She propped her chin upon her little fist, and began to think of what had been said of Ashurst's visitors. With a thrill of subtile satisfaction, she remembered how pleased Mrs. Forsythe always was to see her. "She won't have any anxiety this summer which will injure her health!" And then she tried to disguise her thought by saying to herself that there were no girls in Ashurst who were not "suitable."

"Good-evening," some one said gayly. It was Mr. Forsythe, who had come so quietly along the path, dark with its arching laburnums and syringas, she had not heard him.

"Oh," she said, with a little start of surprise, "I did not know we were to see you to-night. Is your mother"—

"I'm like the man in the Bible," he interrupted, laughing. "He said he wouldn't, then he did!" He had followed her to the library, and stood, smiling, with a hand on each side of the doorway. "I started for a walk, doctor, and somehow I found myself here. No cake, thank you,—yes, I guess I'll have some sherry. Oh, the whist is over. Who is to be congratulated, Mrs. Dale? For my part, I never could understand the fascination of the game. Euchre is heavy enough for me. May I have some of Mr. Dale's candy, Miss Lois?"

Except Mrs. Dale, the little party of older people seemed stunned by the quick way in which he talked. His airy manner and flimsy wit impressed them with a sense of his knowledge of life. He represented the world to them, the World with a capital W, and they were all more or less conscious of a certain awe in his presence. His utter disregard of the little observances and forms which were expected from Ashurst young people gave them a series of shocks, that were rather pleasant than otherwise.

Mr. Dale looked confused, and handed him the candy with such nervous haste, some of it fell to the floor, which gave the young man a chance for his frequent light laugh. Miss Deborah began in an agitated way to pick up the crumbs of cake from her lap, and ask her sister if she did not think Sarah had come for them. Mr. Denner stopped talking about a new sort of fly for trout, and said he thought—yes, he really thought, he had better be going, but he waited to listen with open-mouthed admiration to the ease with which the young fellow talked.

Mr. Forsythe's conversation was directed to Mrs. Dale, but it was for Lois; nor did he seem aware of the silence which fell on the rest of the company. Mrs. Dale enjoyed it. She answered by nods, and small chuckles of approval, and frequent glances about at the others, as much as to say, "Do you hear that? Isn't that bright?" and a certain air of proprietorship, which meant that she thoroughly approved of Mr. Forsythe, and regarded him as her own discovery.

"This is the time we miss Gifford," said Miss Deborah, who had gone out into the hall to put on her overshoes. "He was such a useful child." Lois came to help her, for Mr. Denner was far too timid to offer assistance, and the rector too stout, and Mr. Dale too absent-minded. As for Mr. Forsythe, he did not notice how Miss Deborah was occupied, until Lois had joined her; and then his offer was not accepted, for Miss Deborah felt shy about putting out her foot in its black kid slipper, tied about the ankle with a black ribbon, in the presence of this young man, who was, she was sure, very genteel.

Mr. Forsythe's call was necessarily a short one, for, charming as he was, Ashurst custom would not have permitted him to stay when the party had broken up. However, he meant to walk along with the Dales, and hear her aunt talk about Lois.

The Misses Woodhouse's maid was waiting for them, her lantern swinging in her hand. Mr. Denner had secretly hoped for a chance of "seeing them home," but dared not offer his unnecessary services in Sarah's presence.

Dr. Howe and his daughter went as far as the gate with their guests, and then stood watching them down the lane, until a turn in the road hid the glimmer of the lantern and the dark figures beside it.

"Bless my soul!" said the rector, as they turned to go back to the house. "This gayety has made me almost forget my sermon. I must not put it off so, next week."

This remark of Dr. Howe's was almost as regular as the whist party itself.

Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth trotted behind Sarah, whose determined stride kept them a little ahead of the others; Dick Forsythe had joined Mrs. Dale at once, so Mr. Dale and Mr. Denner walked together. They were only far enough behind to have the zest one feels in talking about his neighbors when there is danger of being overheard.

"He is a very fine conversationalist," said Mr. Denner, nodding his head in Dick's direction; "he talks very well."

"He talks a great deal," observed Mr. Dale.

"He seems to feel," Mr. Denner continued, "no—ah, if I can so express it—timidity."

"None," responded Mr. Dale.

"And I judge he has seen a great deal of the world," said Mr. Denner; "yet he appears to be satisfied with Ashurst, and I have sometimes thought, Henry, that Ashurst is not, as it were, gay." As he said this, a certain jauntiness came into his step, as though he did not include himself among those who were not "gay." "Yet he seems to be content. I've known him come down to the church when Lois was singing, and sit a whole hour, apparently meditating. He is no doubt a very thoughtful young man."

"Bah!" answered Mr. Dale, "he comes to hear Lois sing."

Mr. Denner gave a little start. "Oh," he said—"ah—I had not thought of that." But when he left Mr. Dale, and slipped into the shadows of the Lombardy poplars on either side of his white gate-posts, Mr. Denner thought much of it,—more with a sort of envy of Mr. Forsythe's future than of Lois. "He will marry, some time (perhaps little Lois), and then he will have a comfortable home."

Mr. Denner sat down on the steps outside of his big white front door, which had a brass knocker and knob that Mary had polished until the paint had worn away around them. Mr. Denner's house was of rough brick, laid with great waste of mortar, so that it looked as though covered with many small white seams. Some ivy grew about the western windows of the library, but on the north and east sides it had stretched across the closed white shutters, for these rooms had scarcely been entered since little Willie Denner's mother died, five years ago. She had kept house for her brother-in-law, and had brought some brightness into his life; but since her death, his one servant had had matters in her own hands, and the house grew more lonely and cheerless each year. Mr. Denner's office was in his garden, and was of brick, like his house, but nearer the road, and without the softening touch of ivy; it was damp and mildewed, and one felt instinctively that the ancient law books must have a film of mould on their battered covers.

The lawyer's little face had a pinched, wistful look; the curls of his brown wig were hidden by a tall beaver hat, with the old bell crown and straight brim; it was rarely smooth, except on Sundays, when Mary brushed it before he went to church. He took it off now, and passed his hand thoughtfully over his high, mild forehead, and sighed; then he looked through one of the narrow windows on either side of the front door, where the leaded glass was cut into crescents and circles, and fastened with small brass rosettes; he could see the lamp Mary had left for him, burning dimly on the hall table, under a dark portrait of some Denner, long since dead. But he still sat upon what he called his "doorstones;" the August starlight, and the Lombardy poplars stirring in the soft wind, and the cricket chirping in the grass, offered more companionship, he thought, than he would find in his dark, silent library.

The little gentleman's mind wandered off to the different homes he knew; they were so pleasant and cheerful. There was always something bright about the rectory, and how small and cosy Henry Dale's study was. And how pretty the Woodhouse girls' parlor looked! Mr. Denner was as slow to recognize the fact that Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth were no longer young as they were themselves. Just now he thought only of the home-life in their old house, and the comfort, and the peace. What quiet, pleasant voices the sisters had, and how well Miss Deborah managed, and how delightfully Miss Ruth painted! How different his own life would have been if Gertrude Drayton—Ah, well! The little gentleman sighed again, and then, drawing his big key from his pocket, let himself into the silent hall, and crept quietly up-stairs.



CHAPTER VI.

It did not take Gifford Woodhouse very long to get settled in Lockhaven. His office and bedroom constituted his household, and Miss Deborah never knew that her bags of lavender were not even taken out of the trunk, and that the hard-featured Irishwoman who "came in by the day" never saw the paper of directions, written, that she might be able to read it easily, in Miss Deborah's small, neat hand.

But Miss Deborah was right in thinking Helen would look after his comfort, and Gifford soon felt that his real "home" in Lockhaven was at the parsonage, though he had not time to drop in half as often as the master and mistress urged him to do.

He did not tell Helen of that talk with Lois, which had brought a soberer look to his face than she had ever seen there. But she had noticed it, and wondered at it, and she felt his reserve, too, in speaking of her cousin; she even asked herself if he could have cared for Lois? But the thought was too absurd. "Probably they've quarreled again," she said regretfully, she never had been able to understand her cousin's impatience with him.

Perhaps Gifford thought that she had an intuitive knowledge of the ache there was in his heart when she talked of Lois, for he was comforted in a vague way by the sympathetic look which was always on Helen's face when she spoke to any one who seemed troubled. So he was glad to come to the parsonage as often as he could, and hear the Ashurst news, and have a cup of tea with the preacher and his wife.

John and Helen often walked home with him, though his rooms were quite at the other end of the town, near the river and the mills; and one night, as they stood on the shaking bridge, and looked down at the brown water rushing and plunging against the rotten wooden piers, Helen began to ask him about Mr. Forsythe.

"Tell me about him," she said. "You have seen him since he left college. I only just remember him in Ashurst, though I recall Mrs. Forsythe perfectly: a tall, sick-looking lady, with an amiably melancholy face, and three puffs of hair on each side of it."

"Except that the puffs are white now, she is just the same," Gifford answered. "As for her son, I don't know anything about him. I believe we were not very good friends when we were boys, but now—well, he has the manners of a gentleman."

"Doesn't that go without saying?" said Helen, laughing. "From the letters I've had, I fancy he is a good deal at the rectory."

"Yes," Gifford admitted. "But he is one of those people who make you feel that though they may have good manners, their grandfathers did not, don't you know?"

"But what difference does that make," John asked, "if he is a good man?"

"Oh, of course, no difference," Gifford replied with an impatient laugh.

"But what is the attraction in Ashurst, Giff?" Helen said. "How can he stay there all summer? I should not think he could leave his business."

"Oh, he is rich."

"Why, you don't like him!" said Helen, surprised at his tone.

"I don't know anything about the fellow," the young man answered. "I haven't seen enough of him to have an opinion one way or the other. Judging from aunt Ruth's letters, though, I should say Lois liked him, so I don't think he will be anxious for my approval, or anybody else's."

Helen looked at him with sudden questioning in her eyes, but they had reached his house, and John began to speak to him of his plans and of Lockhaven.

"I'm afraid you will have only too much to do," he said. "There is a great deal of quarreling among the mill-owners, and constant disagreements between the hands."

"Well," Gifford answered, smiling, and straightening his broad shoulders, "if there is work to do, I am glad I am here to do it. But I'm not hopeless for the life it indicates, when you say there's much to be done. The struggle for personal rights and advantages is really, you know, the desire for the best, and a factor in civilization. A generation or two hence, the children of these pushing, aggressive fathers will be fine men."

John shook his head sadly. "Ah, but the present evil?"

But Gifford answered cheerfully, "Oh, well, the present evil is one stage of development; to live up to the best one knows is morality, and the preservation of self is the best some of these people know; we can only wait hopefully for the future."

"Morality is not enough," John said gently. "Morality never saved a soul, Mr. Woodhouse."

But Helen laughed gayly: "John, dear, Gifford doesn't understand your awful Presbyterian doctrines, and there is no use trying to convert him."

Gifford smiled, and owned good-naturedly that he was a heathen. "But I think," he said, "the thing which keeps the town back most is liquor."

"It is, indeed," John answered, eagerly. "If it could be banished!"

"High license is the only practical remedy," said Gifford, his face full of interest; but John's fell.

"No, no, not that; no compromise with sin will help us. I would have it impossible to find a drop of liquor in Lockhaven."

"What would you do in case of sickness?" Gifford asked curiously.

"I wouldn't have it used."

"Oh, John, dear," Helen protested, "don't you think that's rather extreme? You know it's life or death sometimes: a stimulant has to be used, or a person would die. Suppose I had to have it?"

His face flushed painfully. "Death is better than sin," he said slowly and gently; "and you, if you——I don't know, Helen; no one knows his weakness until temptation comes." His tone was so full of trouble, Gifford, feeling the sudden tenderness of his own strength, said good-naturedly, "What do you think of us poor fellows who confess to a glass of claret at dinner?"

"And what must he have thought of the dinner-table at the rectory?" Helen added.

"I don't think I noticed it," John said simply. "You were there."

"There, Helen, that's enough to make you sign the pledge!" said Gifford.

He watched them walking down the street, under the arching ailantus, their footsteps muffled by the carpet of the fallen blossoms; and there was a thoughtful look on his face when he went into his office, and, lighting his lamp, sat down to look over some papers. "How is that going to come out?" he said to himself. "Neither of those people will amend an opinion, and Ward is not the man to be satisfied if his wife holds a belief he thinks wrong." But researches into the case of McHenry v. Coggswell put things so impractical as religious beliefs out of his mind.

As for John and Helen, they walked toward the parsonage, and Gifford, and his future, and his views of high license were forgotten, as well as the sudden pain with which John had heard his wife's careless words about his "awful doctrines."

"It is very pleasant to see him so often," John said, "but how good it is to have you all to myself!"

Helen gave him a swift, glad look; then their talk drifted into those sweet remembrances which happy husbands and wives know by heart: what he thought when he first saw her, how she wondered if he would speak to her. "And oh, Helen," he said, "I recollect the dress you wore,—how soft and silky it was, but it never rustled, or gleamed; it rested my eyes just to look at it."

A little figure was coming towards them down the deserted street, with a jug clasped in two small grimy hands.

"Preacher!" cried a childish voice eagerly, "good-evenin', preacher."

John stopped and bent down to see who it was, for a tangle of yellow hair almost hid the little face.

"Why, it is Molly," he said, in his pleasant voice. "Where have you been, my child? Oh, yes, I see,—for dad's beer?"

Molly was smiling at him, proud to be noticed. "Yes, preacher," she answered, wagging her head. "Good-night, preacher." But they had gone only a few steps when there was a wail. Turning her head to watch him out of sight, Molly had tripped, and now all that was left of the beer was a yellow scum of froth on the dry ground. The jug was unbroken, but the child could find no comfort in that.

"I've spilt dad's beer," she said, sobbing, and sinking down in a forlorn heap on the ground.

John knelt beside her, and tried to comfort her. "Never mind; we'll go and tell dad it was an accident."

But Molly only shook her head. "No," she said, catching her breath, as she tried to speak, "'t won't do no good. He'll beat me. He's getting over a drunk, so he wanted his beer, and he'll lick me."

John looked down sadly at the child for a moment. "I will take you home, Helen, and then I will go back with Molly."

"Oh," Helen answered quickly, "let me go with you?"

"No," John replied, "no, dear. You heard what Molly said? I—I cannot bear that your eyes should see—what must be seen in Tom Davis's house to-night. We will go to the parsonage now, and then Molly and I will tell dad about the beer." He lifted the child gently in his arms, and stooped again for the pitcher. "Come, Helen," he said, and they went towards the parsonage. Helen entered reluctantly, but without a protest, and then stood watching them down the street. The little yellow head had fallen on John's shoulder, and Molly was almost asleep.

Tom Davis's house was one of a row near the river. They had been built on piles, so as to be out of the way of the spring "rise," but the jar and shock of the great cakes of ice floating under them when the river opened up had given them an unsteady look, and they leaned and stumbled so that the stained plastering had broken on the walls, and there were large cracks by the window frames. The broken steps of Molly's home led up to a partly open door. One panel had been crushed in in a fight, and the knob was gone, and the door-posts were dirty and greasy. The narrow windows were without shutters, and only a dingy green paper shade hid the room within.

Molly opened her sleepy eyes long enough to say, "Don't let dad lick me!"

"No, little Molly," John said, as he went into the small entry, and knocked at the inner door. "Don't be afraid."

"Come in," a woman's voice answered.

Mrs. Davis was sitting by the fireless stove, on which she had placed her small lamp, and she was trying by its feeble light to do some mending. Her face had that indifference to its own hopelessness which forbids all hope for it. She looked up as they entered.

"Oh, it's the preacher," she said, with a flickering smile about her fretful lips; and she rose, brushing some lifeless strands of hair behind her ears, and pulling down her sleeves, which were rolled above her thin elbows.

"Molly has had an accident, Mrs. Davis," John explained, putting the child gently down, and steadying her on her uncertain little feet, until her eyes were fairly opened. "So I came home with her to say how it happened."

"She spilt the beer, I reckon," said Mrs. Davis, glancing at the empty jug John had put on the table. "Well, 't ain't no great loss. He's asleep, and won't know nothing about it. He'll have forgot he sent her by mornin'." She jerked her head towards one side of the room, where her husband was lying upon the floor. "Go get the preacher a chair, Molly. Not that one; it's got a leg broke. Oh, you needn't speak low," she added, as John thanked the child softly; "he won't hear nothing before to-morrow."

The lumberman lay in the sodden sleep with which he ended a spree. He had rolled up his coat for a pillow, and had thrown one arm across his purple, bloated face. Only the weak, helpless, open mouth could be seen. His muscular hands were relaxed, and the whole prostrate figure was pathetic in its unconsciousness of will and grotesque unhumanness. Fate had been too strong for Tom Davis. His birth and all the circumstances of his useless life had brought him with resistless certainty to this level, and his progress in the future could only be an ever-hastening plunge downward.

But the preacher did not consider fate when he turned and looked at the drunken man. A stern look crept over the face which had smiled at Molly but a moment before.

"This is the third time," he said, "that this has happened since Tom came and told me he would try to keep sober. I had hoped the Spirit of God had touched him."

"I know," the woman answered, turning the coat she was mending, and moving the lamp a little to get a better light; "and it's awful hard on me, so it is; that's where all our money goes. I can't get shoes for the children's feet, let alone a decent rag to put on my back to wear of a Sabbath, and come to church. It's hard on me, now, I tell you, Mr. Ward."

"It is harder on him," John replied. "Think of his immortal soul. Oh, Mrs. Davis, do you point out to him the future he is preparing for himself?"

"Yes," she said, "I'm tellin' him he'll go to hell all the time; but it don't do no good. Tom's afraid of hell, though; it's the only thing as ever did keep him straight. After one o' them sermons of yours, I've known him swear off as long as two months. I ain't been to church this long time, till last Sabbath; and I was hopin' I'd hear one of that kind, all about hell, Mr. Ward, so I could tell Tom, but you didn't preach that way. Not but what it was good, though," she added, with an evident wish to be polite.

John's face suddenly flushed. "I—I know I did not, but the love of God must constrain us, Mrs. Davis, as well as the fear of hell."

Mrs. Davis sighed. Tom's spiritual condition, which had roused a momentary interest, was forgotten in the thought of her own misery. "Well, it's awful hard on me," she repeated with a little tremor in her weak chin.

John looked at her with infinite pity in his eyes. "Yes," he said, "hard on you, because of the eternal suffering which may come to your husband. Nothing can be more frightful than to think of such a thing for one we love. Let us try to save him; pray always, pray without ceasing for his immortal soul, that he may not slight the day of salvation, and repent when it is too late to find the mercy of God. Oh, the horror of knowing that the day of grace has gone forever! 'For my spirit shall not always strive with man.'"

He went over to the drunken man, and, kneeling down beside him, took one of the helpless hands in his. Mrs. Davis put down her sewing, and watched him.

Perhaps the preacher prayed, as he knelt there, though she could not hear him; but when he rose and said good-night, she could see his sad eyes full of trouble which she could not understand, a pity beyond her comprehension.

Molly came sidling up to her protector, as he stood a moment in the doorway, and, taking his hand in hers, stroked it softly.

"I love you, preacher," she said, "'cause you're good."

John's face brightened with a sudden smile; the love of little children was a great joy to him, and the touch of these small hands gave him the indefinable comfort of hope. God, who had made the sweetness of childhood, would be merciful to his own children. He would give them time, He would not withdraw the day of grace; surely Tom Davis's soul would yet be saved. There was a subtle thought below this of hope that for Helen, too, the day of grace might be prolonged, but he did not realize this himself; he did not know that he feared for one moment that she might not soon accept the truth. He was confident, he thought, of her, and yet more confident of the constraining power of the truth itself.

He looked down at Molly, and put his hand gently on her yellow head. "Be a good girl, my little Molly;" then, with a quiet blessing upon the dreary home, he turned away.

But what Mrs. Davis had said of going to church to hear a sermon on hell, and her evident disappointment, did not leave his mind. He walked slowly towards the parsonage, his head bent and his hands clasped behind him, and a questioning anxiety in his face. "I will use every chance to speak of the certain punishment of the wicked when I visit my people," he said, "but not in the pulpit. Not where Helen would hear it—yet. In her frame of mind, treating the whole question somewhat lightly, not realizing its awful importance, it would be productive of no good. I will try, little by little, to show her what to believe, and turn her thoughts to truth. For the present that is enough, that is wisest." And then his heart went back to her, and how happy they were. He stopped a moment, looking up at the stars, and saying, with a breathless awe in his voice, "My God, how good Thou art, how happy I am!"



CHAPTER VII.

The little stir which the arrival of the Forsythes made in Ashurst was delightful.

"Of course," as Mrs. Dale said, "Arabella Forsythe had not been born there, and could not be expected to be just like Ashurst people; but it was something to have a new person to talk to, even if you had to talk about medicines most of the time."

Lois Howe enjoyed it, for there were very few young people in Ashurst that summer; the two Drayton girls had gone away to visit a married brother, and there were no young men now Gifford had gone. So it was pleasant to have a person of her own age to talk to, and sometimes to walk with, though the rector never felt quite sure what his sister would say to that. However, Mrs. Dale had nothing to say; she shut her eyes to any impropriety, and even remarked severely to Miss Deborah Woodhouse that those old-fashioned ideas of a girl's being always under her mother's eye, were prim and old maidish; "and beside, Lois's mother is dead," she added, with a sort of triumph in her voice.

As for Lois, she almost forgot that she had thought Ashurst lonely when Helen had gone, and Gifford; for of course, in so small a place, every one counted. She had wondered, sometimes, before the Forsythes came, with a self-consciousness which was a new experience, if any one thought she missed Gifford. But her anxiety was groundless,—Ashurst imagination never rose to any such height; and certainly, if the letters the young man wrote to her could have been seen, such a thought would not have been suggested. They were pleasant and friendly; very short, and not very frequent; mostly of Helen and what she did; there was almost nothing of himself, and the past, at least as far as a certain night in June was concerned, was never mentioned. At first this was a relief to Lois, but by and by came a feeling too negative to be called pique, or even mortification at having been forgotten; it was rather an intangible soreness in her memory of him.

"It is just as Miss Deborah says," she said to herself: "young men always forget those things. And it is better that they do. Gifford never thinks of what he said to me, and I'm sure I'm glad he doesn't—but still!" And then that absurd suggestion of Miss Deborah's about Helen would creep into her mind; she might banish it, because it was silly and impossible, yet she did not utterly forget it. However, she really thought very little about it; the presence of Mrs. Forsythe and her son gave her plenty of occupation. There was the round of teas and dinners which Ashurst felt it incumbent to give to a new arrival, and Lois was to have two new gowns in consequence of so much gayety.

She spent a good deal of time with Mrs. Forsythe, for the elder lady needed her, she said. It was not altogether the companionship which fascinated Lois: the sunny drawing-room of the house the Forsythes had hired was filled with dainty things, and light, graceful furniture, and many harmlessly silly novels; there was a general air about it of belonging to a life she had never seen which made it a pleasure to come into it. The parlors in Ashurst had such heavy, serious chairs and tables, she said to herself, and the pictures were all so dark and ugly, and she was so tired of the carpets.

So she was very glad when Mrs. Forsythe begged her to come and read aloud, or fix her flowers, or even stroke her soft white hair when she had a headache. "Dick may be at home, my dear," Mrs. Forsythe would say in her deprecating voice, "but you won't mind him?" And soon Lois did not mind him at all.

At first she was very shy in the presence of this light-hearted young fellow, whose indifference to Ashurst opinion was very impressive; but by and by that wore off, and Mrs. Forsythe's drawing-room echoed with their young laughter. Lois began to feel with Dick the freedom and friendliness which had once been only for Gifford. "Why couldn't Giff have been like this?" she thought; yet she did not say that she and Mr. Forsythe were like "brother and sister," for she was always conscious of a possibility in their friendship; but it was enough that Mr. Forsythe was very interesting, and that that summer, life was very delightful.

After all, love is frequently a matter of propinquity.

Dick found himself going often to the rectory, and Lois fell into the habit of making her plans with the reservation, "In case Mr. Forsythe calls;" and it generally happened that he did call. "Mother sends her love, and will Miss Lois come and read to her a little while this afternoon, if she is not too busy?" or, "Mother returns this dish, and begs me to thank you for the jelly, and to tell Jean how good it was."

It was easy for Dick to manufacture errands like these. Dr. Howe began to think young Forsythe spent the greater part of his time at the rectory. But this did not trouble him at all; in fact it was a satisfaction that this lively young man liked the rectory so much. Dr. Howe did not go very far into the future in his thoughts; he was distinctly flattered in the present. Of course, if anything came of it (for the rector was not entirely unworldly), why, it would be all for the best. So he was quite patient if Lois was not on hand to hunt up a book for him or to fetch his slippers, and he fell into the habit of spending much time in Mr. Denner's office, looking over the "Field" and talking of their next hunting trip. He was not even irritated when, one morning, wishing to read a letter to his daughter, he had gone all over the house looking for her, and then had caught a glimpse of her through the trees, down in the sunny garden, with Dick Forsythe. "I'll just let that letter wait," he said, and went and stretched himself comfortably on the slippery, leather-covered sofa in the shaded library, with a paper in his hand and a satisfied smile on his lips.

The garden was ablaze with color, and full of all sorts of delicious scents and sounds. The gay old-fashioned flowers poured a flood of blossoms through all the borders: hollyhocks stood like rockets against the sky; sweet-peas and scarlet runners scrambled over the box hedges and about the rose-bushes; mallows and sweet-williams, asters and zinias and phlox, crowded close together with a riotous richness of tint; scarlet and yellow nasturtiums streamed over the ground like molten sunshine; and, sparkling and glinting through the air, butterflies chased up and down like blossoms that had escaped from their stems.

Lois had come out to pick some flowers for the numerous vases and bowls which it was her delight to keep filled all summer long. She was bareheaded, and the wind had rumpled the curls around her forehead; the front of her light blue dress—she wore light blue in a manner which might have been called daring had it implied the slightest thought—was caught up to hold her lapful of flowers; a sheaf of roses rested on her shoulder, and some feathery vines trailed almost to the ground, while in her left hand, their stems taller than her own head, were two stately sunflowers, which were to brighten the hall.

Mr. Forsythe caught sight of her as he closed the gate, and hurried down the path to help her carry her fragrant load. He had, as usual, a message to deliver. "Mother sends her love, Miss Lois, and says she isn't well enough to go and drive this afternoon; but she'll be glad to go to-morrow, if you'll take her?"

"Oh, yes, indeed!" Lois cried, in her impetuous voice. "But I'm sorry she's ill to-day."

Dick gave the slightest possible shrug of his square shoulders. "Oh, I guess she's all right," he said. "It amuses her. But won't you give me some flowers to take home to her?"

Of course Lois was delighted to do it, but Dick insisted that she should first put those she had already gathered in water, and then get some fresh ones for his mother. "You see I'm very particular that she should have the best;" then they both laughed. Now mutual laughter at small jokes brings about a very friendly feeling.

They went up to the side porch, where it was shady, and Lois and Sally brought out all the vases and dishes which could be made to hold flowers, and put them in a row on the top step. Then Dick brought a big pitcher of fresh, cold water from the spring, and Lois went for the garden scissors to clip off the long stems; and at last they were ready to go to work, the sweet confusion of flowers on the steps between them, and Max sitting gravely at Lois's elbow as chaperon.

The rector heard their voices and the frequent shouts of laughter, and began to think he must bestir himself; Mr. Forsythe should see that Ashurst young women were under the constant over-sight of their parents; but he yawned once or twice, and thought how comfortable the cool leather of the lounge was, and had another little doze before he went out to the porch with the open letter in his hand.

Dick had his hat full of white, and pink, and wine-colored hollyhocks, which he had stripped from their stems, and was about to put in a shallow dish, so he did not rise, but said "Hello!" in answer to the rector's "Good-morning," and smiled brightly up at him. It was the charm of this smile which made the older people in Ashurst forget that he treated them with very little reverence.

"Lois," her father said, "I have a letter from Helen; do you want to send any message when I answer it? Mr. Forsythe will excuse you if you read it."

"Why, of course," Dick replied. "I feel almost as though I knew Mrs. Ward, Miss Lois has talked so much about her."

"How funny to hear her called 'Mrs. Ward!'" Lois said, taking the letter from her father's hand.

"I should think she'd hate Lockhaven," Dick went on. "I was there once for a day or two. It is a poor little place; lots of poverty among the hands. And it is awfully unpleasant to see that sort of thing. I've heard fellows say they enjoyed a good dinner more if they saw some poor beggar going without. Now, I don't feel that way. I don't like to see such things; they distress me, and I don't forget them."

Lois, reading Helen's letter, which was full of grief for the helpless trouble she saw in Lockhaven, thought that Mr. Forsythe had a very tender heart. Helen was questioning the meaning of the suffering about her; already the problem as old as life itself confronted her, and she asked, Why?

Dr. Howe had noticed this tendency in some of her later letters, and scarcely knew whether to be annoyed or amused by it. "Now what in the world," he said, as Lois handed back the letter,—"what in the world does the child mean by asking me if I don't think—stay, where is that sentence?" The rector fumbled for his glasses, and, with his lower lip thrust out, and his gray eyebrows gathered into a frown, glanced up and down the pages. "Ah, yes, here: 'Do you not think,' she says, 'that the presence in the world of suffering which cannot produce character, irresponsible suffering, so to speak, makes it hard to believe in the personal care of God?' It's perfect nonsense for Helen to talk in that way! What does she know about 'character' and 'irresponsible suffering'? I shall tell her to mend her husband's stockings, and not bother her little head with theological questions that are too big for her."

"Yes, sir," Lois answered, carefully snipping off the thorns on the stem of a rose before she plunged it down into the water in the big punch-bowl; "but people cannot help just wondering sometimes."

"Now, Lois, don't you begin to talk that way," the rector cried impatiently; "one in a family is enough!"

"Well," said Dick Forsythe gayly, "what's the good of bothering about things you can't understand?"

"Exactly," the rector answered. "Be good! if we occupy our minds with conduct, we won't have room for speculation, which never made a soul better or happier, anyhow. Yes, it's all nonsense, and I shall tell Helen so; there is too much tendency among young people to talk about things they don't understand, and it results in a superficial, skin-deep sort of skepticism that I despise! Besides," he added, laughing and knocking his glasses off, "what is the good of having a minister for a husband? She ought to ask him her theological questions."

"Well, now, you know, father," Lois said, "Helen isn't the sort of woman to be content just to step into the print her husband's foot has made. She'll choose what she thinks is solid ground for herself. And she isn't superficial."

"Oh, no, of course not," the rector began, relenting. "I didn't mean to be hard on the child. But she mustn't be foolish. I don't want her to make herself unhappy by getting unsettled in her belief, and that is what this sort of questioning results in. But I didn't come out to scold Helen; it just occurred to me that it might be a good thing to send her that twenty-five dollars I meant to give to domestic missions, and let her use it for some of her poor people. What?"

"Oh, yes, do!" Lois replied.

"Let me send twenty-five dollars, too!" Dick cried, whipping out a check-book.

Dr. Howe protested, but Mr. Forsythe insisted that it was a great pleasure. "Don't you see," he explained, smiling, "if Mrs. Ward will spend some money for me, it will make my conscience easy for a month; for, to tell you the truth, doctor, I don't think about poor people any more than I can help; it's too unpleasant. I'm afraid I'm very selfish."

This was said with such a good-natured look, Dr. Howe could only smile indulgently. "Ah, well, you're young, and I'm sure your twenty-five dollars for Helen's poor people will cover a multitude of sins. I fancy you are not quite so bad as you would have us believe."

Lois watched him draw his check, and was divided between admiration and an undefined dissatisfaction with herself for feeling admiration for what really meant so little.

"Thank you very much," the rector said heartily.

"Oh, you're welcome, I'm sure," answered the other.

Dr. Howe folded the check away in a battered leather pocket-book, shiny on the sides and ragged about the corners, and overflowing with odds and ends of memoranda and newspaper clippings; a row of fish-hooks was fastened into the flap, and he stopped to adjust these before he went into the house to answer Helen's letter.

He snubbed her good-naturedly, telling her not to worry about things too great for her, but beneath his consciousness there lurked a little discomfort, or even irritation. Duties which seem dead and buried, and forgotten, are avenged by the sting of memory. In the rector's days at the theological school, he had himself known those doubts which may lead to despair, or to a wider and unflinching gaze into the mysteries of light. But Archibald Howe reached neither one condition nor the other. He questioned many things; he even knew the heartache which the very fear of losing faith gives. But the way was too hard, and the toil and anguish of the soul too great; he turned back into the familiar paths of the religion he knew and loved; and doubt grew vague, not in assured belief, but in the plain duties of life. After a little while, he almost forgot that he ever had doubted. Only now and then, when some questioning soul came to him, would he realize that he could not help it by his own experience, only by a formula,—a text-book spirituality; then he would remember, and promise himself that the day should come when he would face uncertainty and know what he believed. But it was continually eluding him, and being put off; he could not bear to run the risk of disturbing the faith of others; life was too full; he had not the time for study and research,—and perhaps it would all end in deeper darkness. Better be content with what light he had. So duty was neglected, and his easy, tranquil life flowed on.

Writing his careless rebuke to Helen brought this past unpleasantly before his mind; he was glad when he had sanded his paper and thrust the folded letter into its envelope, and could forget once more.

Dick Forsythe had prolonged his call by being very careful what flowers were picked for his mother, and he and Lois wandered over the whole garden, searching for the most perfect roses, before he acknowledged that he was content. When they parted at the iron gate, he was more in love than ever, and Lois walked back to the rectory, thinking with a vague dissatisfaction how much she would miss the Forsythes when they left Ashurst.

But Mr. Forsythe's was not the sort of love which demanded solitude or silence, so that when he saw Mr. Dale coming from Mr. Denner's little law office, he made haste to join him. Conversation of any sort, and with any person, was a necessity to this young man, and Mr. Dale was better than no one.

"I've just been to the rectory," he said, as he reached the older man's side.

"I suppose so," Mr. Dale answered shortly. Perhaps he was the only person in Ashurst who was not blinded by the glamour of that World which Mr. Forsythe represented, and who realized the nature of the young man himself. Dick's superficiality was a constant irritation to Mr. Dale, who missed in him that deference for the opinions of older people which has its roots in the past, in the training of fathers and mothers in courtesy and gentleness, and which blossoms in perfection in the third or fourth generation.

There was nothing in his voice to encourage Dick to talk about Lois Howe, so he wisely turned the conversation, but wished he had a more congenial companion. Mr. Dale walked with hands behind him and shoulders bent forward; his wide-brimmed felt hat was pulled down over his long soft locks of white hair, and hid the expression of his face.

So Dick rattled on in his light, happy voice, talking of everything or nothing, as his hearer might happen to consider it, until suddenly Mr. Dale's attention was caught: Dick began to speak of John Ward. "I thought I'd seen him," he was saying. "The name was familiar, and then when Miss Lois described his looks, and told me where he studied for the ministry, I felt sure of it. If it is the same man, he must be a queer fellow."

"Why?" asked Mr. Dale. He did not know John Ward very well, and had no particular feeling about him one way or the other; but people interested Mr. Dale, and he had meant some time to study this man with the same impersonal and kindly curiosity with which he would have examined a new bug in his collection.

"Because, if he's the man I think he is,—and I guess there is no doubt about it—thin, dark, and abstracted-looking, named Ward, and studying at the Western Theological Seminary that year,—I saw him do a thing—well, I never knew any other man who would have done it!"

"What was it, sir?" said Mr. Dale, turning his mild blue eyes upon the young man, and regarding him with an unusual amount of interest.

Dick laughed. "Why," he answered, "I saw that man,—there were a lot of us fellows standing on the steps of one of the hotels; it was the busiest street and the busiest time of the day, and there was a woman coming along, drunk as a lord. Jove! you ought to have seen her walk! She couldn't walk,—that was about the truth of it; and she had a miserable yelling brat in her arms. It seemed as though she'd fall half a dozen times. Well, while we were standing there, I saw that man coming down the street. I didn't know him then,—somebody told me his name, afterwards. I give you my word, sir, when he saw that woman, he stood still one minute, as though he was thunderstruck by the sight of her,—not hesitating, you know, but just amazed to see a woman looking like that,—and then he went right up to her, and took that dirty, screeching child out of her arms; and then, I'm damned if he didn't give her his arm and walk down the street with her!"

Mr. Dale felt the shock of it. "Ah!" he said, with a quick indrawn breath.

"Yes," continued Dick, who enjoyed telling a good story, "he walked down that crowded street with that drunken, painted creature on his arm. I suppose he thought she'd fall, and hurt herself and the child. Naturally everybody looked at him, but I don't believe he even saw them. We stood there and watched them out of sight—and—but of course you know how fellows talk! Though so long as he was a minister"—Dick grinned significantly, and looked at Mr. Dale for an answer; but there was none.

Suddenly the old man stood still and gravely lifted his hat: "He's a good man," he said, and then trudged on again, with his head bent and his hands clasped behind him.

Mr. Forsythe looked at him, and whistled. "Jove!" he exclaimed, "it doesn't strike you as it did Dr. Howe. I told him, and he said, 'Bless my soul, hadn't the man sense enough to call a policeman?'"

But Mr. Dale had nothing more to say. The picture of John Ward, walking through the crowded street with the woman who was a sinner upheld by his strong and tender arm, was not forgotten; and when Dick had left him, and he had lighted his slender silver pipe in the quiet of his basement study, he said again, "He's a good man."



CHAPTER VIII.

It was one of those deliciously cold evenings in early autumn. All day long the sparkling sunshine-scented air had held an exhilaration like wine, but now night had folded a thin mist across the hills, though the clear darkness of the upper sky was filled with the keen white light of innumerable stars.

A fire in the open grate in John Ward's study was pure luxury, for the room did not really need the warmth. It was of that soft coal which people in the Middle States burn in happy indifference to its dust-making qualities, because of its charm of sudden-puffing flames, which burst from the bubbling blackness with a singing noise, like the explosion of an oak-gall stepped on unawares in the woods.

It had been a busy day for John, ending with the weekly prayer-meeting; and to sit now in front of the glowing fire, with Helen beside him, was a well-earned rest.

In the afternoon he had taken a dozen of the village children to find a swamp whose borders were fringed with gentians, which seemed to have caught the color of the wind-swept October skies. He would not let Helen go. "The walk would tire you," he said; but he himself seemed to know no weariness, though most of the time he carried one of the children, and was continually lifting them over rough places, and picking their flowers and ferns for them.

Helen had seen them start, and watched them as they tramped over the short, crisp grass of an upland pasture, and she could just distinguish the words of a hymn they sung, John's deep, sweet tenor leading their quavering treble:—

"His loving kindness, loving kindness, His loving kindness, oh, how free!"

After they had gathered gentians to their hearts' content, they crowded about John and begged for a story, for that was always the crowning bliss of an afternoon with the preacher. But, though prefaced with the remark that they must remember it was only a story and not at all true, their enjoyment of gnomes and fairies, of wondrous palaces built of shining white clouds, with stars for lamps, was never lessened. True, there was generally a moral, but in his great desire to make it attractive John often concealed it, and was never quite sure that his stories did the good he intended. But they did good in another way; the children loved him, as most of them loved nothing else in their meagre, hungry little lives. And he loved them; they stirred the depths of tenderness in him. What did the future hold for them? Misery, perhaps, and surely sin, for what hope was there of purity and holiness in such homes as theirs? And the horror of that further future, the sure eternity which follows sin, cast a dreary shadow over them, and lent a suppressed passion to the fervor with which he tried to win their love, that he might lead them to righteousness.

But it was his gentleness, and a childlike simplicity which they themselves must early lose, which attracted and charmed the children, and made them happy and contented if they could but be with the preacher.

They had left him reluctantly at the parsonage gate, clamoring for another afternoon, which was gladly promised. Then John had had a quiet half hour for further thought upon his evening talk to his people, which had been prepared the day before. Helen had laughed at the amount of study given to every address. "I wish you could see how uncle Archie manages his sermons."

"He has not the sort of people I have," John said, with kindly excuse. "Yet think of the importance of speaking to any one in Christ's name! We preach for eternity, Helen,—for eternity."

She looked at him gravely. "John," she answered, "you take these things too much to heart. It is not wise, dear."

He hesitated, and then said gently, "These are the only things to take to heart. We only live to prepare for that other life. Can we be too earnest dear, when eternity hangs upon the use we make of time? That thought is a continual spur to make me eager for my duty to my people."

"Oh, I know it," Helen responded, laying her head upon his shoulder; "but don't work too hard."

He put his arms about her, and the impulse which had been strong a moment before to speak to her of her own soul was forgotten.

These prayer-meetings were trials to Helen Ward. She missed the stately Liturgy of her own church. "I don't like to hear Elder Dean give the Almighty so much miscellaneous information," she said, half laughing, yet quite in earnest. But she always went, for at least there was the pleasure of walking home with John. Beside, practice had made it possible for her to hear without heeding, and in that way she escaped a great deal of annoyance.

This especial Wednesday evening, however, she had not been able to close her ears to all that was said. She had grown restless, and looked about the narrow whitewashed room where the lecture was given, and longed for the reverence of the starlit silence outside.

John had begun the meeting by a short prayer, simple and direct as a child's request to his father, and after a hymn he said a few words on the text he had chosen. Then the meeting was open, and to some of the things said, Helen listened with indignant disapproval. As they walked home, rejoicing in the fresh cold air and the sound of their quick footsteps on the frosty ground, she made up her mind what she meant to do, but she did not speak of it until they were by their own fireside.

The room was full of soft half-darkness; shadows leaped out of the corners, and chased the gleams of firelight; the tall clock ticked slowly in the corner, and on the hearts of these two fell that content with life and each other which is best expressed by silence.

John sat at his wife's feet; his tired head was upon her knee, and he could look up into her restful face, while he held one of her hands across his lips. It was a good face to see: her clear brown eyes were large and full, with heavy lids which drooped a little at the outer corners, giving a look of questioning sincerity, which does not often outlast childhood. Her bronze-brown hair was knotted low on her neck, and rippled a little over a smooth white forehead.

John had begun to stroke her hand softly, holding it up to shield his eyes from the firelight, and twisting the plain band of her wedding ring about.

"What a dear hand," he said; "how strong and firm it is!"

"It is large, at least," she answered, smiling. He measured it against his own gaunt thin hand, which always had a nervous thrill in the pale fingers. "You see, they are about the same size, but mine is certainly much whiter. Just look at that ink-stain; that means you write too much. I don't like you to be so tired in the evenings, John."

"You rest me," he said, looking up into her face. "It is a rest even to sit here beside you. Do you know, Helen," he went on, after a moment's pause, "if I were in any pain, I mean any physical extremity, I would have strength to bear it if I could hold your hand; it is so strong and steady."

She lifted her hand, and looked at it with amused curiosity, turning it about, "to get the best light upon it."

"I am in earnest," John said, smiling. "It is the visible expression of the strength you are to me. With your help I could endure any pain. I wonder," he went on, in a lower voice, as though thinking aloud, "if this strength of yours could inspire me to bear the worst pain there could be for me,—I mean if I had to make you suffer in any way?"

Helen looked down at him, surprised, not quite understanding.

"Suppose," he said,—"of course one can suppose anything,—that for your best good I had to make you suffer: could I, do you think?"

"I hope so," she answered gravely; "I hope I should give you strength to do it."

They fell again into their contented silence, watching the firelight, and thinking tenderly each of the other. But at last Helen roused herself from her reverie with a long, pleasant sigh of entire peace and comfort.

"John, do you know, I have reached a conclusion? I'm not going to prayer-meeting any more."

John started. "Why, Helen!" he said, a thrill of pain in his voice.

But Helen was not at all troubled. "No, dear. Feeling deeply as I do about certain things, it is worse than useless for me to go and hear Elder Dean or old Mr. Smith; they either annoy me or amuse me, and I don't know which is worse. I have heard Mr. Smith thank the Lord that we are not among the pale and sheeted nations of the dead, ever since I came to Lockhaven. And Elder Dean's pictures of the eternal torments of the damned, 'souls wreathing in sulphurous flames' (those were his words to-night, John!), and then praising God for his justice (his justice!) right afterwards,—I cannot stand it, dear. I do not believe in hell, such a hell, and so it is absurd to go and listen to such things. But I won't miss my walk with you," she added, "for I will come and meet you every Wednesday evening, and we'll come home together."

John had risen as she talked, and stood leaning against the mantel, his face hidden by his hand. Her lightly spoken words had come with such a shock, the blood leaped back to his heart, and for a moment he could not speak. He had never allowed himself to realize that her indifference to doctrine was positive unbelief; had his neglect encouraged her ignorance to grow into this?

At last he said very gently, "But, dearest, I believe in hell."

"I know it," she answered, no longer carelessly, but still smiling, "but never mind. I mean, it does not make any difference to me what you believe. I wouldn't care if you were a Mohammedan, John, if it helped you to be good and happy. I think that different people have different religious necessities. One man is born a Roman Catholic, for instance, though his father and mother may be the sternest Protestants. He cannot help it; it is his nature! And you"—she looked up at him with infinite tenderness in her brown eyes,—"you were born a Presbyterian, dear; you can't help it. Perhaps you need the sternness and the horror of some of the doctrines as a balance for your gentleness. I never knew any one as gentle as you, John."

He came and knelt down beside her, holding her face between his hands, and looking into her clear eyes. "Helen," he said, "I have wanted to speak to you of this; I have wanted to show you the truth. You will not say you cannot believe in hell (in justice, Helen) when I prove"—

"Don't prove," she interrupted him, putting her hand softly across his lips, "don't let us argue. Oh, a theological argument seems to me sacrilege, and dogma can never be an antidote for doubt, John. I must believe what my own soul asserts, or I am untrue to myself. I must begin with that truth, even if it keeps me on the outskirts of the great Truth. Don't you think so, dear? And I do not believe in hell. Now that is final, John."

She smiled brightly into his troubled face, and, seeing his anxiety, hastened to save him further pain in the future. "Do not let us ever discuss these things. After all, doctrine is of so little importance, and argument never can result in conviction to either of us, for belief is a matter of temperament, and I do so dislike it. It really distresses me, John."

"But, dearest," he said, "to deliberately turn away from the search for truth is spiritual suicide."

"Oh, you misunderstand me," she replied quickly. "Of course one's soul always seeks for truth, but to argue, to discuss details, which after all are of no possible importance, no more part of the eternal verities than a man's—buttons are of his character! Now, remember," with smiling severity, "never again!" She laid her head down on his shoulder. "We are so happy, John, so happy; why should we disturb the peace of life? Never mind what we think on such matters; we have each other, dear!"

He was silenced; with her clinging arm about him, and her tender eyes looking into his, he could not argue; he was the lover, not the preacher.

He kissed her between her level brows; it was easy to forget his duty! Yet his conscience protested faintly. "If you would only let me tell you"—

"Not just now," she said, and Helen's voice was a caress. "Do you remember how, that first time we saw each other, you talked of belief?" It was so natural to drift into reminiscence, kneeling there in the firelight by her side, John almost forgot how the talk had begun, and neither of them gave a thought to the lateness of the hour, until they were roused by a quick step on the path, and heard the little gate pushed hurriedly open, shutting again with a bang.

"Why, that's Gifford Woodhouse," John said, leaning forward to give the fire that inevitable poke with which the coming guest is welcomed.

"No, it can't be Giff," Helen answered, listening; "he always whistles."

But it was Gifford. The quick-leaping flame lighted his face as he entered, and Helen saw that, instead of its usual tranquil good-nature, there was a worried look.

"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you," he said, as they both rose to welcome him, and there was the little confusion of lighting the lamp and drawing up a chair. "Haven't I interrupted you?"

"Yes," John replied simply, "but it is well you did. I have some writing I must do to-night, and I had forgotten it. You and Helen will excuse me if I leave you a little while?"

Both the others protested: Gifford that he was driving Mr. Ward from his own fireside, and Helen that it was too late for work.

"No, you are not driving me away. My papers are up-stairs. I will see you again," he added, turning to Gifford; and then he closed the door, and they heard his step in the room above.

The interruption had brought him back to real life. He left the joy which befogged his conscience, and felt again that chill and shock which Helen's words had given him, and that sudden pang of remorse for a neglected duty; he wanted to be alone, and to face his own thoughts. His writing did not detain him long, and afterwards he paced the chilly room, struggling to see his duty through his love. But in that half hour up-stairs he reached no new conclusion. Helen's antipathy to doctrine was so marked, it was, as she said, useless to begin discussion; and it would be worse than useless to urge her to come to prayer-meeting, if she did not want to; it would only make her antagonistic to the truth. She was not ready for the strong meat of the Word, which was certainly what his elders fed to hungry souls at prayer-meetings. John did not know that there was any reluctance in his own mind to disturb their harmony and peace by argument; he simply failed to recognize his own motives; the reasons he gave himself were all secondary.

"I ought not to have come so late," Gifford said, "and it is a shame to disturb Mr. Ward, but I did want to see you so much, Helen!"

Helen's thoughts were following her husband, and it was an effort to bring them back to Gifford and his interests, but she turned her tranquil face to him with a gracious gentleness which never left her. "He will come back again," she said, "and he will be glad to have this writing off his mind to-night. I was only afraid he might take cold; you know he has a stubborn little cough. Why did you want to see me, Giff?"

She took some knitting from her work-table, and, shaking out its fleecy softness, began to work, the big wooden needles making a velvety sound as they rubbed together. Gifford was opposite her, his hands thrust moodily into his pockets, his feet stretched straight out, and his head sunk on his breast. But he did not look as though he were resting; an intent anxiety seemed to pervade his big frame, and Helen could not fail to observe it. She glanced at him, as he sat frowning into the fire, but he did not notice her.

"Something troubles you, Gifford."

He started. "Yes," he said. He changed his position, leaning his elbows on his knees, and propping his chin on his fists, and still scowling at the fire. "Yes, I came to speak to you about it."

"I wish you would," Helen answered. But Gifford found it difficult to begin.

"I've had a letter from aunt Ruth to-day," he said at last, "and it has bothered me. I don't know how to tell you, exactly; you will think it's none of my business."

"Is there anything wrong at the rectory?" Helen asked, putting down her work, and drawing a quick breath.

"Oh, no, no, of course not," answered Gifford, "nothing like that. The fact is, Helen—the fact is—well, plainly, aunt Ruth thinks that that young Forsythe is in love with Lois."

Gifford's manner, as he spoke, told Helen what she had only surmised before, and she was betrayed into an involuntary expression of sympathy.

"Oh," cried the young man, with an impatient gesture and a sudden flush tingling across his face, "you misunderstand me. I haven't come to whine about myself, or anything like that. I'm not jealous; for Heaven's sake, don't think I am such a cur as to be jealous! If that man was worthy of Lois, I—why, I'd be the first one to rejoice that she was happy. I want Lois to be happy, from my soul! I hope you believe me, Helen?"

"I believe anything you tell me," she answered gently, "but I don't quite understand how you feel about Mr. Forsythe; every one speaks so highly of him. Even aunt Deely has only pleasant things to say of 'young Forsythe,' as she calls him."

Gifford left his chair, and began to walk about the room, his hands grasping the lapels of his coat, and his head thrown back in a troubled sort of impatience. "That's just it," he said; "in this very letter aunt Ruth is enthusiastic, and I can't tell you anything tangible against him, only I don't like him, Helen. He's a puppy,—that's the amount of it. And I thought—I just thought—I'd come and ask you if you supposed—if you—of course I've no business to ask any question—but if you thought"—

But Helen had understood his vague inquiry, "I should think," she said "you would know that if he is what you call a puppy Lois couldn't care for him."

Gifford sat down, and took her ball of wool, beginning nervously to unwind it, and then wind it up again.

"Perhaps she wouldn't see it," he said tentatively.

"Ah, you don't trust her!" Helen cried brightly, "or you would not say that. (Don't tie my worsted into knots!) When you write to Lois, why don't you frankly say what you think of him?"

"Oh, I could not," he responded quickly. "Don't you see, Helen, I'm a young fellow myself, and—and you know Lois did not care for me when I—told her. And if I said anything now, it would only mean that I was jealous, that I wanted her myself. Whereas, I give you my word," striking his fist sharply on his knee, "if he was fit for her, I'd rejoice; yes, I—I love her so much that if I saw her happy with any other man (who was worthy of her!) I'd be glad!"

Helen looked doubtful, but did not discuss that; she ran her hand along her needle, and gave her elastic work a pull. "Tell me more about him," she said.

But Gifford had not much to tell; it was only his vague distrust of the man, which it was difficult to put into words. "A good out-and-out sinner one can stand," he ended; "but all I saw of this Forsythe at the club and about town only made me set him down as a small man, a—a puppy, as I said. And I thought I'd talk to you about it, because, when you write to Lois, you might just hint, you know."

But Helen shook her head. "No, Gifford, that never does any good at all. And I do not believe it is needed. The only thing to do now is to trust Lois. I have no anxiety about her; if he is what you say, her own ideal will protect her. Ah, Giff, I'm disappointed in you. I shouldn't have thought you could doubt Lois."

"I don't!" he cried, "only I am so afraid!"

"But you shouldn't be afraid," Helen said, smiling; "a girl like Lois couldn't love a man who was not good and noble. Perhaps, Gifford," she ventured, after a moment's pause,—"perhaps it will be all right for you, some time."

"No, no," he answered, "I don't dare to think of it."

Helen might have given him more courage, but John came in, and Gifford realized that it was very late. "Helen has scolded me, Mr. Ward," he said, "and it has done me good."

John turned and looked at her. "Can she scold?" he said. And when Gifford glanced back, as he went down the street, he saw them still standing in the doorway in the starlight; Helen leaning back a little against John's arm, so that she might see his face. The clear warm pallor of her cheek glowed faintly in the frosty air.

Gifford sighed as he walked on. "They are very happy," he thought. "Well, that sort of happiness may never be for me, but it is something to love a good woman. I have got that in my life, anyhow."

Helen's confidence in her cousin's instinct might perhaps have been shaken had she known what pleasure Lois found in the companionship of Mr. Forsythe, and how that pleasure was encouraged by all her friends. That very evening, while Gifford was pouring his anxieties into her ear, Lois was listening to Dick's pictures of the gayeties of social life; the "jolly times," as he expressed it, which she had never known.

Dr. Howe was reading, with an indignant exclamation occasionally, a scathing review of an action of his political candidate, and his big newspaper hid the two young people by the fire, so that he quite forgot them. Max seemed to feel that the responsibility of propriety rested upon him, and he sat with his head on Lois's knee, and his drowsy eyes blinking at Mr. Forsythe. His mistress pulled his silky ears gently, or knotted them behind his head, giving him a curiously astonished and grieved look, as though he felt she trifled with his dignity; yet he did not move his head, but watched, with no affection in his soft brown eyes, the young man who talked so eagerly to Lois.

"That brute hates me," said Mr. Forsythe, "and yet I took the trouble to bring him a biscuit to-day. Talk of gratitude and affection in animals. They don't know what it means!"

"Max loves me," Lois answered, taking the setter's head between her hands.

"Ah, well, that's different," cried Forsythe; "of course he does. I'd like to know how he could help it. He wouldn't be fit to live, if he didn't."

Lois raised the hand-screen she held, so that Dick could only see the curls about her forehead and one small curve of her ear. "How hot the fire is!" she said.

Dr. Howe folded his newspaper with much crackling and widely opened arms. "Don't sit so near it. In my young days, the children were never allowed to come any nearer the fireplace than the outside of the hearth-rug." Then he began to read again, muttering, "Confound that reporter!"

Dick glanced at him, and then he said, in a low voice, "Max loves you because you are so kind to him, Miss Lois; it is worth while to be a dog to have you"—

"Give him bones?" Lois cried hurriedly. "Yes, it is too hot in here, father; don't you think so; don't you want me to open the window?"

Dr. Howe looked up, surprised. "If you want to, child," he said. "Dear me, I'm afraid I have not been very entertaining, Mr. Forsythe. What do you think of this attack on our candidate? Contemptible, isn't it? What? I have no respect for any one who can think it anything but abominable and outrageous."

"It's scandalous!" Dick answered,—and then in a smiling whisper to Lois, he added, "I'm afraid to tell the doctor I'm a Democrat."

But when Lois was quite alone that night, she found herself smiling in the darkness, and a thrill of pride made her cheeks hotter than the fire had done.



CHAPTER IX.

"Yes," said Miss Deborah Woodhouse, as she stood in the doorway of Miss Ruth's studio, "yes, we must give a dinner party, sister. It is certainly the proper thing to do, now that the Forsythes are going back to the city. It is to be expected of us, sister."

"Well, I don't know that it is expected of us," said Miss Ruth, who never agreed too readily to any suggestion of Miss Deborah's; "but I think we ought to do it. I meant to have spoken to you about it."

Miss Ruth was washing some brushes, a task her soul abhorred, for it was almost impossible to avoid some stain upon her apron or her hands; though, to guard against the latter, she wore gloves. The corners of Miss Ruth's mouth were drawn down and her eyebrows lifted up, and her whole face was a protest against her work. On her easel was a canvas, where she had begun a sketch purporting to be apple-blossoms.

The studio was dark, for a mist of November rain blurred all the low gray sky. The wide southwest window, which ran the length of the woodshed (this part of which was devoted to art), was streaming with water, and though the dotted muslin curtain was pushed as far back as it would go, very little light struggled into the room. The dim engravings of nymphs and satyrs, in tarnished frames, which had been hung here to make room in the house for Miss Ruth's own productions, could scarcely be distinguished in the gloom, and though the artist wore her glasses she could not see to work.

So she had pushed back her easel, and began to make things tidy for Sunday. Any sign of disorder would have greatly distressed Miss Ruth. Even her paint-tubes were kept scrupulously bright and clean, and nothing was ever out of place. Perhaps this made the room in the woodshed a little dreary, certainly it looked so now to Miss Deborah, standing in the doorway, and seeing the gaunt whitewashed walls, the bare rafters, and the sweeping rain against the window.

"Do, sister," she entreated, "come into the house, and let us arrange about the dinner."

"No," said Miss Ruth, sighing, "I must wash these brushes."

"Why not let Sarah do it?" asked the other, stepping over a little stream of water which had forced itself under the threshold.

"Now, surely, sister," said Miss Ruth pettishly, "you know Sarah would get the color on the handles. But there! I suppose you don't know how artistic people feel about such things." She stopped long enough to take off her gloves and tie the strings of her long white apron a little tighter about her trim waist; then she went to work again.

"No, I suppose I don't understand," Miss Deborah acknowledged; "but never mind, we can talk here, only it is a little damp. What do you think of asking them for Thursday? It is a good day for a dinner party. You are well over the washing and ironing, you know, and you have Wednesday for the jellies and creams, besides a good two hours in the afternoon to get out the best china and see to the silver. Friday is for cleaning up and putting things away, because Saturday one is always busy getting ready for Sunday."

Miss Ruth demurred. "I should rather have it on a Friday."

"Well, you don't know anything about the housekeeping part of it," said Miss Deborah, promptly. "And I don't believe William Denner would want to come then; you know he is quite superstitious about Friday. Beside, it is not convenient for me," she added, settling the matter once for all.

"Oh, I've no objection to Thursday," said Miss Ruth. "I don't know but that I prefer it. Yes, we will have it on Thursday." Having thus asserted herself, Miss Ruth began to put away her paints and cover her canvas.

"It is a pity the whist was put off to-night," said Miss Deborah; "we could have arranged it at the rectory. But if I see Adele Dale to-morrow, I'll tell her."

"I beg," said Miss Ruth quickly, "that you'll do nothing of the sort."

"What!" exclaimed Miss Deborah.

"We will write the invitations, if you please," said Miss Ruth loftily.

"Fiddlesticks!" retorted the other. "We'll write the Forsythes, of course, but the people at the rectory and Adele Dale?—nonsense!"

"It is not nonsense," Miss Ruth answered; "it is proper, and it must be done. I understand these things, Deborah; you are so taken up with your cooking, you cannot really be expected to know. When you invite city people to a formal dinner, everything must be done decently and in order. It is not like asking the rector and Adele to drop in to tea any time."

"Fudge!" responded Miss Deborah.

A faint color began to show in Miss Ruth's faded cheek, and she set her lips firmly. "The invitations should be written," she said.

It was settled, as usual, by each sister doing exactly as she pleased. Miss Deborah gave her invitations by word of mouth the next day, standing in the rain, under a dripping umbrella, by the church porch, while on Monday each of the desired guests received a formal note in Miss Ruth's precise and delicate hand, containing the compliments of the Misses Woodhouse, and a request for the honor of their company at dinner on Thursday, November 12th, at half past six o'clock.

A compromise had been effected about the hour. Miss Ruth had insisted that it should be at eight, while Miss Deborah contended that as they dined, like all the rest of Ashurst, at noon, it was absurd to make it later than six, and Miss Ruth's utmost persuasion had only brought it to half past.

During these days of preparation Miss Ruth could only flutter upon the outskirts of the kitchen, which just now was a solemn place, and her suggestions were scarcely noticed, and never heeded. It was hard to have no share in those long conversations between Sarah and her sister, and not to know the result of the mysterious researches among the receipts which had been written out on blue foolscap and bound in marbled pasteboard before Miss Deborah was born.

Her time, however, came. Miss Deborah owned that no one could arrange a table like Miss Ruth. The tall silver candlesticks with twisted arms, the fruit in the open-work china baskets, the slender-stemmed glasses for the wines, the decanters in the queer old coasters, and the great bunch of chrysanthemums in the silver punch-bowl in the centre,—no one could place them so perfectly as her sister.

"Ruth," she affirmed, "has a touch," and she contemplated the board with great satisfaction.

"Pray," said Miss Ruth, as she quietly put back in its place a fruit dish which Miss Deborah had "straightened," "pray where are Mr. Dale's comfits? They must be on the tray to be taken into the parlor."

"Sarah will fetch them," answered Miss Deborah; and at that moment Sarah entered with the candy and a stately and elaborate dish, which she placed upon the sideboard.

"Poor, dear man," said Miss Ruth. "I suppose he never gets all the candy he wishes at home. I trust there is plenty for to-night, sister? But what is that Sarah just brought in?"

"Well," Miss Deborah replied, with anxious pride in her tone, "it is not Easter, I know, but it does look so well I thought I'd make it, anyhow. It is Sic itur ad astra."

This dish had been "composed" by Miss Deborah many years ago, and was considered by all her friends her greatest triumph. Dr. Howe had christened it, declaring that it was of a semi-religious nature, but in Miss Deborah's pronunciation the Latin was no longer recognizable.

It consisted of an arrangement of strips of candied orange and lemon peel, intended to represent a nest of straw. On it were placed jellied creams in different colors, which had been run into egg-shells to stiffen. The whole was intended to suggest a nest of new-laid eggs. The housekeeper will at once recognize the trouble and expense of such a dish, as the shells which served for moulds had first to be emptied of their contents through a small hole in one end, hopelessly mixing the whites and yolks, and leaving them useless for fine cookery.

No wonder, then, that Miss Deborah's face beamed with pride. But Miss Ruth's showed nothing but contempt. "That—that—barn-door dish!" she ejaculated.

"Barn-door?" faltered Miss Deborah.

"Barn-yard, I mean," said her sister sternly. "The idea of having such a thing! Easter is the only excuse for it. It is undignified,—it is absurd,—it is—it is preposterous!"

"It is good," Miss Deborah maintained stoutly.

"I don't deny that," said Miss Ruth, thinking they would have it for dinner the next day, and perhaps the next also,—for it takes more than one day for a family of two to eat up the remnants of a dinner party,—"but you must see it is out of place at a formal dinner. It must not appear."

Discussion was useless. Each was determined, for each felt her particular province had been invaded. And each carried her point. The dish did not appear on the table, yet every guest was asked if he or she would have some "Sicituradastra"—for to the housemaid it was one word—which was on the sideboard.

But the anxieties of the dinner were not over even when the table was as beautiful and stately as could be desired, and Miss Deborah was conscious that every dish was perfect. The two little ladies, tired, but satisfied, had yet to dress. Sarah had put the best black silks on the bed in each room, but for the lighter touches of the toilette the sisters were their own judges. Miss Deborah must decide what laces she should wear, and long did Miss Ruth stand at her dressing-table, wondering whether to pin the pale lavender ribbon at her throat or the silver-gray one.

Miss Deborah was dressed first. She wore a miniature of her great-grandfather as a pin, and her little fingers were covered with rings, in strange old-fashioned settings. Her small figure had an unusual dignity in the lustrous silk, which was turned away at the neck, and filled with point-lace that looked like frosted cobwebs. The sleeves of her gown were full, and gathered into a wristband over point-lace ruffles which almost hid her little hands, folded primly in front of her. "Little bishops" Miss Deborah called these sleeves, and she was apt to say that, for her part, she thought a closely fitting sleeve was hardly modest. Her full skirt rustled, as, holding herself very straight, she came into her sister's room, that they might go down together.

Miss Ruth was still in her gray linsey-woolsey petticoat, short enough to show her trim ankles in their black open-worked silk stockings. She stood with one hand resting on the open drawer of her bureau, and in the other the two soft bits of ribbon, that held the faint fragrance of rose leaves which clung to all her possessions. Miss Ruth would never have confessed it, but she was thinking that Mr. Forsythe was a very genteel young man, and she wished she knew which ribbon would be more becoming.

"Ruth!" said Miss Deborah, in majestic disapproval.

The younger sister gave a little jump of fright, and dropped the ribbons hastily, as though she feared Miss Deborah had detected her thoughts. "I—I'll be ready directly, sister."

"I hope so, indeed," said Miss Deborah severely, and moved with deliberate dignity from the room, while Miss Ruth, much fluttered, took her dress from the high bedstead, which had four cherry-wood posts, carved in alternate balloons and disks, and a striped dimity valance.

She still realized the importance of the right ribbon, and the responsibility of choice oppressed her; but it was too late for any further thought. She shut her eyes tight, and, with a trembling little hand, picked up the first one she touched. Satisfied, since Fate so decided it, that gray was the right color, she pinned it at her throat with an old brooch of chased and twisted gold, and gave a last glance at her swinging glass before joining her sister in the parlor. The excitement had brought a faint flush into her soft cheek, and her eyes were bright, and the gray ribbon had a pretty gleam in it. Miss Ruth gave her hair a little pat over each ear, and felt a thrill of forgotten vanity.

"It's high time you were down, Ruth," cried Miss Deborah, who stood on the rug in front of the blazing fire, rubbing her hands nervously together,—"high time!"

"Why, they won't be here for a quarter of an hour yet, sister," protested Miss Ruth.

"Well, you should be here! I do hope they won't be late; the venison is to be taken out of the tin kitchen precisely at five minutes of seven. Do, pray, sister, step into the hall and see what o'clock it is. I really am afraid they are late."

Miss Ruth went, but had scarcely crossed the threshold when Miss Deborah cried, "Come back, come back, Ruth! You must be here when they come," and then bustled away herself to fetch the housemaid to be ready to open the door, though, as Miss Ruth had said, it was a good quarter of an hour before the most impatient guest might be expected.

Miss Ruth went about, straightening a chair, or pulling an antimacassar to one side or the other, or putting an ornament in a better light, and then stopping to snuff the candles in the brass sconces on either side of the old piano. This and her anxiety about the venison fretted Miss Deborah so much, it was a great relief to hear the first carriage, and catch a glimpse of Mrs. Dale hurrying across the hall and up the stairs, her well-known brown satin tucked up to avoid a speck of mud or dust.

Miss Deborah plucked Miss Ruth's sleeve, and, settling the lace at her own throat and wrists, bade her sister stand beside her on the rug. "And do, dear Ruth, try and have more repose of manner," she said, breathing quite quickly with excitement.

When Mrs. Dale entered, rustling in her shiny satin, with Mr. Dale shambling along behind her, the sisters greeted her with that stately affection which was part of the occasion.

"So glad to see you, dear Adele," said Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth in turn; and Mrs. Dale responded with equal graciousness, and no apparent recollection that they had almost quarreled that very morning at the post-office, when Mrs. Dale said that the first cloth to be removed at a dinner should be folded in fours, and Miss Deborah that it should be folded in threes.

Mr. Denner was the next to arrive, and while he was still making his bow the Forsythes came in; Dick looking over the heads of the little ladies, as though in search of some one else, and his mother languidly acknowledging that it was an effort to come out in the evening. Lois and the rector came with Colonel Drayton, and Miss Deborah breathed a sigh of relief that the venison would not be kept waiting.

Then Miss Deborah took Mrs. Forsythe's arm, while Miss Ruth and Dick closed the little procession, and they marched into the dining-room, and took their places about the table, glittering with silver and glass, and lighted by gleaming wax tapers. It had not occurred to the little ladies to place Dick near Lois. Mrs. Drayton was the lady upon his right, and Lois was between such unimportant people as Mr. Denner and Mr. Dale.

Dick was the lion of the dinner, and all that he said was listened to with deference and even awe. But it was a relief to Lois not to have to talk to him. She sat now at Mr. Denner's side, listening to the small stream of words bubbling along in a cheerful monotony, with scarcely a period for her answers. She was glad it was so; for though her apple-blossom face was drooped a little, and her gray eyes were not often lifted, and she looked the embodiment of maiden innocence and unworldliness, Lois was thinking the thoughts which occupied her much of late; weighing, and judging, struggling to reach some knowledge of herself, yet always in the same perplexity. Did she love Dick Forsythe? There was no doubt in her mind that she loved the life he represented; but further than this she could not go. Yet he was so kind, she thought, and loved her so much. If, then and there, Dick could have whispered the question which was trembling on his lips, Lois was near enough to love to have said Yes.

Dinner was nearly over; that last desultory conversation had begun, which was to be ended by a bow from Miss Deborah to Mrs. Forsythe, and the ladies were dipping their nuts in their wine, half listening, and half watching for the signal to rise.

"How much we miss Gifford on such an occasion!" said Mr. Dale to Miss Ruth.

"Yes," replied the little lady, "dear Giff! How I wish he were here! He would so enjoy meeting Mr. Forsythe."

Lois smiled involuntarily, and the current of her thoughts suddenly turned. She saw again the fragrant dusk of the rectory garden, and heard the wind in the silver poplar and the tremble in a strong voice at her side.

She was as perplexed as ever when the ladies went back to the parlor. Mrs. Forsythe came to her, as they passed through the hall, and took the young girl's hand in hers.

"I shall miss you very much this winter, Lois," she said, in her mildly complaining voice. "You have been very good to me; no daughter could have been more thoughtful. And I could not have loved a daughter of my own more." She gently patted the hand she held. "Dick is not very happy, my dear."

"I'm sorry," faltered Lois.

They had reached the parlor door, and Mrs. Forsythe bent her head towards the girl's ear. "I hope—I trust—he will be, before we leave Ashurst."

Lois turned away abruptly; how could she grieve this gentle invalid!

"She'll find out what Arabella Forsythe is, one of these days," Mrs. Dale thought, "but it's just as well she should love her for the present." Nor did she lose the opportunity of using her influence to bring about the desired consummation.

Lois had gone, at Miss Deborah's request, to the piano, and begun to sing, in her sweet girlish voice, some old-fashioned songs which the sisters liked.

"Jamie's on the stormy sea!" sang Lois, but her voice trembled, and she missed a note, for Mrs. Dale had left the group of ladies about the fire, and bent over her shoulder.

"You know they go on Saturday, Lois," she said. "Do, now, I beg of you, be a sensible girl. I never saw a man so much in love. You will be perfectly happy, if you will only be sensible! I hope you will be at home alone to-morrow."

When the gentlemen entered, Dick Forsythe was quick to make his way to Lois, sitting in the glimmer of the wax-lights in the sconces, at the old piano.

She stopped, and let her hands fall with a soft crash on the yellow keys.

"Do go on," he pleaded.

"No," she said, "it is too cold over here; let us come to the fire," and she slipped away to her father's side. After that she was silent until it was time to say good-night, for no one expected her to speak, although Dick was the centre of the group, and did most of the talking. Later in the evening they had some whist, and after that, just before the party broke up, Mr. Denner was asked to sing.

He rose, coughed deprecatingly, and glanced sidewise at Mr. Forsythe; he feared he was out of tune. But Miss Deborah insisted with great politeness.

"If Miss Ruth would be so good as to accompany me," said Mr. Denner, "I might at least make the attempt."

Miss Ruth was shy about playing in public, but Mr. Denner encouraged her. "You must overcome your timidity, my dear Miss Ruth," he said. "I—I am aware that it is quite painful; but one ought not to allow it to become a habit, as it were. It should be conquered in early life."

So Miss Ruth allowed him to lead her to the piano. There was a little stir about finding the music, before they were ready to begin; then Mr. Denner ran his fingers through his brown wig, and, placing his small lean hands on his hips, rocked back and forth on his little heels, while he sang in a sweet but somewhat light and uncertain voice,—

"Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, Bonnie lassie! artless lassie! Will ye wi' me tent the flocks, Will ye be my dearie, O?"

This was received with great applause; then every one said good-night, assuring each sister that it had been a delightful evening; and finally the last carriage rolled off into the darkness, and the Misses Woodhouse were left, triumphantly exhausted, to discuss the dinner and the guests.

The rector walked home with Mr. Denner, who was still flushed with the praise of his singing, so Lois had the carriage all to herself, and tried to struggle against the fresh impulse of irresolution which Mrs. Forsythe's whispered "Good-night, Lois; be good to my boy!" had given her.

She went into the library at the rectory, and, throwing off her wrap, sat down on the hearth-rug, and determined to make up her mind. But first she had to put a fresh log on the andirons, and then work away with the wheezy old bellows, until a leaping flame lighted the shadowy room. The log was green, and, instead of deciding, she found herself listening to the soft bubbling noise of the sap, and thinking that it was the little singing ghosts of the summer birds. Max came and put his head on her knee, to be petted, and Lois's thoughts wandered off to the dinner party, and Mr. Denner's singing, and what good things Miss Deborah cooked, and how much his aunts must miss Gifford; so that she did not even hear the front door open, or know that Dick Forsythe had entered, until she heard Max snarl, and some one said in a tone which lacked its usual assurance, "I—I hope I'm not disturbing you, Miss Lois?"

She was on her feet before he had a chance to help her rise, and looked at him with the frankest astonishment and dismay.

What would aunt Deely say, what would Miss Deborah think! A young woman receiving a gentleman alone after ten at night! "Father is not home yet," she said hastily, so confused and startled she scarcely knew what she was saying. "How dark it is in here! The fire has dazzled my eyes. I'll get a light."

"Oh, don't," he said; "I like the firelight." But she had gone, and came back again with Sally, who carried the lamps, and looked very much surprised, for Sally knew Ashurst ways better than Mr. Forsythe did: her young man always went home at nine.

"How pleasant it was at Miss Deborah's!" Lois began, when Sally had gone out, and she was left alone to see the anxiety in Dick's face. "Nobody has such nice dinners as Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth." Lois's voice was not altogether firm, yet, to her own surprise, she began to feel quite calm, and almost indifferent; she knew why Dick had come, but she did not even then know what her answer would be.

"Yes—no—I don't know," he answered. "The fact is, I only seemed to live, Miss Lois, until I could get here to see you to-night. I heard your father say he was going home with Denner, and I thought you'd be alone. So I came. I could not stand any more suspense!" he added, with something like a sob in his voice.

Lois's heart gave one jump of fright, and then was quiet. She thought, vaguely, that she was glad he had rushed into it at once, so that she need not keep up that terrible fencing, but she did not speak. She had been sitting in a corner of the leather-covered sofa, and his excitement, as he stood looking at her, made her rise.

He grasped her hands in his, wringing them sharply as he spoke, not even noticing her little cry of pain, or her efforts to release herself. "You know I love you,—you know it! Why haven't you let me tell you so? Oh, Lois, how lovely you are to-night,—how happy we shall be!"

He kissed one of her hands with a sudden savage passion that frightened her. "Oh—don't," she said, shrinking back, and pulling her hands away from him.

He looked at her blankly a moment, but when he spoke again it was gently. "Did I frighten you? I didn't mean to; but you know I love you. That hasn't startled you? Tell me you care for me, Lois."

"But—but"—said Lois, sorry and ashamed, "I—don't!"

The eager boyish face, so near her own, flushed with sudden anger. "You don't? You must! Why—why, I love you. It cannot be that you really don't—tell me?"

But there was no doubt in Lois's mind now. "Indeed, Mr. Forsythe," she said, "indeed, I am so sorry, but I don't—I can't!"

A sullen look clouded his handsome face. "I cannot believe it," he said, at length. "You have known that I loved you all summer; you cannot be so cruel as to trifle with me now. You will not treat me so. Oh, I love you!" There was almost a wail in his voice, and he threw himself down in a chair and covered, his face with his hands.

Lois did not speak. Her lip curled a little, but it was partly with contempt for herself and her past uncertainty. "I am so sorry, so grieved," she began. But he scarcely heard her, or at least he did not grasp the significance of her words.

He began to plead and protest. "We will be so happy if you will only care for me. Just think how different your life will be; you shall have everything in this world you want, Lois."

She could not check his torrent of words, and when at last he stopped he had almost convinced himself that she loved him.

But she shook her head. "I cannot tell you how distressed I am, but I do not love you."

He was silent, as though trying to understand.

"Won't you try and forget it? Won't you forgive me, and let us be friends?" she said.

"You really mean it? You really mean to make me wretched? Forget it? I wish to Heaven I could!"

Lois did not speak. There seemed to be nothing to say.

"You have let me think you cared," he went on, "and I have built on it; I have staked all my happiness on it; I am a ruined man if you don't love me. And you coolly tell me you do not care for me! Can't you try to? I'll make you so happy, if you will only make me happy, Lois."