Besides, there was the delicate touch of another hand, as fine, as soft as a woman's and yet almost as strong as the farmer's, in her mind, a hand whiter than her own, though somewhat freckled, a hand that had taper fingers and well-kept nails, a hand that bore an antique seal ring and a fine pearl, a hand alas that had often retained her own in its warm clinging pressure, and once—only once, and that was three years ago—clasped her unresisting waist for a moment in the dark under the Oak while her sister fumbled at the gate. And just as she cherished these memories of Mr. Joseph, so did the widowed farmer retain the few occasions in his mind on which he had met Miss Dexter, spoken with her, given her a "lift" into town or up the road to the village store, for this was not the first use she had made of his gallant good nature and the Kentucky team.

He looked down at her now as they drove along in silence and noticed her thin black gown, her short jacket, her bit of black veil drawn over her bonnet, and her dingy travelling-bag with its tarnished clasp, and he heaved a sigh.

Charlotte was a "sizeable woman" thought Farmer Wise "and wants a good live garment sometimes, to bring her figure out and make more of it and do justice to it. A shawl now! How much would a good shawl be? I miss a woman round the place; I wouldn't know what to ask for. I might ha' stopped nigh the Inn and asked Mrs. Cox." Ay, you might Farmer Wise, and have done another mischievous thing, upsetting Mrs. Cox for a week as she waited for a parcel from town and breaking her heart altogether as day after day followed and no parcel arrived.

"I ha' never seen the ekil of those Mr. Foxleys yonder," began the honest farmer as something to start a conversation with. "I ha' never seen their ekil."

"Oh!" said Miss Dexter. "Yes? In what way?"

"So gentle and so funny as they be. Gentlemen both of them with delicate hands and fine clothes—"

"Yes, yes," murmured Miss Dexter under her breath, clutching at her bag and closing her eyes.

"And not above anybody or anything going. I see the pale one this day, and pale he is and weak they say, enough to be walked about on the girl's shoulder—I see him to-day as I passed the Inn, he was on a long chair out in the bit of paved yard, you know Miss Dexter, and when he saw me he raises his head and says 'Farmer Wise, is that you?'" May be you don't remember just how he speaks. He speaks better now nor when he came, and his brother too. At first It was all in a jumble like one word run into the other and hard to understand at least for us country folks. But now 'tis a bit clearer, more as you speak, begging your pardon, Miss Dexter, for noticing that or anything else that concerns you, Miss Dexter. And I says, stopping these fellows a bit. "Yes it's me. I'm on my way to town with nine barrels of apples."

"How many?" he calls out again.

"Nine," I replies.

"Let's taste one," he says.

"A barrel?" I says, and Milly, the girl, she come oat by the door, with another quilt to put over him, laughing, and showing her teeth, rare ones too, they be and says she. "Throw us down one, Farmer Wise," and I did, for I had a couple in my pocket, and here's the tother, "now Miss Dexter, if you see your way to eatin' it now in the waggon alongside of me, or will you wait till we get to the Albion?" Charlotte Dexter put her hand out mechanically and took the apple, a large red one, from the farmer who again managed to hurt her as his great wrist touched her fingers for an instant. He blushed perceptibly and moved a little nearer still. And how unconscious Charlotte Dexter was of his mere presence, let alone tender thoughts, except when he hurt her!

"I have heard this morning, that is I believe everyone has known for some time, though it is only spoken about generally today, for the first time, that Mrs. Cox is giving up the Inn. Her niece, the girl you mention, is going to be married—indeed, it is one of those gentlemen—the Mr. Foxleys—whom she is to marry, and they will take the Inn out of Mrs. Cox's hands."

The farmer was as surprised as she had been.

"Well," he ejaculated "didn't I say I'd never seen their ekil? Milly's going to marry one of the Mr. Foxleys? Which—"

"It is Mr. Joseph," returned Miss Dexter, staring down at the apple in her lap. "The youngest one, you know. He is a very merry young gentleman and always has something to say. I daresay it will be a very comfortable arrangement."

"But it's a great thing for Milly," said her companion, "it'll be a great thing for her. She'll live in the tone, no doubt and may be cross the ocean to see his home and his parents—it'll be a great thing for Milly. A gentleman born! Ay, ay; ay, ay!"

"No, no," said Miss Dexter, irritably. "Don't I tell you, Farmer Wise, that they will live on at the Inn? These young gentlemen like comfort, like being waited upon. They do this in order to insure—in order to— oh! it is difficult to explain my meaning, but you must see, Farmer Wise, that it is not a proper marriage at all, it is a very sad thing for the girl, I should consider, and some one—some friend should tell her so. She can never be a lady, and what kind of life will it be for him, a gentleman born, as you say, when he could have chosen too, where he liked. My great grandfather, Mr. Wise, was an Admiral, and my grandfather was a Judge. My father was a member of a respected profession, although not brought up to it in early life, and none of my relations, or ancestors ever married out of their own proper circle, except my poor father. He made a most perverse and foolish marriage, Farmer Wise, which though only lasting a few years, brought sorrow and trouble and poverty and oppression to his family."

"Ay, ay," said the farmer, softly. He was thinking still about those down-drawn blinds.

"Ay, ay. You're right in the main, Miss Dexter—yes, you're right in the main. Now, I thought I'd ask ye—I said to myself this morning, when I see Miss Dexter the next time, her as is a lady, and no mistake, I'll ask her—what would you say, or what your sister have said if someone here right in this village, that is, there in Ipswich, I mean of course, someone who wanted to just be kind and lend an 'elpin 'and, had asked ye—or her—say her—had asked her anytime to marry him, startin' fair, startin' fair, with a year to think on it. And a comfortable 'ome awaitin' 'er with two 'ired girls to do the work and plenty of hands on the farm and the best of cheese and butter and the Harmonium in the parlor and drives to and fro' the Church and behind it all a—solid man—a solid man—what do ye think she'd 'uv said?"

Was ever man more in earnest, now that it had suddenly broken from him after all these years, than honest Farmer Wise? The team jogged on, but the reins were lying loosely in their owner's hands.

"I thought I'd ask ye," he repeated looking away from his companion. "I thought I'd ask ye."

Miss Dexter had hardly gathered the import of his speech. She looked up startled.

"My sister?" she said with increased irritability. "Ask my sister? What do you mean? I never knew that anybody here, in the village, had proposed to her, or dared—dared to think of her at all as a possible mate—wife, whatever it is you mean. Surely you don't mean yourself, Farmer Wise! It would never enter your head, I am sure, to propose to my sister!"

"No it never did," said the farmer quietly.

"Then it is someone else? Really, you must tell me, if you know anything about it, Farmer Wise. But I think you are making some mistake, it is quite impossible that anyone in the village—any native of the village, or indeed any native of this country should so far forget himself as to propose to my sister."

"Of course," said the farmer as quietly, "it is quite impossible. No one 'ud 'av done it. No one did do it, that I know on. But I thought I'd ask ye. And about yourself, too? There'd be no gettin' ye to forget all—all that has been and to take up with things as they be, to be makin' a new start, startin' fair, as I said, startin' fair, both parties agreed to think a year on it, and one party to save up and buy nothin' till the year 'd be out and then the other party to give the word for both to take 'ands and make the start together! For what's past is past, and what's done is done, and ye can't make this out the old country any more nor ye can bring back those that are gone, which they wouldn't be, I 'low to say, if they'd stayed behind in it. This" said the farmer, in a louder firmer voice, indicating with his whip the dreary pine forests that bordered the road on either side, "isn't the old country. I come from it myself, and I know it taint. Them rustlin' leaves ain't the old country, heaps of brown and yella up to your knees after a while, nor yet this road, nor that sky, nor this waggon, nor them apples, nor them horses. Nor me myself. I'm no longer old country. I'm fond of it—sho! I'm fonder of it now than I was forty years ago, when I come away from it, I'm fonder of it every year that goes by. But it's the New Country that's made me, that's give me all I have and more than all I want, and accordin' I'm grateful to it, and wouldn't turn my back on it. No Miss Dexter I wouldn't, and so I says, to all as come out to it, it's better to try and forget the past, or at least as much of it as 'll bear forgetting in order to let you live, and to take up with things as they be, and not lookin' always to things as they were, and to make the best of what the New World has to offer to ye And I don't think that in England—God bless her—to-day, you 'll find a finer team, nor redder apples, nor an easier going waggon, nor even a prettier sky, than that there yella light breakin' all over the landscup like!"

There was perfect silence after that. It had suddenly dawned upon Charlotte Dexter with accession of disgust and embittered hostility that the farmer's words related to himself. What new and hateful complication was this to be reminded by such an ill-timed declaration of the ironical in her life which had always been near enough to her apprehensions! Anything and everything but what she wanted, she could have. It had always been so. A dark frown gathered on her forehead, she clutched her bag and drew herself away from the side of the honest farmer.

"I do not know what you are talking about," she cried. "Such words can have nothing to do with me. I could not disgrace myself and my father's family by allying myself with anybody out here, least of all, one of the working classes, or a farmer. You are very inconsiderate, Farmer Wise, and I must ask you to distinctly understand that even conversation on such a subject is quite out of the question. I cannot even discuss it with you or with anyone in your position. I have told you what my connections are; what my family is, you have now, I hope, some correct idea, and you will see how utterly impossible it is that I should, even to better my circumstances which I admit are somewhat precarious, make such a mesalliance— such a mistake, I mean, as you refer to.

"Well," said the farmer very quietly this time. "You're right in the main, Miss Dexter, you're right in the main. But I thought I'd ask ye, I thought I'd ask ye. Far from harm bein' done, there's only good, there's only good, for now you understand me and I understand you and thank ye for your confidences and there's an end on it."

So begun, so ended the honest man's wooing. Did he suffer disappointment as Miss Dexter's contemptuous eye and her irritated tone showed him—ah! how plainly—she was forever out of his reach? Was an idol broken, a dream dissolved, a blossom nipped, or hope murdered, just as much, in the case of this comfortable placid unimaginative elderly farmer as in the case of younger, warmer, more impetuous, more idealistic men? If so, Farmer Wise was as self-contained as the best actor among them and handed Miss Dexter out at the Albion with as gallant, though cautious politeness and sat as far away from her at the hotel tea table and met her in the hall afterwards with as severe an air, as if the situation were perfectly pleasant and completely ordinary. He asked her when she would be going back, and learnt that she would pass the night at the Albion, returning to the village by the Saturday's stage.

"Then shall I take a seat for ye?" asked the willing farmer.

"No" said Miss Dexter, who appeared to be in a great hurry, "I can arrange in the morning, thank you."

"In any case, ye're sure ye won't want a 'lift' again, Miss Dexter," said the farmer respectfully, though there might have been the least tinge of irony in the tone. "I'm not goin' back myself till to morrow."

"No, thank you," returned Miss Dexter for the last time.

The Albion was a small hotel or tavern situated just on the outskirts of the town, which did a flourishing business with the country people. Two roads, the Ipswich and the Richmond, formed a sort of junction before its door, one leading into the fine agricultural district or valley of Richmond, Guernsey and Trenton, and the other following, the dreary Plains through Ipswich to Orangetown, a thriving little community of mills and saws and booms and planks picturesquely situated on the Upper Orange River.

There was always a knot of farmers round the Albion, all of them English or Scotch or native Canadians born of British parents. A French-Canadian would have been hoisted on a table and examined minutely all over, hair, eye, skin and costume, had one been present. But though the men were respectable and decent and hard-working and most of them earned a good income and few of them drank or gambled it away, they were noisy, smoky, staring fellows for companions and Miss Dexter, having walked some distance to a shop, made a purchase, and returned to the parlor of the hotel while it was yet light, uncertain what to do with herself or where to go to escape the bustle and clatter of tongues. Farmer Wise was smoking in the bar, she had seen him as she passed in, and the mere sight of him, with his head up against the counter, and his legs out on a chair made her shudder. She sat in the parlor listening to the intolerable noise, heavy delf and cutlery being momentarily banged down on tables and chairs, an occasional broken plate and whirling pewter mug or kitchen spoon reaching her ear with more than usual reverberation. Then would come a volley of laughter, oaths, and bets on next week's races from the bar, then more breaking of china from the scullery, the stamping of horses in the stable, then the bar door would be closed and comparative silence ensue. In one of these intervals, the girl who had waited at the tea-table appeared in the parlor and inquired of Miss Dexter if she would like a fire put in the wood stove that stood on a square of zinc in the middle of the room. It came as a relief from the nervous broodings that were settling down on her mind occupied in introspection neither healthy nor cheerful, and she eagerly assented.

When the fire burned up, she opened the door that she might see the blaze and spread out her thin hands to it and put her cold feet to its warmth. Then for the first time she unclasped her bag and taking out her purchase, looked at it. The shop she had gone into was a druggist's, and her purchase had been a small bottle of a bluish fluid that she now held up to the light and looked at long and steadily but with no change in her countenance. The bar-door opened with a creak and closed with a bang. She started and replaced the bottle in the bag and put the bag over her arm as before. For a long time she sat before the fire warming first one foot, then the other and never looking away from the blaze. When half-past ten came, so did the girl with a lamp and two damp towels for Miss Dexter who took them without opening her mouth much to the astonishment of the girl, who though taciturn herself was well used to speech and "language" from all she came in contact with, and who was also struck with the fact that the strange lady had never removed her bonnet or jacket "since she come in the house."

She would have had additional ground for surprise had she known that the strange lady did not remove them even upon reaching her own room, but lowering the lamp, lay down fully dressed upon the bed still clasping her small travelling bag in her hands, and slept until seven o'clock in the morning. She then rose and hastily straightening her attire, descended to the dining-room, partook of ham and eggs. Upon the close of this meal, she went up again to the parlor and sat slightly back from the window that overlooked the main road until twelve o'clock, when she partook of the dinner served to the travellers at the Albion, including Farmer Wise who had sold his apples and soon after dinner hitched up ready to go homewards. After dinner she went up as before to the parlor and sat there again. Two o'clock came, half past two, three o'clock, and Miss Dexter began to look along the road in the direction of the town. Half-past three found her, still looking along the road. Four o'clock came, half-past four, then five. She grew visibly uneasy, walked to and fro in the little parlor, sat down again. Half-past five, the clatter in the kitchen which had been silent for a little while renewed itself. Six!! The men stumped into their tea, and the girl ascending asked Miss Dexter if she was coming down to hers.

"No," said Miss Dexter, "I expect to have a late tea at home, thank you. And I am just going in a moment or two."

Ten minutes past six. The late November afternoon had almost entirely faded, it would soon be dark. A quarter past six and Miss Dexter, looking continuously out of her window perceived the figure she had waited for so long at length approaching. Gay, Mr. Joseph, you have thrown off the fetters of town and work and dull care and responsibility, and here you are free and untrammelled as the air, good humored, cheerful, humming your Old Country tunes as usual, brisk, debonnair, untouched by thought of present trouble or evil, unthinking and unsuspecting! Gay Mr. Joseph, urbane Mr. Joseph, what have you got in your hand this time? Last time it was a bunch of the red field lily. Now it is, or it looks like—yes, it is—a genuine florist's bouquet. Something to open the eyes of the Ipswich villagers. A gorgeous wired platoon of roses, and smilax tuberose and mignonette—Mr. Joseph, Mr. Joseph, what does this mean, who is this for? On he came, brisker, more debonnair, more smiling than Miss Dexter had ever seen him in her life. Her breath came fast as he neared the window. Exchanging a word with the hostler and a couple of laboring men who stood almost in the centre of the road Mr. Joseph passed on, looking down with a smile at the bouquet in his hand. Miss Dexter then arose and quietly settling her bonnet at a glass walked out of the hotel having paid her small bill at dinner-time.

She walked steadily on in the direction of Ipswich in the wake of Mr. Joseph who did not appear to be walking as fast as usual himself. So by straining every nerve as we say—in reality, walking as she had never attempted to and dreamt of walking in her life—she slowly but surely gained upon the unconscious Mr. Joseph. They were about in the middle of the plains, that dreary bit of road bordered by pine forests on either side when Miss Dexter found she could distinguish the clink, clink or jingle of his watch-chain, a thing of steel links which she knew well by sight as well as by sound as it struck against the buttons of his coat. Slowly Miss Dexter gained on him, until it was necessary either to accost him or pass him. Which did she mean to do? Dark as it was rapidly growing, Mr. Joseph, in half turning his head to observe something in the trees or sky, became conscious of a figure close behind him. The path was narrow, for he had left the middle of the road since passing the Albion, and he stepped aside with his usual ready politeness to allow the lady room to go on before him. But in a moment he recognized Miss Dexter. She waited for him to speak.

"I—really, why—is it possible it is you, my dear Miss Dexter? I never knew you took such lonely walks so far from home. You don't mean to say you've walked out from town?"

For an answer, Miss Dexter, who had previously unclasped her bag and taken out the bottle, lifted her right hand and threw the contents over Mr. Joseph.

"In the name of God!" shrieked the unfortunate man, warding off as he imagined a second attack. But Miss Dexter had done her work and stood rigid, unmovable, stony as marble, the bag fallen at her feet, her hands fallen straight down at her sides. Mr. Joseph had sunk upon the ground moaning and writhing, but through all the torture of the terrible pain he was suffering, he thought of nothing but the inconceivable brutality of the act itself. Why had she done it?

"I suppose it is vitriol," he gasped. "Was it an accident—or—did you—mean—to—do it? How have—I—injured—you? Oh—say—say—"

He could get no further for a few moments in the appalling consciousness of that living fire which had burnt into his poor eyes and played round his poor temples. Otherwise he was not injured, for Miss Dexter's aim had been a faulty one and nearly all the contents of the bottle had in reality descended on the ground.

"Say—say" he went on. "Which it is? My—dear—Miss Dexter—I am— sorrier for you—than—for—myself, and cannot imagine—oh! Good God, I shall be blind, blind—ah!!—"

Charlotte Dexter still stood in the rapidly darkening air, a stem, rigid, immovable figure. It was too soon for remorse. That would come in good time. But a certain pity stole over her as she gazed at the huddled mass on the ground before her, which a short time ago, had been the gay, laughing, upright Mr. Joseph.

"Are you suffering very much?" She said at length in her ordinary voice.

"Good God! How—how—can you ask? Again—tell me—was it—an accident?"

"No," she replied still in her most ordinary voice. "No. It was no accident. It is vitriol, and I did mean to throw it."

"It is horrible," groaned Mr. Joseph, still in agony on the ground where he had sunk at first. "And you will not—fiend that you appear now to be—though Heaven knows—I thought you sweet and womanly enough once—you will not—tell me why! It is infamous!"

"Yes, it is infamous," returned Charlotte Dexter. "It is horrible, and I am a fiend. I am not a woman any longer. I once was, as you say, sweet and womanly enough for—for what? Joseph Foxley. For you to come to any house and my sister's house, and blast her life and strike her down as you thought you would strike me, for this and that and for much more, but not enough for truth and honesty and an offer of marriage in fair form, not enough for common respect and decent friendship."

"My dear lady," said Mr. Joseph with great difficulty, "there was no one I—"

"And all that time, when I thought you at least free, at least your own master, at least unbiased and unbound, for unlike a gentleman you never hinted to me of these—other ties—you were engaged to this miserable girl, this common drudge, the scullery-maid of a country inn. You, you, you!"

"My dear lady," said Mr. Joseph again with greater difficulty than before, "I—upon my word—I have—I—"

Charlotte Dexter, suddenly regaining the use of her limbs, bent down quickly and peered into the poor sightless face. Mr. Joseph had fainted. She owned no fear yet however, though it was now quite dark, and five miles lay between them and her own door. Pity was just giving away to remorse. What if she had killed him? She bent down again but found that there was no fear of that and even consciousness appeared to be returning. At this moment the sound of wheels struck her ear. Nearer and nearer it came and she soon descried a waggon coming along the road sharply in which sat one man. The rest of the waggon was empty and as it was proceeding in the direction of the village, into that, she made up her mind, should Mr. Joseph be put. As it drew near, she stepped out of the dark shade of the pines and bade the man stop.

"Whose there!" said he, "What's here? What's the matter? Why, if it ain't Miss Dexter!"

"Yes," said she, stooping to assist her unfortunate companion. "How do you do, Farmer Wise! I—do you know Mr. Foxley—Mr. Joseph Foxley—is here—can you just see him—if you have a lantern, or, will you help me to get him into the waggon?"

Farmer Wise forgot Miss Dexter and her family pride in an instant, though at first sight the feeling of injury had somewhat revived, and he made haste to come to her relief. He found Mr. Joseph just coming to himself.

"Why, why, what's the matter?" said the Farmer. "It minds me of old times, this, when highway-men and tramps were a-infestin' the road and a-lyin' in wait for honest travellers—in the Old Country of course, Miss Dexter, not here, not here. Yet somethin's been at work here, eh! Mr. Joseph, or else I'm much mistaken. Here, lend an 'and, Miss Dexter; now, sir, can you see me?"

"Not very well," gasped poor Mr. Joseph. "It's dark, I know," said the farmer, "and I hadn't begun carrying my lantern yet. Never mind Here, now, place your foot there—are ye hurt anywhere that I may touch ye—tell me where I hurt ye, if I do—now then, the other foot—

"There, now it's done! Miss Dexter, ma'am there's an old blanket at the back there, lie him on that. Put his head down and let him look straight up at them stars and he'll soon get himself, I warrant. If I knew where ye were hurt, perhaps I could bind ye up. There's no wound," anxiously.

"No," said Mr. Joseph. "Thank you, Farmer Wise. I am—much—better— really. I was unconscious!" "Ay," said the farmer, "A little, and can you stand the joltin' now, are ye sure? For if ye are, we'll drive on."

"Stay a moment," said Mr. Joseph. "I had some flowers—a bouquet— in my hands when I—fell. I can't see—very well—in this light— look for me, will you!"

"I do spy somethin' white on yonder ground where you was when I came up. Maybe it's a pocket-handkerchief, may be it's the flowers you dropped."

The former sprang down and returned with two articles one of which— the bouquet he gave to Mr. Joseph, the other, a small bottle—he put in his own pocket The bouquet was as fresh and untumbled as when it emerged from the careful florist who had prepared it. Not a single drop of the fiery liquid had fallen upon it nor scorched its fragrant beauty and it presently lay upon the face of the suffering man, healing with its cool moist sweet leaves and petals his poor scarred skin.

"I won't ask him," thought the farmer, "I won't ask him. But what are they doin' here together? Well, I won't ask that neither. And why did not she came out by the stage as she said? I won't ask that neither. There's three things I needn't go for to enquire into. But a little general conversation in a nice kind of way, neither spyin' nor lyin' may do him good and not be altogether despised by the—the other party." He looked back and could dimly see Mr. Joseph sitting up on the blanket. He had removed his hat, and his hands were pressed to his head. Charlotte Dexter was in the furthest corner of the waggon, a dark, stern, ominous figure.

"Strange that you and me are goin' home together, Miss Dexter, after all," said the farmer.

"Miss Dexter drove in to the Albion alongside of me yesterday, sir, and I ask her if so be she need a second lift back to-day, and she said 'no.'"

"Ah!" said Mr. Joseph. "Yesterday, did you say? I was—to have— come out—yesterday—in answer to my brother's note—but I could not manage—it. I wish," with a grim attempt at the old humor— "I had, 'pon my soul I do."

"Your brother is well, I hope, sir?" said the farmer. "Don't talk too much, I beg of ye, Mr. Joseph. To see ye with yer hands like that!"

"It is—better—easier—that way," returned Mr. Joseph. "My brother is well for him, thank you. You know, he is—not strong he—is—never— perfectly well."

"D—" said the farmer to himself. "Of course, of course, I know. I see him yesterday morning, pale like and weak, but smiling and lookin' happy enough too, I tell ye."

"Ah, yes" said Mr. Joseph, again lying down and pressing the flowers to his hot lips. "I—these flowers—are for him and—her."

"Her!" said the farmer.

"Milly, you know. Ah—perhaps you haven't heard. My brother is going to—marry Milly, Mrs. Cox's niece, you know."

An absolutely death-like stillness prevailed in the waggon. The Kentucky team jogged on. The stars shone down on poor Mr. Joseph turning up his sightless orbs to their beauty and majesty, and on the passion of grief and remorse that now surged in Miss Dexter's suffering breast.

"It may be vanity," thought Farmer Wise as the bridge and the river and Dexter's Oak came in sight one after the other, "it may be vanity, though I'm too old a man to be much given to that, but I can't help thinkin' I'm a wiser man than I was yesterday by a good lot. I don't half know what's happened, but somethin's goin' on, whether it's understandable or not to me and the likes of me, I don't know as yet, and I don't think I'll try to find out. If ifs bad it'll come out fast enough, and if it's good, leavin' it alone maybe will make it a little better. But here we are," he continued aloud, "at Dexter's Oak. What's to be done, Miss Dexter, now, and with you, Mr. Joseph? Of course, I'll take you straight to the Inn—as for Miss Dexter—"

"I will get out at once," said the unhappy woman. "You are sure you can take him to the Inn all right and—and—lift—that is—without—"

"Oh, I guess so," said the farmer, grimly relapsing into an Americanism that was just beginning to leaven the whole country. "I guess I'll take care on him, and as for gettin' him out at the Inn, there's plenty there. Good-night Miss Dexter, take care there!—now you're all right"

Charlotte Dexter, with a long look at the prostrate form of Mr. Joseph, leapt from the waggon and sped through the gate up to her desolate dwelling.

"Ah!" sighed the farmer to himself, one great long sigh that stirred his hardy frame to its centre. He never sighed like that again either for Charlotte Dexter or any other woman.

The next mile they traversed in silence broken only by occasional moans from Mr. Joseph which moved the old farmer to wonder and dismay that almost unnerved him.

Presently Mr. Joseph murmured some word the farmer did not catch all at once.

"Is he out of his mind on top of it all!" he said to himself, and listened.

"Farmer Wise," said the same low voice, "are we near the Inn?"

"Just there, Mr. Joseph."

"On the little bridge yet?"

"Just come on it, Mr. Joseph."

"Ah! Can you—stop your horses?"

"Certainly. There! Now what is it?" Mr. Joseph sat up.

"I am in your waggon—the market waggon, Farmer Wise, I think?"

"Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't tell where we are, I see, being so much shook."

"No. That's not it," said Mr. Joseph. "I—are you on the seat—the front seat, Farmer Wise?"

"Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't make me out by this queer light, and I don't wonder. The stars is beautiful, but they don't make up for havin' no moon."

"No. That's not it either, Farmer Wise. Did you say the stars were shining? Orion, I suppose, and the Bull and the rest of them! Can't you—try—like a dear old fellow—can't you—tell what's the matter with me? You say you are sitting on the front seat, and I—have no doubt but that you are, but your voice sounds so much further away— so very much further away than that—and when one—can't—see you, Farmer Wise,—"

A frightful pause.

"Can't see me, can't see me! Mr. Joseph, Mr. Joseph! Not blind—God forgive me for sayin' the word out to ye like that! But I thought it, I thought it, and so, out it come! But it is'nt that! Ye'll forgive me for sayin' the word out to ye like that! It isn't that!"

"I'm afraid it is, Farmer Wise. It can be—nothing—else.'

"If, as you say, the stars are shining and to be sure they generally are about—this time—of night, and if, as you say, you are sitting directly opposite me on the front seat of your waggon, and I have no reason to doubt it, if this is so, and I—can see neither—these stars shining—nor you—yourself—dear old fellow—on the seat before me—it can be, I fear—nothing else."

"And how—"

"Ah! I can't—quite remember. Some time, perhaps, I'll tell you how— shall I go to my brother or—how can I?"

"Mr. Joseph," entreated the farmer, seizing one of those delicate hands and patting it as if it had been his own. "Will you come with me? I'll make you comfortable, and have ye seen to and we'll find out about it and what can be done, and that'll save your brother, look, and he not strong! Come, Mr. Joseph! Lie down there as you was, just as ye was—God forgive me for tellin' you to look up at them stars—and I'll speak a word for you at the Inn, as we're passing. Won't that do, nor be better than goin' in like that? Not knowin' either just what is the matter. Come, Mr. Joseph! I'll drive straight home after that and make ye comfortable for the night, and there'll be no—womankind, or, or anyone to disturb ye, just me and the two boys—come, Mr. Joseph!"

"I am willing enough to go, old fellow," answered Mr. Joseph with a groan. "Willing enough to go anywhere, but where my brother—my poor brother—is. Yes, it will be best. Drive on."

The warm cheery Inn soon appeared in view. The firelight from the bar and the lamp-light from the other rooms beamed out from the red-curtained windows. The scrape of a fiddle came from the kitchen. "Squires," murmured Mr. Joseph, feebly. "He's always at it." The farmer pulled up the team at the pump corner one instant and looking around descried not a soul in view. He got down and went to the side door leading to the bar and opening it put his head in. Mrs. Cox herself was dispensing early gin and water to three or four indolent but talkative gentlemen before the fire. But she was not so busy as not to perceive the farmer. Had she already had that cap on in which bloomed the violet velvet pansy, Mr. Joseph's whereabouts might have been discovered, for invariably on those occasions she accompanied the farmer not only to the door but even to the very feet of the horses as he straightened up one thing or loosened another and would often joke about the empty waggon or the purchases made in the town which might happen to fill it.

But Farmer Wise left her no time even to adjust her head-dress, far from changing it.

"Good evening, ma'am," said he, with his head in the door. "No. Don't trouble about Squires. He's hard at work, I can hear, and besides, I don't want him. I'm late, and the boys will wait for their supper. I just have to tell ye that I see Mr. Foxley in town, Mr. Joseph Foxley, and he says how he can't come out till—say— Monday. He was stuck full of work—he was indeed—and said positive— he couldn't come. But he give me this for his brother and for—her," producing the bouquet, which caused a thrill of amazement and awe to pervade the loungers in the bar. "For his brother and for—her," said the farmer, taking a long stride across the little room and giving it to Mrs. Cox. "I congratulate you, ma'am, I do indeed."

Before she could well answer, he had shut the door and mounting the waggon drove away as quickly as he could. He was too full of thoughts and plans concerning Mr. Joseph to notice that quick as he was, Mrs. Cox, not waiting this time to change her cap, had come out to the door and with her hand shading her eyes, was looking wistfully after the departing team.



CHAPTER IV.

It was as Mr. Joseph had said. His brother, George Albert Dacre Foxley, of Foxley Manor, Notts, was indeed contemplating marriage with Milly, niece of Mrs. Cox, landlady of the Ipswich Inn. If it seem strange, remember that he had passed the meridian of his years, health was gone, life rapidly passing away and it was impossible now for him to make any new departure in his life or habits. He had become firmly attached to Mrs. Cox's comfortable menage and wanted nothing more. Never in England, even while in the enjoyment of fairly good health and luxurious surroundings had he ever felt so completely at rest, satisfied with himself and his small immediate world, every want cared for, every wish guessed at, and the best of company to his idea—company that called for nothing but pure naturalness. He could smoke for hours in Mrs. Cox's kitchen, or in her neat yard or even in the chintz-hung drawing-room and no one would interrupt him with dissertations on politics, art or literature. Like all Englishmen of the quiet country-loving stamp, he cared little about politics except when some general crisis assented itself, and knew less about art or literature. He thought Wilkie and Landseer about the summit of the one and Byron the chief modern pillar of the other. Twenty years ago, Tennyson had not made a very deep impression on a mind of his calibre. Yet this handsome, quiet, delicate gentleman when he did choose to talk had such an audience as is not given to many men, for Mrs. Cox would leave her work (if she dared) and Milly would listen with her young eyes fastened in a kind of ecstasy on the dark ones turned to hers, and Squires would come along with his hands in his trousers pockets and his fiddle under his arm, and Bess would put her paws upon her master's knees and devour him with her own dark eyes—a quintette of friends unsurpassed in the world for loyal attachment and generous devotion. What if what he had to tell was but some simple story of hunting England, or some bald description of London life seen under the surveillance of a tutor fifteen or twenty years previous to the time of narration—he was their oracle, prophet, God, what you will, and they were his dearest, yes, his very dearest friends. When Mr. Joseph appeared as one of this happy circle, it became more boisterous of course though not necessarily any happier, for it was already as happy as it could be. But the news from town and the occasional English mail, flowers and a cheap new novel—these were some of the simple delights that Mr. Joseph used to bring with him. During the first couple of years, both the brothers would saunter out to the Miss Dexters' or to the Rectory, Mr. Joseph in particular, never failing to appear on Saturday nights at choir-practice and Sunday evening service—but Mr. George gradually discontinued his visits as I have hinted and towards the fourth year of his stay hardly ever went beyond the Inn. For at the back the small terraced garden met the orchard, and the orchard sloping down met a small pebbly brook, and the brook flowing along in sweet rippling fashion met the most charming of wheat covered golden meadows in which it was pleasant and good to stroll and which moreover all belonged to that matchless paragon among landladies, Mrs. Cox. In those days people grew their own kitchen stuff, and their own fruit and their own grain, fed their own live stock, made their own butter and cheese, cured their own hams, laid their own eggs, even brewed their own beer. Now, everything is different, and let no confiding Englishman, allured by my tempting picture come out to Canada today in search of such a Utopia for he will not find it. Moreover all this pleasant prospect of wood and stream and meadow and orchard lay well behind the Inn, let it be understood, and it was perfectly possible for Mr. George Foxley to have all the air, walking and exploration he desired and even a little shooting and fishing if he wanted them without, as I have said, going beyond it. When he grew really weak, he was obliged to give up both the latter occupations of course, but he still walked or strolled a great deal, generally with Milly by his side. She would leave anything she was at when he called her and opening the little gate by the one hawthorn tree leading into the orchard, see him safe down the slope to the side of the little brook where she would give him her arm, and thus their walk would commence in earnest. Four years had brought a great change in Milly. New ideas, new habits, association with such thorough and high-bred gentleman and the natural desire to improve and grow worthy of such dearly esteemed company, had altered her completely. Where before she had been pink, now she was pale; thin, where she had been plump; her features actually aquiline from the girlish snub of the rounded contour four years back, her hair, three shades darker, her dress, almost that of a lady. The most perfect sympathy appeared to exist, and really did, between these two strangely met natures.

One day, they had sat down at the side of the brook as a couple of children would have done to cast in sticks and leaves and watch them float by. Sometimes these would get caught in the numberless little eddies that such a stream possesses and be whirled round and round until it was necessary to dislodge them and send them on their way after the others. One fine yellow leaf on this November day attracted Mr. Foxley's attention particularly, for it was obstinate in returning again and again to a cosy little bay formed by a couple of large stones. Often as he poked it out, back it came into the bay and anchored itself contentedly on the calm water.

Milly laughed.

"He has found a haven," said Mr. George. "Yes, without doubt he has found his haven. What do you think, Milly?"

"I think so, sir."

"Don't call me sir, child. What makes you do so?"

"There is nothing else I can call you, is there,—sir."

"Ah!" said Mr. Foxley. He lay back at full length on the grass and put his hands over his eyes. The river rippled on and Milly watched him anxiously. "Is the leaf there still, Milly?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now!" said Mr. Foxley in a warning tone. "I tell you I won't have it."

"No, sir—I beg your pardon, Mr. George."

"Nor that either," said Mr. Foxley, slowly rising into a sitting posture again. He had another poke at the yellow leaf. "Call me Dacre, my child, will you?" Milly no longer watched him with those loving, anxious, eyes. She was trembling from head to foot and had she spoken, she must have wept. Mr. Foxley's voice was of itself enough to make any woman weep, it was so soft, so tender, so subdued and indrawn. Once more he said, "Call me Dacre, my child!" That pleading voice, so low, so musical, and that it should plead to her? They were so close together that he could feel her tremble. Weak as he was, he was the stronger of the two for a moment, and turning slightly towards her met her rapturous eyes, and heard her call him the name he wanted to hear. The same instant they kissed, a long thrilling dark-enfolding kiss that was the first Milly had ever known from a man and might have been, for its purity and restraint, the first also that he had ever given to a woman.

"Have I found my haven too, like the wise leaf of autumn? Have I! Tell me, my child, my darling!"

"O sir, dearest sir—I mean, dear Dacre, it is I who have found mine. If indeed you care for me, sir!"

Mr. Foxley laid his head just on her shoulder, then let it slide into her lap, taking her trembling hands and putting them over his eyes.

"I do more than care for you, my child. I love you. Stoop and kiss me. There. Don't take your head away again like that. Leave it. Your face against mine. Your lips on mine. Is it a haven, child? Truly, yes or no?"

"Dear Dacre!"

"Well!"

"You know it is. And I have always wanted so much to—to—care for you, but I did not dare."

"Dare! There is no dare about it my child. If you will give me your young life—how old are you now, love?"

"Nineteen," whispered Milly into his ear.

"Only nineteen, and such a tall girl, with such long hair—if you will give it to me and be happy in giving it, child, that must be thought of, there is no one else—"

"You know there is not, sir."

"Then I will do all I can to deserve it. And nobody must call you Milly any more. You are Mildred now. Miss Mildred if you like and soon, very soon, to bear another name, mine. It is a good one, child."

"I am sure of it, dear Dacre, and too good—far too good—for me."

"Do you know how old I am, my child?"

"I heard your brother say."

"And did he dare? What did he say it was, my age?"

"He said—you were forty-one."

"Then he was out. It is more than that I am exactly forty-three; I say exactly, for, Milly, this is my birthday, and—I cannot hope— neither of as must dare to hope, child—that I shall see many more. You will marry me whenever I say, my love?"

The girl bent over him in a passion of weeping.

"There is nothing I would not do for you, dear sir—"

"Except call me by my dearly-beloved third name!"

It began to turn cold as they sat by the stream and Milly or Mildred as she is henceforth to be called, drying her eyes, fell into a fever over her lover and besought him to return to the house.

Standing face to face, he put her arms around his neck.

"Before we go, dear child, you are sure you love me?"

"O do not ask me again, dear Dacre!"

"That is right. And you know how old I am?"

Another assent.

"And that you are to marry me whenever I say?"

"If I can."

"Of course you can. And that you are to give me all the love you possibly have to give and more and more. I shall be exacting!"

"Dear Dacre!"

"Very well. Remember all those clauses, and now take me back to the house. And some day, my child, I will tell you all my life and what it was—or rather who it was—that sent me out of England, dear England—"

"Ah! you love it still," murmured Mildred, looking at the ground.

"I shall always love it now, since I have found my happiness in Canada, but once I hated it, Milly, yes, I hated it!"

So was accomplished the wooing of Mr. George Foxley. He was earnestly and sincerely in love. The girl had grown up under his eye as it were and was in fact almost a part of himself already. Marriage would complete the refining and gilding process. The tones of her voice, her accent, her pronunciation, her habits of sitting, of standing, of walking were all more or less unconsciously imitated from him, she had modelled herself upon him, she was indeed his "child" as he loved to call her. For a month these two people enjoyed as pure and perfect and isolated an happiness as can be experienced on earth. Then it became necessary to inform Mr. Joseph and worthy Mrs. Cox. As if Mr. Joseph and Mrs. Cox didn't know! There are two things that nothing can hide in this life. One is, the light in the eyes of a girl who has found herself loved by the man she adores, and the other is, the unutterable content in the mien of that man himself. And there is no phase of passion sweeter, nor purer, nor warmer, nor more satisfying, than that which is the result of a young girl's affection for a man many years older than herself.

As for the telling, Mr. George, though he could talk fast enough and fluently enough to Mildred, hated much talk or fuss about anything and so made everything the easier by informing his brother, Mr. Joseph, by note. A few lines sufficed as preparation for the news and he ended by requesting him to purchase some small and inexpensive gift as from himself in appreciation of the occasion. Mr. Joseph with characteristic good taste and delicate feeling, concluded that flowers, though perishable, were the most appropriate purchase he could light upon, and consequently walked out from town a certain Saturday afternoon late in November with a monster affair in smilax and roses in his hand. When it was placed, though not by himself, in Mildred's hands she felt a disappointment she could not altogether conceal.

"Never mind," said Mr. George at full length on a sofa with Milly beside him on a chair. He did indeed prove a most exacting lover. For a long time her share of daily work in the Inn and out of it, had been growing less and less, until now she hardly did anything at all besides wait on her master, lover and friend, prepare what he eat, read to him, and sit by him for hours, never leaving him in the evenings till long after twelve and then it was understood that in case of night attacks of the dreadful pleurisy and asthma combined that were slowing killing him, she would always be at hand to come at the sound of his bell—or indeed his voice, for Milly, sleeping in the room opposite his own, always left both doors open and would lie fully dressed on her bed night after night, listening in the dark, with wide open eyes and strained ears, for the slightest cough or sigh that came from that worshipped one across the narrow hall.

"Never mind," said he on that Saturday night "My brother is busy just now. Don't you remember, he found it difficult to come out last week. It's an awful grind for Joseph, poor Joseph! But he enjoys life, I think; at the present moment I expect he is flirting audaciously in town with some charming girl. Or some fearfully plain one. You never know who next, with my brother. He'll turn up on Monday."

And Mr. Joseph did turn up on Monday. Farmer Wise had fetched some doctor from Orangetown on Sunday, who after examining his injury, pronounced it incurable. Mr. Joseph was as stoical as Englishmen are generally expected to be and saw that it was absolutely imperative to tell his brother.

"I brought it on myself" he said to the farmer, "At least I try to believe I did. By Jove! to think—to think of some men! Well, I must tell my brother."

When he did tell him late on Monday night, having been driven over by Farmer Wise himself, with his poor eyes bandaged and the sturdy farmer's hand to guide him into the little back parlor where Mr. George and Mildred sat alone, for Mrs. Cox had been ordered out by that exacting gentleman as early as eight o'clock. Nothing but the presence of Mildred herself and the love divine and human that filled Mr. George's breast to overflowing could have saved him from succumbing to the painful shock.

"Well, I should think you are cured now, my poor Joseph!" said his brother presently.

"Of what, in heaven's name?" said poor Mr. Joseph. "By Jove to think— to think of some men, George! What had I done, what had I done?"

"I do think of them," said Mr. Foxley gravely. "I do think of them. And but for my happiness here," touching Mildred's dress reverently, "I could wish—" wistfully, "That we had never come here—'twas I who brought you my poor Joseph, 'twas I, 'twas I."

"Oh! that's rubbish!" pronounced Mr. Joseph energetically. "The main point is now, how am I to get my living. God! I am perfectly useless! They won't take me back in town there."

"Dear Mr. Joseph," said Mildred, with her eyes shining on the brother of her lover. "You will live with us of course, with—Dacre, Dacre and me, and my aunt. We all love you—see," and Milly rose, first pressing Mr. George's fingers as they touched her dress in passing and giving him a look which was meant to keep him in order for a few moments, "no one can nurse you as well as I can—ask Dacre— let me take off that bandage and put it on again more comfortably for you! Will you, dear Mr. Joseph?" Mr. Joseph groaned and hid his face against Milly's heaving breast.

"She is to be your angel as well as mine, perhaps," murmured his brother.

"I have always been so active," groaned poor Mr. Joseph, "What is to become of me? To live here with you would have been beautiful, but now—the simple thought of existence at all anywhere is unbearable! And the money—good God, George, how can I Help giving way!"

Some few other such scenes had naturally to be gone through before any course could be suggested to Mr. Joseph. Mrs. Cox had been taken into confidence, and Farmer Wise made to understand that nothing must be said about the unhappy affair. Mr. Joseph wrote into town explaining in some way his resignation of the rather important clerkship he had but just begun to fill creditably, and sending for all his belongings took to Mrs. Cox's remaining little room under the roof in the character of an invalid. The secret was admirably kept, even by the doctor who had been written to and who had seen a similar case some years ago.

"A jealous devil, I suppose," said he, when he read Mr. George Foxley's note.

"Well, he might have come off worse. But I should like to know who the country lass was that he'd been sparkin', and who revenged herself like that."

A few weeks afterwards Mildred was married to George Albert Dacre Foxley, of Foxley Manor, Notts, by the Rev. Mr. Higgs in the village church. Her lover looked wonderfully well and strong on the occasion and was so happy that he was actually mischievously inclined during the ceremony, nearly causing his bride to laugh out audibly. Handsome and distinguished and aristocratic a gentleman as he looked, Mildred was not unworthy of him, as a straighter, firmer, more composed and more smiling a bride never entered a church. The girl was too happy to know what nervousness meant nor self-consciousness. She sat with her lover after he was dressed and had lain down a few moments to rest, until it was time to start in the carriage which Mr. Rattray had in the most unexpected manner offered them and which Mr. George accepted with the easy languid grace that characterized his acceptance of most things in this world excepting Milly. He had plenty of force and passion and to spare concerning that gift. Stipulating that "Squires" must sit on the box seat, he and Milly and Mrs. Cox, an ideal little wedding party, drove off in actually high glee, laughing and chatting and joking immoderately to the amazement of the villagers, prominent among whom were Mrs. Woods and "Woods" himself, rescued in a dazed condition from the back premises of the "Temperance Hotel" according to popular local tradition, and Mrs. Lyman, B. Rattray, nee Maria Higgs. Mr. Joseph alas! could not be present.

In the year that followed this remarkable marriage, the relative positions of the Mr. Foxleys underwent a great change. So much love and so much care lightened the elder brother's existence so materially, that his health actually improved, and by the end of the sixth month of marriage he was able to shoot and fish once more, and walk with his adoring wife without the help of her strong arm and shoulder. Indeed it was she who about this time began to need his assistance during those long strolls by the side of the brook or through the tall grain grown meadows—a matter which astonished them both to the extent of stupefaction. Mr. George took his trouble to Mrs. Cox.

"I don't know what you expected, Mr. George, I don't indeed," said she, secretly amused at his simplicity. "You went and got married, as was only natural, and now you are frightened at the results, as is only natural."

"But, my dear lady," expostulated the perplexed gentleman, "it involves so many things, all manner of complications. For instance, money. I shall have—I really believe, my dear good Mrs. Cox—I shall have to make some money."

"You!" ejaculated Mrs. Cox.

"I know. It appears hopeless. I never turned a penny, honest or otherwise in my life. Joseph you see—ah! poor Joseph!"

Poor Joseph indeed, darkness for light, solitude for society, enforced idleness for long-continued habits of activity, who could enjoy life under these circumstances—and careful of him as Mildred was, and sympathetic as his brother was, these two were too intensely absorbed in each other to give him all the amusement and attention he craved. He grew thin and weak and slightly perverse and seemed to care more for Mrs. Cox's company than for his brother's. And yet there was nothing wrong with him except his terrible affliction. Mrs. Cox was sure he had something on his mind, and one day she ventured to tell him so. He flushed all over his pale freckled skin, and feeling for her motherly hands took them in his own.

"There is," he said. "I wonder no one has ever guessed it. Miss Dexter, where is she? Does anyone ever see her?"

"My poor boy, my dear Mr. Joseph," cried Mrs. Cox. "You did not really care for her, did you? Surely! You did not care for her!"

"No," said he decidedly. "No, I did not care for her—I didn't, never could have cared for her as George cares for Mildred, say—but she was a lady and kind to me, and I liked to go there, and the fact is—I miss her—and I am so sorry for her! and yet, you know, I am half frightened of her too and afraid to go out, thinking she may meet me and I wouldn't see her coming, you know! Yet she wouldn't do it again, I think!"

"Heaven save us, no, Mr. Joseph! And you so forgiving! Mercy me, and people say men make all the trouble!"

"It's half-and-half, Mrs. Cox, dear old soul," muttered Mr. Joseph, leaning back on his cushions. "I suppose we were both to blame. I can't, for the life of me, fall to talking of it as a judgment, for before heaven, I had done nothing. Yet I forgot how lonely she was and how proud, and I forgot too, that Ellen—that Ellen—"

"Ay, Mr. Joseph. It was Ellen too. Poor Ellen, that passed away out of it all!"

"And she—Miss Dexter—is still here, still living by herself in the cottage by the oak! I remember so well, Mrs. Cox, the first time my brother and I ever saw that oak!"

"I daresay, Mr. Joseph, I daresay. Yes, she is still there, living in her cottage unloved and unheeded, Mr. Joseph. And may she ever continue so!"

"Oh! don't say that, dear old soul! Don't say that! Do you know, I should like to see her—I mean—meet her once again!"

Mrs. Cox was certain he was not in "his right head" as she said to herself.

"See her again! Meet her, talk to her! The woman who served ye like this! what can you be thinking of? Let me call your brother. There he is coming along the road, brown and bonny, with his wife on his arm, bless them both?"

"Did you say he was brown, Mrs. Cox? My brother brown! What a change! He looks so well then, dear old soul!"

"If you could but see him, Mr. Joseph, you would see how well."

"Well and brown! And Mildred, she is pale, I suppose, and with her eyes turned up to his and her lips brushing his shoulder every now and then—O I can see them—I suppose they go on a worse than ever."

"Indeed and they do, Mr. Joseph. After, breakfast this morning I sent them up into the drawing-room to be out of the way of the drover's meeting to be held in the bar, and when I went up to ask them about the lunch they would take with them on the river this. afternoon I heard no sound like and just whispered at the door a bit if I might come in. When I went in, there was your brother standing behind her in a chair, with all her hair down, and a brush in his hand and his wife fast asleep! He looked frightened for a minute when he saw me and I besought him to bring her to, thinking he'd mesmerized her. He'd been brushing it and playing with it and the morning over warm—she had fallen asleep. And I left them, Mr. Joseph, I left them, for they love each other so. And when I think of the honor he has done my girl, and how particular he is that she shall be called Mrs. Foxley—it—"

"Well, well, Mrs. Cox, ours is a good name, and I do not think my brother would have ever allowed any but a good girl to bear it. And if a girl is lovely and gentle and pure-minded, and innocent, and neat, and clean, and refined as your niece was, it matters not about her birth. Birth! O my dear old soul, I am sick of the word! Miss Dexter now, is a lady, you know."

"Ay."

"And I must see her again," enforced Mr. Joseph, brought back to his one idea. "I must see her again."

Mrs. Cox communicated this intelligence to her niece, Mrs. Foxley.

"I think I can understand why," said she, lying back in her husband's arms one hot summer night under the trees at the back of the blouse. "It seems a hard wish to understand and a harder one to comply with, but it may have to be done. Dacre—"

"What my darling!"

"When are you going to tell me about your life in England and—and— about the woman who sent you out of it?"

"The woman! I never told you about a woman, child!"

"No. But I guessed. It is sure to have been a woman, Dacre."

"Well, I don't mind when I tell you. Nothing of all that time is anything to me now. Shall I tell you now?"

"If you please, dearest Dacre. For I must be close to you when I listen to that, and must not have you see me, for I know I shall cry."

"Dearest child! Well then, it shall be now, for you could scarcely be closer to me than you are now? And if you cry, as you must try not to do, you shall be allowed to cry here upon my breast and I will not look. I can hardly see you as it is, it is so dark. Let me think, how I shall begin. You know Joseph—our poor Joseph—is my only brother and I never had any sisters. My father—you know this too—is an English country gentleman living in one of the most beautiful seats in England. If I were to describe the old place to you, you would want to go, and I could not spare you, so I will only say—well, you have seen those photographs?"

"Yes, dearest Dacre."

"They only give you a faint idea of what it is. It is Tudor you know— do you know what Tudor is, Mrs. Foxley—and all red brick, weathered all colors, and terraced, with lots of little windows and some big ones with stained glass in them, and urns on the terrace, and a rookery, and an old avenue of poplars, haunted too, and so on, and so on—there's no end to it, Mildred! Yes, it's a fine old place, without doubt Well, that is where I was born. I don't remember my mother. I wish I did. She died when Joseph was born, he is just four years younger than I am. Our youth was passed there—at the Manor, of course, and we had the usual small college education not extending to a university career that gentleman's sons have in England, you know. I didn't make many friends at school, and where we lived, there was no one to visit, and we had very few relations. It is quite unusual I believe for two boys to grow up as we did, in comparative isolation. My father was a kind of Dombey—you know Dombey, Mildred—wrapped up in his old place and the associations of his youth and in his family pride. The Foxleys are better born I believe than half of the aristocracy; we go back to the Conquest on my father's side—a thing which he never permits himself to forget for an instant. Well, Milly, it was a dull life for two lively, affectionate lads like Joseph and me, wasn't it, and had it not been for all this, child, nature, you know, and the trees and the streams and the out-door sports I love so well, I could never have got on at all. Then when I was nineteen—just your age, love—came a change. I, being the elder and heir to the estate was sent off to town—I mean, London, my dear—and the Continent, with a tutor. Joseph—well, I believe I have never fully understood what became of Joseph during the four years I was away, but I suppose he amused himself. He has a knack of doing that I never had, except when I am in the country. Well, this tutor wasn't a bad sort of a fellow and at first we got on splendidly, living in town in chambers, going to the plays and the opera, and dining all over, just wherever I liked or he knew, and excursions oat of London, you know—oh! jolly enough for a little while! Then we went across to Paris—"

"Yes, dearest Dacre?"

Mr. Foxley stopped a moment to lift his wife's face closer to his own. He kissed it—a long long kiss that entranced them both to the degree of forgetting the story.

"If you would rather not go on—" said Mildred.

"Oh! I must now. Well, we did Paris, and then the other capitals and Nice—Nice was just then coming into vogue, and ran down into Italy— I remember I liked Genoa so much—and then we came back to Paris, for Harfleur—that was the tutor's name, and it doesn't sound like a real one, does it—preferred Paris to any other European town and of course so did I. About this time, his true character began to show itself. He went out frequently without me, smoked quite freely, would order in wine and get me to drink with him, and was very much given to calling me fresh, green, and all that you know. I began to think he was right. I was past twenty-one, and I had never even had a glimpse into the inside of life. Women, now and all that kind of thing—I was positively ignorant of—but to be sure, one quickly learns in Paris."

For one night, Harfleur asked me in his usual sneering tone how I was going to spend my evening.

"I am going out to a charming soiree at the house of Madame de L'Estarre, the most charming woman in Paris," said he.

"'Then I shall accompany you,' I said, fired by his insulting tone. And I went, Mildred. I suppose I was good-looking, eh, my child—and had sufficient air of distinction about me to impress Madame de L'Estarre, for she left the crowd of waxed and perfumed Frenchmen and devoted herself entirely to me. Although she was—beautiful—she was not tall, and I, standing at her side all that evening, never took my eyes off her dazzling face and her white uncovered bosom. In a week, my child, I had learnt to know and love every feature in that dazzling face and began to dream of the day when I should be allowed to kiss that bosom. Yes, I certainly loved her."

"I am sure you loved her, Dacre my darling. And how could she help loving you, dear, in return?"

"Oh that is another thing entirely, quite another thing. After that night, Harfleur showed me more respect than he had done for some time previously and we began to hit it off again better. I went to her hotel—her house you know, every day. At first she would always receive me alone, sending anybody away who happened to be there and refusing to admit anybody who came while we were together.— It is difficult, even to my wife, to explain what kind of a woman she was. All that first time, when we would be alone, she would— make love, I suppose it must be called—with her eyes and her hands, and her very skirts and her fan, and the cushion, and the footstool. The room was always beautiful and always dim, and she would greet me with outstretched hands and a shy smile, making room for me beside her on the sofa—she always sat on a sofa. We would talk of nothing at all perhaps but look into each other's eyes, until the force of her look would draw me close, close to her till we were almost in one another's arms, and I could feel her breath coming faster every moment when just as I imagined she would sink upon my shoulder—she would draw herself up with a laugh and push me away, declaring somebody was coming. Then, if nobody came, she would go through the same farce again. This would happen perhaps two or three times a day. In the evening, I was again at her side, night after night regarding her with a devotion that amazed even my friend Harfleur.

"She treats you like a dog. It will kill you yet, George. Come away." But of course I would not go. I accompanied her to the theatre, to the Bois, to the shops, to church—yes, even to church, Mildred, think of that—and she was very careful and circumspect and all that. I even believe as far as direct actions go, she may have been a virtuous woman, for she certainly, had no other lover when I knew her. She was a widow, enormously rich and nothing to do. Therefore, I suppose she went in for the torturing business as a profession. Her Frenchmen did not mind; that was the secret of her charm with them— so clever, they called her, but it nearly killed me, her cleverness. I grew pale and worn—sleep—I never slept. All my life I had lived without natural affection, and now I was pouring forth upon this woman the love I might have rendered friends, sister, brother, mother, as well as the passion of a young man. I say to you now, Mildred, my wife, that the woman who tramples on the passion of a young man is as bad as the man who slays the innocence of a young girl. And that's what she did. Finally, when this had lasted for a year and a half, and Harfleur had gone back to England, one day, when I was perfectly desperate and could have killed her, Milly, as she lay at full length on her damned sofa—pardon, my dear, no, don't kiss my hand, child, don't—dressed in some rose-colored stuff all trailing about her and her hands clasped under her head, I fell by her on my knees and besought her to tell me what she meant and if she ever could care for me. I give you my word, my dear, and with my hand over your innocent heart, you know I dare not lie—in all that year and a half I had not even touched her lips. You cannot, happily imagine the torture of such a position.

Well, that day, she bent over to me on her side and said "What do you want, is it to kiss me? Chut! wait for that till we are married."

"Do you mean to marry me?" I gasped out. "She said 'yes,' Mildred, and brushed my cheek with her lips. What do you think I did then, Mildred?"

"How can I tell, dearest Dacre!"

"I fainted, dearest. Think of it. But I believed her, you see, and the revulsion was too great. In a moment or two I came to myself with the sounds of laughter in my ears. I was on her sofa—that damned sofa—pardon again, my dear—and she was standing with three of her cursed Frenchmen around her all laughing fit to kill themselves. I saw through it all in a moment. They had been on the other side of the curtains. I went straight up to her and said 'Did you say that you were ready to become my wife?' She only laughed and the men too with her. Then I struck her—on her white breast, Milly— and struck the three Frenchmen on the face one after the other. They were so astonished that not one of them moved, and I parted the curtains, and left the house."

"Did you never see her again?"

"Never. I left Paris considerably wiser than I had entered it and avoided society generally. I had one year's life in London, and was considered no end of a catch by the mammas, I believe, but you can imagine I did not easily fall a victim. No. That is all my story, my dear, all at least that has been unguessed at by you. My health was very bad at home and beyond my love of sport I cared for nothing. I grew to hate my life in England, even England, though she had done me no harm. Finally, I quarrelled with my father who married again, a woman we both disliked, Joseph and I, and so we turned our backs on the Old World and came out to Canada and to—you."

Mildred still lay, crying softly, in her husband's arms. "I had sometimes dreamt," continued Mr. Foxley, "of meeting some young girl who could love me and on whose innocence and sweetness I could rest and whom besides I should really love. It did not dawn upon me when I first saw you, that you were the one I wanted, for we must confess, dear, that you were very plump and rather pink and spoke—"

"Why, Dacre, how can you? I was only fifteen! Cruel!"

"Yes, I know. And how you changed! Now, you are so different that it is not the same Mildred at all. Such is the power of a true love, my child, and we must always be happy,—ours is one of those marriages."

Theirs was indeed one of those marriages. Mr. Foxley took to farming and enriched his purse as well as his health. Mr. Joseph had an interview with Miss Dexter the nature of which I am not going to reveal, but which resulted in a placid intimacy between the two to the surprise of all save Milly who always said that "she thought she knew why." Miss Dexter frequently accompanied blind Mr. Joseph on his lonely walks or would sit with him when the others were out, as none but he cared to meet her. Towards his death which occurred in about four years time, she was with him constantly, and died herself in a fortnight after, having left in her will, all her maiden belongings to her "good friend, Farmer Wise." The farmer was not much moved when informed of this fact, so incomprehensible to the rest of the village. He had always kept the little bottle with its cruel label, and had always feared and avoided poor, proud, foolish, wicked Charlotte Dexter since that Saturday night.

As for Mr. George and his wife, I see a vision of a successful and happy husband and father in the prime of early old age (which means, that at fifty-three one is not old with a young wife and three sweet children) and of Mildred, who is always a little pale, has her eyes constantly turned up to her husband's with her lips brushing her shoulder every now and then.

Still?

Ay, still and forever. And so ends my sketch of how the Mr. Foxleys came, stayed and never went away.



The Gilded Hammock.

Who does not know the beautiful Miss De Grammont? Isabel De Grammont, who lives by herself and is sole mistress of the brown-stone mansion in Fifth Avenue, the old family estate on the Hudson, the villa at Cannes, the first floor of a magnificently decayed palace at Naples, who has been everywhere, seen everything and—cared for nobody?

She reclines now in her latest craze—a hammock made of pure gold wire, fine and strong and dazzling as the late October sun shines upon it stretched from corner to corner of her regally-furnished drawing-room. Two gilded tripods securely fastened to the floor hold the ends of the hammock in which she lies. The rage for yellow holds her as it holds everyone who loves beauty and light and sunshine. Cushions of yellow damask support her head, and a yellow tiger-skin is under her feet. The windows are entirely hidden with thick amber draperies, and her own attire is a clinging gown of some soft silk of a deep creamy tint that as she sways to and fro in the hammock is slightly lifted, displaying a petticoat of darker tint, and Russian slippers of bronzed kid. Amber, large clear and priceless, gleams in its soft waxy glow in her hair, on her neck, round her waist, where it clasps a belt of thick gold cloth and makes a chain for a fan of yellow feathers.

Because you see, although it is autumn, it is very warm all through Miss De Grammont's mansion, as she insists on fires, huge bonfires, you may call them, of wood and peat in every room and on every hearth. Out of the fires grew the desire for the hammock.

"Why," says Miss De Grammont, with a faint yawn, "why must I only lie in a hammock in the Summer, and then, where nobody can see me? I will have a hammock made for the winter, to lie in and watch my fires by."

And so she did, for money is law and beauty creates duty, and one day, when the fashionable stream, the professional cliques and the artistic hangers-on called upon her "from three to six," they were confronted by the vision of an exquisitely beautiful woman dressed in faint yellow with great bunches of primroses in brass bowls from Morocco on a table by her side, who received them in a "gilded hammock," with her feet on a tiger-skin, and her chestnut hair catching a brighter tinge from the flames of her roaring fire, and the sunlight as it came in through the amber medium of the silken-draped windows.

The tea was Russian, like the slippers, and the butler who presented it was a mysterious foreigner who spoke five languages. The guests all wondered, as people always did, at De Grammont. Nobody knew quite what she had done with herself since she had been left an orphan at the age of nineteen. She suddenly shot up into a woman, beautiful, with that patrician and clear-cut loveliness with yet a touch of the bohemienne about it which only les belles Americaines know. Then she took unto herself a maid, two dogs, and three Saratoga trunks and went over to Europe wandering about everywhere. At Cannes, she met and subjugated the heir to the crown; of this friendship the tiger-skin remained as a souvenir. The heir to the crown was not generous. Next came various members of embassies, all proud, all poor, and all frantically in love. She laid all manner of traps for her lovers and discovered in nearly every case that these men were after her money. A certain Russian Grand Duke, from whom had come some superb amber ornaments—he being a man of more wealth than the others— never forgave her the insult she offered him. He sent her these ornaments from the same shop in Paris that he ordered—at the same time—a diamond star for a well-known ballet dancer, and the two purchases were charged to his account. Through some stupidity, the star came to her. She ordered her horses and drove the same day to the jewelers, who was most humble and anxious to retrieve his error. He showed her the amber. She examined it carefully. "It is genuine, and very fine," she said gravely. "I have lived in Russia and I know. I am very fond of amber. I will buy this myself from you, and you may inform His Highness of the fact"

The delighted shop-keeper did not ask her very much more than its genuine value and next day all Paris knew of the transaction and flocked to the Opera to see her in the ornaments which had cost the Russian Duke his friendship for the bearer. But though eccentric, impulsive and domineering, no whisper had ever attached itself to her name. On her return to her native New York, was she not welcomed, feted, honored, besieged with invitations everywhere? People felt she was different from the girl who went away. She had been undecided, emotional, a trifle vain, self-conscious, guilty of moods— no small offence in society; this glorious creature was a queen, a goddess, always calm, always serene, always a trifle bored, always superbly the same. Her house she re-furnished altogether. The three Saratoga trunks were now represented by nine or ten English ones, dress baskets, large packing cases, and one mysterious long box which when opened contained several panels of old Florentine carved wood-work which interested all New York immensely. Pictures and tapestries, armor and screens, and a gate of mediaeval wrought iron were all among her art treasures. The foreign butler was her charge d'affaires, and managed everything most wisely and even economically. He engaged a few servants in New York, her maid, housekeeper and the two housemaids she had brought out with her. Her house was the perfect abode of the most faultless aestheticism. It was perfection in every detail and in the ensemble which greeted the eye, the ear, every sense, and all mental endowments, from the vestibule in marble and rugs to the inner boudoir and sanctum of the mistress of the house, hung with pale rose and straw-color in mingled folds of stamped Indian silks, priceless in color and quality. Two Persian cats adorned the lounge and one of her great dogs—a superb mastiff— occupied the rug before the door night and day, almost without rest.

Such were the general surroundings of Isabel de Grammont. Art and letters, music and general culture were inseparable from the daily life of such a woman as well as immediate beautiful presences, so that into this faultless house came everything new that the world offered in books, magazines, songs and new editions. Thanks to European travel, there was no language she could not read, no modern work she had not studied. Also came to her receptions the literary lions of New York. Aspiring journalists, retiring editors, playrights and composers, a few actors and crowds of would-be poets flocked to the exquisite drawing-rooms hung with yellow, wherein the owner of so much magnificence lounged in her golden hammock. Sonnets were written of her descriptive of orioles flying in the golden west, and newspaper paragraphs indited weekly in her praise referred to her as the "Semiramus of a new and adoring society world." Baskets of flowers, tubs of flowers, barrels of flowers were sent weekly to her address, and she was solicited—on charitable, fashionable, religious, communistic, orthodox and socialistic grounds as lady patroness of this or member of that and subscriber to the other. In short, she was a success, and as nothing succeeds like success, we may take it that as the months rolled on, and the great house still maintained its superb hospitality and Miss De Grammont still appeared in her sumptuous carriage either smothered in furs or laces according to the seasons, she still maintained in like manner her position in society and her right to the homage and admiration of all classes.

But this was not the case. Even a worm will turn and public opinion is very often a little vernacular, let us say. And it happened, that public opinion in the case of Miss De Grammont, began to turn, to raise itself up in fact and look a little about it and beyond it as we have all seen worms do—both in cheeses and out of them—when the fact that she lay most of the time in a gilded hammock swung in front of her drawing-room fire was announced from the pulpits of society journals. It may have been that her friends were devoid of imagination, that they were cold, prudish, satirical, unpoetical, unaesthetic, anything we like to call them, that will explain their action in the matter, for they clearly, one and all, disliked the notion of the hammock. One spoke of it disparagingly to another, who took it up and abused it to a third, who described it to a friend who "wrote for the papers." This gifted gentleman who lodged with a lady of the same temper and edited a fashion journal, concocted with her help a description of the thing which soon found its way into his paper and was then copied into hers. The public grew uneasy. It would swallow any story it was told about the Heir Apparent, for instance and a Russian Grand Duke—is it not the sublime prerogative of American women to dally with such small game as those gentlemen— but it kicked against the probability of such an actual fact as the hammock already described which seemed too ridiculous a whim to possess any real existence. However, the tongues of the fashionable callers, the professional cliques and the artistic hangers-on coincided in the affair to that extent that soon the existence of the gilded hammock was established and from that time Miss De Grammonts' popularity was on the wane. Dowagers looked askance and matrons posed in a patronizing manner, the flippant correspondents of society journals and the compilers of sonnets in which that very hammock had been eulogized and metaphored to distraction now waited upon her, if at all in an entirely different manner. Strange how all classes began to recall the many peculiar or unaccountable things she had done, the extraordinary costumes she had worn, the fact that she lived alone, and the other fact that she made so few friends. From aspersions cast on her house, her equipage, her dresses, there came to be made strictures on her private character, her love affairs, her friends and career in Europe, her menage at present in New York and the members thereof. Finally public opinion finding that all this made very little impression outwardly, upon the regal disdain of Miss De Grammont in her carriage or in her Opera-stall, however she might writhe and chafe when safely ensconced within that rose and straw-colored boudoir, made up its mind that the secret of the whole three volume novel, the key to the entire mystery lay with the—butler.

That black-moustached functionary, they whispered, had his mistress in his power. He had been a courier, and she had fallen in love with him abroad. Or he had been a well-known conjurer and coerced her through means little less than infernal to run away with him. He was a mesmerist, so they said, and could send her into trances at will. Then he had been the famous Man Milliner of Vienna, whose disappearance one fine day with the entire trousseau of an Austrian Grand Duchess had been a nine days' wonder. These dresses she wore, strange mixtures never seen on earth before of violet and blue, pink and pea-green, rose and lemon, were the identical ones prepared for the Grand Duchess. Finally, he was an Italian Prince rescued from a novel of "Ouida's," whom she had found living in exile, having to suffer punishment for some fiendish crime perpetrated in the days of his youth.

When the stories had reached this point, Miss De Grammont, to whom they were conveyed through papers, notes from "confidential friends," her maid and others, wrote a letter one day directed to the:

REV. LUKE FIELDING, Pastor, Congregational Church, Phippsville, Vermont.

A week or ten days after, Miss De Grammont, seated—not, in the gilded hammock though it still swung gracefully before the glowing fire—but in the cushions which graced her window looking on the front of the house, saw a gentleman arrive in a cab. She rose hastily and opened the door of the room herself for her visitor. This was the Rev. Luke Fielding, a gentleman of the severest Puritanical cut and a true New Englander to boot. With his hat in his hand he advanced with an expression on his face of the deepest amazement and dismay which increased momentarily as he saw not only the gorgeous coloring and appointments of the room but the fair figure of its occupant. To be sure, she had with infinite difficulty selected the plainest dress she could find in her wardrobe to receive him in, a gown of dark green velvet made very simply, and high to the throat. But alas! there was no disguising the priceless lace at her wrists, or the gems that glittered on her firm white hands.

"My dear cousin!" said the lady, giving him both her hands.

"My dear cousin Isabel," returned the minister, laying his hat down on a plush-covered chair on which it looked curiously out of place, and taking her hands in his.

"My dear cousin Isabel, after so many years!"

"It is only eight years, cousin," returned the lady.

"True," replied the minister gravely. "Yet to one like myself that seems a long time. You sent for me, cousin." His gaze wandered round the room and then fastened once more upon Miss De Grammont.

"Yes," she said faintly. "I could not tell you all in my letter. I wanted—I want still—somebody's help."

"And it is very natural you should apply for mine, cousin, I will do anything I can. I have"—the minister grew sensibly more severe, more grave—"I have this day, on the train, seen a paper—a new kind of paper to me, I confess,—a Society Journal it calls itself, in which a name is mentioned. Is your—trouble—connected with that?"