The look in Tom's face was far from being a calm one. He fidgetted in his chair and finally rolled his paper into a hard wad and threw it at the counter as if it had been a missile.

"See here," he exclaimed, "take my advice and let that alone."

Mr. Stamps regarded his dirty book affectionately.

"'Tain't a-gwine to hurt nothin' to hev it down," he replied, with an air of simplicity.

He shut it up, returned it to his pocket, and clasped his hands about his knees, while he fixed his eyes on the glimmer of red showing itself through a crack in a stove-plate.

"It's kinder curi's I should hev happened along by thar this mornin'," he remarked, reflectively.

"By where?" demanded Tom.

Mr. Stamps hugged his knees as if he enjoyed their companionship.

"By thar," he responded, cheerfully, "the Holler, Tom. An' it 'peared to me it 'ed be kinder int'restin' to take a look through, bein' as this was the day as the thing kinder started. So I hitched my mule an' went in." He paused a moment as if to enjoy his knees again.

"Well," said Tom.

Mr. Stamps looked up at him harmlessly. "Eh?" he enquired.

"I said 'well,'" answered Tom, "that's what I said."

"Oh," replied Mr. Stamps. "Waal, thar wasn't nothin' thar, Tom."

For the moment Tom's expression was one of relief. But he said nothing.

"Thar wasn't nothin' thar," Mr. Stamps continued. Then occurred another pause. "Nothin'," he added after it, "nothin' particular."

The tenderness with which he embraced his knees at this juncture had something like fascination in it.

Tom found himself fixing a serious gaze upon his clasping arms.

"I kinder looked round," he proceeded, "an' if there'd ben anythin' thar I 'low I'd hev seed it. But thar wasn't nothin', nothin' but the empty rooms an' a dead leaf or so es hed blowed in through a broken winder, an' the pile o' ashes in the fireplace beat down with the rain as hed fell down the chimney. Mighty lonesome an' still them ashes looked; an' thar wasn't nothin' but them an' the leaves,——an' a bit of a' envelope."

Tom moved his chair back. Sheba thought he was going to get up suddenly. But he remained seated, perhaps because Mr. Stamps began again.

"Thar wasn't nothin' but them an' the bit of a' envelope," he remarked. "It was a-sticken in a crack o' the house, low down, like it hed ben swep' or blowed thar an' overlooked. I shouldn't hev seed it"—modestly—"ef I hedn't ben a-goin' round on my hands an' knees."

Then Tom rose very suddenly indeed, so suddenly that he knocked his chair over and amazed Sheba by kicking it violently across the store. For the moment he so far forgot himself as to be possessed with some idea of falling upon Mr. Stamps with the intent to do him bodily injury. He seized him by the shoulders and turned him about so that he had an excellent view of his unprepossessing back. What Mr. Stamps thought it would have been difficult to discover. Sheba fancied that when he opened his mouth he was going to utter a cry of terror. But he did not. He turned his neck about as well as he could under the circumstances, and looking up into Tom's face meekly smiled.

"Tom," he said, "ye ain't a-gwine ter do a thing to me, not a dern thing."

"Yes, I am," cried Tom, furiously, "I'm goin' to kick——"

"Ef ye was jest haaf to let drive at me, ye'd break my neck," said Mr. Stamps, "an ye ain't a-gwine ter do it. Ef ye was, Tom, ye'd be a bigger fool than I took ye fer. Lemme go."

He looked so diminutive and weak-eyed, as he made these remarks, that it was no wonder Tom released him helplessly, though he was obliged to thrust his hands deep into his pockets and keep them under control.

"I thought I'd given you one lesson," he burst forth; "I thought——"

Mr. Stamps interrupted him, continuing to argue his side of the question, evidently feeling it well worth his while to dispose of it on the spot.

"Ye weigh three hundred, Tom," he said, "ef ye weigh a pound, an' I don't weigh but ninety, 'n ye couldn't handle me keerful enuf not to leave me in a fix as wouldn't be no credit to ye when ye was done; 'n it 'ed look kinder bad for ye to meddle with me, anyhow. An' the madder ye get, the more particular ye'll be not to. Thar's whar ye are, Tom; an' I ain't sich a fool as not to know it."

His perfect confidence in the strength of his position, and in Tom's helplessness against it, was a thing to be remembered. Tom remembered it long afterwards, though at the moment it only roused him to greater heat.

"Now then," he demanded, "let's hear what you're driving at. What I want to know is what you're driving at. Let's hear."

Mr. Stamps's pale eyes fixed themselves with interest on his angry face. He had seated himself in his chair again, and he watched Tom closely as he rambled on in his simple, uncomplaining way.

"Ye're fond o' laughin' at me round yere at the store, Tom," he remarked, "an' I ain't agin it. A man don't make nothin' much by bein' laughed at, I rekin, but he don't lose nothin' nuther, an' that's what I am agin. I rekin ye laugh 'cos I kinder look like a fool—an' I hain't nothin' agin thet, nuther, Lord! not by a heap. A man ain't a-gwine to lose nothin' by lookin' like a fool. I hain't never, not a cent, Tom. But I ain't es big a fool es I look, an' I don't 'low ye air, uther. Thar's whar I argy from. Ye ain't es big a fool as ye look, an' ye'd be in a bad fix ef ye was."

"Go on," ordered Tom, "and leave me out."

"I cayn't leave ye out, Tom," said Mr. Stamps, "fer ye're in. Ye'd be as big a fool as ye look ef ye was doin' all this yere fer nothin'."

"All what?" demanded Tom.

"Gals," suggested Mr. Stamps, "is plenty. An' ef ye take to raisin' 'em as this un's ben raised, ye ain't makin' much; an' ef thar ain't nothin' to be made, Tom, what's yer aim?"

He put it as if it was a conundrum without an answer.

"What's yer aim, Tom?" he repeated, pleasantly, "ef thar ain't nothin' to be made?"

Tom's honest face flamed into red which was almost purple, the veins swelled on his forehead, his indignation almost deprived him of his breath. He fell into a chair with a concussion which shook the building.

"Good—good Lord!" he exclaimed; "how I wish you weighed five hundred pounds."

It is quite certain that if Stamps had, he would have demolished him utterly upon the spot, leaving him in such a condition that his remains would hardly have been a source of consolation to his friends. He pointed to the door.

"If you want to get out," he said, "start. This is getting the better of me—and if it does——"

Mr. Stamps rose.

"Ye wouldn't do a dern thing, Tom," he said, peaceably, "not a dern thing."

He sidled towards the door, and reaching it, paused to reflect, shaking his head.

"Ef thar ain't nothin' to be made," he said, "ye'v got ter hev a aim, an' what is it?"

Observing that Tom made a move in his chair, he slipped through the doorway rather hurriedly. Sheba thought he was gone, but a moment later the door re-opened and he thrust his head in and spoke, not intrusively—simply as if offering a suggestion which might prove of interest.

"It begun with a 'L,'" he said; "thar was a name on it, and it begun with a 'L'."



CHAPTER XI

It was upon the evening after this interview with Mr. Stamps that Tom broached to his young companion a plan which had lain half developed in his mind for some time.

They had gone into the back room and eaten together the supper Mornin had prepared with some extra elaboration to do honour to the day, and then Sheba had played with her doll Lucinda while Tom looked on, somewhat neglecting his newspaper and pipe in his interest in her small pretence of maternity.

At last, when she had put Lucinda to sleep in the wooden cradle which had been her own, he called her to him.

"Come here," he said, "I want to ask you a question."

She came readily and stood at his knee, laying her hands upon it and looking up at him, as she had had a habit of doing ever since she first stood alone.

"How would you like some new rooms?" he said, suggestively.

"Like these?" she answered, a pretty wonder in her eyes.

"No," said Tom, "not like these—bigger and brighter and prettier. With flowers on the walls and flowers on the carpets, and all the rest to match."

He had mentioned this bold idea to Molly Hollister the day before, and she had shown such pleasure in it, that he had been quite elated.

"It's not that I need anything different," he had said, "but the roughness and bareness don't seem to suit her. I've thought it often when I've seen her running about."

"Seems like thar ain't nothin' you don't think of, Tom," said Molly, admiringly.

"Well," he admitted, "I think about her a good deal, that's a fact. She seems to have given me a kind of imagination. I used to think I hadn't any."

He had imagination enough to recognise at the present moment in the child's uplifted face some wistful thought she did not know how to express, and he responded to it by speaking again.

"They'll be prettier rooms than these," he said. "What do you say?"

Her glance wandered across the hearth to where the cradle stood in the corner with Lucinda in it. Then she looked up at him again.

"Prettier than this," she repeated, "with flowers. But don't take this away." The feeling which stirred her flushed her childish cheek and made her breath come and go faster. She drew still nearer to him.

"Don't take this away," she repeated, and laid her hand on his.

"Why?" asked Tom, giving her a curious look.

She met the look helplessly. She could not have put her vague thought into words.

"Don't—don't take it away," she said again, and suddenly laid her face upon his great open palm.

For a minute or two there was silence. Tom sat very still and looked at the fire.

"No," he said at length, "we won't take it away."

In a few days, however, it was well known for at least fifteen miles around the Cross-roads that Tom D'Willerby was going to build a new house, and that it was going to be fitted up with great splendour with furniture purchased at Brownsboro.

"Store carpetin' on every floor an' paper on every wall," said Dave Hollister to Molly when he went home after hearing the news. "An' Sheby's a-goin' with him to choose 'em. He says he'll bet fifty dollars she has her notions about things, an' he's a-goin to hev 'em carried out, fer it's all fer her, an' she's the one to be pleased."

It was not many weeks before the rooms were so near completion that the journey to Brownsboro was made, and it was upon this day of her first journeying out into the world that Sheba met with her first adventure. She remembered long afterwards the fresh brightness of the early morning when she was lifted into the buggy which stood before the door, while Mornin ran to and fro in the agreeable bustle attendant upon forgetting important articles and being reminded of them by shocks. When Tom climbed into his seat and they drove away, the store-porch seemed quite crowded with those who watched their triumphant departure. Sheba looked back and saw Mornin showing her teeth and panting for breath, while Molly Hollister waved the last baby's sunbonnet, holding its denuded owner in her arms. The drive was a long one, but the travellers enjoyed it from first to last. Tom found his companion's conversation quite sufficient entertainment to while away the time, and when at intervals she refreshed herself from Mornin's basket and fell asleep, he enjoyed driving along quietly while he held her small, peacefully relaxed body on his knee, quite as much as another man might have enjoyed a much more exciting occupation.

"There's an amount of comfort in it," he said, reflectively, as the horse plodded along on the shady side of the road, "an amount of comfort that's astonishing. I don't know, but I'd like to have her come to a standstill just about now and never grow any older or bigger. But I thought the same thing three years ago, that's a fact. And when she gets to blooming out and enjoying her bits of girl finery there'll be pleasure in that too, plenty of it."

She awakened from one of these light sleeps just as they were entering Brownsboro, and her delight and awe at the dimensions and business aspect of the place pleased Tom greatly, and was the cause of his appearing a perfect mine of reliable information on the subject of large towns and the habits of persons residing in them.

Brownsboro contained at least six or seven hundred inhabitants, and, as Court was being held, there were a good many horses to be seen tied to the hitching-posts; groups of men were sitting before the stores and on the sidewalks, while something which might almost have been called a crowd was gathered before the Court-house itself.

Sheba turned her attention to the tavern they were approaching with a view to spending the night, and her first glance alighted upon an object of interest.

"There's a big boy," she said. "He looks tired."

He was not such a very big boy, though he was perhaps fourteen years old and tall of his age. He stood upon the plank-walk which ran at the front of the house, and leaned against the porch with his hands in his pockets. He was a slender, lithe boy, well dressed in a suit of fine white linen. He had a dark, spirited face, and long-lashed dark eyes, but, notwithstanding these advantages, he looked far from amiable as he stood lounging discontentedly and knitting his brows in the sun.

But Sheba admired him greatly and bent forward that she might see him better, regarding him with deep interest.

"He's a pretty boy," she said, softly, "I—I like him."

Tom scarcely heard her. He was looking at the boy himself, and his face wore a troubled and bewildered expression. His gaze was so steady that at length the object of it felt its magnetic influence and lifted his eyes. That his general air of discontent did not belie him, and that he was by no means an amiable boy, was at once proved. He did not bear the scrutiny patiently, his face darkened still more, and he scowled without any pretence of concealing the fact.

Tom turned away uneasily.

"He'd be a handsome fellow if he hadn't such an evil look," he said. "I must have seen him before; I wonder who he is?"

There were many strangers in the house, principally attenders upon the Court being held. Court week was a busy time for Brownsboro, which upon such occasions assumed a bustling and festive air, securing its friends from less important quarters, engaging in animated discussions of the cases in hand, and exhibiting an astonishing amount of legal knowledge, using the most mystical terms in ordinary conversation, and secretly feeling its importance a good deal.

"Sparkses" was the name of the establishment at which the travellers put up, and, being the better of the two taverns in which the town rejoiced, Sparkses presented indeed an enlivening spectacle. It was a large frame house with the usual long verandah at the front, upon which verandah there were always to be seen customers in rocking-chairs, their boots upon the balustrade, their hands clasped easily on the tops of their heads. During Court week these customers with their rocking-chairs and boots seemed to multiply themselves indefinitely, and, becoming exhilarated by the legal business transacted around them, bestirred themselves to jocularity and argument, thus adding to the liveliness of the occasion.

At such periods Mr. Sparkes was a prominent feature. Attired in an easy costume seemingly composed principally of suspenders, and bearing a pipe in his hand, he permeated the atmosphere with a business-like air which had long stamped him in the minds of his rural guests as a person of administrative abilities rarely equalled and not at all to be surpassed.

"He's everywhar on the place, is Sparkes," had been said of him. "He's at dinner, 'n supper, 'n breakfast, 'n out on the porch, 'n in the bar, an' kinder sashiatin' through the whole thing. Thet thar tavern wouldn't be nothin' ef he wasn't thar."

It was not to be disputed that he appeared at dinner and breakfast and supper, and that on each appearance he disposed of a meal of such proportions as caused his countenance to deepen in colour and assume a swelled aspect, which was, no doubt, extremely desirable under the circumstances, and very good for the business, though it could scarcely be said to lighten the labour of Mrs. Sparkes and her daughters, who apparently existed without any more substantial sustenance than the pleasure of pouring out cups of coffee and tea and glasses of milk, and cutting slices of pie, of which they possibly partook through some process of absorption.

To the care of Mrs. Sparkes Tom confided his charge when, a short time after their arrival, he made his first pilgrimage for business purposes.

"She's been on the road all day," he said, "and I won't take her out till to-morrow; so if you don't mind, I'll leave her with you until I come back. She'll be all right and happy, won't you, Sheba?"

Secretly Sheba felt some slight doubt of this; but in her desire to do him credit, she summed up all her courage and heroically answered that she would, and so was borne off to the dining-room, where two girls were cutting bread and slicing ham for supper. They were Mrs. Sparkes's daughters, and when they saw the child, dropped their knives and made a good-natured rush at her, for which she was not at all prepared.

"Now, mother," they cried, "whar's she from, 'n who does she b'long to?"

Mrs. Sparkes cast a glance at her charge, which Sheba caught and was puzzled by. It was a mysterious glance, with something of cautious pity in it.

"Set her up in a cheer, Luce," she said, "'n give her a piece of cake. Don't ye want some, honey?"

Sheba regarded her with uplifted eyes as she replied. The glance had suggested to her mind that Mrs. Sparkes was sorry for her, and she was anxious to know why.

"No," she answered, "no, thank you, I don't want any."

She sat quite still when they put her into a chair, but she did not remove her eyes from Mrs. Sparkes.

"Who does she b'long to, anyhow?" asked Luce.

Mrs. Sparkes lowered her voice as she answered:

"She don't b'long to nobody, gals," she said. "It's thet little critter big Tom D'Willerby from Talbot's Cross-roads took to raise."

"Ye don't say. Pore little thing," exclaimed the girls. And while one of them stooped to kiss her cheek, the other hurriedly produced a large red apple, which she laid on the long table before her.

But Sheba did not touch it. To hear that she belonged to nobody was a mysterious shock to her. There had never seemed any doubt before that she belonged to her Uncle Tom, but Mrs. Sparkes had quite separated her from him in her statement. Suddenly she began to feel a little tired, and not quite so happy as she had been. But she sat still and listened, rendered rather tremulous by the fact that the speakers seemed so sure they had reason to pity her.

"Ef ever thar was a mystery," Mrs. Sparkes proceeded, "thet thar was one; though Molly Hollister says D'Willerby don't like it talked over. Nobody knowed 'em, not even their names, an' nobody knowed whar they come from. She died, 'n he went away—nobody knowed whar; 'n the child wasn't two days old when he done it. Ye cayn't tell me thar ain't a heap at the back o' that. They say D'Willerby's jest give himself up to her ever since, an' 'tain't no wonder, nuther, for she's a' out 'n out beauty, ain't she, now? Just look at her eyes. Why don't ye eat yer apple, honey?"

Sheba turned towards the window and looked out on the porch. A bewildering sense of desolation had fallen upon her.

"I don't want it," she said; and her small voice had a strange sound even in her own ears. "I want Uncle Tom. Let me go out on the porch and see if he's coming."

She saw them exchange rapid glances and was troubled afresh by it.

"D'ye reckin she understands?" the younger daughter said, cautiously.

"Lordy, no!" answered the mother; "we ain't said nothin'. Ye kin go ef ye want to, Sheba," she added, cheerfully. "Thar's a little rocking-cheer that ye kin set in. Help her down, Luce."

But she had already slipped down and found her way to the door opening out on to the street. The porch was deserted for a wonder, the reason being that an unusually interesting case was being argued in the Court-house across the street, where groups of men were hanging about the doors. The rocking-chair stood in a corner, but Sheba did not sit down in it. She went to the steps and stood there, looking out with a sense of pain and loneliness still hanging over her; and at last, without knowing why, only feeling that they had a dreary sound and contained a mystery which somehow troubled her, she began to say over softly the words the woman had used.

"She died and he went away, nobody knows where. She died and he went away, nobody knows where."

Why those words should have clung to her and made her feel for the moment desolate and helpless, it would be difficult to say, but as she repeated them half unconsciously, the figures of the woman who had died and the man who had wandered so far away alone, that he seemed to have wandered out of life itself, cast heavy shadows on her childish heart.

"I am glad," she whispered, "that it was not Uncle Tom that went away." And she looked up the street with an anxious sigh.

Just at this moment she became conscious that she was not alone. In bending forward that she might see the better, she caught sight of someone leaning against the balustrades which had before concealed him—the boy, in short, who was standing just as he had stood when they drove up, and who looked as handsome in a darkling way as human boy could look.

For a few seconds the child regarded him with bated breath. The boys she had been accustomed to seeing were not of this type, and were more remarkable for gifts less ornamental than beauty. This boy with his graceful limbs and haughtily carried head, filled her with awe and admiration. She admired him so much, that, though her first impulse was to run away, she did not obey it, and almost immediately he glanced up and saw her. When this occurred, she was greatly relieved to find that his gloom did not lead him to treat her unkindly, indeed, he was amiable enough to address her with an air of one relenting and condescending somewhat to her youth.

"Didn't you know I was here?" he asked.

"No," Sheba answered, timidly.

"Whom are you looking for?"

"For my Uncle Tom."

He glanced across the street, still keeping his hands in his pockets and preserving his easy attitude.

"Perhaps he is over there," he suggested.

"Perhaps he is," she replied, and added, shyly, "Are you waiting for anyone?"

He frowned so darkly at first, that she was quite alarmed and wished that she had run away as she had at first intended; but he answered, after a pause:

"No—yes;" he said, "yes—I'm waiting for my father."

He did not even speak as the boys at the Cross-roads spoke. His voice had a clear, soft ring, and his mode of pronunciation was one Tom had spent much time in endeavouring to impress upon herself as being more desirable than that she had heard most commonly used around her. Up to this time she had frequently wondered why she must speak differently from Mornin and Molly Hollister, but now she suddenly began to appreciate the wisdom of his course. It was very much nicer to speak as the boy spoke.

"I haven't any father," she ventured, "or any mother. That's queer, isn't it?" And as she said it, Mrs. Sparkes's words rushed into her mind again, and she looked up the street towards the sunset and fell into a momentary reverie, whispering them to herself.

"What's that you are saying?" asked the boy.

She looked at him with a rather uncertain and troubled expression.

"It was only what they said in there," she replied, pointing towards the dining-room.

"What did they say?"

She repeated the words slowly, regarding him fixedly, because she wondered if they would have any effect upon him.

"She died and he went away, nobody knows where. What does it mean?"

"I don't know," he admitted, staring at her with his handsome, long-lashed eyes. "Lots of people die and go away." Then, after a pause, in which he dropped his eyes, he added:

"My mother died two years ago."

"Did she?" answered Sheba, wondering why he looked so gloomy again all at once. "I don't think I ever had any mother, but I have Uncle Tom."

He stared at her again, and there was silence for a few minutes. This he broke by asking a question.

"What is your name?" he demanded.

"De Willoughby," she replied, "but I'm called Sheba."

"Why, that's my name," he said, surprisedly. "My name is De Willoughby. I—Hallo, Neb——"

This last in a tone of proprietorship to a negro servant, who was advancing towards them from a side-door and who hurried up with rather a frightened manner.

"Ye'd best get ready ter start right away, Mars Ralph," he said. "He's wake at las', an' der's de debbil to pay, a-cussin' an' roarin' an' wantin' opium; an' he wants to know whar ye bin an' what ye mean, an' ses de hosses mus' be at de do' in ten minits. Oh, de cunnel he's in de wustest kin' o' humour, dar's no doin' nuffin right fer him."

"Tell him to go to h——" burst forth the lad, flying into a rage and looking so wickedly passionate in a boyish way that Sheba was frightened again. "Tell him I won't go until I'm ready; I've been dragged round till I'm sick of it, and——"

In the midst of his tempest he checked himself, turned about and walked suddenly into the house, the negro following him in evident trepidation.

His departure was so sudden that Sheba fancied he would return and say something more to her. Angry as he looked, she wished very much that he would, and so stood waiting wistfully.

But she was doomed to disappointment. In a few minutes the negro brought to the front three horses, and almost immediately there appeared at the door a tall, handsome man, who made his way to the finest horse and mounted it with a dashing vault into the saddle.

He had a dark aquiline face like the boy's, and wore a great sweeping mustache which hid his mouth. The boy followed, looking wonderfully like him, as he sprang into his own saddle with the same dare-devil vault.

No one spoke a word, and he did not even look at Sheba, though she watched him with admiring and longing eyes. As soon as they were fairly in their seats the horses, which were fine creatures, needing neither whip nor spur, sprang forward with a light, easy movement, and so cantered down the street towards the high road which stretched itself over a low hill about a quarter of a mile away.

Sheba laid her cheek against the wooden pillar and looked after them with a return of the sense of loneliness she had felt before.

"He went away," she whispered, "nobody knows where—nobody knows where."

She felt Tom's hand laid on her shoulder as she said the words, and turned her face upward with a consciousness of relief, knowing she would not be lonely any longer.

"Have I been gone long?" he asked. "Where's Mrs. Sparkes?"

"She's in there," Sheba answered, eagerly, "and I've been talking to the boy."

"To the boy?" he repeated. "What boy?"

"To the one we saw," she replied, holding his hand and feeling her cheeks flush with the excitement of relating her adventure. "The nice boy. His name is like mine—and his mother died. He said it was De Willoughby, and it is like mine. He has gone away with his father. See them riding."

He dropped her hand and, taking a step forward, stood watching the receding travellers. He watched them until they reached the rising ground. The boy had fallen a few yards behind. Presently the others passed the top of the hill, and, as they did so, he turned in his saddle as if he had suddenly remembered something, and glanced back at the tavern porch.

"He is looking for me," cried Sheba, and ran out into the brightness of the setting sun, happy because he had not quite forgotten her.

He saw her, waved his hand with a careless, boyish gesture and disappeared over the brow of the hill.

Tom sat down suddenly on the porch-step. When Sheba turned to him he was pale and his forehead was damp with sweat. He spoke aloud, but to himself, not to her.

"Good Lord," he said, "it's De Courcy and—and the boy. That was why I knew his face."

* * * * *

When they went in to supper later on, there was a great deal of laughing and talking going on down the long table. Mr. Sparkes was finishing a story as they entered, and he was finishing it in a loud voice.

"They're pretty well known," he said; "an' the Colonel's the worst o' the lot. The nigger told me thar'd been a reg'lar flare-up at the Springs. Thar was a ball an' he got on a tear an' got away from 'em an' bust right into the ballroom an' played Hail Columby. He's a pop'lar man among the ladies, is the Colonel, but a mixtry of whiskey an' opium is apt to spile his manners. Nigger says he's the drunkest man when he is drunk that the Lord ever let live. Ye cayn't do nothin' with him. The boy was thar, an' they say 'twas a sight ter see him. He's his daddy's son, an' a bigger young devil never lived, they tell me. He's not got to the whiskey an' opium yet, an' he jes' takes his'n out in pride an' temper. Nigger said he jest raved an' tore that night—went into the Colonel's room an' cussed an' dashed round like he was gone mad. Kinder shamed, I reckin. But Lord, he'll be at it himself in ten years from now. It's in the blood."

"Who's that you're talking of?" asked Tom from his end of the table. He had not recovered his colour yet and looked pale as he put the question.

"Colonel De Willoughby of Delisleville," answered Mr. Sparkes. "Any kin o' your'n? Name's sorter like. He jest left here this evenin' with his boy an' nigger. They've ben to Whitebriar, an' they're on their way home."

"I saw them ride over the hill," said Tom. "I thought I wasn't mistaken in the man. I've seen him before."

But he made a very poor supper, and a shadow seemed to have fallen upon his cheery mood of the morning. Sheba recognised this and knew, too, that her new friend and his father were in some vague way responsible for it, and the knowledge oppressed her so that when they sat out upon the porch together after the meal was over, she in her accustomed place on his knee, she grew sad under it herself and, instead of talking as usual, leaned her small head against his coat and watched the few stars whose brightness the moon had not shut out.

She went to bed early, but did not sleep well, dreaming dreary dreams of watching the travellers riding away towards the sunset, and of hearing the woman talk again. One of the talkers seemed at last to waken her with her voice, and she sat up in bed suddenly and found that it was Tom, who had roused her by speaking to himself in a low tone as he stood in a flood of moonlight before the window.

"She died," he was saying; "she died."

Sheba burst into a little sob, stretching out her hands to him without comprehending her own emotion.

"And he went away," she cried, "nobody knows where—nobody knows where—" And even when he came to her hurriedly and sat down on the bedside, soothing her and taking her in his arms to sink back into slumber, she sobbed drearily two or three times, though, once in his clasp, she felt, as she had always done, the full sense of comfort, safety, and rest.



CHAPTER XII

The New England town of Willowfield was a place of great importance. Its importance—religious, intellectual, and social—was its strong point. It took the liberty of asserting this with unflinching dignity. Other towns might endeavour to struggle to the front, and, indeed, did so endeavour, but Willowfield calmly held its place and remained unmoved. Its place always had been at the front from the first, and there it took its stand. It had, perhaps, been hinted that its sole title to this position lay in its own stately assumption: but this, it may be argued, was sheer envy and entirely unworthy of notice.

"Willowfield is not very large or very rich," its leading old lady said, "but it is important and has always been considered so."

There was society in Willowfield, society which had taken up its abiding-place in three or four streets and confined itself to developing its importance in half a dozen families—old families. They were always spoken of as the "old families," and, to be a member of one of them, even a second or third cousin of weak mind and feeble understanding, was to be enclosed within the magic circle outside of which was darkness, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. There were the Stornaways, who had owned the button factory for nearly a generation and a half—which was a long time; the Downings, who had kept the feed-store for quite thirty years, and the Burtons, who had been doctors for almost as long, not to mention the Larkins, who had actually founded the Willowfield Times, and kept it going, which had scarcely been expected of them at the outset.

Their moral, mental, and social gifts notwithstanding, there was nothing connected with the Stornaways, the Downings, the Burtons, and the Larkins of such importance as their antiquity. The uninformed outsider, on hearing it descanted upon, might naturally have been betrayed into the momentary weakness of expecting to see Mr. Downing moulder away, and little old Doctor Burton crumble into dust.

"They belong," it was said, with the temperateness of true dignity, "to our old families, and that is something, you know, even in America."

"It has struck me," an observing male visitor once remarked, "that there are a good many women in Willowfield, and that altogether it has a feminine tone."

It was certainly true that among the Stornaways, the Downings, the Burtons, and the Larkins, the prevailing tone was feminine; and as the Stornaways, the Downings, the Burtons, and the Larkins comprised Willowfield society, and without its society Willowfield lost its significance, the observing male visitor may not have been far wrong. If mistakes were made in Willowfield society, they were always made by the masculine members of it. It was Mr. Stornaway who had at one time been betrayed into the blunder of inviting to a dinner-party at his house a rather clever young book-keeper in his employ, and it was Doctor Burton who had wandered still more glaringly from the path of rectitude by taking a weak, if amiable, interest in a little music teacher with a sweet, tender voice, even going so far as to request his family to call upon her and ask her to take tea with them. It was Mr. Downing, who, when this last incident occurred and created some sensation, had had the temerity to intimate that he thought the Doctor was entirely in the right; though, to be sure, he had afterwards been led to falter in this opinion and subside into craven silence, being a little gentleman of timorous and yielding nature, and rather overborne by a large and powerful feminine majority in his own household. Mr. Larkin was, it is to be regretted, the worst of the recreant party, being younger and more unmanageable, having not only introduced to public notice certain insignificant though somewhat talented persons in the shape of young men and women who talked well, or sang well, or wielded lively pens, but had gone to the length of standing by them unflinchingly, demanding civility for them at the hands of his own family of women in such a manner as struck a deadly blow at the very foundations of the social structure. But Mr. Larkin—he was known as Jack Larkin to an astonishing number of people—was a bold man by nature and given to deeds of daring, from the fatal consequences of which nothing but the fact that he was a member of one of the "old families" could have saved him. As he was a part—and quite a large part—of one of these venerable households, and, moreover, knew not the fear of man—or woman—his failings could be referred to as "eccentricities."

"Mr. Larkin," Mrs. Stornaway frequently observed, with long-suffering patience, "is talented but eccentric. You are never quite sure what he will do next."

Mrs. Stornaway was the head and front of all Willowfield's social efforts, and represented the button factory with a lofty grace and unbending dignity of demeanour which were the admiration and envy of all aspirants to social fame. It was said that Mrs. Stornaway had been a beauty in her youth, and there were those who placed confidence in the rumour. Mrs. Stornaway did so herself, and it had been intimated that it was this excellent lady who had vouched for the truth of the statement in the first instance; but this report having been traced to a pert young relative who detested and derided her, might have had its origin in youthful disrespect and malice.

At present Mrs. Stornaway was a large blonde woman whose blondness was not fairness, and whose size was not roundness. She was the leader of all religious and charitable movements, presiding with great vigour over church matters, fairs, concerts, and sewing societies. The minister of her church submitted himself to her advice and guidance. All the modest members of the choir quailed and quavered before her, while even the bold ones, meeting her eye when engaged in worldly conversation between their musical efforts, momentarily lost their interest and involuntarily straightened themselves.

Towards her family Mrs. Stornaway performed her duty with unflinching virtue. She had married her six daughters in a manner at once creditable to herself, themselves, and Willowfield. Five of them had been rather ordinary, depressed-looking girls, who, perhaps, were not sorry to obtain their freedom. The sixth had narrowly escaped being dowered with all the charms said to have adorned Mrs. Stornaway's own youth.

"Agnes is very like what I was at her age," said her mother, with dignity; and perhaps she was, though no one had been able to trace any resemblance which had defied the ravages of time.

Agnes had made a marriage which in some points was better than those of her sisters. She had married a brilliant man, while the other five had been obliged to make the best of things as far as brilliancy was concerned. People always said of John Baird that he was a brilliant man and that a great career lay before him. He was rather remarkable for a curious subtle distinction of physical good looks. He was not of the common, straight-featured, personable type. It had been said by the artistic analyst of form and line that his aspect did not belong to his period, that indeed his emotional, spirited face, with its look of sensitiveness and race, was of the type once connected with fine old steel engravings of young poets not quite beyond the days of powdered hair and frilled shirt-bosoms.

"It is absurd that he should have been born in America and in these days," a brilliant person had declared. "He always brings to my mind the portraits in delightful old annuals, 'So-and-so—at twenty-five.'"

His supple ease of movement and graceful length of limb gave him an air of youth. He was one of the creatures to whom the passage of years would mean but little, but added charm and adaptability. His eyes were singularly living things—the eyes that almost unconsciously entreat and whose entreaty touches one; the fine, irregular outline of his profile was the absolute expression of the emotional at war with itself, the passionate, the tender, the sensitive, and complex. The effect of these things was almost the effect of peculiar physical beauty, and with this he combined the allurements of a compelling voice and an enviable sense of the fitness of things. He never lost a thought through the inability to utter it. When he had left college, he had left burdened with honours and had borne with him the enthusiastic admiration of his fellow-students. He had earned and worn his laurels with an ease and grace which would be remembered through years to come.

"It's something," it was once said, "to have known a fellow to whom things came so easily."

When he had entered the ministry, there had been some wonder expressed among the men who had known him best, but when he preached his first sermon at Willowfield, where there was a very desirable church indeed, with whose minister Mrs. Stornaway had become dissatisfied, and who in consequence was to be civilly removed, the golden apple fell at once into his hand.

Before he had arrived he had been spoken of rather slightingly as "the young man," but when he rose in the pulpit on the eventful Sunday morning, such a thrill ran through the congregation as had not stirred it at its devotions for many a summer day. Mrs. Stornaway mentally decided for him upon the spot.

"He is of one of our oldest families," she said. "This is what Willowfield wants."

He dined with the Stornaways that day, and when he entered the parlour the first figure his eyes fell upon was that of Agnes Stornaway, dressed in white muslin, with white roses in her belt. She was a tall girl, with a willowy figure and a colourless fairness of skin, but when her mother called her to her side and Baird touched her hand, she blushed in such a manner that Mrs. Stornaway was a little astonished. Scarcely a year afterward she became Mrs. Baird, and people said she was a very fortunate girl, which was possibly true.

Her husband did not share the fate of most ministers who had presided over Mrs. Stornaway's church. His power over his congregation increased every year. His name began to be known in the world of literature; he was called upon to deliver in important places the lectures he had delivered to his Willowfield audiences, and the result was one startling triumph after another. There was every indication of the fact that a career was already marked out for him.

Willowfield looked forward with trepidation to the time when the great world which stood ready to give him fame would absorb him altogether, but in the meantime it exerted all its power of fascination, and was so far successful that the Reverend John Baird felt that his lines had indeed fallen in pleasant places.

But after the birth of her little daughter his wife was not strong, and was so long in regaining vitality that in the child's second year she was ordered abroad by the physician. At this time Baird's engagements were such that he could not accompany her, and accordingly he remained in America. The career was just opening up its charmed vistas to him; his literary efforts were winning laurels; he was called upon to lecture in Boston and New York, and he never rose before an audience without at once awakening an enthusiasm.

Mrs. Baird went to the south of France with her child and nurse and a party of friends, and remained there for a year. At the termination of that time, just as she thought of returning home, she was taken seriously ill. Her husband was sent for and went at once to join her. In a few months she had died of rapid decline. She had been a delicate girl, and a far-off taint of consumption in her family blood had reasserted itself. But though Mrs. Stornaway bewailed her with diffuse and loud pathos and for a year swathed her opulence of form in deepest folds and draperies of crape, the quiet fairness and slightness which for some five and twenty years had been known as Agnes Stornaway, had been a personality not likely to be a marked and long-lingering memory.

The child was placed with a motherly friend in Paris. For a month after his wife's death Baird had been feverishly, miserably eager to return to America. Those about him felt that the blow which had fallen upon him might affect his health seriously. He seemed possessed by a desperate, morbid desire to leave the scene of the calamity behind him. He was restless and feverish in his anxiety, and scarcely able to endure the delay which the arrangement of his affairs made necessary. He had not been well when he had left Willowfield, and during his watching by his wife's bedside he had grown thin and restless-eyed.

"I want to get home. I must get home," he would exclaim, as if involuntarily. His entire physical and mental condition were strained and unnatural. His wife's doctor, who had become his own doctor as his health deteriorated, was not surprised, on arriving one day, to find him prostrated with nervous fever. He was ill for months, and he rose from his sick-bed a depressed shadow of his former self and quite unable to think of returning to his charge, even if his old desire had not utterly left him with his fever. He was absent from Willowfield for two years, and when at length he turned his face homeward, it was with no eagerness. He had passed through one of those phases which change a man's life and being. If he had been a rich man he would have remained away and would have lived in London, seeing much of the chief continental cities. As it was, he must at least temporarily return to Willowfield and take with him his little girl.

On the day distinguished by his return to his people, much subdued excitement prevailed in Willowfield. During the whole of the previous week Mrs. Stornaway's carriage had paid daily visits to the down-town stores. There was a flourishing New England thrift among the Stornaways, the Larkins, the Downings, and the Burtons, which did not allow of their delegating the ordering of their households to assistants. Most of them were rigorous housewives, keen at a bargain and sharp of tongue when need be, and there was rarely any danger of their getting less than their money's worth.

To celebrate his arrival, Mrs. Stornaway was to give an evening party which was to combine congratulatory welcome with a touch of condolence for the past and assurance for the future.

"We must let him see," said Mrs. Stornaway, "that Willowfield has its attractions."

Its attractions did not present themselves as vividly to John Baird as might have been hoped, when he descended from the train at the depot. He had spent two or three days in Boston with a view to taking his change gradually, but he found himself not as fully prepared for Willowfield as he could have wished. He was not entirely prepared for Mrs. Stornaway, who hurried towards them with exultation on her large, stupid face, and, after effusive embraces, bustled with them towards an elderly woman who had evidently accompanied her.

"See, here's Miss Amory Starkweather!" she exclaimed. "She came with me to meet you. Just see how Annie's grown, Miss Amory."

Miss Amory was a thin woman with a strong-featured countenance and deep-set, observing eyes. They were eyes whose expression suggested that they had made many painful discoveries in the course of their owner's life.

John Baird rather lighted up for a moment when he caught sight of her.

"I am glad to see you, Miss Amory," he said.

"Thank you," she answered. "I hope you are as well as you look."

"We're so delighted," Mrs. Stornaway announced, as if to the bystanders. "Everybody in Willowfield is so delighted to have you back again. The church has not seemed the same place. The man who took your place—Mr. Jeramy, you know—you haven't any idea how unpopular——"

"Excuse me," said Baird, "I must speak to Latimer. Where is Latimer, Annie?"

"Who is Latimer?" asked Mrs. Stornaway.

"Excuse me," said Baird again, and turning back towards the platform, he disappeared among the crowd with Annie, who had clung to his hand.

"Why, he's gone!" proclaimed Mrs. Stornaway. "But where's he gone? Why didn't he stay? Who's Latimer?"

"Latimer!" Miss Amory echoed, "you ought to know him. His family lives in Willowfield. He is the man who was coming home to take charge of the little church at Janway's Mills. He has evidently crossed the Atlantic with them."

"Well, now, I declare," proclaimed Mrs. Stornaway. "It must be the man who took his sister to Europe. It was a kind of absurd thing. She died away—the girl did, and people wondered why he did not come back and how he lived. Why, yes, that must be the man." And she turned to look about for him.

Miss Amory Starkweather made a slight movement.

"Don't look," she said. "He might not like to be stared at."

"They're quite common people," commented Mrs. Stornaway, still staring. "They live in a little house in a side street. They had very silly ideas about the girl. They thought she was a genius and sent her to the School of Art in Boston, but it wasn't long before her health failed her. Ah! I guess that must be the man talking to Mr. Baird and Annie. He looks as if he would go off in a consumption."

He was a tall, hollow-chested man, with a dark, sallow face and an ungainly figure. There were suggestions of both ill-health and wretchedness in his appearance, and his manner was awkward and embarrassed. Two human beings more utterly unlike each other than himself and the man who held his hand could not possibly have been found. It was Baird who held his hand, not he Baird's, and it was Baird who seemed to speak while he listened, while with his free hand he touched the hair of the child Annie.

"Well," remarked Mrs. Stornaway, "Mr. Baird seems to have taken a fancy to him. I don't think he's attractive myself. Are they going to talk to him all day?"

"No," said Miss Amory, "he is going now."

He was going. Baird had released his hand and he was looking in a gloomy, awkward way at Annie, as if he did not know how to make his adieux. But Annie, who was a simple child creature, solved the difficulty for him with happy readiness. She flung both her small arms about his ungainly body and held up her face.

"Kiss me three times," she said; "three times."

Latimer started and flushed. He looked down at her and then glanced rather timidly at Baird.

"Kiss her," said Baird, "it will please her—and it will please me."

Latimer bent himself to the child's height and kissed her. The act was without grace, and when he stood upright he was more awkward and embarrassed than ever. But the caress was not a cold or rough one, and when he turned and strode away the flush was still on his sallow cheek.



CHAPTER XIII

The Stornaway parlours were very brilliant that evening in a Willowfield sense. Not a Burton, a Larkin, or a Downing was missing, even Miss Amory Starkweather being present. Miss Amory Starkweather was greatly respected by the Stornaways, the Downings, the Larkins, and the Burtons, the Starkweathers having landed upon Plymouth Rock so early and with such a distinguished sense of their own importance as to lead to the impression in weak minds that they had not only founded that monumental corner-stone of ancestry, but were personally responsible for the Mayflower. This gentlewoman represented to the humorous something more of the element of comedy than she represented to herself. She had been born into a world too narrow and provincial for the development of the powers born with her. She had been an ugly girl and an ugly woman, marked by the hopeless ugliness of a long, ill-proportioned face, small eyes, and a nose too large and high—that ugliness which even love's eyes can scarcely ameliorate into good drawing.

The temperament attached to these painful disabilities had been warm and strongly womanly. Born a century or so earlier, in a French Court, or any great world vivid with picturesque living, she would in all probability have been a remarkable personage, her ugliness a sort of distinction; but she had been born in Willowfield, and had lived its life and been bound by its limits. She had been comfortably well off—she had a large square house with a garden, an income sufficient to provide for extremely respectable existence in Willowfield, but not large enough to allow of experiments with the outside world. She had never met a man whom she could have loved, who would have loved her, and she was essentially—though Willowfield would never have dreamed it—a woman who should have loved and mated. A lifetime of narrow, unstimulating years and thwarted instincts had made age treat her ill. She was a thin woman with burning eyes, and a personality people were afraid of.

She had always found an interest in John Baird. When he had come to Willowfield she had seen in him that element which her whole long life had lacked. His emotional potentialities had wakened her imagination. If she had been a young woman she knew that she might have fallen tragically and hopelessly in love with him; as an old woman she found it well worth her while to watch him and speculate upon him. When he had become engaged to Agnes Stornaway, she had watched him and secretly wondered how the engagement would end; when it had ended in marriage she had not wondered, but she had seen many things other people did not see. "He is not in love with her," had been her mental decision, "but he is emotional, and he is in love with her being in love with him. There is no foretelling what will come of it."

Baird had found himself attracted by Miss Amory. He did not know that if she had been young she would, despite her ugliness, have had a powerful feminine effect on him. He used to go and talk to her, and he was not conscious that he went when he was made restless by a lack of something in the mental atmosphere about him. He could talk to her as he could not talk to the rest of Willowfield. She read and thought and argued with herself, and as a product of a provincial dogmatic New England town was a curious development.

"Were you once a brilliant, wicked, feminine mover of things in some old French court?" he said to her once.

They had been plunging deep into the solving of unsolvable problems, and she turned her burning old eyes on him as she answered.

"God knows what I was," she said, "but it was nothing like this—nothing like this—and I was not wicked."

"No," Baird replied, "you were not wicked; but you broke laws."

"Yes, I broke laws," she agreed; "but they were hideous laws—better broken than kept."

She had been puzzled by the fact that after his wife left him he had had a restless period and had seemed to pass through a miserable phase, such as a man suffering from love and longing might endure.

"Has he fallen in love with her because she has gone away?" she wondered; "men are capable of it at times."

But later she decided mentally that this was not his special case. She saw, however, that he was passing through some mental crisis which was a dangerous struggle. He was restless and often away from Willowfield for two or three days at a time.

"To provide the place with orthodox doctrine once a week is more than he can bear, and to be bored to extinction into the bargain makes him feel morbid," she said to herself. "I hope he won't begin to be lured by things which might produce catastrophe."

Once he came and spent a long, hot summer evening with her, and when he went away she had arrived at another decision, and it made her wretched.

"He is lured," she thought. "I cannot help him, and God knows Willowfield could not. After this—perhaps the Deluge."

She saw but little of him for two months, and then he was called across the Atlantic by his wife's illness and left the place.

"Write to me now and then," he said, when he came to bid her good-bye.

"What can I write about from Willowfield to a man in Paris?" she asked.

"About Willowfield," he answered, holding her hand and laughing a little gruesomely. "There will be a thrill in it when one is three thousand miles away. Tell me about the church—about the people—who comes, who goes—your own points of view will make it all worth while. Will you?" almost as if a shade anxiously.

She felt the implied flattery just enough to be vaguely pleased by it.

"Yes, I will," she answered.

She kept her word, and the letters were worth reading. It was, as he had said, her points of view which gave interest to the facts that unexciting people had died, married, or been born. Her sketch of the trying position of the unpopular man who filled his pulpit and was unfavourably compared with him every Sunday morning was full of astute analysis and wit; her little picture of the gloomy young theological student, Latimer, his efforts for his sister, and her innocent, pathetic death in a foreign land had a wonderful realism of touch. She had by pure accident made the child's acquaintance and had been strongly touched and moved. She did not write often, but he read her letters many times over.

Upon this evening of his home-coming she thought he had sometimes the look of a man who felt that he walked in a dream. More than once she saw him involuntarily pass his hand with a swift movement over his eyes as if his own touch might waken him. It was true he did not greatly enjoy the festivities. His occasional views of Mrs. Stornaway as she rambled among her guests, talking to them about him in audible tones, were trying. She dispensed him with her hospitalities, as it were, and was diffuse upon the extent of his travels and the attention paid him, to each member of the company in turn. He knew when she was speaking of himself and when of her daughter, and the alternate decorous sentiment and triumphant pleasure marked on her broad face rasped him to the extent of making him fear lest he might lose his temper.

"She is a stupid woman," he found himself saying half aloud once; "the most stupid woman I think I ever met."

Towards the end of the evening, as he entered the room, he found himself obliged to pass her. She stood near the door, engaged in animated conversation with Mrs. Downing. She had hit upon a new and absorbing topic, which had the additional charge of savouring of local gossip.

"Why," he heard her say, "I mean to ask him. He can tell us, I guess. I haven't a doubt but he heard the whole story. You know he has a way of drawing people out. He's so much tact and sympathy. I used to tell Agnes he was all tact and sympathy."

Feeling quite sure that it was himself who was "all tact and sympathy," Baird endeavoured to move by unobserved, but she caught sight of him and checked his progress.

"Mr. Baird," she said, "we're just talking about you."

"Don't talk about me," he said, lightly; "I am not half so culpable as I look."

He often found small change of this order could be made useful with Mrs. Stornaway, and he bestowed this upon her with an easy air which she felt to be very delightful.

"He's so ready," she observed, enraptured; "I often used to say to Agnes——"

But Mrs. Downing was not to be defrauded.

"We were talking about those people on Bank Street," she said, "the Latimers. Mrs. Stornaway says you crossed the Atlantic with the son, who has just come back. Do tell us something about him."

"I am afraid I cannot make him as interesting to you as he was to me," answered Baird, with his light air again.

"He does not look very interesting," said Mrs. Stornaway. "I never saw anyone so sallow; I can't understand Annie liking him."

"He is interesting," responded Baird. "Annie took one of her fancies to him, and I took something more than a fancy. We shall be good friends, I think."

"Well, I'm sure it's very kind of you to take such an interest," proclaimed Mrs. Stornaway. "You are always finding something good in people."

"I wish people were always finding something good in me," said John Baird. "It was not difficult to find good in this man. He is of the stuff they made saints and martyrs of in the olden times."

"What did the girl die of?" asked Mrs. Downing.

"What?" repeated Baird. "The girl? I don't know."

"And where did she die?" added Mrs. Downing.

"I was just saying," put in Mrs. Stornaway, "that you had such a sympathetic way of drawing people out that I was sure he had told you the whole story."

"There was not much story," Baird answered, "and it was too sad to talk over. The poor child went abroad and died in some little place in Italy—of consumption, I think."

"I suppose she was sick when they went," commented Mrs. Downing. "I heard so. It was a queer thing for them to go to Europe, as inexperienced as they were and everything. But the father and mother were more inexperienced still, I guess. They were perfectly foolish about the girl—and so was the brother. She went to some studio in Boston to study art, and they had an idea her bits of pictures were wonderful."

"I never saw her myself," said Mrs. Stornaway. "No one seems to have seen anything of her but Miss Amory Starkweather."

"Miss Starkweather!" exclaimed Baird. "Oh, yes—in her letters she mentioned having met her."

"Well, it was a queer thing," said Mrs. Downing, "but it was like Miss Amory. They say the girl fainted in the street as Miss Amory was driving by, and she stopped her carriage and took her in and carried her home. She took quite a fancy to her and saw her every day or so until she went away."

It was not unnatural that at this juncture John Baird's eyes should wander across the room to where Miss Amory Starkweather sat, but it was a coincidence that as his eye fell upon her she should meet it with a gesture which called him to her side.

"It seems that Miss Amory wishes to speak to me," he said to his companions.

"He'll make himself just as interesting to her as he has made himself to us," said Mrs. Stornaway, with heavy sprightliness, as he left them. "He never spares himself trouble."

He went across the room to Miss Amory.

"Can you sit down by me?" she said. "I want to talk to you about Lucien Latimer."

"What is there in the atmosphere which suggests Latimer?" he inquired. "We have been talking about him at the other side of the room. Do you know him?"

"I never saw him," she replied, "but I knew her."

"Her!" he repeated.

"The little sister." She leaned forward a little. "What were the details of her death?" she asked. "I want to know—I want to know."

Somehow the words sounded nervously eager.

"I did not ask him," he answered; "I thought he preferred to be silent. He is a silent man."

She sat upright again, and for a moment seemed to forget herself. She said something two or three times softly to herself. Baird thought it was "Poor child! Poor child!"

"She was young to die," he said, in a low voice. "Poor child, indeed."

Miss Amory came back to him, as it were.

"The younger, the better," she said. "Look at me!" Her burning eyes were troubling and suggestive. Baird found himself trying to gather himself together. He assumed the natural air of kindly remonstrance.

"Oh, come," he said. "Don't take that tone. It is unfair to all of us."

Her reply was certainly rather a startling one.

"Very well then," she responded. "Look at yourself. If you had died as young as she did——"

He looked at her, conscious of a little coldness creeping over his body. She was usually lighter when they were not entirely alone. Just now, in the midst of this commonplace, exceedingly middle-class evening party, with the Larkins, the Downings, and the Burtons chattering, warm, diffuse, and elate, about him, she stirred him with a little horror—not horror of herself, but of something in her mood.

"Do you think I am such a bad fellow?" he said.

"No," she answered. "Worse, poor thing. It is not the bad fellows who produce the crudest results. But I did not call you here to tell you that you were bad or good. I called you to speak about Lucien Latimer. When you go to him—you are going to him?"

"To-morrow."

"Then tell him to come and see me."

"I will tell him anything you wish," said Baird. "Is there anything else?"

"Tell him I knew her," she answered, "Margery—Margery!"

"Margery," Baird said slowly, as if the sound touched him. "What a pretty, simple name!"

"She was a pretty, simple creature," said Miss Amory.

"Tell me—" he said, "tell me something more about her."

"There is nothing more to tell," she replied. "She was dying when I met her. I saw it—in her eyes. She could not have lived. She went away and died. She—I——"

John Baird heard a slight sharp choking sound in her throat.

"There!" she said presently, "I don't like to talk about it. I am too emotional for my years. Go to Mrs. Stornaway. She is looking for you."

He got up and turned and left her without speaking, and a few minutes later, when Mrs. Stornaway wanted him to give an account of his interview with the Pope, she was surprised to see him approaching her from the door as if he had been out of the room.

His story of the interview with the Pope was very interesting, and he was more "brilliant" than ever during the remainder of the evening, but when the last guest had departed, followed by Mrs. Stornaway to the threshold, that lady, on her return to the parlour, found him standing by the mantel looking at the fire with so profoundly wearied an air, that she uttered an exclamation.

"Why," she said, "you look tired, I must say. But everything went off splendidly and I never saw you so brilliant."

"Thank you," he answered.

"I've just been saying," with renewed spirit of admiration, "that your crossing with that Latimer has quite brought him into notice. It will be a good thing for him. I heard several people speak of him to-night and say how kind it was of you to take him up."

Baird stirred uneasily.

"I should not like to have that tone taken," he said. "Why should I patronise him? We shall be friends—if he will allow it." He spoke with so much heat and impatience that Mrs. Stornaway listened with a discomfited stare.

"But nobody knows anything about them," she said. "They're quite ordinary people. They live in Bank Street."

"That may settle the matter for Willowfield," said Baird, "but it does not settle it for me. We are to be friends, and Willowfield must understand that."

And such was the decision of his tone that Mrs. Stornaway did not recover herself and was still staring after him in a bewildered fashion when he went upstairs.

"But it's just like him," she remarked, rather weakly to the room's emptiness. "That's always the way with people of genius and—and—mind. They're always humble."



CHAPTER XIV

She had renewed opportunity for remarking upon the generous humility the next morning when he left the house with the intention of paying his visit to Bank Street.

"He's actually going," she said. "Well, I must say again it's just like him. There are very few men in his position who would think it worth while, but he treats everybody with just as much consideration as if—as if he was nobody."

The house on Bank Street was just what he had expected to find it—small, unornamental, painted white, and modestly putting forth a few vines as if with a desire to clothe itself, which had not been encouraged by Nature. The vines had not flourished and they, as well as the few flowers in the yard, were dropping their scant foliage, which turned brown and rustled in the autumn wind.

Before ringing the bell, Baird stood for a few moments upon the threshold. As he looked up and down the street, he was pale and felt chilly, so chilly that he buttoned his light overcoat over his breast and his hands even shook slightly as he did it. Then he turned and rang the bell.

It was answered by a little woman with a girlish figure and gray hair. For a moment John Baird paused before speaking to her, as he had paused before ringing the bell, and in the pause, during which he found himself looking into her soft, childishly blue eyes, he felt even chillier than at first.

"Mrs. Latimer. I think," he said, baring his head.

"Yes," she answered, "and you are Mr. Baird and have come to see Lucien, I'm sure."

She gave him her small hand with a smile.

"I am very glad to see you," she said, "and Lucien will be glad, too. Come in, please."

She led the way into the little parlour, talking in a voice as soft and kindly as her eyes. Lucien had been out, but had just come in, she fancied, and was probably upstairs. She would go and tell him.

So, having taken him into the room, she went, leaving him alone. When she was gone, Baird stood for a moment listening to her footsteps upon the stairs. Then he crossed the room and stood before the hearth looking up at a picture which hung over the mantel.

* * * * *

He was still standing before it when she returned with her son. He turned slowly to confront them, holding out his hand to Latimer with something less of alert and sympathetic readiness than was usual with him. There was in his manner an element which corresponded with the lack of colour and warmth in his face.

"I've been looking at this portrait of your—of——" he began.

"Of Margery," put in the little mother. "Everyone looks at Margery when they come in. It seems as if the child somehow filled the room." And though her soft voice had a sigh in it, she did not speak in entire sadness.

John Baird looked at the picture again. It was the portrait of a slight small girl with wistful eyes and an innocent face.

"I felt sure that it was she," he said in a lowered voice, "and you are quite right in saying that she seems to fill the room."

The mother put her hand upon her son's arm. He had turned his face towards the window. It seemed to Baird that her light touch was at once an appeal and a consolation.

"She filled the whole house when she was here," she said; "and yet she was only a quiet little thing. She had a bright way with her quietness and was so happy and busy. It is my comfort now to remember that she was always happy—happy to the last, Lucien tells me."

She looked up at her son's averted face as if expecting him to speak, and he responded at once, though in his usual mechanical way.

"To the last," he said; "she had no fear and suffered no pain."

The little woman watched him with tender, wistful eyes; two large tears welled up and slipped down her cheeks, but she smiled softly as they fell.

"She had so wanted to go to Italy," she said; "and was so happy to be there. And at the last it was such a lovely day, and she enjoyed it so and was propped up on a sofa near the window, and looked out at the blue sky and the mountains, and made a little sketch. Tell him, Lucien," and she touched his arm again.

"I shall be glad to hear," said Baird, "but you must not tire yourself by standing," and he took her hand gently and led her to a chair and sat down beside her, still holding her hand.

But Latimer remained standing, resting his elbow upon the mantel and looking down at the floor as he spoke.

"She was not well in England," the little mother put in, "but in Italy he thought she was better even to the very last."

"She was weak," Latimer went on, without raising his eyes, "but she was always bright and—and happy. She used to lie on the sofa by the window and look out and try to make sketches. She could see the Apennines, and it was the chestnut harvest and the peasants used to pass along the road on their way to the forests, and she liked to watch them. She used to try to sketch them too, but she was too weak; and when I wrote home for her, she made me describe them——"

"In her bright way!" said his mother. "I read the letters over and over again and they seemed like pictures—like her little pictures. It scarcely seems as if Lucien could have written them at all."

"The last day," said Latimer, "I had written home to say that she was better. She was so well in the morning that she talked of trying to take a drive, but in the afternoon she was a little tired——"

"But only a little," interrupted the mother eagerly, "and quite happy."

"Only a little—and quite happy," said Latimer. "There was a beautiful sunset and I drew her sofa to the windows and she lay and looked at it—and talked; and just as the sun went down——"

"All in a lovely golden glory, as if the gates of heaven were open," the gentle voice added.

Latimer paused for an instant. His sallow face had become paler. He drew out his handkerchief and touched his forehead with it and his lips.

"All in a glow of gold," he went on a little more hoarsely, "just as it went down, she turned on her pillow and began to speak to me. She said 'How beautiful it all is, and how glad—,' and her voice died away. I thought she was looking at the sky again. She had lifted her eyes to it and was smiling: the smile was on her face when I—bent over her—a few moments after—and found that all was over."

"It was not like death at all," said his mother with a soft breathlessness. "She never even knew." And though tears streamed down her cheeks, she smiled.

Baird rose suddenly and went to Latimer's side. He wore the pale and bewildered face of a man walking in a dream. He laid his hand on his shoulder.

"No, it was not like death," he said; "try and remember that."

"I do remember it," was the answer.

"She escaped both death and life," said John Baird, "both death and life."

The little mother sat wiping her eyes gently.

"It was all so bright to her," she said. "I can scarcely think of it as a grief that we have lost her—for a little while. Her little room upstairs never seems empty. I could fancy that she might come in at any moment smiling as she used to. If she had ever suffered or been sad in it, I might feel as if the pain and sadness were left there; but when I open the door it seems as if her pretty smile met me, or the sound of her voice singing as she used to when she painted."

She rose and went to her son's side again, laying her hand on his arm with a world of tenderness in her touch.

"Try to think of that, Lucien, dear," she said; "try to think that her face was never any sadder or older than we see it in her pretty picture there. She might have lived to be tired of living, and she was saved from it."

"Try to help him," she said, turning to Baird, "perhaps you can. He has not learned to bear it yet. They were very near to each other, and perhaps he is too young to think of it as we do. Grief is always heavier to young people, I think. Try to help him."

She went out of the room quietly, leaving them together.

When she was gone, John Baird found himself trying, with a helpless feeling of desperation, to spur himself up to saying something; but neither words nor thoughts would come. For the moment his mind seemed a perfect blank, and the silence of the room was terrible.

It was Latimer who spoke first, stiffly, and as if with difficulty.

"I should be more resigned," he said, "I should be resigned. But it has been a heavy blow."

Baird moistened his dry lips but found no words.

"She had a bright nature," the lagging voice went on, "a bright nature—and gifts—which I had not. God gave me no gifts, and it is natural to me to see that life is dark and that I can only do poorly the work which falls to me. I was a gloomy, unhappy boy when she was born. I had learned to know the lack in myself early, and I saw in her what I longed for. I know the feeling is a sin against God and that His judgment will fall upon me—but I have no power against it."

"It is a very natural feeling," said Baird, hoarsely. "We cannot resign ourselves at once under a great sorrow."

"A just God who punishes rebellion demands it of His servants."

"Don't say that!" Baird interrupted, with a shudder; "we need a God of Mercy, not a God who condemns."

"Need!" the dark face almost livid in its pallor, "We need! It is not He who was made for our needs, but we for His. For His servants there is only submission to the anguish chosen for us."

"That is a harsh creed," said Baird, "and a dark one. Try a brighter one, man!"

"There is no brighter one for me," was the answer. "She had a brighter one, poor child—and mine was a heavy trouble to her. Why should we deceive ourselves? What are we in His sight—in the sight of Immutable, Eternal God? We can only do His will and await the end. We have reason which we may not use; we can only believe and suffer. There is agony on every side of us which, if it were His will, He might relieve, but does not. It is His will, and what is the impotent rebellion of Nature against that? What help have we against Him?"

His harsh voice had risen until it was almost a cry, the lank locks which fell over his sallow forehead were damp with sweat. He put them back with a desperate gesture.

"Such words of themselves are sin," he said, "and it is my curse and punishment that I should bear in my breast every hour the crime of such rebellion. What is there left for me? Is there any labour or any pang borne for others that will wipe out the stain from my soul?"

John Baird looked at him as he had looked before. His usual ready flow of speech, his rapidity of thought, his knowledge of men and their necessities seemed all to have deserted him.

"I—" he stammered, "I am not—fit—not fit——"

He had not known what he was going to say when he began, and he did not know how he intended to end. He heard with a passionate sense of relief that the door behind them opened, and turned to find that Mrs. Latimer stood upon the threshold as if in hesitancy.

"Lucien," she said, "it is that poor girl from Janway's Mills. The one Margery was so sorry for—Susan Chapman. She wants to see you. I think the poor child wants to ask about Margery."

Latimer made a movement forward, but checked himself.

"Tell her to come in," he said.

Mrs. Latimer went to the front door, and in a few seconds returned. The girl was with her and entered the room slowly. She was very pale and her eyes were dilated and she breathed fast as if frightened. She glanced at John Baird and stopped.

"I didn't know anyone else was here," she said.

"I will go away, if you wish it," said Baird, the sympathetic tone returning to his voice.

"No," said Latimer, "you can do her more good than I can. This gentleman," he added to the girl, "is my friend, and a Minister of God as well as myself. He is the Rev. John Baird."

There was in his eyes, as he addressed her, a look which was like an expression of dread—as if he saw in her young yet faded face and figure something which repelled him almost beyond self-control.

Perhaps the girl saw, while she did not comprehend it. She regarded him helplessly.

"I—I don't know—hardly—why I came," she faltered, twisting the corner of her shawl.

She had been rather pretty, but the colour and freshness were gone from her face and there were premature lines of pain and misery marking it here and there.

Baird moved a chair near her.

"Sit down," he said. "Have you walked all the way from Janway's Mills?"

She started a little and gave him a look, half wonder, half relief, and then fell to twisting the fringe of her poor shawl again.

"Yes, I walked," she answered; "but I can't set down. I h'ain't but a minute to stay."

Her clothes, which had been shabby at their best, were at their worst now, and, altogether, she was a figure neither attractive nor picturesque.

But Baird saw pathos in her. It was said that one of his most charming qualities was his readiness to discover the pathetic under any guise.

"You came to ask Mr. Latimer some questions, perhaps?" he said.

She suddenly burst into tears.

"Yes," she answered, "I—I couldn't help it."

She checked herself and wiped her tears away with the shawl corner almost immediately.

"I wanted to know something about her," she said. "Nobody seemed to know nothin', only that she was dead. When they said you'd come home, it seemed like I couldn't rest until I'd heard something."

"What do you want to hear?" said Latimer.

It struck Baird that the girl's manner was a curious one. It was a manner which seemed to conceal beneath its shamefaced awkwardness some secret fear or anxiety. She gave Latimer a hurried, stealthy look, and then her eyes fell. It was as if she would have read in his gloomy face what she did not dare to ask.

"I'd be afraid to die myself," she stammered. "I can't bear to think of it. I'm afraid. Was she?"

"No," Latimer answered.

The girl gave him another dull, stealthy look.

"I'm glad of that," she said; "she can't have minded so much if she wasn't afraid. I'd like to think she didn't mind it so much—or suffer."

"She did not suffer," said Latimer.

"I never saw nothin' of her after the last day she came to Janway's Mills," the girl began.

Latimer lifted his eyes suddenly.

"She went to the Mills?" he exclaimed.

"Yes," she answered, her voice shaking. "I guess she never told. After that first night she stood by me. No one else did. Seemed like other folks thought I'd poison 'em. She'd come an' see me an'—help me. She was sick the last day she came, and when she was going home she fainted in the street, I heard folks say, I never saw her after that."

She brushed a tear from her face with the shawl again.

"So as she didn't mind much, or suffer," she said, "t'ain't so bad to think of. She wasn't one to be able to stand up against things. She'd have died if she'd been me. I'd be glad enough to die myself, if I wasn't afraid. She'd cry over me when I wasn't crying over myself. I've been beat about till I don't mind, like I used. They're a hard lot down at the Mills."

"And you," said Latimer, "what sort of a life have you been leading?"

His voice was harsh and his manner repellant only because Nature had served him the cruel turn of making them so. He was bitterly conscious as he spoke of having chosen the wrong words and uttered them with an appearance of relentless rigour which he would have made any effort to soften.

Baird made a quick movement towards the girl.

"Have you any work?" he asked. "Do you need help? Don't mind telling us. My friend is to take charge of your church at the Mills."

The girl interrupted him. She had turned miserably pale under Latimer's question.

"'Tain't no church of mine!" she said, passionately; "I h'ain't nothin' to do with it. I never belonged to no church anyhow, an' I'm leadin' the kind o' life any girl'd lead that hadn't nothin' nor nobody. I don't mean," with a strangled sob, "to even myself with her; but what'ud she ha' done if she'd ha' slipped like I did—an' then had nothin' nor—nor nobody?"

"Don't speak of her!" cried Latimer, almost fiercely.

"'Twon't hurt her," said the girl, struggling with a sob again; "she's past bein' hurt even by such as me—an' I'm glad of it. She's well out of it all!"

She turned as if she would have gone away, but Baird checked her.

"Wait a moment," he said; "perhaps I can be of some service to you."

"You can't do nothin'," she interrupted. "Nobody can't!"

"Let me try," he said; "take a note to Miss Starkweather from me and wait at the house for a few minutes. Come, that isn't much, is it? You'll do that much, I'm sure."

She looked down at the floor a few seconds and then up at him. It had always been considered one of his recommendations that he was so unprofessional in his appearance.

"Yes," she said, slowly, "I can do that, I suppose."

He drew a note-book from his breast-pocket and, having written a few words on a leaf of it, tore it out and handed it to her.

"Take that to Miss Starkweather's house and say I sent you with it."

When she was gone, he turned to Latimer again.

"Before I go," he said, "I want to say a few words to you—to ask you to make me a promise."

"What is the promise?" said Latimer.

"It is that we shall be friends—friends."

Baird laid his hand on the man's gaunt shoulder with a nervous grasp as he spoke, and his voice was unsteady.

"I have never had a friend," answered Latimer, monotonously; "I should scarcely know what to do with one."

"Then it is time you had one," Baird replied. "And I may have something to offer you. There may be something in—in my feeling which may be worth your having."

He held out his hand.

Latimer looked at it for a second, then at him, his sallow face flushing darkly.

"You are offering me a good deal," he said, "I scarcely know why—myself."

"But you don't take my hand, Latimer," Baird said; and the words were spoken with a faint loss of colour.

Latimer took it, flushing more darkly still.

"What have I to offer in return?" he said. "I have nothing. You had better think again. I should only be a kind of shadow on your life."

"I want nothing in return—nothing," Baird said. "I don't even ask feeling from you. Be a shadow on my life, if you will. Why should I have no shadows? Why should all go smoothly with me, while others——" He paused, checking his vehemence as if he had suddenly recognised it. "Let us be friends," he said.



CHAPTER XV

The respectable portion of the population of Janway's Mills believed in church-going and on Sunday-school attendance—in fact, the most entirely respectable believed that such persons as neglected these duties were preparing themselves for damnation. They were a quiet, simple, and unintellectual people. Such of them as occasionally read books knew nothing of any literature which was not religious. The stories they had followed through certain inexpensive periodicals were of the order which describes the gradual elevation of the worldly-minded or depraved to the plane of church-going and Sunday-school. Their few novels made it their motif to prove that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Any hero or heroine of wealth who found peace of mind and married happily, only attained these objects through the assistance of some noble though humble unsecular person whose example and instruction led them to adopt unsecular views. The point of view of Janway's Mills was narrow and far from charitable when it was respectable; its point of view, when it was not respectable, was desperate. Even sinners, at Janway's Mills, were primitive and limited in outlook. They did not excuse themselves with specious argument for their crimes of neglecting church-going, using bad language, hanging about bar-rooms, and loose living. They were not brilliant wrongdoers and made no attempt at defending themselves or pretending that they did not know they were going to perdition. The New England mind is not broad or versatile, and, having begun life in a Puritan atmosphere, it is not quick to escape its influence. Society at the Mills recognised no social distinction which was not founded upon the respectability of church-going and the observance of social laws made by church-goers; it recognised none because it absolutely knew of none. The great world was not far from Janway's Mills, but they did not touch each other. Willowfield was near, Boston and New York themselves were not far distant, but the curious fact being that millions of human minds may work and grow and struggle as if they were the minds of dwellers upon another planet, though less than a hundred miles may separate them, the actual lives, principles, and significances of the larger places did not seem to touch the smaller one. The smaller one was a village of a few streets of small houses which had grown up about the Mills themselves. The Mills gave employment to a village full of hands, so the village gradually evolved itself. It was populated by the uneducated labouring class; some were respectable, some were dissolute and lived low and gross lives, but all were uneducated in any sense which implies more than the power to read, write, and make a few necessary calculations. Most of them took some newspaper. They read of the multi-millionaires who lived in New York and Chicago and California, they read of the politicians in Washington, they found described to them the great entertainments given by millionaires' wives and daughters, the marvellous dresses they wore, the multifarious ways in which they amused themselves, but what they read seemed so totally unlike anything they had ever seen, so far apart from their own lives, that though they were not aware of the fact, the truth was that they believed in them with about the same degree of realisation with which they believed in what they heard in the pulpit of the glories of the New Jerusalem. No human being exists without an ambition, and the ambition of Janway's Millers of the high-class was to possess a neat frame-house with clean Nottingham lace curtains at the windows, fresh oilcloth on the floor of the front hall, furniture covered with green or red reps in the parlour, a tapestry Brussels carpet, and a few lithographs upon the walls. It was also the desire of the owners of such possessions that everyone should know that they attended one of the churches, that their house-cleaning was done regularly, that no member of the family frequented bar-rooms, and that they were respectable people. It was an ambition which was according to their lights, and could be despised by no honest human being, however dull it might appear to him. It resulted oftener than not in the making of excellent narrow lives which brought harm to no one. The lives which went wrong on the street-corners and in the bar-rooms often did harm. They produced discomfort, unhappiness, and disorder; but as it is also quite certain that no human being produces these things without working out his own punishment for himself while he lives on earth, the ends of justice were doubtless attained.