"Don't want no pay fer doin' my dooty, Mass Louis."

"Pshaw, man! Take a tip, can't you?"

Pompey shook his head. "I don't smoke, Mass Louis."

"Don't smoke!" ejaculated Louis. "You don't here, I know, because the Judge is afraid of fire, but you'll never make me believe that you don't spend your evenings over the fire with your pipe. You darkeys are as fond of one as the other."

"You's mistaken, Mass Louis," said Pompey quietly.

"'Pon my word! And why don't you smoke, Pomp? You don't know what you're missing. It is the greatest comfort on earth."

"'Specs I don't need sech poor comfort, Mass Louis. I takes my comfort wid de Lord."

Pompey's voice was low and sweet. Evadne felt her heart glow.

"But come now, Pomp," persisted Louis, "that's all nonsense. You must have some reason for not smoking. Everybody does. Come, I insist on your telling me."

Pompey was silent for a moment. "'The pure in heart shall see God,'" he said slowly. "I 'low, Mass Louis, de King's chillen's got ter be pure in body too."'

"You insolent scoundrel! How dare you?" and Louis dashed the glowing end of his cigar in the negro's face.

For a moment Pompey stood absolutely still,—the cigar which had left its mark upon his cheek lying smouldering at his feet,—then he turned quietly and walked away.

Louis strode out of the coach-house. Evadne followed him, her eyes blazing. "You are a coward!" she cried passionately. "You would not have dared to do that to a man who could hit you back. You forced him to tell you and then struck him for doing it! If this is your culture and refinement, I despise it! I am going to be a Christian, like Pompey. That is grand!"

"Well done, coz!" and Louis affected a laugh. "There's not much of the 'meek and lowly' in evidence just now at any rate."

He looked after her as she walked away, her indignant tones still lingered in his ears. "By Jove! there's something to her though she is so quiet! I must cultivate the child."

Seen through Evadne's clear eyes his action looked despicable and his better nature suggested an apology, but he swept the suggestion aside with a muttered "Pshaw! he's only a nigger," and turned carelessly on his heel.

"You are Dyce!" cried Evadne impulsively when she reached the cottage in whose open doorway a pleasant-faced colored woman was standing. "Pompey has told me about you. I think your husband is one of the grandest men I know."

"Thank you, Missy. Walk right in, I'se proper glad ter see Mass Lennux's chile."

"Why, how did you know me?" asked Evadne wonderingly.

The woman laughed softly. "Laws, honey, you'se de livin' image of yer Pa."

She excused herself after a few moments and Evadne laid her head against the cushions of a comfortable old rocking chair and rested. She wondered sometimes where her old strength had gone. She had never felt tired in Barbadoes. The tiny room was full of a homely comfort which did her heart good. There were books lying on the table and flowers in the window, a handsome cat purred in front of the fireplace, and on a bracket in one corner an asthmatic clock ticked off the hours with wheezy vigor. In an adjoining room Evadne could see a bed with its gay patchwork quilt of Dyce's making, and in the little kitchen beyond she heard her singing as she trod to and fro. A couple of dainty muslin dresses were draped over chairs, for Dyce was the finest clear starcher in Marlborough, and her kitchen was all too small to hold the products of her skill. She entered the room again bearing a tray covered with a snowy napkin on which were quaint blue plates of delicious bread and butter, pumpkin pie, golden browned as only Dyce could bake it, and a cup of fragrant coffee.

"I did not know anything could taste quite so good!" Evadne said when she had finished, "you must be a wonderful cook."

Dyce laughed, well pleased. "When de Lord gives us everything in perfecshun, 'specs it would be terrible shifles' of me ter spoil it in de cookin', Miss 'Vadney."

"The Lord," repeated Evadne. "You know him too, then? You must, if you live with Pompey."

Dyce's face grew luminous. "He is my joy!" she said softly.

"And does he make you happy all the time?" asked the girl wistfully. "You seem to have to work as hard as Pompey. What is it makes you so glad?"

"Laws, honey, how kin I help bein' glad? De chile o' de King, on de way ter my Father's palace. Ain't dat enuff 'cashun ter keep a poor cullered woman rejoicin' all de day long? I'se so happy I'se a singin' all de time over my work, an' in de street; it don't matter where I be."

"But you can't sing in the streets, Dyce!"

"Laws, chile, don't yer know de heart kin sing when de lips is silent? It's de heart songs dat de King tinks de most of, but when de heart gits too full, den de lips hez ter do deir share."

"But suppose you were to lose your eyesight, or Pompey got sick, or——"

Dyce gave one of her soft laughs. "Laws, honey, I never supposes. De Lord's got no use fer a lot o' supposin' chillen who's allers frettin' demselves sick fer fear Satan'll git de upper han'. De Lord's reignin', dat's enuff fer me. I 'low he'll take care o' me in de best way."

Evadne looked again at the exquisitely laundered dresses. "Why do you work so hard?" she asked. "Doesn't Pompey get enough to live on?"

"Oh, yes, honey; de Jedge gives good wages; but yer see, we wants to do so much fer Jesus dat de wages don't hold out."

"So much for Jesus!"

"Why, yes, Missy. He says ef we loves him we'll do what he tells us, an' he's tol' us ter feed de hungry, an' clothe de naked, an' go preach de gospel. So, when we cum ter talk it ober, it seem drefful shifles' in me ter be doin' nothin' when de Lord worked night an' day, so I begun ter take in laundry work an' now we hev more money ter spen' on de Lord. But we never hez enuff. De worl's so full o' perishin' souls an' starvin' bodies. I tells Pompey I never wanted ter be rich till I began ter do de King's bizniss. It's drefful comfortin' work, Miss 'Vadney."

* * * * *

The chill March wind blew fiercely along the streets of Marlborough one afternoon and Evadne shivered. She had been standing for an hour wedged tightly against the doors of the Opera House by an impatient crowd which swayed hither and thither in a fruitless effort to force an entrance. It was Signor Ferice's farewell to America and it was his whim to make his last concert a popular one, with no seats reserved. Every nerve in her body seemed strained to its utmost tension and her head was in a whirl. She turned and faced the crowd. A sea of faces; some eager, some sullen, some frowning, all impatient. The scraps of merry talk which had floated to her at intervals during the earlier stages of the waiting were no longer heard. A gloomy silence seemed to have settled down upon every one. Suddenly a laugh rang out upon the keen air,—so full of a clear joyousness that people involuntarily straightened their drooping shoulders, as if inspired with a new sense of vigor and smiled in sympathy.

Evadne started. Surely she had heard that voice before! It must be,—yes, it was,—her knight of the gate! Their eyes met. A great light swept over his face and he lifted his hat. Then the surging crowd carried him out of her range of vision.

"I don't see what you find to look so pleased about, Evadne," grumbled Isabelle, as they drove homeward. "For my part I think the whole thing was a fizzle."

"I was thinking," said Evadne slowly, "of the power of a laugh."

"The power of a laugh! What in the World do you mean?"

"I mean that it is a great deal better for ourselves to laugh than to cry, and vastly more comfortable for our neighbors."

"Evadne will not be down," announced Marion the next morning as she entered the breakfast room. "She caught a dreadful cold at the concert yesterday and she can't lift her head from the pillow. Celestine thinks she is sickening for a fever."

"Dear me, how tiresome!" exclaimed Mrs. Hildreth. "I have such a horror of having sickness in the house,—one never knows where it will end. Ring the bell for Sarah, Marion, to take up her breakfast."

"It is no use, Mamma. She says she does not want anything."

"But that is nonsense. The child must eat. If it is fever, she will need a nurse, and nurses always make such an upheaval in a house."

"You had better go up, my dear, and see for yourself," said Judge Hildreth. "Celestine may be mistaken."

"Mercy!" cried Isabelle, "it is to be hoped she is! I have the most abject horror of fevers and that is enough to make me catch it. Fancy having one's head shorn like a convict! The very idea is appalling."

"Oh, of course if there is the slightest danger, you and Marion will have to go to Madame Castle's to board," said her mother. "It is very provoking that Evadne should have chosen to be sick just now."

"Not likely the poor girl had much choice in the matter," laughed Louis. "There are a few things, lady mother, over which the best of us have no control."

"I wish you would go up and see the child, Kate," said Judge Hildreth impatiently. "If there is the least fear of anything serious I will send the carriage at once for Doctor Russe. It is a risky business transplanting tropical flowers into our cold climate."

The kind-hearted French maid was bending over Evadne's pillow when Mrs. Hildreth entered the room. She had grown to love the quiet stranger whose courtesy made her work seem light, and it was with genuine regret that she whispered to her mistress,—"It is the feevar. I know it well. My seestar had it and died."

Evadne's eyes were closed and she took no notice of her aunt's entrance. Mrs. Hildreth spoke to her and then left the room hurriedly to summon her husband. Even her unpractised eyes showed her that her niece was very ill.

Doctor Russe shook his head gravely. "It is a serious case," he said, "and I do not know Where you will find a nurse. I never remember a spring when there was so much sickness in the city. I sent my last nurse to a patient yesterday and since then have had two applications for one. It is most unfortunate. The young lady will need constant care. She requires a person of experience."

Pompey, waiting to drive the doctor home, caught the words, spoken as he descended the steps to enter the carriage, and came forward eagerly. "If you please, Missus," he said, touching his hat, "Dyce would come. She's hed a powerful sight of 'sperience nussin' fevers in New Orleans. She'd be proper glad ter tend Miss 'Vadney."

"How is that?" questioned the busy doctor. "Oh, your wife, my good fellow? The very thing. Let her come at once."

So Dyce came, and into her sympathetic ears were poured the delirious ravings of the lonely heart which had been so suddenly torn from its genial surroundings of love and happiness and thrust into the chilling atmosphere of misunderstanding and neglect.

Every day the patient grew weaker and after each visit the doctor looked graver. Mrs. Hildreth began to feel the gnawings of remorse, as she thought of the lonely girl to whom she had so coldly refused a daughter's place; and the Judge's thoughts grew unbearable as he remembered his broken trust; even Louis missed the earnest face which he had grown to watch with a curious sense of pleasure; while the girls at school felt their hearts grow warm as they thought of the young cousin so soon to pass through the valley of the shadow.

But Evadne did not die. The fever spent itself at last and there followed long days of utter prostration both of mind and body. Dyce's cheery patience never failed. Her sunny nature diffused a bright hopefulness throughout the sick chamber, until Evadne would lie in a dreamy content, almost fancying herself back in the old home as she listened to the musical tones and watched the dusky hands which so deftly ministered to her comfort. One day after she had lain for a long time in silence, she looked up at her faithful nurse and the grey eyes shone like stars.

"Dyce!" she cried softly. "I have found Jesus Christ!"



CHAPTER IX.

Reginald Hawthorne lay upon a couch on the wide veranda of his lovely home. The birds held high carnival around him,—nesting in the large cherry tree, playing hide and seek among the fragrant apple blossoms and making the air melodious with their merry songs. Brilliant orioles flashed to and fro like gleams of gold in the sunlight, as they built their airy hammocks high among the swaying branches of the great willow, and one inquisitive robin swept boldly through the clustering vines which screened the front of the veranda and perched upon his shoulder. He heard the merry hum of the bees at work and the strident call of the locusts, mingled with the distant neighing of horses and the soft lowing of the cows, but all the sweetness of nature was powerless to lift the gloom which seemed to envelop him as in a shroud. His face was white and drawn with pain and there were heavy rings beneath his eyes. Reginald Hawthorne would be a cripple for life.

The College Football Club had met a New York team in the yearly contest, which was looked forward to as one of the events in the athletic world, and Reginald had been foremost among the leaders of the play. Fierce and long had been the fight and the enthusiastic spectators had shouted themselves hoarse with applause or groaned in despair when the honor of Marlborough seemed likely to be lost. Then had come a mighty onward rush and the opposing forces concentrated into one seething mass of struggling humanity. When they drew apart at last the College boys had made the welkin ring with shouts of victory, but their bravest champion lay white and still upon the field.

Long days and nights of pain had followed, when John and Mrs. Hawthorne were at their wits' end to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate boy. Now the pain had resolved itself into a dull aching but Reginald would never walk without a crutch again.

The mortification to his father was extreme. A passionate man, he had centred all his hopes upon his son, whose position in life he fondly expected to repay him for his years of unremitting toil, and this was the end of it all! He grew daily more overbearing and hard to please, and his ebullitions of disappointment and rage were terrible to witness. He vented his anger most frequently upon John, the sight of whose superb strength goaded the unhappy man into a frenzy, and John's forbearance was tried to the utmost, but there was a sweet patience growing in his soul which made it possible to endure in silence, however capricious or unreasonable the commands of his master might be, and Reginald, watching him critically, marvelled at the mysterious inner strength of his friend.

He came along now with his quick, light step and drew a chair up beside Reginald's couch. He planned his work so as to be with the invalid as much as possible, and his constant sympathy and cheer were all that made the days bearable to him.

"Well, Rege, how goes it?" he asked in tones as tender as a woman's.

Reginald looked up at him with envious eyes. There was such a freshness about this strong young life, as if every moment were a separate joy.

"I wish I was dead!" he answered moodily.

"Don't dare to wish that!" said John quickly, "until you have made the most of your life."

"The most of my life!" echoed Reginald contemptuously. "That's well put, John, I must say! What is my life worth to me now? You see what my father thinks of it. A useless log, as valuable as a piece of waste paper. I believe it would have pleased him better if I had been killed outright. He wouldn't have had the humiliation of it always before his eyes. If it had been any sort of a decent accident, I believe I could bear it better, but to be knocked over in a football match, like the precious duffer that I am—bah!"

The concentrated bitterness of the last words made John's heart ache. "Looking backward, Rege," he said quietly, "will never make a man of you. It is only a waste of time and vital tissue. But there are lots of noble lives in spite of limitations. Paul had his thorn in the flesh, you know, and Milton his blindness. Difficulties are a spur to the best that is in us."

"Difficulties, John. You never look at them, do you?"

John laughed. "It is not worth while except to see how to surmount them."

"I wish you could be idle just for an hour," said Reginald peevishly, "you make me nervous."

John took another stitch in the halter he was mending. "Old Father Time's spoiling tooth is never still, Rege. I have to work to keep pace with it."

"I should think you would need a month of loafing to made up for the sleep you have lost. You're ahead of Napoleon, John, for he only kept one eye open, but I've never been able to catch you napping once. How have you stood it, man?"

"Forty winks is a fair allowance sometimes, Rege."

Reginald groaned. "Your pluck is worth a king's ransom, John. I wish I had it."

John began to whistle softly as he drew his waxed ends in and out.

"I declare, John, I can't fathom you!" and Reginald moved impatiently upon his couch. "You are invulnerable as Achilles. I never saw a fellow get so much comfort out of everything as you do, and yet your life is a steady grind. What does it all mean?"

"It means," said John softly, "that I am a Christ's man, and he has lifted me above the power of circumstances. Jesus is centre and circumference with me now, Rege.

"You were talking yesterday about some men wanting the earth. I own the earth, because it belongs to my Father,—the best part of it, you know,—there is a truer giving than by title deeds to material acres—and the world has grown very beautiful since my Father made me heir of all things through his Son. The birds' songs have a new note in them, and the sunlight is brighter, and there is a different blue in the sky. I'm monarch of all I survey because I get the good out of everything,—mere earthly possession doesn't amount to much, a man has to leave the finest estates behind him,—but I get the concentrated sweetness of it all wherever I am. It is God's world, you know, and he is my Father."

John was called away just then to attend to some gentlemen who had come to look at the horses, and Reginald waited for his return in vain. He heard his father's voice once, raised high in stormy wrath, then all was still again. Some time afterwards, through the leafy curtain of his veranda, he saw Mr. Hawthorne drive past with a face so distorted with passion that he shivered.

"There's been no end of a row this time," he soliloquized. "It is a mystery to me why John puts up with it. He's free to go when he chooses. I'm sure I'd clear out if I wasn't such a good-for-nothing. The governor is getting to be more like a bear than a human being, it's a dog's life for everybody unlucky enough to be under the same roof with him."

* * * * *

Down at the bend of the river a tall figure lay stretched upon the moss. The river laughed and the birds sang, but John Randolph's face was buried in his arms.

To leave Hollywood—that very night! The place whose very stones were dear to him, where he had learned all he knew of home. To be turned off like a beggar, without a moment's warning, after all his years of toil! To say good-bye forever to the human friends who loved him, and the dear, dumb friends whom he had fondled and tended with such constant care. Never again to swing along through the sweet freshness of the morning before the sun was up to find the earliest snowdrops for Mrs. Hawthorne, or take a spin in the moonlight with every nerve a-tingle across the frozen bosom of the lake, or wander in delight along the wood roads when every tree was clad in the witching beauty of a silver thaw, or sweep across the wide stretching country in the very poetry of motion, or hear the soft swish of the tall grass as it fell in fragrant rows before the mower, or the creak of the vans as they bore its ripened sweetness towards the great barns, while bird and bee and locust joined in the harmony of the Harvest Home, until the sun sank to rest amidst cloud draperies of royal purple and crimson and gold and the sweet-voiced twilight soothed the world into peace.

On and on the hours swept while John fought his battle. At length he rose, and with long, lingering glances of good-bye to every tree and rock and flower, began his homeward way. He would think of it so while he could. In a few short hours he would be a wanderer upon the face of the earth. A sudden joy crept into the weary eyes. So was Jesus Christ!

"Why, John, what has happened!" cried Reginald, as his faithful nurse came to make him comfortable for the night. "You look like a ghost, and you have had no dinner! What the mischief is to pay? You must have been precious busy to leave me alone the whole afternoon."

"I have been, Rege," said John quietly, "very busy."

"I declare, John, I'd make tracks for freedom if I were in your shoes. You're a regular convict, and, since you've had me on your hands, a galley slave is a gentleman of leisure in comparison! Why don't you go, John? You've had nothing but injustice at Hollywood."

John fell on his knees beside the bed. "I am going, Rege. Your father has ordered me away."

When the thought which has floated—nebulous—across our mental vision, suddenly resolves itself into tangible form and becomes a solid fact to be confronted and battled with, the shock is greater than if no shadowy premonition had ever haunted the dreamland of our fancy. Reginald gave a low cry, then he lay looking at John with eyes full of a blank horror. His mind utterly refused to grasp the situation.

"You see, Rege, it is this way," said John gently. "Your father seems to have taken a dislike to me and lately I have fancied he was only waiting for an excuse to turn me off. As soon as those fellows began to talk to him about the horses I saw there was trouble brewing. Everything I did was wrong, and once he swore at me. He would order me to bring one horse and then change his mind before I got half across the field, and then he would rail at me for not having brought the first one.

"They pitched on Neptune at last, and asked if he had been registered. I said 'No,' so then they refused to pay the price your father asked, and he had to come down on him. He was furious, and, as soon as the men's backs were turned, he ordered me out of his sight forever. He says I have ruined the reputation of Hollywood," John's voice broke.

"But, John, you mustn't go!" cried Reginald. "You cannot! My father is out of his mind. People don't pay any attention to the ravings of a lunatic."

John shook his head sadly. "He is master here, Rege. There is nothing else for me to do."

"But, John, it is impossible—preposterous! Why, everything will go to ruin without you, and I will take the lead."

"No, no!" said John quickly. "You will be a rich man some day, Rege. Wealth is a wonderful opportunity. Prepare yourself to use it well."

"I tell you I can't do anything without you, John. I am like a ship without a rudder. It is no use talking. I cannot spare you. You must not go!"

"If you take the great Pilot aboard, Rege, you will be in no danger of drifting. It is only when we choose Self for our Captain that the ship runs on the rocks."

* * * * *

"Don, Don!" The child heard his step in the hall long before he reached the door. He was coming, as he did every night, to give her a ride in his arms before she went to by-by. She held out her little arms from which the loose sleeves had fallen back. John lifted her up, for the last time.

He laid his strong, set face against the rosy cheek, and looked into the laughing eyes which the sand man had already sprinkled with his magic powder. "Nansie, baby, I have come to say good-bye."

"Not dood-bye, Don, oo always say dood-night."

"But it is good-bye this time, little one, there will be no more good-nights for you and me. I am going away."

A bewildered look swept over the child's face. "Away!" she echoed, "to leave Nan an' Pwimwose an' the horsies? Me'll do too, Don. He'll do anywhere wid oo, Don."

"I wish I could take you!" and John strained her to his breast. "But there is no Neptune to carry us now, little one. Your father sold him this afternoon."

"My nice Nepshun!" The child's lip quivered, but something in the suffering face above her made her say quickly, "Me'll be dood, Don, an' when oo turn back, me'll be waitin' at de gate."

She patted his cheek confidingly. "Nice Don! Nan loves oo, dear, an' Desus. Nan loves Desus 'cause oo do, Don."

John's voice choked. "Keep on loving, Nansie."

"Yes, me will. Does Desus carry de little chil'en in his arms like oo do, Don? Me's so comf'able. Me loves Desus."

The little arm, soft and warm, crept closer around his neck, while the golden curls swept his cheek. "Oo's my bootiful man, Don. Me'll marry oo when me gets big," and then, all unconscious of the sorrow which should greet her in the morning, the baby slept.

To and fro across the floor John trod lightly with his precious burden. His arms never felt the weight. They would be such empty arms bye-and-bye! Then at last he laid her down, and, taking a pair of scissors from his pocket, he carefully severed one of the golden rings of hair, and laid it within the folds of the handkerchief which he still carried in his vest pocket. The fair girl and the little child. These should be his memory of womanhood.



* * * * *

In Reginald's room kind-hearted Mrs. Hawthorne was weeping bitterly. She loved John as her own son, but no one ever dreamed of disputing the tyrannical dictates of the master of Hollywood, however unjust they might be.

Reginald lay as John had left him with his face buried in the pillows and utterly refused to be comforted. What comfort could there be if John was going away? It never occurred to him that his mother needed cheer as much as he. Like all selfish souls his own pain completely filled his horizon.



CHAPTER X.

"I don't see what we are to do about Evadne!" and Mrs. Hildreth sighed disconsolately. "She looks like a walking shadow. I should not be surprised if she had inherited her father's disease, and they say now that consumption is as contagious as diphtheria."

"Horrors!" cried Isabelle. "Do quarantine her somewhere, Mamma, until you are quite sure there is no danger. I haven't the faintest aspirations to martyrdom."

"It is a great care," sighed Mrs. Hildreth. "All of you children have always been so healthy. I don't believe Doctor Russe will listen to her going to the seaside, and the mountains are so monotonous! Other people's children are a great responsibility."

Suddenly Isabelle clapped her hands. "I have it!" she cried. "Send her up to Aunt Marthe, and then we can tease Papa to let us go to Newport. Marion is going to spend the summer with Christine Drayton, you know, and Papa does not intend to leave the city, so we can persuade him that it is our duty to seize such a golden opportunity of doing things economically. I am sure I don't know what people must think of us, never going to any of the fashionable places. For my part I think we owe it to Papa's position to keep up with the world."

"I believe it might be managed," said Mrs. Hildreth after some consideration. "It was very clever of you to think of it, Isabelle. You ought to be a diplomat, my dear," and she smiled approvingly on her daughter.

* * * * *

The train swept along through the picturesque Vermont scenery and Evadne looked out of her window with never ending delight.

"I am like a poor, lonely bird," she said to herself, "who flits from shore to shore, seeking rest and finding none. Another journey in the dark! I wonder what will be at the end of this one? Well, I'll hope for the best. Aunt Marthe's letter was kind, and her name sounds as cheery as Aunt Kate's sounds cold."

Mr. Everidge came to meet her as the train steamed into the little station, and Evadne soon found herself seated in a comfortable carriage behind a handsome chestnut mare, bowling along a fragrant country road, catching glimpses at every turn of the verdure-clad hills.

She found her new uncle very pleasant. There was a silver-tongued suavity about him in striking contrast to the growing preoccupation of Judge Hildreth, and a sort of airy self complaisance which took it for granted that he should be well treated by the world.

"I am very glad you have come, my dear niece," he said, "to relieve the tedium of our uneventful existence. You must let our Vermont air kiss the roses into bloom again in your pale cheeks. It has a world-wide reputation as a tonic. I hope you left our Marlborough relatives in a pleasant attitude of mind? It is one of the evidences of this progressive age that you should woo 'tired Nature's sweet restorer' one night under the roof of my respected brother-in-law, the next under my own. The ancients, with their primitive modes of laborious transit, were only half alive. We of to-day, thanks to the melodious tea-kettle and inventive cerebral tissue of the youthful Watt, live in a perpetual hand-clasp, so to speak, and, by means of the flashing chain of light which girdles the globe are kept in touch with the world. It is food for reflection that the thought which is evolved from the shadowy recesses of our brain to-day, should be, by the mysterious camera of electricity, photographed upon the retina of the Australian public to-morrow, and we need to have the archives of our memory enlarged to hold the voluminous correspondence of the century.

"Ah, Squire Higgins, good-evening. My niece by marriage, Miss Hildreth of Barbadoes."

The Squire lifted his hat, there was a little desultory conversation, then the carriages went on their separate ways, and soon Evadne found herself at her destination.

She looked eagerly at the pretty house with its entourage of flowers and lawns, grand old trees and distance-purpled hills, then Aunt Marthe appeared in the doorway and she saw nothing else.

She was of medium height with a crown of soft, brown hair, and eyes whose first glance of welcome caught Evadne's heart and held her captive. There was a wonderful sweetness about the smiling mouth, and the face, although not classically beautiful, possessed a subtle spiritual charm more fascinating than mere physical perfection of color and form. She moved lightly with a buoyant youthfulness strangely at variance with the stately dignity of Mrs. Hildreth and the studied repose of Isabelle.

"You dear child!" The soft arms held her close, the sweet lips caught hers in a kiss, and Evadne felt with a great throb of joy that the weary bird had found a resting-place at last.

She led her into a cool, tastefully furnished room, drew her down beside her on the couch and took off her hat and gloves, then she handed her a fan and went to make her a lemon soda.

Evadne looked round the room with its soft curtains swaying in the breeze, the cool matting on the floor with a rug or two, the light bookcases with their wealth of thought, the comfortable wicker rockers, the bamboo tables holding several half cut magazines, an open work-basket, a vase with a single rose, while on the low mantel a cluster of graceful lilies were reflected in the mirror. "Why, this is home!" she cried and she laid her head against the cushions with a delightful sense of freedom.

The early supper was soon announced and Evadne found herself in a cozy dining-room seated near a window which opened into a bewildering vista of summer beauty. There were flowers beside each plate as well as in the quaintly carved bowl in the centre of the table. Evadne caught herself smiling. That had always been a conceit of hers in Barbadoes.

Everything was simple but delicious. The tender, juicy chicken, the delicate pink ham, the muffins browned to a turn, the Jersey butter moulded into a sheaf of wheat, and moist brown bread of Aunt Marthe's own making, the blocks of golden sponge cake, the crisp lettuce, the fragrant strawberries, the cool jelly frosted with snow. Evadne drank her tea out of a chocolate tinted cup, fluted like the bell of a flower, and felt as if she were feasting on the nectar of the gods, while Mr. Everidge's silvery tones kept up a constant stream of talk and Aunt Marthe's beautiful hospitality made her feel perfectly at home.

"Tea, my dear Evadne," he said, as he passed her cup to be refilled, "is an infusion of poison which is slowly but surely destroying the coatings of the gastronomical organ of the female portion of society. I tremble to think of the amount of tannin which analysis would show deposited in the systems of the votaries of the deadly Five o'clock, and the unhealthy nervous tension of the age is largely traceable to the excessive consumption of the pernicious liquid. Chocolate, on the contrary, taken as I always drink it, is simple and nutritive, with no unpleasant after effects to be apprehended, but this decoction of bitter herbs, steeped to death in water far past its proper temperature, is concentrated lye, my dear Evadne, nothing but concentrated lye. By the way, Marthe, I wish you would give your personal supervision to the preparation of my hot water in the future. Nothing comparable to hot water, Evadne, just before retiring. It aids digestion and induces sleep, and sleep you know is a gift of the gods. The Chinese mode of punishing criminals has always seemed to me exquisite in its barbarity. They simply make it impossible for the unhappy wretches to obtain a wink of sleep, until at length the torture grows unbearable and they find refuge in the long sleep which no mortal has power to prevent. So, my dear Marthe, see to it if you please in future that my slumber tonic is served just on the boil. The worthy Joanna does not understand the mysteries of the boiling process. Water, after it has passed the initiatory stage becomes flat, absolutely flat and tasteless. What I had to drink last night was so repugnant to my palate that I found it impossible to sink into repose with that calm attitude of mind which is so essential to perfect slumber.

"See to it also, my dear, that I am not disturbed at such an unearthly hour again as I was this morning. Tesla, the great electrician, has put himself on record as intimating that the want of sleep is a potent factor in the deplorably heavy death rate of the present day. He thinks sleep and longevity are synonymous, therefore it becomes us to bend every effort to attain that desirable consummation."

Involuntarily Evadne looked at Mrs. Everidge. Her face was slightly turned towards the open window and there was a half smile upon her lips, as if, like Joan of Arc, she was listening to voices of sweeter tone than those of earth. She came back to the present again on the instant and met her niece's eyes with a smile, but in the subtle realm of intuition we learn by lightning flashes, and Evadne needed no further telling to know that the saddest loneliness which can fall to the lot of a woman was the fate of her aunt.

Immediately after supper Mrs. Everidge persuaded Evadne to go to her room. The long journey had been a great strain upon her strength and she was very tired.

"I wish you a good night, Uncle Horace," she said as she passed him in the doorway.

"And you a pleasant one," he rejoined with a gallant bow. "'We are such stuff as dreams are made of—and our little life is rounded with a sleep.'"

She lay for a long time wakeful, revelling in the strange sense of peace which seemed to enfold her, while the evening breeze blew through the room and the twilight threw weird shadows among the dainty draperies. At length there came a low knock and Mrs. Everidge opened the door.

Evadne stretched out her hands impulsively. "Oh, this beautiful stillness!" she exclaimed. "In Marlborough there is the clang of the car gongs and the rumble of cabs and the tramp of feet upon the pavement until it seems as if the weary world were never to be at rest, but this house is so quiet I could almost hear a pin drop."

Mrs. Everidge smiled. "You have quick ears, little one. But we are quieter than usual to-night; Joanna is sitting up with a sick neighbor, your uncle went to his room early, and I have been reading in mine."

She drew a low chair up beside the bed. "Now we must begin to get acquainted," she said.

"Dear Aunt Marthe!" cried Evadne, "I feel as if I had known you all my life."

She gave her a swift caress. "You dear child! Then tell me about your father."

Evadne looked at her gratefully. No one had ever cared to know about her father before. Forgetting her weariness in the absorbing interest of her subject, she talked on and on, and Mrs. Everidge with the wisdom of true sympathy, made no attempt to check her, knowing full well that the relief of the tried heart was helping her more than any physical rest could do.

"And now, oh, Aunt Marthe, life is so desperately lonely!" she said at last with a sobbing sigh.

Mrs. Everidge leaned over and kissed the trembling lips. "I think sometimes the earthly fatherhood is taken from us, dear child, that we may learn to know the beautiful Fatherliness of God. We can never find true happiness until our restless hearts are folded close in the hush of his love. Human love—however lovely—does not satisfy us. Nothing can,—but God!"

"The Fatherliness of God," repeated Evadne. "That sounds lovely, but people do not think of him so. God is someone very terrible and far away."

"'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' Does that sound as if he were far away, little one? 'As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.' Why, God is father and mother both to us, dear child. Can you think of anyone nearer than that?"

Evadne caught her breath in a great gladness. "I believe you are his angel of consolation," she said in a hushed voice.

"'Even unto them will I give ... a place and a name better than of sons and daughters,'" quoted Aunt Marthe softly. "That means a location and an identity. Here, sometimes, it seems as if we had neither the one nor the other. Christ follows out the same idea in his picture of the abiding place which is being prepared for you and me. Everything on earth is so transitory, and the human heart has such a hunger for something that will last."

"Have you felt this too?" cried Evadne. "I thought I was the only one."

Mrs. Everidge laughed. "The only one in all the world to puzzle over its problems! Oh, yes, the older we grow, the more we find that the great majority have the same feelings and perplexities as ourselves, although some may not understand their thought clearly enough to put it into words."

"What is your favorite verse in all the Bible?" asked Evadne after a pause.

Mrs. Everidge laughed again, and Evadne thought she had never heard a laugh at once so merry and so sweet.

"You send me into a rose garden, dear child, and tell me to select the choicest bloom out of its wilderness of beauty. How can I when every one has a different coloring and a fragrance all its own? Two of my special favorites are in the Revelation,—'To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.' 'And they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.'

"That means a possession and a belonging. It is the spiritual symbol which binds us to our heavenly lover for eternity just as the wedding ring is a pledge of fidelity for our earth time. It is only as we see it so, that we get the full beauty of the religion of Jesus. His church—the inner circle of his chosen 'hidden ones'—is his bride, and what can be more glorious than to be the bride of the King of kings? The dear souls who only serve him with fear do not get the sweetness out of it at all. How can they, when their lives are all duty? 'Perfect love casteth out fear' and there is no duty about it, for when we love, it is a joy to serve and give. It hurts the Christ to have us content to be simply servants when he would lift us up to the higher plane of friendship, when he has put upon us the high honor of the dearest friend of all! Earthly brides spend a vast deal of time and thought over their trousseau, so I think Christ's bride should walk among men with a sweet aloofness while the spiritual garments are being fashioned in which she is to dwell with him. The Bible says a great deal about dressing. 'Let thy garments be always white'—the sunshine color, the joy color—for bye and bye we are to walk with him in white, you know. Our spiritual wardrobe must be fitted and worn down here. It is a terrible mistake to put off donning the wedding robes until we come to the feast. And the wardrobe is very ample. Christ would have his bride luxuriously appareled. 'Be clothed with humility.' That is a fine, close-fitting suit for every day, but over it we are to wear the garment of praise and the warm, shining robe of charity. Can you fancy anything more beautiful than a life clothed in such garments as these? And to me the loveliest of all is charity. The highest praise I ever heard given to a woman was that 'she had such a tender way of making excuses for everybody.'

"Very fair must be the bride in the eyes of her royal lover, clothed in the garments which he has selected,—all light and joy and tenderness, for, the King's daughter is all glorious within."

"Aunt Marthe," said Evadne, after a long silence, in which they had been tasting the sweetness of it, "I do not need to ask if you know Jesus Christ?"

The lovely face took on an added beauty. "He is my life," she said.



CHAPTER XI.

Evadne was swinging in the hammock one golden summer afternoon, humming soft snatches of her old songs while she played with her aunt's pet black and tan. The sweet freshness of her new existence was rapidly restoring tone to her mental system, and life no longer seemed a hopeless task. The days were full of dreamy contentment. She spent long mornings under the murmuring pines in the deep belt of forest which stretched for miles behind the house, or helped Mrs. Everidge keep the rooms in dainty order; drove with her along the grass-bordered roads, while ears and eyes feasted on the symphonies of Nature and the ever changing beauty of the hills; or stood beside Joanna in a trance of delight out in the fragrant dairy, whose windows opened into a wild sweetness of fluttering leaves, and whose cool stone floor made a channel for a purling brook, watching her as with dexterous hands she shaped and moulded the bubbley dough or tossed up an omelet or made one of her delicious cherry pies, conscious through it all of the sweet influence which seemed to pervade every corner of the house and grounds.

"I wonder what it is about you, you dear Aunt Marthe?" she soliloquized, as she pulled Noisette's silky ears. "When you are away I cannot bear to go into the house,—everything seems so different, so cold and dark,—but the moment you come home again it is as lovely as ever. Concentrated light. Yes, that name would suit you, for light is sweet and pure and stimulating and precious. If all the people in the world were like you, what a world it would be!"

She looked up as she heard footsteps approaching, and then rose to welcome her visitor. A woman twenty years her senior, bright, capable, energetic, with a shrewd face and kindly eyes whose keen glance was quick to pierce the flimsy veil of humbug, and a tongue whose good-natured sarcasm had made more than one pretender feel ashamed.

"How do?" she said briskly, as she took the chair Evadne offered. "I hope you're feelin' better sence you've cum?"

"Much better, thank you. I am very sorry my aunt is not at home."

"I'm sorry likewise, though it don't make as much difference as it might have done, as I'm callin' a purpose to see you."

"That is very good of you," said Evadne with a laugh. There was a spicy flavor about this child of the mountains which she found refreshing.

"It's a bit awkward," continued her visitor with a twinkle in her eye, "as we'll have to do our own introducin'. My name's Penelope Riggs, Penel for brevity. What's yours?"

"Evadne Hildreth."

"Evadne. That's uncommon and pretty. I'm goin' to call you so if you're not objectionable to it. Life's too short for handles."

Evadne laughed merrily. "I'm not in the least objectionable," she said.

"No, that's a fact," said her visitor after a moment's kindly scrutiny. "You're true and thorough. I knew I was goin' to like you when I saw you in meetin'."

Evadne flushed with pleasure. "Why, that is a beautiful character! I only wish I deserved it. But I fear you are very much mistaken in me, though it is very kind in you to think such nice things."

"Nonsense, child! I don't waste my time thinkin'. Let me have a good look at your face for half an hour and I'll know as much about you as you could tell me in a week. Malviny Higgins has just come back from Bosting with her head full of sykick forces an' mental affinities an' the dear knows what else, but I think it's just a cultivation of our common senses—number, five. You can feel a person without touching them; it's in the air all round you; and you don't need much discrimination to know whether what you will say will hurt them or be a blessin'. The main thing is to put yourself in their shoes before you begin to talk."

"Their shoes, Miss Riggs," laughed Evadne, "why they might not fit."

"Penelope," corrected her visitor, "Penel for brevity. Yes, they will too, that kind of shoe leather is elastic. It's the old Bible doctrine, 'never do anything to others that you wouldn't like others to do to you.' If people got the shoes well fitted before they let their tongues loose, there would be a deal less sorrow and heartburn in the world."

"'Love thy neighbor as thyself,'" said Evadne. "I never thought of it in that way before."

"Well," said Miss Riggs briskly, "I'm dredful glad you've cum, Evadne. It'll do Mis' Everidge a sight of good to have you, though Marthe Everidge is raised above the need of humans as far as any mortal can be on this earth. With all their inventions there ain't nobody discovered how to make spiritual photographs yet, or I would have the picture of her character in all the windows of the land. 'Twould do more good than miles of tracts. I agree with Paul that livin' epistles make the best readin' an' it don't seem fittin' that she should be shut up in this little place where only a few of us have the right kind of spectacles to see her through. Most of the folks just allow it's Mis' Everidge's way, and would as soon think of tryin' to imitate her as a tadpole would a star."

"But we are to imitate Christ," said Evadne.

"'Course, child! But it's dredful comfortin' to have a human life in front of us to show us that is possible. Lots of times when life looks like a long seam an' the sewin' pricks my fingers, a new light falls on this picture, and I sez to myself, 'Penel,' says I, 'look at Marthe Everidge. The Lord has made you both out of the same material. There ain't no reason why she should be always gettin' nearer heaven and you goin' back to earth. She has difficulties and worriments, same as you have, but if she can make every trial into a new rung for the ladder on which she is mountin' up to God, there ain't no reason why you should make a gravestone out of yours to bury yourself under; and so I start on with a new courage, an' when we get to the end of the journey, I'll not be the only one who'll have to thank Marthe Everidge for showin' the way."

Evadne's eyes shone. "You make me feel," she cried, "as if I would rather live a beautiful life than do the most magnificent thing in the world!"

"That's a safe feelin' to tie to," said Penelope with an approving smile; "for character is the only thing we've got to carry with us when we go."

"Well," she continued, "I must be goin'. I did think I'd be forehanded in callin', but mother's been dredful wakeful lately, and when daylight comes, it don't seem as if I had the ambition of a snail. She don't like to be left alone for a minit, mother don't, so it's a bit of a puzzle to keep up with society."

She laughed cheerily as she held out her hand. "Well, I'm dredful pleased to have met you. I'll be more than glad to have you come in whenever you're down our way."

Evadne watched her as she walked briskly along the road. "She is not Aunt Marthe," she said slowly; "I suppose Louis would call it a case of the solanum and the potato blossom, but she is one of the Lord's plants all the same."

"Aunt Marthe, what is culture?" she asked suddenly, as later in the afternoon Mrs. Everidge sat beside her hammock. "Is Louis right? Is it just the veneer of education and travel and environment?"

"You can hardly call that a veneer, little one. Real education goes very deep. Emerson says 'nothing is so indicative of deepest culture as a tender consideration of the ignorant.' I think that culture, to be perfect, must have its root in love. It is impossible that anyone filled with the love of Christ should ever be discourteous or lack in thoughtfulness for the feelings of others."

"Why that must be what Penelope Riggs meant by her 'elastic shoe leather,'" said Evadne with a laugh, and then she repeated the conversation.

"Oh, she has been here! I am glad. It will do you good to know her. She is the cheeriest soul, and the busiest. She always acts upon me as a tonic, for I know just how much she has had to give up and how hard her life has been."

"Why, Aunt Marthe, she says when she gets to heaven she will have to thank you for showing her the way. She thinks you are perfection."

"'Not I, but Christ,'" said Aunt Marthe with a happy smile. She went into the house and returned with a book in her hand. "You asked what culture really was. This writer says 'Drudgery.' Listen while I give you a few snatches, then you shall have the book for your own.

"'Culture takes leisure, elegance, wide margins of time, a pocket-book; drudgery means limitations, coarseness, crowded hours, chronic worry, old clothes, black hands, headaches. Our real and our ideal are not twins. Never were! I want the books, but the clothes basket wants me. I love nature and figures are my fate. My taste is books and I farm it. My taste is art and I correct exercises. My taste is science and I measure tape. Can it be that this drudgery, not to be escaped, gives 'culture?' Yes, culture of the prime elements of life, of the very fundamentals of all fine manhood and fine womanhood, the fundamentals that underlie all fulness and without which no other culture worth the winning is even possible. Power of attention, power of industry, promptitude in beginning work, method and accuracy and despatch in doing it, perseverance, courage before difficulties, cheer, self-control and self-denial, they are worth more than Latin and Greek and French and German and music and art and painting and waxflowers and travels in Europe added together. These last are the decorations of a man's life, those other things are the indispensables. They make one's sit-fast strength and one's active momentum,—they are the solid substance of one's self.

"'How do we get them? High school and college can give much, but these are never on their programmes. All the book processes that we go to the schools for and commonly call our 'education' give no more than opportunity to win the indispensables of education. We must get them somewhat as the fields and valleys get their grace. Whence is it that the lines of river and meadow and hill and lake and shore conspire to-day to make the landscape beautiful? Only by long chiselings and steady pressures. Only by ages of glacier crush and grind, by scour of floods, by centuries of storm and sun. These rounded the hills and scooped the valley-curves and mellowed the soil for meadow-grace. It was 'drudgery' all over the land. Mother Nature was down on her knees doing her early scrubbing work! That was yesterday, to-day—result of scrubbing work—we have the laughing landscape.

"'Father and mother and the ancestors before them have done much to bequeath those mental qualities to us, but that which scrubs them into us, the clinch which makes them actually ours and keeps them ours, and adds to them as the years go by,—that depends on our own plod in the rut, our drill of habit, in a word our 'drudgery.' It is because we have to go and go morning after morning, through rain, through shine, through toothache, headache, heartache to the appointed spot and do the appointed work, no matter what our work may be, because of the rut, plod, grind, humdrum in the work, that we get our foundations.

"'Drudgery is the gray angel of success, for drudgery is the doing of one thing long after it ceases to be amusing, and it is 'this one thing I do' that gathers me together from my chaos, that concentrates me from possibilities to powers and turns powers into achievements. The aim in life is what the backbone is in the body, if we have no aim we have no meaning. Lose us and the earth has lost nothing, no niche is empty, no force has ceased to play, for we have no aim and therefore we are still—nobody. Our bodies are known and answer in this world to such or such a name, but, as to our inner selves, with real and awful meaning our walking bodies might be labelled 'An unknown man sleeps here!'

"'But we can be artists also in our daily task,—artists not artisans. The artist is he who strives to perfect his work, the artisan strives to get through it. If I cannot realize my ideal I can at least idealize my real—How? By trying to be perfect in it. If I am but a raindrop in a shower, I will be at least a perfect drop. If but a leaf in a whole June, I will be a perfect leaf. This is the beginning of all Gospels, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand just where we are.'"

"Oh!" cried Evadne, drawing a long breath, "that is beautiful! I feel as if I had been lifted up until I touched the sky."

"Marthe," exclaimed Mr. Everidge reproachfully, suddenly appearing in the doorway with a sock drawn over each arm, "it is incomprehensible to me you do not remember that my physical organism and darns have absolutely no affinity."

Mrs. Everidge laughed brightly. "If you will make holes, Horace, I must make darns," she said.

"Not a natural sequence at all!" he retorted testily. "When the wear and tear of time becomes visible in my underwear it must be relegated to Reuben."

"But Reuben's affinity for patches may be no stronger than your own, Uncle Horace," said Evadne mischievously.

Mr. Everidge waved his sock-capped hands with a gesture of disdain. "The lower orders, my dear Evadne, are incapable of those delicate perceptions which constitute the mental atmosphere of those of finer mould. The delft does not feel the blow which would shiver the porcelain into atoms, and Reuben's epidermis is, I imagine, of such a horny consistency that he would walk in oblivious unconcern upon these elevations of needlework which are as a ploughshare to my sensitive nerves. It is the penalty one has to pay for being of finer clay than the common herd of men."

Evadne looked at Mrs. Everidge. A deep flush of shame had dyed her cheeks and her lips were quivering.

"Oh, Horace," she cried, "Reuben is such a faithful boy!"

"My dear," said her husband airily, "I make no aspersions against his moral character, but he certainly cannot be classed among the velvet-skinned aristocracy. By the way, I wish you would see in future that my undergarments are of a silken texture. My flesh rebels at anything approaching to harshness," and then he went complacently back to his library to weave and fashion the graceful phrases which flowed from his facile pen.

"Why should he go clothed in silk and you in cotton!" cried Evadne, jealous for the rights of her friend.

Mrs. Everidge's eyes came back from one of their long journeys, "Oh, I have learned the luxury of doing without," she said lightly.

Evadne threw her arms around her impulsively. "But why, oh, Aunt Marthe, why should not Uncle Horace learn it too?"

"We do not see things through the same window," she answered with a smile and a sigh.



CHAPTER XII.

John Randolph walked slowly through the soft dawning. It had been a brilliant night. The late moon had risen as he was bidding good-bye to the graceful creatures he should never see again, and Hollywood had been clad in a bewitching beauty which made it all the harder to say farewell. Far into the night he had lingered, visiting every corner of the dearly loved home, then at last he had turned away and walked steadily along the road which led to Marlborough.

The sun rose in a blaze of splendor and the birds began to twitter. The gripsack which he carried grew strangely heavy, and he felt faint and weary. The long strain of the day before was beginning to tell upon him, and it was many hours since he had tasted food.

A sudden turn of the road brought him in sight of a trig little farm, against whose red gate a man was leaning, leisurely enjoying the beauty of the morning before he began work. He had a pleasant face, strong and peaceful. No one had ever known Joseph Makepeace to be out of temper or in a hurry. He would have said it was because he commenced every day listening to the inner voice among the silences of Nature. Joseph Makepeace was a Quaker.

"Why, John, lad!" he cried, "thou art a welcome sight on this fair morning. Come in, come in. Breakfast will soon be ready and thou art in sore need of it by the look of thy face." He gave John's hand a mighty grasp and took his gripsack from him.

"Why, John, hast thou walked far with this load? Where were all the horses of Hollywood? Is anything wrong, John? I don't like thy looks, lad."

John's voice trembled. "I have left Hollywood" he said. "Mr. Hawthorne has turned me off."

"Left Hollywood! You don't mean it, John? Well, well, folks say Robert Hawthorne has not been right in his mind since his boy got hurt. I believe it now. It's a comfort that the great Master will never turn us off, lad. Thee'd better lie down on the lounge and rest thee a bit, John, while I go and tell mother."

He entered the spotless kitchen where his wife was moving blithely to and fro. "Thee has another 'unawares angel' to breakfast, Ruth. It's a grand thing being on the public road!"

Ruth Makepeace laughed merrily. "An angel, Joseph? I hope he's not like thy last one, who stole three of my best silver spoons!"

"So, so, thee didst promise to forget that, Ruth, if I replace them next time I go to Marlborough."

"Well, so I do, except when thee does remind me. Is this a very hungry angel, Joseph? Does thee think I'd better cook another chicken?"

"He ought to be hungry, poor lad, but I doubt if he eats much. Does thee remember friend Randolph, Ruth?"

"Of course I do. But he's been dead these ten years. Thee doesn't mean he's come back to breakfast with us?"

Her husband put his hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. Then he kissed her. "Thee is fractious this morning, Ruth. Friend Randolph had a son, thee dost mind, whom Robert Hawthorne took to live at Hollywood. It is he whom the good Lord has sent to us to care for, Ruth. He's just been turned adrift."

"If thee wasn't so big I would shake thee, Joseph! The idea of John Randolph being in this house and thee beating round the bush with thine angels!" and with all her motherhood shining in her eyes, Ruth Makepeace started for the parlor.

In spite of the overflowing kindness with which he was surrounded John found the meal a hard one. He had been used to breakfast with little Nan upon his knee.

"When thee is rested we'll have a talk, lad," said his host, as they rose from the table; "but thee'd better bide with us for the summer and not fret about the future: thee dost need a holiday."

"Of course thee dost, John!" said blithe little Mrs. Makepeace. "I wish thee would bide for good."

Her husband laid his hand upon his shoulder. "Thou knowest, lad, there is the little grave out yonder. Thee should'st have his place in our hearts and home. Would'st thee be content to bide, John?"

John Randolph looked at his friends with shining eyes. "You have done me good for life!" he said, "but the world calls me, I must go. I mean to work my way through college, and be a physician, Mr. Makepeace."

"So! so! Well, we mustn't stand in the way, Ruth. Thee'll make a good one, John. But how art thee going to manage it, lad?"

"The Steel Works in Marlborough pay good wages. I mean to get a place there if I can, and study in the evenings."

"Why, John, lad, the Steel Works shut down yesterday afternoon."

For an instant the brave spirit quailed, only for an instant. "Then I must find something else," he said quietly.

"It's a bad season, John, and the times are hard." Joseph Makepeace thought for a moment. "There's friend Harris up the river. What dost thee think, Ruth?"

"Why, he wants men to pile wood," exclaimed his wife. "Thee would'st not set John at that!"

"Lincoln split rails," said John with a smile, "why should not I pile them? It's clean work, and honest, Mrs. Makepeace."

"He has a logging camp in the winter. Thee would'st have good pay then, John."

"But thee would'st be so lonely, John, amongst all those rough men! And thee did'st say once it was dangerous, Joseph. It's not fit work for John."

"I am not afraid of work, Mrs. Makepeace, and I can never be lonely with Jesus Christ."

* * * * *

In far Vermont Evadne was reading aloud from a paper she had brought from the post-office. "The whole sum of Christian living is just loving." "Do you believe that, Aunt Marthe?"

"Surely, dear child. Love is the fulfilling of the law, you know. When we love God with our whole heart, and our neighbor as ourselves, there is no danger of our breaking the Decalogue. 'He who loveth knoweth God,' and 'to know him is life eternal.'"

"Just love," said Evadne musingly. "It seems so simple."

"Do you think so?" said Aunt Marthe with a smile. "Yet people find it the hardest thing to do, as it is surely the noblest. Drummond calls it 'the greatest thing in the world' and you have Paul's definition of it in Corinthians. Did you ever study that to see how perfect love would make us?

"'Love suffereth long,' that does away with impatience; 'and is kind,' that makes us neighborly; 'love envieth not,' that saves from covetousness; 'vaunteth not itself,' that does away with self-conceit; 'seeketh not its own,' that kills selfishness; 'is not provoked,' that shows we are forgiving; 'rejoiceth not in unrighteousness,' makes us love only what is pure; 'covereth [Footnote: Marginal rendering.] all things,' that leaves no room for scandal; 'believeth all things,' that does away with doubt; 'hopeth all things,' that is the antithesis of distrust; 'endureth all things,' proves that we are strong; and then the beautiful summing up of the whole matter, 'love never faileth.' If that is true of us, it can only be as we are filled with the spirit of the Christ of God, 'whose nature and whose name is love.'"

"You see such beautiful things in the Bible!" said Evadne despairingly, "why cannot I get below the surface?"

"You will, dearie. You forget I have been digging nuggets from this precious mine for years and you have just begun to search for them. Would you like another drive, or do you feel too tired?"

"Not in the least. What can I do for you?"

"I would like to send some of that currant jelly I made yesterday to old Mrs. Riggs, if you are sure you would like to take it?"

"As sure as sure can be, dear," said Evadne with a kiss, "Where shall I find it?"

"In the King's corner."

"'The King's corner?'" echoed Evadne with a puzzled look.

"Oh, I forgot you did not know. I always give the Lord the first fruits of my cooking, and keep them in a special place set apart for his use, then, when I go to see the sick, there is always something ready to tempt their fancy. It is wonderful what a saving of time it is. I rarely have to make anything on purpose,—there is always something prepared."

She followed her niece out to the carriage, helped her pack the jelly safely, with one of her crisp loaves of fresh brown bread, bade her a merry farewell and went back to the house again singing.

"Oh, Aunt Marthe!" cried Evadne, as she drove slowly under the trees, "shall I ever, ever learn to be like you?"

She found the old lady sitting by the fire wrapped up in a shawl, although the day was sultry.

"Good-morning," said Evadne, as she deposited her parcels on the table. "I come from Mrs. Everidge. She thought you would fancy some of her fresh brown bread and currant jelly."

"Hum!" said the old lady ungraciously, "I hope it's better than the last wuz. Guess Mis' Everidge ain't ez pertickler ez she used ter be."

"Aunt Marthe!" cried Evadne indignantly. "Why, everything she does is perfection!"

"Land, child! There ain't no perfecshun in this world. It's all a wale, a wale o' tears. We'se poor, miserable critters,—wurms o' the dust,—that's what we be."

"There isn't any worm about Aunt Marthe," cried Evadne with a laugh. "I think you must be looking through a wrong pair of spectacles, Mrs. Riggs."

"Land, child! I ain't got but the one pair, an' they got broke this morning. But it's jest my luck. Everything goes agin me."

"But you can get them mended," said Evadne.

"Sakes alive! There ain't much hope o' gettin' them mended, with Penel behindhand on the rent, an' the firin' an' the land knows what else. I don't see why Penel ain't more forehanded. I tell her ef I wuz ez young an' ez spry ez she be, I guess I'd hev things different, but, la! that's Penel's way. She's terrible sot in her own way, Penel is. She's not willin' ter take my advice. Children now-a-days allers duz know more than their mothers."

"Where is Penelope?" asked Evadne.

"Oh, skykin' round. She's gone over to Miss Johnsing's ter help with the quiltin'. That's the way she duz, an' here I am all alone with the fire ter tend ter, an' not a livin' soul ter do a hand's turn fer me! She sez she hez ter do it ter keep the pot bilin'—'pears ter me Penel's pots take a sight uv bilin'."

"But she has left a nice pile of wood close beside you, Mrs. Riggs."

"La, yes," grumbled the old lady, "but it's dretful thoughtless in her ter stay away so long, when she knows the stoopin' cums so hard on my rheumatiz. An' it's terrible lonesome. I get that narvous some days I'm all of a shake. 'Tain't ez ef she kep within' call, but t'other day she went clean over ter Hancocks,—a hull mile an' a half! She sez she hez ter go where folks wants things done, but that's nonsense, folks oughter want things done near at hand,—they know how lonesome I be. Why, a bear might cum in an' eat me up for all Penel would know. She gits so taken up a' larfin' an' singin', she ain't got no sympathy. Oh, it's a wale o' tears!"

"But there are no bears in Vernon, Mrs. Riggs," laughed Evadne.

"Land, child! you never know what there might be!" said the old lady testily. "Be you a' stayin' at Mis' Everidge's?"

"Yes," said Evadne, "she is my aunt."

"Hum! I never knew she hed any nieces, 'cept them two gals uv Jedge Hildreth's down ter Marlborough."

"I am their cousin, Mrs. Riggs. I used to live in Barbadoes."

"Well, I declar! Why, Barbaderz is t' other side of nowhere! Used ter be when I went ter school. Well, well, some folks hez a lion's share uv soarin' an' here I've ben all my life jest a' pinin' my heart out ter git down ter Bosting, an' I ain't never got there! But that's allers the way. I never git nuthin'. I'm sixty-nine years old cum Christmas an' I ain't never ben further away frum hum than twenty miles hand runnin', an' here's a chit like you done travelin' enuff ter last a lifetime."

"But I didn't want to travel, Mrs. Riggs," said Evadne gently. "I would so much rather have stayed at home."

"There you go!" grumbled the old lady. "Folks ain't never satisfied with their mercies. Allers a' flyin' in the face uv Providence. I tell you we'se wurms, child; miserable, shiftless wurms, a' crawlin' down in this walley of humiliation, with our faces ter the dust."

"But you've got a great deal to be thankful for, Mrs. Riggs," ventured Evadne, "in having such a daughter. Aunt Marthe thinks she is a splendid character."

"So she oughter be!" retorted the old lady, "with sech a bringin' up ez she's hed. But land! childern's dretful disappointin' ter a pusson. There ain't a selfish bone in my body, but Penel's ez full uv 'em. She'll let me lie awake by the hour at a time while she's a' snoozin' on the sofy beside me. She don't sleep in her own bed any more because I hev ter hev her handy ter rub me when the rheumatiz gits ter jumpin'. She sez she can't help bein' drowsy when she's workin' through the day, but land! she'd manage ter keep awake ef she hed any sympathy! She ain't got no sympathy, Penel ain't; an' she ain't a bit forehanded.

"But I don't 'spect nuthin' else in this world. It's a wale o' tears an' we ain't got nuthin' else ter look fer but triberlation an' woe. Man ez born ter trouble ez the sparks fly upward, an' a woman allers hez the lion's share."

Evadne burst into the sitting-room with flashing eyes. "Aunt Marthe, if I were Penelope Riggs, I would shoot her mother! She's just a crooked old bundle of unreasonableness and ingratitude!"

Mrs. Everidge laughed. "No, you wouldn't dear, not if you were Penelope."

"But, Aunt Marthe, how does she stand it? Why, it would drive me crazy in a week! To think of that poor soul, working like a slave all day, and then grudged the few winks of sleep she gets on a hard old sofa. I declare, it makes me feel hopeless!"

"The day I climbed Mont Blanc," said Mrs. Everidge softly, "we had a wonderful experience. Down below us a sudden storm swept the valley. The rain fell in torrents, and the thunder roared, but up where we stood the sun was shining and all was still. When we walk with Christ, little one, we find it possible to live above the clouds."

"An Alpine Christian!" cried Evadne. "Oh, Aunt Marthe, that is beautiful!"



CHAPTER XIII.

"The ancient Egyptians, Evadne," remarked Mr. Everidge the next day at dinner, as he selected the choicest portions of a fine roast duck for his own consumption, "during the period of their nation's highest civilization, subsisted almost exclusively upon millet, dates and other fruits and cereals; and athletic Greece rose to her greatest culture upon two meals a day, consisting principally of maize and vegetables steeped in oil. Don't you think you ladies would find it of advantage to copy them in this laudable abstemiousness? There is something repugnant to a refined taste in the idea of eating flesh whose constituent particles partake largely of the nature of our own."

"Why, certainly, Uncle Horace," said Evadne merrily. "I am quite ready to become a vegetarian, if you will set me the example. The feminine mind, you know, is popularly supposed to be only fitted to follow a masculine lead."

"Ah, I wish it were possible, my dear Evadne, but the peculiar susceptibility of my internal organism precludes all thought of my making such a radical change in the matter of diet. Even now, in spite of all my care, indigestion, like a grim Argus, stares me out of countenance. I wish you would bear this fact more constantly in mind, my dear Marthe. This duck, for instance, has not arrived at that stage of absolute fitness which is so essential to the appreciation of a delicate stomach. A duck, Evadne, is a bird which requires very careful treatment in its preparation for the table. It should be suspended in the air for a certain length of time, and then, after being carefully trussed, laid upon its breast in the pan, in order that all the juices of the body may concentrate in that titbit of the epicure,—then let the knife touch its richly browned skin, and, presto, you have a dish fit for the gods! The skin of this duck on the contrary presents a degree of resistance to the carver which proves that it has been placed in the oven before it had arrived at that stage of perfection."

"Why, Horace," laughed Mrs. Everidge, "I thought this one was just right! You remember you told me the last one we had, had hung five hours too long."

"Exactly so. My friend, Trenton, will tell you that five hours is all the length of time required to seal the fate of nations. It is a pet theory of his that the finale of the material world will be rapid. He bases his conclusions upon the fact of the steady decrease in the volume of the surrounding atmosphere and the almost instantaneous action of all of Nature's destructive forces, fire and flood, storm and sunstroke, lightning and hail, earthquake and cyclone. Oh, apropos of my erudite friend, Marthe, he has promised to spend August with us, so you will have to look to your culinary laurels, for he is accustomed to dine at Delmonico's."

"Professor Trenton coming here in August!" cried Mrs. Everidge in dismay. "Why, Horace, you never told me you had invited him!"

"My dear, I am telling you now."

"But I meant to take Evadne up to our mountain camp in August. I am sure the resinous air would make her strong. I had my plans all laid."

"'The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley,'" said her husband suavely. "Evadne's mental strength cannot fail to be developed by intercourse with such a clever man. We must not allow the culture of the body to occupy so prominent a place in our thoughts that we forget the mind, you know."

"A fusty old Professor!" pouted Evadne. "Oh, Uncle Horace, why didn't you leave him among his tomes and his theories and let us be free to enjoy?"

"Mere sensual gratification, Evadne," said Mr. Everidge, as he replenished his plate with some dainty pickings, "is not the true aim of life. I consider it a high honor that the Professor should consent to devote a month of his valuable time to my edification, for he is getting to be quite a lion in the literary world. You had better have your chamber prepared for his occupancy, Marthe. As I remember him at college he had a fondness amounting almost to a craze for rooms with a western aspect."

Joanna came in to announce the arrival of a visitor whom Evadne had already learned to dread on account of her continual depression.

"Oh, Aunt Marthe!" she exclaimed, "must you waste this beautiful afternoon listening to her dolorosities. I wanted you to go for a drive!"

"You go, dearie, and take Penelope Riggs. It will be a treat to her and you ought to be out in the open air as much as possible."

Evadne went out on the veranda. Through the open window she could hear the visitor's ceaseless monotone of complaint mingled with the soft notes of Mrs. Everidge's cheery sympathy. "Oh, dearest," she murmured, "if you had seen this beautiful life, you would have known that there is no sham in the religion of Jesus!"

She waited long, in the hope that Mrs. Everidge would be able to accompany her, then she started for the Eggs cottage. She found the old lady alone. "Where is Penelope, Mrs. Riggs?"

"Oh, skykin' round ez usual," was the peevish response. "It's church work this time. When I wuz young, folks got along 'thout sech an everlastin' sight uv meetins, but nowadays there's Convenshuns, an' Auxils an' Committees, an' the land knows what, till a body's clean distracted. Fer my part I hate ter see wimmen a' wallerin' round in the mud till it takes 'em the best part uv the next day ter git their skirts clean."

"But there is no mud now, Mrs. Riggs," laughed Evadne.

"Land alive, child! There will be sometime. In my day folks used ter stay ter hum an' mind their childern, but now they've all took ter soarin' an' it don't matter how many ends they leave flyin' loose behind 'era."

"But Penelope has no children to mind, Mrs. Riggs."

"Land alive! She hez me, an' I oughter be more ter her than a duzzen childern,—but she ain't got no proper feelin's, Penel ain't. When I'm a' lyin' in my coffin she'll give her eyes ter hev the chance ter rub my rheumatiz, an' run for hot bottles an' flannels an' ginger tea. It's an ongrateful world but I allcrs sez there ain't no use complainin'; it's what we've got ter expec',—triberlation an' anguish an' mournin' an' woe. It's good enuff fer us too. Sech wurms ez we be!"

"Well, Evadne, how do you do, child? I'm dretful glad to see you," and Penelope, breezy and keen as a March wind, came bustling into the room. "Why, yes, I'm well, child, if it wasn't for bein' so tumbled about in my mind."

"What has tumbled you, Penelope?" asked Evadne with a merry laugh.

"The Scribes and Pharisees," was the terse rejoinder. "I've just cum from a Committee meeting of the Missionary Society an' I'm free to confess my feelin's is roused tremendous. Seems to me nowadays the church is built at a different angle from the Sermon on the Mount an' things is measured by the world's yardsticks till there ain't much sense in callin' it a church at all. Ef you'd seen the way Squire Higgins' girls sot down on poor little Matildy Jones this afternoon, just because her father sells fish! Their father sells it too, but he's got forehanded an' can do it by the gross, an' so they toss their heads an' set a whole garden full o' flowers a' shakin' upan' down. They're allers more peacocky in their minds after they git their spring bunnets. The Lord said we was to consider the lilies, but I guess he meant us to leave 'em in the fields, for I notice the more folks carries on the tops of their heads the less their apt to be like 'em underneath."

"But what did they say to her?" asked Evadne.

"You're young, child, or you'd know there's more ways of insultin' than with the tongue, an' poor little Matildy is jest the one to be hurt that way. Some folks is like clams, the minute you touch 'em, they shut themselves up in their shells an' then they don't feel what you do to 'em any more'n the Rocky mountains, but Matildy isn't made that way. She just sot there with the flushes comin' in her cheeks an' the tears shinin' in her pretty eyes till my heart ached. I leaned over to her an' whispered, 'Don't fret, Matildy, they ain't wuth mindin'. She gave me a little wintry smile but the tears kep a' comin' an' by an' bye she got up and went out, an' ef she don't imitate the Prophet Jeremi an' water her piller with her tears this night, then I've changed my name sence mornin'.

"I was so uplifted in my mind with righteous indignation that I felt called upon to let it loose, so I begun in a musin' tone, as ef I was havin' a solil."

"'A solil?'" said Evadne in a mystified tone.

"Why, yes; talkin' to myself, child. I did think, ef there was any place folks was free an' eqal 'twould be in the Lord's service,' sez I. 'The Bible teaches it's a pretty dangerous bizness to offend one uv these little ones. I'm not much of a hand at quotations, but there's an unpleasant connection between it an' a millstun,' sez I.

"Malviny Higgins tossed her head an' giv me one uv her witherinest looks, but I'm not one uv the perishin' kind, so I kep on a' musin'.

"'It's wonderful what a difference there is between sellin' by the poun' an' the barrel,' sez I. 'It's unfortunet that there's only one way to the heavenly country, an' it's a limited express with no Pullman attached. The Lord hedn't time to put on a parlor car fer the wholesale trade; seems like as if it was kind uv neglectful in him. It would hev been more convenient an' private.'

"Malviny's cheeks got as red as beets an' the flowers on her bonnet danced a Highland Fling as she leaned over to whisper somethin' to her sister, but I hed relieved my feelin's an' could join in quite peaceful like when Mrs. Songster said we'd close the meetin' by singin' 'Blest be the tie that binds.' Well, there'll be no clicks in heaven, that's one blessin'."

"'Clicks,' Penelope?"

"Why, yes, child, the folks that gets off by themselves in a corner an' thinks nobody outside the circle is fit to tie their shoe. I expect to hev edifyin' conversations with Moses an' Elija, an' the first thing I mean to ask him is what kind of ravens they really were."

"'Ravens,'" echoed Evadne bewildered, "what do you mean, Penelope?"

"Sakes alive, child! Haven't you read your Bible? and don't you know the ravens fed the old gentleman in the desert, an' that folks now say they were Arabs, because the ravens are dirty birds an' live on carrion, an' it stands to reason Elija couldn't touch that if he hed an ordinary stumach. As if the Lord couldn't hev made 'em bring food from the king's table if he hed chosen to do it! It's all of a piece with the way folks hev now of twistin' the Bible inside out till nobody knows what it means. For my part I believe if the Lord hed meant Arabs he would hev said Arabs an' not hev deceived us by callin' 'em birds uv prey. Folks is so set against allowin' anything that looks like a meracle that they'll go all the way round the barn an' creep through a snake fence if they can prove it's jest an ordinary piece of business. They do say there are some things the Lord can't do, but I'm free to confess I've never found them out."

* * * * *

"Aunt Marthe," said Evadne, when they had settled down for their evening talk, "what does it all mean? 'The victory of our faith,' you know, and the 'Overcomeths' in Revelation? I thought Christ got the victory for us?"

"So he does, dear child, and we through him. I came across a lovely explanation of it some time ago which I will copy for you; it has been such an inspiration. Listen,—

"'When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely set at naught and you smile inwardly, glorying in the insult or the oversight,—that is victory.

"'When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your tastes offended, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you take it all in patient and loving silence,—that is victory.

"'When you are content with any food, any raiment, any climate, any society, any position in life, any solitude, any interruption,—that is victory.

"'When you can bear with any discord, any annoyance, any irregularity or unpunctuality (of which you are not the cause),—that is victory.

"'When you can stand face to face with folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, contradiction of sinners, persecution, and endure it all as Jesus endured it,—that is victory.

"'When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, nor to record your works, nor to seek after commendation; when you can truly love to be unknown,—that is victory.'"

"Now I see!" exclaimed Evadne. "It means the beautiful patience with which you bear aggravating things and the gentle courtesy with which you treat all sorts of troublesome people. Oh, my Princess, I envy you your altitude!"



CHAPTER XIV.

Professor Trenton had come and gone and the glory of the autumn was over the land. The early supper was ended and Evadne had ensconced herself in her favorite window to catch the sun's last smile before he fell asleep. In the room across the hall Mr. Everidge reclined in his luxurious arm-chair and leisurely turned the pages of the last "North American Review." It was Saturday evening.

"Why, Horace, can this be possible?" Mrs. Everidge entered the room quickly and stood before her husband. Neither of them noticed Evadne.

"My dear, many things are possible in this terrestrial sphere. What particular possibility do you refer to?"