father's, for instance?" and she motioned toward Richard who was now moving across the room to speak to other guests.
"Dad is himself and you are yourself and I am myself," replied Oliver with some positiveness. "When people are kind I never stop to think how they do it."
"Lovely," Miss Clendenning whispered to Nathan. "Spoken like a thoroughbred. Yes, he is BETTER than my ugly prince. He would always have remembered how they did it."
"And you see no difference either in the ladies?" continued Mrs. Horn, with increasing interest in her tones. "Are the young girls as sweet and engaging?" She had seen Margaret's name rather often in his letters and wondered what impression she had made upon him. Oliver's eyes flashed and the color mounted to his cheeks. Miss Clendenning saw it and bent forward a little closer to get his answer.
"Well, you see, mother, I do not know a great many, I am so shut up. Miss Grant, whom I wrote you about, is—well, you must see her. She is not the kind of girl that you can describe very well—she really is not the kind of girl that you can describe at all. We have been together all summer, and I stopped at her father's house for a few days when I came down from the mountains. They live in the most beautiful valley you ever saw."
Miss Clendenning was watching him closely. She caught a look that his mother had missed.
"Is she pretty, Ollie?" asked Miss Lavinia.
"She is better than pretty. You would not say the Milo was pretty, would you? There is too much in her for prettiness."
"And are the others like her?" The little lady was only feeling about, trying to put her finger on the pulse of his heart.
"No; there is nobody like her. Nobody I have ever met."
Miss Clendenning was sure now.
Malachi's second entrance—this time with the great china bowl held above his head—again interrupted the general talk.
Since the memory of man no such apple-toddy had ever been brewed!
Even Colonel Clayton, when he tasted it, looked over his glass and nodded approvingly at its creator—a recognition of genius which that happy darky acknowledged by a slight bend of his back, anything else being out of the question by reason of the size of the bowl he was carrying and the presence of his master and of his master's guests.
This deposited on a side table, another bowl filled with Olio—a most surprising and never-to-be-forgotten salad of chicken and celery and any number of other toothsome things—was placed beside it, together with a plate of moonshines and one of Maryland biscuits.
Then came some music, in which Oliver sang and Miss Clendenning played his accompaniments—the old plantation melodies, not the new songs—and next the "wrappings up" in the hall, the host and hostess and the whole party moving out of the drawing-room in a body. Here Nathan, with great gallantry, insisted on getting down on his stiff marrow-bones to put on Miss Clendenning's boots, while the young men and Oliver tied on the girls' hoods, amid "good-byes" and "so glads" that he could come home if only for a day, and that he had not forgotten them, Oliver's last words being whispered in Miss Clendenning's ear informing her that he would come over in the morning and see her about a matter of the greatest importance. And so the door was shut on the last guest.
When the hall was empty Oliver kissed his father good-night, and, slipping his arm around his mother's waist, as he had always done when a boy, the two went slowly upstairs to his little room. He could not wait a minute longer. He must unburden his heart about Margaret. This was what he had come for. If his mother had only seen her it would be so much easier, he said to himself as he pushed open his bedroom door.
"You are greatly improved, my son," she said, with a tone of pride in her voice. "I see the change already." She had lighted the candle and the two were seated on the bed, his arm still around her.
"How, mother?"
"Oh, in everything. The boy is gone out of you. You are more reposeful; more self-reliant. I like your modesty too." She could tell him of his faults, she could also tell him of his virtues.
"And the summer has done you good," she continued. "I felt sure it would. Mr. Slade has been a steadfast friend of yours from the beginning. Tell me now about your new friends. This Miss Grant—is she not the same girl you wrote me about, some mouths ago—the one who drew with you at the art school? Do you like her people?" This thought was uppermost in her mind—had been in fact ever since she first saw Margaret's name in his letters.
"Her mother is lovely and she has got a brother—a Dartmouth man—who is a fine fellow. I liked him from the first moment I saw him;" Oliver answered simply, wondering how he would begin.
"Is her father living?"
"Yes."
"What kind of a man is he?"
"Well—of course, he is not like our people. He is a—well—he always says just what he thinks, you know. But he is a man of character and position." He was speaking for Margaret now. "They have more family portraits than we have." This was said in a tone that was meant to carry weight.
"And people of education?"
"Oh, I should certainly say so. It is nothing but books all over the house. Really, he has more books than Dad." This statement was to strengthen the one regarding the family ancestors—both telling arguments about Kennedy Square.
"And this girl—is she a lady?"
The question somehow put to flight all his mental manoeuvres. "She is more than a lady, mother. She is the dearest—" He stopped, hesitated for an instant, and slipping his arm around his mother's neck drew her close to him. Then, in a torrent of words—his cheeks against hers—the whole story came out. He was a boy again now; that quality in him that would last all his life. She listened with her eyes on the floor, her heart torn with varying emotions. She was disturbed, but not alarmed. One phase of the situation stood out clearly in her practical mind—his poverty and the impossibility of any immediate marriage. Before that obstacle could be removed she felt sure his natural vacillation regarding women would save him. He would forget her as he had Sue.
"And you say her brother works in the fields and that her father and mother permitted this girl to leave home and sit night after night with you young men with no other protection than that of a common Irishwoman?" There was a tone of censure now in her voice that roused a slight antagonism in Oliver.
"Why not? What could harm her? There was no other place for her to go where she could learn anything."
Mrs. Horn kept still for a moment, looking on the floor. Oliver sat watching her face.
"And your family, my son," she protested with a certain patient disapproval in her tones. "Do they count for nothing? I, of course, would love anybody you would make your wife, but you have others about you. No man has a right to marry beneath him. Do not be in a hurry over this matter. Come home for your wife when you are ready to marry. Give yourself time to compare this girl, who seems to have fascinated you, with—Sue, for instance, or any of the others you have been brought up with."
Oliver shrugged his shoulders at the mention of Sue's name. He had compared her.
"You would not talk this way, dearie; if you could see her," he replied in a hopeless way as if the futility of making his mother understand was now becoming apparent to him. "She is different from anyone you ever met—she is so strong, so fine—such a woman in all that the word means. Not something you fondle and make love to, remember, but a woman more like a Madonna that you worship, or a Greek goddess that you might fear. As to the family part of it, I am getting tired of it all, mother. What good is Grandfather Horn or anybody else to me? I have got to dig my way out just as they did. Just as dear old Dad is doing. If he succeeds in his work who will help him but himself? There have been times when I used to love to remember him sitting by his reading-lamp or with his violin tucked under his chin, and I was proud to think he was my father. Do you know what sets my blood on fire now? It is when I think of him standing over his forge and blowing his bellows, his hands black with coal. I understand many things, dearie, that I knew nothing about when I left home. You used to tell me yourself that everybody had to work, and you sent me away to do it. I looked upon it then as a degradation. I see it differently now. I have worked with all my might all summer, and I have brought back a whole lot of sketches that the boys like. Now I am going to work again with Mr. Slade. I do not like his work, and I do love mine, but I am going to stick to his all the same. I have got something to work for now," and his face brightened. "I am going to win!"
She did not interrupt him. It was better he should unburden his heart. She was satisfied with his record; if he went wrong she only was to blame. But he was not going wrong; nor was there anything to worry about—not even his art—not so long as he kept his place with Mr. Slade and only took it up as a relaxation from more weighty cares. It was only the girl that caused her a moment's thought.
She saw too, through all his outburst, a certain independence and a fearlessness and a certain fixedness of purpose that sent an exultant thrill through her even when her heart was burdened with the thought of this new danger that threatened him. She had sent him away for the fault of instability, and he had overcome it. Should she not now hold fast, as she had before, and save him the second time from this girl who was beneath him in station and who would drag him down to her level, and so perhaps ruin him?
"We will not talk any more about it to-night, my son," she said, in tender tones, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek—it was through his affections that she controlled him. "You should be tired out with your day's journey and ought to rest. Take my advice—do not ask her to be your wife yet. Think about it a little and see some other women before you make up your mind."
A delicious tremor passed through Oliver. He HAD asked her, and she HAD promised! He remembered just the very day, the hour, the minute. That was the bliss of it all! But this he did not tell his mother. He would not hurt her any further now. Some other day he would tell her; when she could see Madge and judge for herself. No, not to-night, and so with the secret untold he kissed her and led her to her room.
And yet strange to say it was the one only thing in all his life that he had kept from her.
Ah! these mothers! who make lovers of their only sons, dominating their lives! How bitter must be the hours when they realize that another's arms are opening for them!
And these boys—what misgivings come; what doubts. How the old walls, impregnable from childhood, begin to crumble! How little now the dear mother knows—she so wise but a few moons since. How this new love steps in front of the old love and claims every part of the boy as its very own.
Faithful to her promise, Miss Clendenning waited the next morning for Oliver in her little boudoir that opened out of the library. A bright fire blazed and crackled, sending its beams dancing over the room and lighting up the red curtains that hung behind her writing-desk, its top covered with opened letters—her morning's mail: many bore foreign postmarks, and not a few were emblazoned with rampant crests sunk in little dabs of colored wax. She wore a morning gown of soft white flannel belted in at the waist. Covering her head and wound loosely about her throat was a fluff of transparent silk, half-concealing the two nests of little gray and brown knots impaled on hair-pins. These were the chrysalides of those gay butterfly side-curls which framed her sweet face at night and to which she never gave wing until after luncheon, no matter who called. The silk scarf that covered them this morning was in recognition of Oliver's sex.
She had finished her breakfast and was leaning forward in her rocking-chair, her elbows on her knees, her tiny feet resting on the fender. She was watching the fire-fairies at work building up their wonderful palaces of molten gold studded with opals and rubies. The little lady must have been in deep thought, for she did not know Oliver had entered until she felt his arm on her shoulder.
"Ah, you dear fellow. No, not there; sit right here on this cricket by my side. Stop, do not say a word. I have been studying it all out in these coals. I know all about it—it is about the mountain girl, this—what do you call her?"
"Miss Grant."
"Nonsense! What do YOU call her?"
"Madge."
"Ah, that's something like it. And you love her?"
"Yes." (Pianissimo.)
"And she loves you?"
"YES." (Forte.)
"And you have told her so?"
"YES!" (Fortissimo.)
"Whew!" Miss Clendenning caught her breath and gave a little gasp."Well, upon my word! You don't seem to have lost any time, my youngRomeo. What does her father say?"
"He doesn't know anything about it."
"Does anybody except you two babes in the wood?"
"Yes, her mother."
"And yours? You told her last night. I knew you would."
"Not everything; but she is all upset."
"Of course she is. So am I. Now tell me—is she a LADY?"
"She is the dearest, sweetest girl you—"
"Come now, come now, answer me. They are all the dearest and sweetest things in the world. What I want to know is, is she a lady?"
"Yes."
"True now, Ollie—honest?"
"Yes, in every sense of the word. A woman you would love and be proud of the moment you saw her."
Miss Clendenning took his face in her hands and looked down into his eyes. "I believe you. Now what do you want me to do?"
"I want her to come down here so everybody can see her. If I had a sister she could invite her, and it would be all right, and maybe then her mother would let her come."
"And you want me to play the sister and have her come here?"
Oliver's fingers closed tight over Miss Clendenning's hand. "Oh, Midget, if you only would, that would fix everything. Mother would understand then why I love her, and Madge could go back and tell her people about us. Her father is very bitter against everybody at the South. They would feel differently if Madge could stay a week with us."
"Why won't her father bring her?"
"He never leaves home. He would not even take her to the mountains, fifteen miles away. She could never paint as she does if she had relied upon him. Mother and Mr. Grant are both alike in their hatred of art as a fitting profession for anybody, and I tell you that they are both wrong."
Miss Clendenning looked up in surprise. She had never seen the boy take a stand of this kind against one of his mother's opinions. Oliver saw the expression on the little lady's face and kept on, his cheeks flushed and a set look about his eyes.
"Yes, wrong. I have never believed mother could be wrong in anything before, and when she wanted me to give up painting I did so because I thought she knew best. But I know she's not right about Madge, and if she is wrong about her, how do I know she was not wrong about my working with Mr. Crocker?"
Margaret's words that day in the bark slant were now ringing in his ears. He had never forgotten them—"Your mother cannot coddle you up forever."
Miss Clendenning held her peace. She was not astonished at the revolt in the boy's mind. She had seen for months past in his letters that Oliver's individuality was asserting itself. It was the new girl whom he was defending—the woman he loved. This had given him strength. She knew something of what he felt, and she knew what blind obedience had done for her. With a half-smothered sigh, she reached over Oliver's head, dipped a quill pen in her inkstand, and at Oliver's dictation, wrote Margaret's address.
"I will invite her at once," she said.
Long after Oliver had gone Miss Clendenning sat looking into the fire. The palaces of rose and amber that the busy fingers of the fire fairies had built up in the white heat of their enthusiasm were in ruins. The light had gone out. Only gray ashes remained, with here and there a dead cinder.
Miss Clendenning rose from her chair, stood a moment in deep thought, and said, aloud:
"If she loves him, she shall have him. There shall be no more desolate firesides if I can help it."
Early the next morning, she mailed by the first post a letter so dainty in form and so delicate in color that only a turtle-dove should have carried it to Brookfleld Farm, and have dropped it into Margaret's hand. This billet-doux began by inviting Miss Margaret Grant of Brookfield Farm to pass a week with Miss Lavinia Clendenning, of Kennedy Square, she, Miss Lavinia, desiring to know the better one who had so charmed and delighted "our dear Oliver," and ended with "Please say to your good mother, that I am twice your age, and will take as much care of you as if you were my own daughter. I feel assured she will waive all ceremony when she thinks of how warm a greeting awaits you."
Margaret looked at the post-mark, and then at the little oval of violet wax bearing the crest of the Clendennings—granted in the time of Queen Elizabeth for distinguished services to the Throne—and after she had read it to her mother, and had shown the seal to her father, who had put on his glasses, scanned it closely, and tossed it back to her with a dry laugh, and after she had talked it all over with John, who said it was certainly very kind of the woman, and that Oliver's people were evidently "nobs," but, of course, Madge couldn't go, not knowing any of them, Margaret took a sheet of plain white paper from her desk, thanked Miss Clendenning for her kind thought of her, and declined the honor in a firm, round hand. This she closed with a red wafer, and then, with a little bridling of her head and a determined look in her face, she laid the letter on the gate-post, ready for the early stage in the morning.
This missive was duly received by Miss Clendenning, and read at once toMrs. Horn, who raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in deep thought.After some moments she looked over her glasses at Miss Lavinia and said:
"I must say, Lavinia, I am very greatly astonished. Won't come? She has done perfectly right. I think all the better of her for it. Really, there may be something in the girl after all. Let me look at her handwriting again—writes like a woman of some force. Won't come? What do you think, Lavinia?"
"Merely a question of grandmothers, my dear; she seems to have had one, too," answered the little old maid, with a quizzical smile in her eye, as she folded the letter and slipped it in her pocket.