[Sidenote: The Blood-Stained Lily]

She wiped her hand upon her torn dress, and, as she did so, a drop of blood stained the lily. She tried to get it off, but all her efforts were fruitless. The crimson spread and darkened until half of the white petals were dyed. She noted, with a queer lump in her throat, that the lily was the same colour as the waxen heart that lay under the glass case in the house she had so recently left.

But she still held it tightly, though it was stained and no longer fragrant. Up somewhere in the sunrise Alden was waiting for her, and she climbed breathlessly. She was exhausted when she reached the summit, and the wreath of rue pressed heavily upon her temples.

She paused for a moment, realising that she had reached the end of her journey. Rainbow mists surrounded the height, but, as she looked, they lifted. She was not surprised to see Alden standing there. He had been hidden by the mists.

With a little laugh of joy, Rosemary tried to run toward him, but her feet refused to move. Then she called: "Alden!" and again, in a troubled tone: "Mr. Marsh!"

[Sidenote: Calling in Vain]

But only the echo of her own voice came back to her, for Alden did not move. Strong and finely-moulded, his youth surrounded him like some radiant garment of immortality. Every line of his figure was eloquent of his lusty manhood, and his face glowed not only from the sunrise, but from some inner light.

"Service, sacrifice. Giving, not receiving; asking, not answer." The words reverberated through her consciousness like a funeral knell. She dropped the stained lily and called again, weakly: "Alden!"

But, as before, he did not answer. His eyes were fixed upon a distant point where the coloured mists were slowly lifting. Rosemary, cold and still, could only stand there and watch, for her feet refused to stir.

Hungrily, she gazed upon him, but he did not see, for he was watching the drifting rainbow beyond. Then a cry of rapture broke from him and he started eagerly toward the insurmountable crags that divided him from the Vision.

Rosemary saw it, too, at the same instant—a woman whose white gown shimmered and shone, and whose face was hidden by the blinding glory of her sunlit hair.

* * * * *

She woke, murmuring his name, then rubbed her eyes. It took her several minutes to realise that it was all a dream. She was in her own little room in the brown house, and the sun was peeping through the shutters. The holes in the rag carpet, the cheap, cracked mirror, the braided mat in front of her washstand, and the broken pitcher all contrived to reassure her.

[Sidenote: The Fair Future]

She sat up in bed, knowing that it was time to get up, but desperately needing a few moments in which to adjust herself to her realities. What had happened? Nothing, indeed, since yesterday—ah, that dear yesterday, when life had begun! What could ever happen now, when all the future lay fair before her and the miseries of her twenty-five years were overwhelmed by one deep intoxicating joy?

"Dreams," thought Rosemary, laughing to herself. "Ah, what are dreams!"

She opened the shutters wide and the daylight streamed in. It was not fraught with colour, like the mists of her dream, but was the clear, sane light of every day. A robin outside her window chirped cheerily, and a bluebird flashed across the distant meadow, then paused on the rushes at the bend of the river and swayed there for a moment, like some unfamiliar flower.

"Rosemary!" The shrill voice sounded just outside her door.

"Yes, Aunt Matilda," she answered, happily; "I'm coming!"

She sang to herself as she moved about her room, loving the dear, common things of every day—the splash of cool water on her face and throat, the patchwork quilt, and even the despised brown gingham, which was, at least, fresh and clean.

[Sidenote: Service and Sacrifice]

"Service," she said to herself, "and sacrifice. Giving, not receiving; asking, and not answer. I wonder if it's true!" For an instant she was afraid, then her soul rallied as to a bugle call. "Even so," she thought, "I'll take it, and gladly. I'll serve and sacrifice and give, and never mind the answer."

She hurried down-stairs, where the others were waiting. "You're late, Rosemary," said Grandmother, sourly.

"Yes, I know," laughed the girl, stooping to kiss the withered cheek. "I'm sorry! I won't let it happen again!"

Out in the kitchen, she sang as she worked, and the clatter of pots and pans kept up a merry accompaniment. She had set the table the night before, as usual, so it was not long before she had breakfast ready. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were shining when she came in with the oatmeal.

"This is for you, Aunt Matilda—it isn't cooked quite so much. This is for you, Grandmother. It's nice and soft, for I soaked it over night. I'll have the eggs ready in just a minute."

When she went out, the other two exchanged glances. "What," asked Grandmother, "do you reckon has got into Rosemary?"

[Sidenote: What Has Happened?]

"I don't know," returned Aunt Matilda, gloomily. "Do you suppose it's religion?"

"I ain't never seen religion affect anybody like that, have you?'

"No, I ain't," Aunt Matilda admitted, after a moment's pondering.

"She reminds me of her ma," said Grandmother, reminiscently, "the day Frank brought her home."



VI

More Stately Mansions

[Sidenote: A New Point of View]

The new joy surged in every heart-beat as Rosemary went up the Hill of the Muses, late in the afternoon. Instinctively, she sought the place of fulfilment, yearning to be alone with the memory of yesterday.

Nothing was wrong in all the world; nothing ever could be wrong any more. She accepted the brown alpaca and the brown gingham as she did the sordid tasks of every day. That morning, for the first time, it had been a pleasure to wash dishes and happiness to build a fire.

Grandmother and Aunt Matilda had been annoyances to her ever since she could remember. Their continual nagging had fretted her, their constant restraint had chafed her, their narrowness had cramped her. To-day she saw them from a new point of view.

Grandmother was no longer a malicious spirit of evil who took delight in thwarting her, but a poor, fretful old lady whose soul was bound in shallows. And Aunt Matilda? Rosemary's eyes filled at the thought of Aunt Matilda, unloved and unsought. Nobody wanted her, she belonged to nobody, in all her lonely life she had had nothing. She sat and listened to Grandmother, she did the annual sewing, and day by day resented more keenly the emptiness of her life. It was the conscious lack that made them both cross. Rosemary saw it now, with the clear vision that had come to her during the past twenty-four hours.

[Sidenote: The Joy of Living]

She wanted to be very kind to Grandmother and Aunt Matilda. It was not a philanthropic resolution, but a spontaneous desire to share her own gladness, and to lead the others, if she might, from the chill darkness in which they dwelt to the clear air of the heights.

Oh, but it was good to be alive! The little birds that hopped from bough to bough chirped ecstatically, the nine silver-clad birches swayed and nodded in the cool wind, and the peaceful river in the valley below sparkled and dimpled at the caress of the sun. The thousand sounds and fragrances of Spring thrilled her to eager answer; she, too, aspired and yearned upward as the wakened grass-blades pierced the sod and the violets of last year dreamed once more of bloom.

Yesterday she had emerged from darkness into light. She had been born again as surely as the tiny dweller of the sea casts off his shell. The outworn habitation of the past was forever left behind her, to be swept back, by the tides of the new life, into some forgotten cave.

"Build thee more stately mansions, oh my soul, As the swift seasons roll."

[Sidenote: The Same, Yet Different]

The words said themselves aloud. She had learned the whole poem long ago, but, to-day, the beautiful lines assumed a fresh significance, for had she not, by a single step, passed from the cell of self into comradeship with the whole world? Was she not a part of everything and had not everything become a part of her? What could go wrong when the finite was once merged with the infinite, the individual with the universal soul?

She sat down on the log that Alden had rolled back against the two trees, three years ago, when they had first begun to come to the Hill of the Muses for an occasional hour of friendly talk. Everything was the same, and yet subtly different, as though seen from another aspect or in another light. Over yonder, on the hillside farthest from the valley, he had put his arm around her and refused to let her go.

She remembered vividly every word and every look and that first shy kiss. Of course they belonged together! How foolish they had been not to see it before! Was she not the only woman he knew, and was he not the only man to whom she could say more than "How do you do?" God had meant it so from the beginning, ever since He said: "Let there be light, and there was light."

[Sidenote: An Unwonted Shyness]

Dreaming happily, Rosemary sat on the fallen tree, leaning against the great oak that towered above her. The first pink leaves had come out upon the brown branches, and through them she could see the blue sky, deep as turquoise, without a single cloud. It seemed that she had always been happy, but had never known it until this new light shone upon her, flooding with divine radiance every darkened recess of her soul.

She went to the hollow tree, took out the wooden box, and unwound the scarlet ribbon. Yesterday, little dreaming of the portent that for once accompanied the signal, she had tied it in its accustomed place, and gone back, calmly to wait. The school bell echoed through the valley as she stood there, her eyes laughing, but her mouth very grave. She had taken two or three steps toward the birches when an unwonted shyness possessed her, and she hurried back.

"I can't," she said to herself. "Oh, I can't—to-day!"

So she restored it to its place, wondering, as she did so, why love should make such mysterious changes in the common things of every day. Won and awakened though she was, her womanhood imperatively demanded now that she must be sought and never seek, that she must not even beckon him to her, and that she must wait, according to her destiny, as women have waited since the world began.

[Sidenote: Waiting]

Yet it was part of the beautiful magic of the day that presently he should come to her, unsummoned save by her longing and his own desire.

"Where is the ribbon?" he inquired, reproachfully, when he came within speaking distance.

"Where it belongs," she answered, with a flush.

"Didn't you want me to come?"

"Of course."

"Then why didn't you hang it up?"

"Just because I wanted you to come."

Alden laughed at her feminine inconsistency, as he took her face between his hands and kissed her, half-shyly still. "Did you sleep last night?" he asked.

"Yes, but I had a horrible dream. I was glad to wake up this morning."

"I didn't sleep, so all my dreams were wakeful ones. You're not sorry, are you, Rosemary?"

"No, indeed! How could I ever be sorry?"

"You never shall be, if I can help it. I want to be good to you, dear. If I'm ever otherwise, you'll tell me so, won't you?"

[Sidenote: Always]

"Perhaps—I won't promise."

"Why not?"

"Because, even if you weren't good to me, I'd know you never meant it." Rosemary's eyes were grave and sweet; eloquent, as they were, of her perfect trust in him.

He laughed again. "I'd be a brute not to be good to you, whether I meant it or not."

"That sounds twisted," she commented, with a smile.

"But it isn't, as long as you know what I mean."

"I'll always know," sighed Rosemary, blissfully leaning her head against his shoulder. "I'll always understand and I'll never fail you. That's because I love you better than everything else in the world."

"Dear little saint," he murmured; "you're too good for me."

"No, I'm not. On the contrary, I'm not half good enough." Then, after a pause, she asked the old, old question, first always from the lips of the woman beloved: "When did you begin to—care?"

"I must have cared when we first began to come here, only I was so blind I didn't know it."

"When did you—know?"

"Yesterday. I didn't keep it to myself very long."

[Sidenote: When Shall It Be?]

"Dear yesterday!" she breathed, half regretfully.

"Do you want it back?"

She turned reproachful eyes upon him. "Why should I want yesterday when I have to-day?"

"And to-morrow," he supplemented, "and all the to-morrows to come."

"Together," she said, with a swift realisation of the sweetness underlying the word. "Yesterday was perfect, like a jewel that we can put away and keep. When we want to, we can always go back and look at it."

"No, dear," he returned, soberly; "no one can ever go back to yesterday." Then, with a swift change of mood, he asked: "When shall we be married?"

"Whenever you like," she whispered, her eyes downcast and her colour receding.

"In the Fall, then, when the grapes have been gathered and just before school begins?"

He could scarcely hear her murmured: "Yes."

"I want to take you to town and let you see things. Theatres, concerts, operas, parks, shops, art galleries, everything. If the crop is in early, we should be able to have two weeks. Do you think you could crowd all the lost opportunities of a lifetime into two weeks?"

"Into a day, with you."

He drew her closer. This sort of thing was very sweet to him, and the girl's dull personality had bloomed like some pale, delicate flower. He saw unfathomed depths in her grey eyes, shining now, with the indescribable light that comes from within. She had been negative and colourless, but now she was a lovely mystery—a half-blown windflower on some brown, bare hillside, where Life, in all its fulness, was yet to come.

[Sidenote: What Will They Say?]

"Did you tell your Grandmother and Aunt Matilda?"

"No. How could I?"

"You'd better not. They'd only make it hard for you, and I wouldn't be allowed in the parlour anyway."

Rosemary had not thought of that. It was only that her beautiful secret was too sacred to put into words. "They'll have to know some time," she temporised.

"Yes, of course, but not until the last minute. The day we're to be married, you can just put on your hat and say: 'Grandmother, and Aunty, I'm going out now, to be married to Alden Marsh. I shan't be back, so good-bye."

She laughed, but none the less the idea filled her with consternation. "What will they say!" she exclaimed.

"It doesn't matter what they say, as long as you're not there to hear it."

"Clothes," she said, half to herself. "I can't be married in brown alpaca, can I?"

[Sidenote: The Difference]

"I don't know why not. We'll take the fatal step as early as possible in the morning, catch the first train to town, you can shop all the afternoon to your heart's content, and be dressed like a fine lady in time for dinner in the evening."

"Grandmother was married in brown alpaca," she continued, irrelevantly, "and Aunt Matilda wore it the night the minister came to call."

"Did he never come again?"

"No. Do you think it could have been the alpaca?"

"I'm sure it wasn't. Aunt Matilda was foreordained to be an old maid."

"She won't allow anyone to speak of her as an old maid. She says she's a spinster."

"What's the difference?"

"I think," returned Rosemary, pensively, "that an old maid is a woman who never could have married and a spinster is merely one who hasn't."

"Is it a question of opportunity?"

"I believe so."

"Then you're wrong, because some of the worst old maids I've ever known have been married women. I've seen men, too, who deserve the title."

"Poor Aunt Matilda," Rosemary sighed; "I'm sorry for her."

"Why?"

[Sidenote: Alden's Mother]

"Because she hasn't anyone to love her—because she hasn't you. I'm sorry for every other woman in the world," she concluded, generously, "because I have you all to myself."

"Sweet," he answered, possessing himself of her hand, "don't forget that you must divide me with mother."

"I won't. Will she care, do you think, because—" Her voice trailed off into an indistinct murmur.

"Of course not. She's glad. I told her this morning."

"Oh!" cried Rosemary, suddenly tremulous and afraid. "What did she say?"

"She was surprised at first." Alden carefully refrained from saying how much his mother had been surprised and how long it had been before she found herself equal to the occasion.

"Yes—and then?"

"Then she said she was glad; that she wanted me to be happy. She told me that she had always liked you and that the house wouldn't be so lonely after you came to live with us. Then she asked me to bring you to see her, as soon as you were ready to come."

The full tide overflowed in the girl's heart. She yearned toward Mrs. Marsh with worship, adoration, love. The mother-hunger made her faint with longing for a woman's arms around her, for a woman's tears of joy to mingle with her own.

[Sidenote: Madame's Welcome]

"Take me to her," Rosemary pleaded. "Take me now!"

Madame saw them coming and went to the door to meet them. Rosemary was not at all what she had fancied in the way of a daughter-in-law, but, wisely, she determined to make the best of Alden's choice. Something in her stirred in answer to the infinite appeal in the girl's eyes. At the crowning moment of her life, Rosemary stood alone, fatherless, motherless, friendless, with only brown alpaca to take the place of all the pretty things that seem girlhood's right.

Madame smiled, then opened her arms. Without a word, Rosemary went to her, laid her head upon the sweet, silken softness of the old lady's shoulder, and began to cry softly.

"Daughter," whispered Madame, holding her close. "My dear daughter! Please don't!"

Rosemary laughed through her tears, then wiped her eyes. "It's only an April rain," she said. "I'm crying because I'm so happy."

"I wish," responded Madame, gently, with a glance at her son, "that I might be sure all the tears either of you are ever to shed would be tears of joy. It's the bitterness that hurts."

[Sidenote: Tears]

"Don't be pessimistic, Mother," said Alden, with a little break in his voice. Rosemary's tears woke all his tenderness. He longed to shield and shelter her; to stand, if he might, between her and the thousand pricks and stabs of the world.

"We'll have tea," Madame went on, brightly, ringing a silver bell as she spoke. "Then we shan't be quite so serious."

"Woman's inevitable solace," Alden observed, lounging about the room with his hands in his pockets. Man-like, he welcomed the change of mood.

"I wonder," he continued, with forced cheerfulness, "why people always cry at weddings and engagements and such things? A husband or wife is the only relative we are permitted to choose—we even have very little to say when it comes to a mother-in-law. With parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins all provided by a generous but sometimes indiscriminating Fate, it seems hard that one's only choice should be made unpleasant by salt water.

"Why," he went on, warming to his subject, "I remember how a certain woman angled industriously for months to capture an unsuspecting young man for her daughter. When she finally landed him, and the ceremony came off to the usual accompaniment of Mendelssohn and a crowded church, I feared that the bridal couple might have to come down the aisle from the altar in a canoe, on account of the maternal tears."

[Sidenote: A Contrast]

"Perhaps," suggested Rosemary, timidly, "she was only crying because she was happy."

"If she was as happy as all those tears would indicate, it's a blessed wonder she didn't burst."

Madame smiled fondly at her son as she busied herself with the tea things. Rosemary watched the white, plump hands that moved so gracefully among the cups, and her heart contracted with a swift little pang of envy, of which she was immediately ashamed. Unconsciously, she glanced at her own rough, red hands. Madame saw the look, and understood.

"We'll soon fix them, my dear," she said, kindly. "I'll show you how to take care of them."

"Really?" cried Rosemary, gratefully. "Oh, thank you! Do you suppose that—that they'll ever look like yours?"

"Wait and see," Madame temporised. She was fond of saying that it took three generations of breeding to produce the hand of a lady.

The kettle began to sing and the cover danced cheerily. Tiny clouds of steam trailed off into space, disappearing in the late afternoon sunshine like a wraith at dawn. Madame filled the blue china tea-pot and the subtle fragrance permeated the room.

[Sidenote: A Cup of Tea]

"Think," she said, as she waited the allotted five minutes for it to steep, "of all I give you in a cup of tea. See the spicy, sunlit fields, where men, women, and children, in little jackets of faded blue, pick it while their queues bob back and forth. Think of all the chatter that goes in with the picking—marriage and birth and death and talk of houses and worldly possessions, and everything else that we speak of here.

"Then the long, sweet drying, and the packing in dim storehouses, and then the long journey. Sand and heat and purple dusk, tinkle of bells and scent of myrrh, the rustle of silks and the gleam of gold. Then the open sea, with infinite spaces of shining blue, and a wake of pearl and silver following the ship. Dreams and moonbeams and starry twilights, from the other side of the world—here, my dear, I give them all to you."

She offered Rosemary the cup as she concluded and the girl smiled back at her happily. This was all so different from the battered metal tea-pot that always stood on the back of the stove at Grandmother's, to be boiled and re-boiled until the colour was gone from the leaves. Alden was looking into his cup with assumed anxiety.

[Sidenote: In the Bottom of the Cup]

"What's the matter, dear?" asked his mother. "Isn't it right?"

"I was looking for the poem," he laughed, "and I see nothing but a stranger."

"Coming?" she asked, idly.

"Of course. See?"

"You're right—a stranger and trouble. What is there in your cup, Rosemary?"

"Nothing at all," she answered, with a smile, "but a little bit of sugar—just a few grains."

Alden came and looked over her shoulder. Then, with his arm over the back of her chair, he pressed his cheek to hers. "I hope, my dear, that whenever you come to the dregs, you'll always have that much sweetness left."

Rosemary, flushed and embarrassed, made her adieus awkwardly. "Come again very soon, dear, won't you?" asked Madame.

"Yes, indeed, if I may, and thank you so much. Good-bye, Mrs. Marsh."

"'Mrs. Marsh?'" repeated the old lady, reproachfully. Some memory of her lost Virginia made her very tender toward the motherless girl.

"May I?" Rosemary faltered. "Do you mean it?"

Madame smiled and lifted her beautiful old face. Rosemary stooped and kissed her. "Mother," she said, for the first time in her life. "Dear Mother! Good-bye!"



VII

A Letter and a Guest

[Sidenote: An Unexpected Missive]

"A letter for you, Mother," Alden tossed a violet-scented envelope into the old lady's lap as he spoke, and stood there, waiting.

"For me!" she exclaimed. Letters for either of them were infrequent. She took it up curiously, scrutinised the address, sniffed at the fragrance the missive carried, noted the postmark, which was that of the town near by, and studied the waxen purple seal, stamped with indistinguishable initials.

"I haven't the faintest idea whom it's from," she said, helplessly.

"Why not open it and see?" he suggested, with kindly sarcasm. His assumed carelessness scarcely veiled his own interest in it.

"You always were a bright boy, Alden," she laughed. Another woman might have torn it open rudely, but Madame searched through her old mahogany desk until she found a tarnished silver letter-opener, thus according due courtesy to her unknown correspondent.

Having opened it, she discovered that she could not read the handwriting, which was angular and involved beyond the power of words to indicate.

[Sidenote: A Woman's Writing]

"Here," she said. "Your eyes are better than mine."

Alden took it readily. "My eyes may be good," he observed, after a long pause, "but my detective powers are not. The m's and n's are all alike, and so are most of the other letters. She's an economical person—she makes the same hieroglyphic do duty for both a g and a y."

"It's from a woman, then?"

"Certainly. Did you ever know a man to sprawl a note all over two sheets of paper, with nothing to distinguish the end from the beginning? In the nature of things, you'd expect her to commence at the top of a sheet, and, in a careless moment, she may have done so. Let me see—yes, here it is: 'My dear Mrs. Marsh.'"

"Go on, please," begged Madame, after a silence. "It was just beginning to be interesting."

"'During my mother's last illness,'" Alden read, with difficulty, "'she told me that if I were ever in trouble, I should go to you—that you would stand in her place to me. I write to ask if I may come, for I can no longer see the path ahead of me, and much less do I know the way in which I should go.

[Sidenote: A Schoolmate's Daughter]

"'You surely remember her. She was Louise Lane before her marriage to my father, Edward Archer.

"'Please send me a line or two, telling me I may come, if only for a day. Believe me, no woman ever needed a friendly hand to guide her more than

"'Yours unhappily,

"'EDITH ARCHER LEE.'"

"Louise Lane," murmured Madame, reminiscently. "My old schoolmate! I didn't even know that she had a daughter, or that she was dead. How strangely we lose track of one another in this world!"

"Yes?" said Alden, encouragingly.

"Louise was a beautiful girl," continued Madame, half to herself. "She had big brown eyes, with long lashes, a thick, creamy skin that someway reminded you of white rose-petals, and the most glorious red hair you ever saw. She married an actor, and I heard indirectly that she had gone on the stage, then I lost her entirely."

"Yes?" said Alden, again.

"Edith Archer Lee," Madame went on. "She must be married. Think of Louise Lane having a daughter old enough to be married! And yet—my Virginia would have been thirty-two now. Dear me, how the time goes by!"

[Sidenote: In Trouble]

The tall clock on the landing chimed five deep musical strokes, the canary hopped restlessly about his gilt cage, and the last light of the sweet Spring afternoon, searching the soft shadows of the room, found the crystal ball on the table and made merry with it.

"Time is still going by," Alden reminded her. "What are you going to do?"

Madame started from her reverie. "Do? Why, she must come, of course!"

"I don't see why," Alden objected, gloomily. "I don't like strange women."

"It is not a question of what we like or don't like, my son," she returned, in gentle reproof. "She is in trouble and she needs something we can give her."

"When people are in trouble, they usually want either money or sympathy, or both."

"Sometimes they only need advice."

"There are lots of places where they can get it. Advice is as free as salvation is said to be."

Madame sighed. Then she crossed the room, and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Dear, are you going to be cross?"

His face softened. "Never to you, if I know it, but why should strange women invade the peace of a man's home? Why should a woman who writes like that come here?"

"Don't blame her for her handwriting—she can't help it."

"I don't blame her; far from it. On the contrary, I take off my hat to her. A woman who can take a plain pen, and plain ink, and do such dazzling wonders on plain paper, is entitled to sincere respect, if not admiration."

[Sidenote: An Invitation]

Smiling, Madame went to her desk, and in a quaint, old-fashioned script, wrote a note to Mrs. Lee. "There," she said, as she sealed it. "I've asked her to come to-morrow on the six o'clock train. I've told her that you will meet her at the station, and that we won't have dinner until half-past seven. That will give her time to rest and dress. If you'll take it to the post-office now, she'll get it in the morning."

Alden shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly, kissed his mother, and went out. He wondered how he would recognise the "strange woman" when she arrived on the morrow, though few people came on the six o'clock train, or, for that matter, on any train.

"Might write her a little note on my own account," he mused. "Ask her to take off her right shoe and hold it in her left hand, or something of that sort. No, that isn't necessary. I'll bet I could go into a crowd of a thousand women and pick out the one who wrote that letter."

The scent of violet still haunted him, but, by the time he had posted his mother's note, he had forgotten all about it and was thinking of Rosemary.

[Sidenote: Planning for the Guest]

Madame, however, was busy with plans for her guest's comfort. She took down her best hand-embroidered linen sheets, shaking out the lavender that was laid between the folds, selected her finest towels and dresser-covers, ransacked three or four trunks in the attic for an old picture of Louise Lane, found a frame to fit it, laid out fresh curtains, had the shining silver candlesticks cleaned again, and opened wide every window of the long-unused guest-room to give it a night's airing.

Downstairs, she searched through the preserve-closet for dainties to tempt an unhappy woman's appetite, meanwhile rejoicing with housewifely pride in her well-stocked shelves. That evening, while Alden read the paper, she planned a feast for the next night, and mended, with fairy-like stitches, the fichu of real lace that she usually wore with her lavender silk gown.

"Is it a party?" queried Alden, without looking up from his paper.

"Yes. Isn't company a party?"

"That depends. You know three are said to be a crowd."

"Still inhospitable, dear?"

"Only mildly so. I contemplate the approaching evil with resignation, if not content."

"You and I have lived alone so long that we've got ourselves into a rut. Everyone we meet may give us something, and receive something from us in return."

[Sidenote: Best Things for Strangers]

"I perceive," said Alden, irrelevantly, "that the Lady Mother is going to be dressed in her best when the guest arrives."

A pale pink flush mantled the old lady's fair cheeks. At the moment she looked like a faded rose that had somehow preserved its sweetness.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Why do we always do for strangers what we do not willingly do for our own flesh and blood?" he queried, philosophically. "You love me better than anything else in the world, yet you wouldn't put on that lavender gown twice a year, just for me alone. The strange woman may feast her eyes upon it the moment she enters the house. She'll eat from the best china, sleep between embroidered sheets, and, I have no doubt, drink the wine that Father put away the day I was born, to be opened at my wedding."

"Not at your wedding, my son, but the day you found the woman you loved." Then, after a long pause, she added, shyly: "Shouldn't it be opened now?"

"It'll keep," the young man grunted. "After lying for thirty years among the cobwebs, a few more weeks or months or years, as the case may be, won't hurt it. Besides, I don't expect to have any wedding. I'm merely going to be married. Might as well let the strange woman have it."

[Sidenote: Old Wine]

Alden's father had, as he said, put away on the day he was born all the wine that was then ready to be bottled. The baby girl had been welcomed gladly, especially as she had her mother's eyes, but the day the second Alden Marsh was born, the young father's joy had known no bounds. He had gone, at dusk, to the pale little mother, and, holding her in his arms, had told her about the wine.

"I've put it all away," he had said, "for the boy. He's to open it the day he finds the woman he loves as I love you."

The shelf in the storeroom, where he had placed it, had never been disturbed, though dust and cobwebs lay thickly upon it and Madame had always prided herself upon her immaculate housekeeping. It grieved her inexpressibly because Alden cared so little about it, and had for it, apparently, no sentiment at all. To her it was sacred, like some rare wine laid aside for communion, but, as she reflected, the boy's father had died before he was much more than a child.

"Don't you remember your father at all?" asked Madame, with a sigh.

"I can't say that I do—that is, not before he died." The casket and the gloom of mourning had made its own vivid impression upon the child's sensitive mind. One moment stood out quite clearly, but he forebore to say so. It was when his mother, with the tears raining down her face, had lifted him in her arms and bade him look at the man who lay in the casket, oh, so cold and still.

[Sidenote: The Passing of the Father]

"Say good-bye to Father, dear," she had sobbed. "Is Father gone away?" he had asked, in childish terror, then she had strained him to her heart, crying out: "Just for a little while! Oh, if I could only believe it was for just a little while!"

The rest had faded into a mist of sadness that, for a long time, had not even begun to lift. When he found his mother in tears, as he often did after that, he went away quietly, knowing that she longed for "Father," who had gone away and never returned. Later, he used to sit on the top step of the big Colonial porch—a fragile little figure—waiting, through the long Summer afternoons, for the father who did not come.

Once, when his mother was so absorbed in her grief that she did not hear him come into the room, he had laid a timid, trembling hand upon her knee, saying: "Mother, if you will tell me where Father is, I will go and bring him back." But, instead of accepting the offer, she had caught him to her breast, sobbing, with a sudden rush of impassioned prayer: "Dear God, no—not that!"

Time, as always, had done his merciful healing, which, though slow, is divinely sure. Madame was smiling, now, at some old memory that had come mysteriously out of the shadow, leaving all bitterness behind. She had finished mending the lace and had laid it aside. Alden took it up, awkwardly, and looked at it.

[Sidenote: Tired and Unhappy]

"This for the strange woman," he said, teasingly, "and plain black or grey silk for me, though I am fain to believe that you love me best. Why is it?"

"Because," she responded, playfully, "you know me and love me, even without fuss and frills. For those who do not know us, we must put our best foot forward, in order to make sure of the attention our real merit deserves."

"But doesn't immediately command—is that it?"

"I suppose so."

"What must I wear to the train—my dress suit?"

"Don't be foolish, son. You'll have plenty of time to dress after you get home."

"Shall I drive, or walk?"

"Take the carriage. She'll be tired. Unhappy women are always tired."

"Are they tired because they're unhappy, or unhappy because they're tired? And do they get unhappier when they get more tired, or do they get more tired when they get unhappier?"

[Sidenote: The Arrival]

"Don't ask me any more conundrums to-night. I'm going to bed, to get my beauty sleep."

"You must have had a great many, judging by the results."

Madame smiled as she bent to kiss his rough cheek. "Good-night, my dear. Think of some other pleasant things and say them to-morrow night to Mrs. Lee."

"I'll be blest if I will," Alden muttered to himself, as his mother lighted a candle and waved her hand prettily in farewell. "If all the distressed daughters of all mother's old schoolmates are coming here, to cry on her shoulder and flood the whole place with salt water, it's time for me to put up a little tent somewhere and move into it."

By the next day, however, he had forgotten his ill-humour and was at the station fully ten minutes before six o'clock. As it happened, only one woman was among the passengers who left the train at that point.

"Mrs. Lee?" he asked, taking her suit-case from her.

"Yes. Mr. Marsh?"

"Yes. This way, please."

"How did you know me?" she inquired, as she took her place in the worn coupe that had been in the Marsh stables for almost twenty years.

"By your handwriting," he laughed, closing the door.

[Sidenote: With Bag and Baggage]

A smile hovered for a moment around the corners of her mouth, then disappeared.

"Then, too," he went on, "as you were the only woman who got off the train, and we were expecting you, I took the liberty of speaking to you."

"Did you ask the man to have my trunk sent up?"

"Trunk!" echoed Alden, helplessly. "Why, no! Was there a trunk?"

She laughed—a little, low rippling laugh that had in it an undertone of sadness. There was a peculiar, throaty quality in her voice, like a muted violin or 'cello. "Don't be so frightened, please, for I'm not going to stay long, really. I'm merely the sort of woman who can't stay over night anywhere without a lot of baggage."

"It—it wasn't that," he murmured.

"Yes, it was. You don't need to tell me polite fibs, you know. How far are we from the house?"

"Not as far," returned Alden, rallying all his forces for one supreme effort of gallantry, "as I wish we were."

She laughed again, began to speak, then relapsed into silence. Furtively, in the gathering shadow, he studied her face. She was pale and cold, the delicate lines of her profile conveyed a certain aloofness of spirit, and her mouth drooped at the corners. Her hat and veil covered her hair, but she had brown eyes with long lashes. Very long lashes, Alden noted, having looked at them a second time to make sure.

[Sidenote: A Child of the City]

The silence became awkward, but he could think of nothing to say. She had turned her face away from him and was looking out of the window. "How lovely the country is," she said, pensively. "I wish sometimes I never had to step on a pavement again."

"Do you have to?" he asked.

"Yes, for I'm over-civilised. Like the god in Greek mythology, I need the touch of earth occasionally to renew my strength, but a very brief contact is all-sufficient. I'm a child of the city, brought up on smoke and noise."

"You don't look it," he said, chiefly because he could think of nothing else to say.

Madame herself opened the door for them, with the old-fashioned hospitality which has an indefinable charm of its own. "How do you do, my dear," she said, taking the hand the younger woman offered her. In the instant of feminine appraisement, she had noted the perfectly tailored black gown, the immaculate shirtwaist and linen collar, and the discerning taste that forbade plumes. The fresh, cool odour of violets persisted all the way up-stairs, as Madame chattered along sociably, eager to put the guest at her ease.

Below, they heard Alden giving orders about the trunk, and Mrs. Lee smiled—a little, wan ghost of a smile that Madame misunderstood.

[Sidenote: Resting]

"You don't need to dress, if you're tired," she suggested, kindly, "though we always do. Come down just as you are."

Mrs. Lee turned to the dainty little woman who stood before her, arrayed in shining lavender silk. The real-lace fichu was fastened at the waist with an amethyst pin and at her throat she wore a string of silver beads. Her white hair was beautifully dressed, and somewhere, among the smooth coils and fluffy softness, one caught the gleam of a filigree silver comb.

"Not dress?" she said. "Indeed I shall, as soon as my trunk comes. That is," she added, hastily, "if there's anyone to hook me up."

"There is," Madame assured her. "I'll leave you now to rest. We dine at half-past seven."

The sweetness of the lavender-scented room brought balm to Edith Lee's tired soul. "How lovely she is," she said to herself, as she noted the many thoughtful provisions for her comfort, "and how good it is to be here."

A silver-framed photograph stood on her dressing-table, and she picked it up, wondering who it might be. The hair and gown were old-fashioned, and the face seemed old-fashioned also, but, in a moment, she had recognised her mother.

[Sidenote: The Newcomer in Green]

Tenderness for the dead and the living filled her heart. How dear it was of Madame to have placed it there—this little young mother, just budding into womanhood! It had been taken long before she had known of Edith, or had more than dreamed of love.

The arrival of the trunk compelled her to brush away a few foolish tears. She did not stop to unpack, but only took out the dinner gown that lay on top.

Promptly at half-past seven, she went down into the living-room, where Alden and his mother were waiting to receive her. Madame smiled with pure delight at the vision that greeted her, but the young man forgot his manners and stared—stared like the veriest schoolboy at the tall, stately figure, clad in shimmering pale green satin that rippled about her feet as she walked, brought out a bit of colour in her cheeks and lips, deepened the brown of her eyes, and, like the stalk and leaves of a tiger-lily, faded into utter insignificance before the burnished masses of her red-gold hair.



VIII

"Whom God Hath Joined"

[Sidenote: A Fortunate Woman]

Breakfast had been cleared away and Alden, with evident regret, had gone to school. Madame gave her orders for the day, attended to a bit of dusting which she would trust no one else to do, gathered up the weekly mending and came into the living-room, where the guest sat, idly, robed in a gorgeous negligee of sea-green crepe which was fully as becoming as her dinner-gown had been the night before.

Madame had observed that Mrs. Lee was one of the rarely fortunate women who look as well in the morning as in the evening. Last night, in the glow of the pink-shaded candles, she had been beautiful, and this morning she was no less lovely, though she sat in direct sunlight that made a halo of her hair.

The thick, creamy skin, a direct legacy from Louise Lane, needed neither powder nor rouge, and the scarlet lips asked for no touch of carmine. But the big brown eyes were wistful beyond words, the dark hollows beneath spoke of sleepless nights, and the corners of the sweet mouth drooped continually, in spite of valiant efforts to smile.

[Sidenote: Why She Came]

"I think I should have known you anywhere," Madame began. "You look so much like your mother."

"Thank you. It was dear of you to put her picture on my dressing-table. It seemed like a welcome from her."

Madame asked a few questions about her old schoolmate, receiving monosyllabic answers, then waited. The silence was not awkward, but of that intimate sort which, with women, precedes confidences.

"I suppose you wonder why I came," the younger woman said, after a long pause.

"No," Madame replied, gently, "for you told me in your note that you were troubled and thought I could help you."

"I don't know why I should have thought of you especially, though I have never forgotten what mother told me about coming to you, if I were in trouble, but two or three days ago, it came to me all at once that I was wandering in a maze of darkness and that you could show me the way out."

"I hope I may," the old lady murmured. "I shall be very glad to, if I can. What has gone wrong?"

"Everything," she returned, her brown eyes filling with mist. "Of course it's my husband. It always is, isn't it?"

[Sidenote: Running Away]

"I don't know why it should be. Is he cruel to you?"

"No, that is, he doesn't beat me or anything of that sort. He isn't coarse. But there's a refined sort of cruelty that hurts worse. I—I couldn't bear it any longer, and so I came away."

"Was he willing for you to come?"

"I didn't ask him. I just came."

Madame's glasses dropped from her aristocratic nose in astonishment. "Why, my dear Mrs. Lee! How could you!"

"Edith, please, if you will," she answered, wiping her eyes. Then she laughed bitterly. "Don't be kind to me, for I'm not used to it and it weakens my armour of self-defence. Tell me I'm horrid and have done with it."

"Poor child," breathed Madame. "Poor, dear child!"

For a few moments the young woman bit her lips, keeping back the tears by evident effort. Then, having gained her self-control, she went on.

"I'm twenty-eight, now," she said. "I remember mother used to say she always had her suspicions of a woman who was willing to tell the truth about her age."

"Sounds just like her," commented Madame, taking up a dainty lavender silk stocking that had "run down" from the hem.

"I've been married six years, but it seems like twenty. Almost from the first, there has been friction between us, but nobody knows it, except you—unless he's told his friends, and I don't think he'd do that. We've both had a preference for doing the family laundry work on the premises."

[Sidenote: Marital Troubles]

"What?" queried Madame, missing the allusion.

"Not washing our soiled linen in public," Edith explained. "While I live with my husband as his wife, we stand together before the world as far as it is in my power to manage it. I do not intentionally criticise him to anyone, nor permit anyone to criticise him. I endeavour to look ahead, protect him against his own weakness or folly, and, as far as a woman's tact and thought may do, shield him from the consequences of his own mistakes. I lie for him whenever necessary or even advisable. I have tried to be, for six years, shelter, strength, comfort, courage. And," she concluded bitterly, "I've failed."

"How so?"

"We live in the same house, but alien and apart. We talk at the table as two strangers might in a crowded restaurant or hotel, that is, when he's there. I dare not ask people to dinner, for I never know whether he's coming or not. He might promise faithfully to come, and then appear at midnight, without apology or excuse."

[Sidenote: All Sorts of Subterfuges]

"He supports you," suggested Madame, glancing at the sea-green crepe.

"Yes, of course. That is, the question of money hasn't arisen between us, one way or another. I have no children, father and mother left me plenty of money, and I don't mind using it in any way that seems advisable. In fact, if I had to, I'd rather pay the household bills than beg for money, as many a wife is compelled to do—or, for that matter, even ask for it. It isn't as if I had to earn it myself, you know. If I had to, I'd probably feel differently about it, but, as it is, money doesn't matter between us at all.

"Friends of mine," she resumed, "have to resort to all sorts of subterfuges. I know women who bribe the tradespeople to make their bills larger than they should be and give them the difference in cash. I know men who seem to think they do their wives a favour by paying for the food they themselves eat, and by paying their own laundry bills. Then, every once in a while, I see in some magazine an article written by a man who wonders why women prefer to work in shops and factories, rather than to marry. It must be better to get a pay-envelope every Saturday night without question or comment, than it is to humiliate your immortal soul to the dust it arose from, begging a man for money to pay for the dinner he ate last night, or for the price of a new veil to cover up your last year's hat."

[Sidenote: Defiance]

"All this," said Madame, threading her needle again, "is new to me. I live so out of the world, that I know very little of what is going on outside."

"Happy woman! Perhaps I should be happy, also, since this particular phase of the problem doesn't concern me. Money may not be your best friend, but it's the quickest to act, and seems to be favourably recognised in more places than most friends are. For the size of it, a check book is about the greatest convenience I know of."

The brown eyes were cold now, and their soft lights had become a glitter. The scarlet mouth was no longer sweet and womanly, but set into a hard, tight line. Colour burned in her cheeks—not a delicate flush, but the crimson of defiance, of daring. She was, as she sat there, a living challenge to Fate.

"Is he happy?" queried Madame.

"I suppose so. His ideal of a wife seems to be one who shall arrange and order his house, look after his clothing, provide for his material comfort, be there when he comes, sit at the head of his table, dressed in her best, when he deigns to honour dinner with his presence, ask no questions as to his comings or goings, keep still if he prefers to read either the morning or evening paper while he eats, and to refrain from annoying him by being ill, or, at least, by speaking of illness.

[Sidenote: Quiet Rebuke]

"I saw, once, a huge cocoa-husk door-mat, with the word 'Welcome' on it in big red letters. I've been sorry ever since that I didn't buy it, for it typified me so precisely. It would be nice, wouldn't it, to have at your front door something that exactly indicated the person inside, like the overture to a Wagner opera, using all the themes and motifs that were coming? That's what I've been for six years, but, if a worm will turn, why not a wife?"

"If you'll excuse me for saying so," Madame answered, in a tone of quiet rebuke, "I don't think it was quite right to come away without letting him know you were coming."

"Why not?"

"He'll wonder where you are."

"I've had plenty of opportunity to wonder where he was."

"But what will he think, when he finds out you have gone?"

"He may not have noticed it. I have competent servants and they'll look after him as well or better than I do. If I had left a wax figure in the library, in one of my gowns, with its back to the door and its head bent over a book, I could have been well on my way to China before I was missed, or, rather, that I was among those not present. If he has found it out, it has been by the application of the same inductive methods by which I discover that he's not coming home to dinner."

[Sidenote: Do You Love Him?]

"Do you love him?" In the answer to that question lay Madame's solution of all difficulties, past and to come. To her, it was the divine reagent of all Life's complicated chemistry; the swift turning of the prism, with ragged edges breaking the light into the colours of the spectrum, to a point where refraction was impossible.

"I did," Edith sighed, "but marriage is a great strain upon love."

The silvery cadence of Madame's laughter rang through the house and echoed along the corridor. As though in answer, the clock struck ten, the canary sang happily, and a rival melody came from the kitchen, in cracked soprano, mercifully muted by distance and two closed doors.

"See what you've started," Edith said. "It's like the poem, where the magic kiss woke the princess, and set all the clocks to going and the little dogs to barking outside. Don't let me talk you to death—I've been chattering for considerably over an hour, and, very selfishly, of my own affairs, to the exclusion of everything else."

"But your affairs interest me extremely, I wish I knew of some way to help you."

"In the last analysis, of course, it comes to this—either go on and make the best of it, or quit."

[Sidenote: The Marriage Vow]

"Not—not divorce," breathed Madame. Her violet eyes were wide with horror.

"No," Edith answered, shortly, "not divorce. Separation, possibly, but not divorce, which is only a legal form permitting one to marry again. Personally, I feel bound by the solemn oath I took at the altar, 'until death do us part,' and 'forsaking all others keep thee only unto me so long as we both shall live.' All the laws in the country couldn't make me feel right with my own conscience if I violated that oath."

"If the marriage service were changed," Madame said, nodding her approval, "it might be justified. If one said, at the altar, 'Until death or divorce do us part,' or 'Until I see someone else I like better,' there'd be reason for it, but, as it is, there isn't. And again, it says, 'Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder.'"

"Those whom God hath joined no man can put asunder," Edith retorted, "but did God do it? It doesn't seem right to blame Him for all the pitiful mistakes that masquerade as marriage. Mother used to say," she resumed, after a little, "that when you're more miserable without a man than you think you ever could be with him, it's time to marry him, and when you're more miserable with him than you think you ever could be without him, it's time to quit."

[Sidenote: Envious Women]

"And," suggested Madame, "in which class do you belong?"

"Both, I think—that is, I'm miserable enough to belong to both. I'm unhappy when he's with me and wretched when he isn't. As he mostly isn't, I'm more wretched than unhappy. In the small circle in which I move, I'm considered a very fortunate woman.

"Women who are compelled to be mendicants and who do not know that I have a private income, envy me my gowns and hats, my ability to ask a friend or two to luncheon if I choose, and the unfailing comfort of a taxicab if I'm caught in the rain. They think, if they had my gowns and my grooming, that they could win and keep love, which seems to be about all a woman wants. But these things are, in reality, as useless as painting the house when the thermometer is below zero and you need a fire inside to warm your hands by. I have imported gowns and real lace and furs and jewels and all the grooming I'm willing to take, but my soul is frozen and starved.

"My house," she went on, "isn't a mansion, but it has all the comforts anyone could reasonably require. As far as my taste can discover, it's artistic and even unusual. The dinner my cook sends up every night is as good, or better than any first-class hotel can serve, though it may not be quite so elaborate.

[Sidenote: The One Thing Lacking]

"I myself am not so bad to look at, I am well dressed, and never untidy. I am disgustingly well, which is fortunate, for most men hate a sick woman. If I have a headache I don't speak of it. I neither nag nor fret nor scold, and I even have a few parlour tricks which other people consider attractive. For six years, I have given generously and from a full heart everything he has seemed to require of me.

"I've striven in every way to please him, adapting myself to his tastes. I've even been the sort of woman men call 'a good fellow,' admiringly among women and contemptuously among themselves. And, in return, I have nothing—not even the fairy gold that changes to withered leaves when you take it into the sunshine."

"You seem to have a good deal, dear—youth and health and strength and sufficient income. How many women would be glad to have what you have?"

"I want love," cried Edith, piteously. "I want someone to care for me—to be proud of me for what I am and the little things I can do! If I painted a hideous dog on a helpless china plate, I'd want someone to think it was pretty. If I cooked a mess in the chafing-dish or on the stove, I'd want someone to think it was good, just because I did it! If I embroidered a red rose on a pink satin sofa cushion, or painted a Winter scene on a wooden snow-shovel and hung it up in the parlour, I'd want someone to think it was beautiful. If I wrote a limerick, I'd want someone to think it was clever. I want appreciation, consideration, sympathy, affection! I'm starving for love, I'm dying for it, and I'd go across the desert on my knees for the man who could give it to me!"

[Sidenote: Kisses Classified]

"Perhaps he cares," said Madame, consolingly, "and doesn't show it."

"You can tell by the way a man kisses you whether he cares or not. If he doesn't kiss you at all, he doesn't care and doesn't even mind your knowing it. If he kisses you dutifully, without a trace of feeling, and, by preference, on your cheek or neck, he doesn't care but thinks he ought to, and hopes you won't find out that he doesn't. But, if he cares—ah, how it thrills you if he cares!"

Madame's violet eyes grew dim. "I know," she said, brokenly, "for I had it all once, long ago. People used to say that marriage changes love, but, with us, it only grew and strengthened. The beginning was no more the fulness of love than an acorn is the oak tree which springs from it. We had our trials, our differences, and our various difficulties, but they meant nothing.

[Sidenote: It May Come]

"I've had almost all the experiences of life," she continued, clearing her throat. "The endless cycle of birth and death has passed on its way through me. I've known poverty, defeat, humiliation, doubt, grief, discouragement, despair. I've had illness and death; I've borne children only to lose them again. I've worked hard and many times I've had to work alone, but I've had love, though all I have left of it is a sunken grave."

"And I," answered Edith, "have had everything else but love. Believe me, I'd take all you've had, even the grave, if I could have it once."

"It may come," said Madame, hopefully.

Edith shook her head. "That's what I'm afraid of."

"How so? Why be afraid?"

"You see," she explained, "I'm young yet and I'm not so desperately unattractive as my matrimonial experiences might lead one to believe. I haven't known there was another man on earth except my husband, but his persistent neglect has made me open my eyes a little, and I begin to see others, on a far horizon. Red blood has a way of answering to red blood, whether there are barriers between or not, and if I loved another man, and he were unscrupulous——"

"But," objected the older woman, "you couldn't love an unscrupulous man."

[Sidenote: Like the Circus]

"Couldn't I? My dear, when I see the pitiful specimens of manhood that women love, the things they give, the sacrifices they make, the neglect and desertions they suffer from, the countless humiliations they strive to bear proudly, I wonder that any one of us dares to look in the mirror.

"It's the eternal woman-hunger for love that makes us what we are, compels us to endure what we do, and keeps us all door-mats with 'Welcome' printed on us in red letters. Eagerly trustful, we keep on buying tickets to the circus, and never discover until we're old and grey, that it's always exactly the same entertainment, and we're admitted to it, each time, by a different door.

"Sometimes we see the caged wild animals first, and again, we arrive at the pink-lemonade stand; or, up at the other end, where the trapezes are, or in the middle, opposite the tank. Sometimes the band plays and sometimes it doesn't, but all you need in order to be thoroughly disillusioned is to stay to the concert, which bears about the same relation to the circus that marriage does to your anticipations."

"Are you afraid," laughed Madame, "that you'll buy another ticket?"

"No, but I'll find it, or somebody will give me a pass. I'm too young to stay to the concert and there's more of life coming to me still. I only hope and pray that I'll manage to keep my head and not make the fatal, heart-breaking mistake of the women who go over the precipice, waving defiance at the social law that bids them stay with the herd."

[Sidenote: Mixed Metaphors]

"Your metaphors are mixed," Madame commented. "Concerts and circuses, and herds, and precipices and door-mats. I feel as though you had presented me with a jig-saw puzzle."

"So I have. Is my life anything more than that? I don't even know that all the pieces are there. If they would only print the picture on the cover of the box, or tell us how many pieces there are, and give us more than one or two at a time, and eternity to solve it in, we'd stand some chance, perhaps."

"More mixed metaphors," Madame said, rolling up the mended stockings.

A maid came into the dining-room and began to set the table for luncheon. Edith rose from her chair and came to Madame. The dark hollows under her eyes were evident now and all the youth was gone from her face and figure.

"Well," she said, in a low tone, "what am I to do?"

It was some little time before Madame answered. "I do not know. These modern times are too confused for me. The old way would have been to wait, to do the best one could, and trust God to make it right in His own good time."

[Sidenote: Invited to Stay]

Edith shook her head. "I've waited and I've done the best I could, and I've tried to trust."

"No one can solve a problem for another, but, I think, when it's time to act, one knows what to do and the way is clearly opened for one to do it. Don't you feel better for having come here and talked to me?"

"Yes, indeed," said the young woman, gratefully. "So much was right—I'm sure of that. The train had scarcely started before I felt more at peace than I had for years."

"Then, dear, won't you stay with me until you know just what to do?"

Edith looked long and earnestly into the sweet old face. "Do you mean it? It may be a long time."

"I mean it—no matter how long it is."

Quick tears sprang to the brown eyes, and Edith brushed them aside, half ashamed. "It means more trunks," she said, "and your son——"

"Will be delighted to have you with us," Madame concluded.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." Madame was not at all sure, but she told her lie prettily.

"Then," said Edith, with a smile, "I'll stay."



IX

A Spring Day

[Sidenote: Alden's Idea of a Trunk]

With the tact that seems the birthright of the gifted few, Mrs. Lee adjusted herself to the ways of the Marsh household. Some commotion had been caused by the arrival of four more trunks, of different shapes and sizes, but after they had been unpacked and stored, things went on smoothly.

Alden's idea of a trunk had hitherto been very simple. To him, it was only a substantial box, variation in size and in exterior finish being the only possible diversions from the original type. When it fell to his lot, on a Saturday morning, to superintend the removal of Mrs. Lee's empty trunks to the attic, he discovered the existence of hat trunks, dresser trunks, and wardrobe trunks, cannily constructed with huge warts on all sides but the one the trunk was meant to stand upon.

"Why so scornful?" a sweet voice asked, at his elbow.

"I'm not scornful," he returned. "I'm merely interested."

[Sidenote: In the Hall]

"You're fortunate," she smiled, "to be so easily interested."

"We're out of the world here, you know, and unfamiliar varieties of the trunk species make me feel much as Crusoe did when he came upon a human footprint in the sand."

"I wonder," mused Mrs. Lee, "how he really did feel. It must have been dramatic beyond all words."

She sat down on the window-seat in the hall and leaned back against the casement of the open window. The warm Spring wind, laden with the sweet scent of growing things, played caressingly about her neck and carried to Alden a subtle fragrance of another sort. Her turquoise-blue silk kimono, delicately embroidered in gold, was open at the throat and fastened at the waist with a heavy golden cord. Below, it opened over a white petticoat that was a mass of filmy lace ruffles. Her tiny feet peeped out beneath the lace, clad in pale blue silk stockings and fascinating Chinese slippers that turned up at the toes.

From above came discordant rumblings and eloquent, but smothered remarks on the general subject of trunks. Mrs. Lee laughed. "They're trying to make the wardrobe-trunk stand up on the wrong end, and it won't."

"How do you know that's it?"

"Because I've heard the same noises and the same general trend of conversation all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again. The farther west you go, the more accomplished the men are in the art of profanity."

[Sidenote: Sounds from the Attic]

"Is it an art? I thought it came naturally."

"It does, to some, but you have no idea what study and constant practice can do in developing a natural gift."

The sunlight illumined her hair into a mass of spun gold that sparkled and gleamed and shone. It made golden lights in her brown eyes, caressed the ivory softness of her skin, and deepened the scarlet of her lips.

"Listen," she said. "Isn't it awful?"

"No," returned Alden, "it isn't. In fact, I don't know of any sound I'd rather hear than your trunks being put into our attic."

A faint suggestion of a dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth, then vanished. "Well done," she said. "You have atoned nobly for your dismay the night I came, when you found I'd brought a trunk."

"I wish you wouldn't," he replied, awkwardly. "It wasn't that."

"Such a small trunk," she went on, mercilessly. "Just a plain little steamer trunk that you can put under a bed. The kind you can ask a cabman to take down to the cab for you. A little trunk that a woman can almost carry herself! Only room for one gown, one hat, and a few toilet articles!"

[Sidenote: Always Too Late]

The golden lights in her eyes were dancing and her hair shimmered in the sun. Alden sat down at the farthest end of the window-seat and looked out upon the vineyard, faintly green, now, with the new leaves. The two men descended from the attic and went down the back stairs.

"How did Robinson Crusoe feel when he saw the footprint?" he asked, determined to get away from the unlucky subject of trunks.

"I don't know," Edith answered, "for I wasn't there. He must have been surprised and frightened and pleased all at once. How interesting it must be to have something happen to you that never happened to anybody before!"

"But it's all happened before," he objected. "Is there anything new under the sun?"

"It's been new, at one time or another. We're always too late, that's all. Somebody ate the first oyster and somebody went to sleep first and somebody wore the first false hair.

"No," she continued, with a rose-pink flush mantling her face, "I don't. If I did, I wouldn't mind saying so, but Nature gave me quantities of it, so why should I borrow more? Besides, I don't believe there is any more like it, so I couldn't, anyway."

"No," he returned, thoughtfully, "I don't believe there is any more like it, either. Your wish to be first in something is surely gratified, for there never was such hair as yours and never will be again."

[Sidenote: Red Hair and Auburn]

"Mother's was like it."

He shook his head. "No, it wasn't. I never saw your mother, but I know better than that."

"Ask your mother. There she is now."

Madame appeared at the head of the stairs, on the way to her room, to dress for luncheon. She paused to smile at the two who sat on the window-seat, then would have gone straight on had not Edith called to her.

"Mrs. Marsh! Isn't my hair exactly like my mother's?"

Madame came to her, turned the shining head a little more toward the sun, and patted the fluffiness caressingly. "No," she said, "though your mother had glorious hair, it was nothing like this. Hers was auburn and smooth, yours is reddish-gold—almost copper-coloured—and fluffy. Besides, you must have nearly twice as much of it."

"There," said Alden, "I told you so."

"But," persisted Edith, "if it's really copper-coloured, it's common. Look at the lady on the copper cent, for instance."

"The lady on the copper cent," returned Alden, "is a gentleman who wears feathers."

"But under his feathers he has hair the colour of this."

"He may not have any hair at all."

[Sidenote: What's the Matter with Her?]

They both laughed, and Madame smiled, though she did not quite understand what they were talking about. She was still smiling when she reached her own room, for she found it very pleasant to have Edith there, and was delighted to have Alden come to a realising sense of his duties as host.

He had, indeed, conducted himself admirably ever since Mrs. Lee's arrival, though he had been very quiet and reserved at first. With some trepidation, she had told him that she had invited the guest to remain indefinitely, tactfully choosing a moment after an unusually good dinner, when they chanced to be alone.

Alden had taken it calmly, betraying no outward sign of any sort of emotion. "What's the matter with her?" he had asked, curiously. "What's she in trouble about?"

"If she wants you to know, my son, she will tell you herself," Madame had replied, in a tone of gentle rebuke. "I have no right to violate her confidence."

He shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly. "You don't need to squelch me like that, Mother. I don't know that I care, particularly. I was merely making conversation."

"Refined conversation is not made of impertinences," Madame suggested. The words were harsh, but the tone was kind.

"Don't stab me with epigrams, please, for I don't believe I deserve it."

[Sidenote: Dream-Children]

Madame recalled every word they had said as she took down her afternoon gown of black silk, and began to sew frills of real lace in the neck and sleeves. She was glad he had been pleasant about it, for it seemed much more like living, someway, to have another woman in the house.

If Virginia had lived—she, too, had brown eyes, but her hair was brown also. She would have been four years older than Edith was now, and, undoubtedly, married. All Madame's feminine ancestors for generations back had been married. The only spinster in the family, so far as Madame knew, had remained true to the memory of a dead lover.

"Some women are born to be married, some achieve marriage, and others have marriage thrust upon them," Madame said to herself, unconsciously paraphrasing an old saying. Virginia would have been meant for it, too, and, by now, there would have been children in the old house, pattering back and forth upon the stairs, lisping words that meant no more than the bubbling of a fountain, and stretching up tiny hands that looked like crumpled rose-petals, pleading to be taken up and loved.

These dream-children tugged strangely at the old lady's heart-strings in her moments of reverie. Even yet, after Rosemary came—but they would not be like her own flesh and blood, as a daughter's children always are. Poor Rosemary! How miserable she was at home, and how little she would need to make her happy! To think that she dared not tell her Grandmother and Aunt that she was engaged to Alden! Madame's cheeks grew warm with resentment in the girl's behalf. Motherless, friendless, alone, with Life's great cup of wonder in her rough, red hands!

[Sidenote: "Fussed Over"]

A tap at the door made her start. "Come in!" she called.

It was Edith, trig and tailor-made, in dark green, with a crisp white linen shirtwaist, an immaculate collar, and a dashing green tie.

"Mr. Marsh has invited me to go for a drive after luncheon," she said, "and he asked me to come and see if you weren't almost ready. May I do your hair for you?"

Madame submitted, not because she cared to have her hair done, but because she liked to be "fussed over," as she put it. There was something very pleasant in the touch of Edith's cool, soft hands.

"You're—you're not going to change the way I do it, are you?" she asked, a little anxiously.

"No, indeed! I wouldn't change it for anything. It suits you just as it is."

"I'm glad you think so, for I've always worn it like this. Alden wouldn't know me if I became fashionable."

[Sidenote: It Isn't Right]

"He doesn't look a bit like you," said Edith, irrelevantly.

"No, but he's the living image of his father, and I'm very glad. It keeps me from—from missing him too much," Madame's voice broke a little on the last words.

"It must be lovely to be missed," said Edith, quickly. "Now I——"

"Dear, haven't you told him yet?"

"He's probably discovered it by this time. Still, I don't know—I've only been away a week."

"It isn't right," said Madame, decidedly. "You must let him know where you are."

"Why? I never know where he is."

"That doesn't make any difference. Two wrongs never make one perfect right. If you do your part, things will be only half wrong, instead of entirely so."

"I'll do whatever you think best," said Edith, humbly. "I came to you because I could think for myself no longer. I'll write him a note before luncheon, if you say so, and post it this afternoon."

"I do say so."

Therefore luncheon waited for a few moments, to Alden's secret impatience, until Edith came down with her note. She offered it to Madame, doubtfully. "Want to see it?"

"No, dear. I'll trust you."

She sealed it with shamefaced gladness that Madame had not availed herself of the opportunity. She was quite sure that her counsellor would not approve of the few formal lines which were all she had been able to make herself write.

[Sidenote: On the Way to the Post-Office]

After luncheon, when Alden assisted her into Madame's decrepit phaeton, and urged the superannuated horse into a wildly exciting pace of three miles an hour, she asked to be driven to the post-office.

"Thank you," said Alden, "for alluding to it as a drive. It's more like a walk."

"It isn't exactly like going out in a touring car," she admitted, "but it's very pleasant, nevertheless. It gives you time to look at the scenery."

"Also to photograph it if you should so desire. You don't even need to limit yourself to snap-shots. A time-exposure is altogether possible."

When they reached the post-office, Alden took her note, and went through the formality of tying the horse. He glanced at the superscription, not because he was interested in her unknown correspondent, but because the handwriting claimed his attention. Through the delicate angular tracery he made out the address: "Mr. William G. Lee." The street and number were beyond his skill in the brief time he had at his command.

"So," he said, when he came back, "you're Mrs. William G. I trust you don't call him 'William'?"

[Sidenote: Mrs. William G.]

"No—he's the sort of William who is always known as 'Billy.'"

"Good! That speaks well for him."

Alden began to wonder, as he alternately coaxed and threatened the horse toward the river-road, what manner of man she had married. Someone, undoubtedly, with the face and figure of Apollo, the courtesy of Chesterfield, and the character of a saint. "It was good of him," he said, gratefully, "to let you come to us."

Edith bit her lips and turned her face away. "I was glad to come," she answered, after a pause. For a moment she trembled upon the verge of a confidence, then summoned all her conversational powers to the rescue.

She began with the natural beauty of the country through which they were driving, observed that the roads were better adapted to a horse than to an automobile, noted the pleasant situation of the Marsh house on the river shore, veered for a moment to the subject of good roads in France, came back to the blue reflection of the sky upon the smooth surface of the river, admired the situation of the vineyard, said that Madame's phaeton was extremely comfortable, and concluded by asking if it wasn't almost time for apple-blossoms.

[Sidenote: "I Just Knew!"]

"All of which means," said Alden, quietly, "that you're unhappily married."

"How do you know?" demanded Edith, crimson with surprise and mortification. "Did—did your mother tell you?"

"No, she didn't—most decidedly she didn't. I just know, that's all."

"How? Do I betray myself so completely as that?"

He answered her question by another. "How did you know, the night you came, that I was surprised and not altogether pleased by the fact that you had brought a trunk? Were my manners as bad as all that?"

"Why, no—I just knew."

"And how did you know, this morning, when we were sitting on the window-seat, that I was wondering whether or not you wore false hair?"

"Why—I just knew."

"That's it, exactly."

"How long have you—known?"

"Ask me something easier than that," he laughed, endeavouring to relieve a situation that threatened to become awkward. Following his lead, she began to ask questions about the vineyard, and, when he told her he feared he knew very little about his work, suggested that he should read up on vine-culture and make it the best-paying vineyard in the State.

[Sidenote: An Afternoon Drive]

"Has mother been talking to you?" he demanded, turning to her quickly.

"About the vineyard? No. But, if it's your work, why not do it better than anybody else does it?"

Alden looked at her long and earnestly. The golden lights of her eyes were thrown into shadow now, for it was afternoon and they were driving east. Her answering smile gave him confidence, courage. Moreover, it challenged him in some subtle way he could not analyse. It dared him, as it were, to make the best of the vineyard—and himself.

"Thank you," he said, at length. "I believe—I will."

The divine moment passed, and, for the remainder of the drive, they talked commonplaces. But the fresh air from the hills, the freedom of the wind-swept spaces, the steady aspiration of everything that lived, brought the colour to Edith's cheeks, the sparkle to her eyes, and ministered secretly to her soul. When she went in, she looked happier than she had since she came. Madame saw it and was glad, but wisely said nothing.

She came down at dinner-time in a black lace gown trimmed with spangles that glittered when she moved. It was cut away slightly from the rounded, ivory throat, and the white arms were bare to the elbow. The upper parts of the sleeves were made of black velvet ribbon, latticed into small diamond-shaped openings through which the satin texture of the skin showed in the candlelight. She wore no rings, except the slender circlet of gold that had been put on her finger at the altar, six years ago.

[Sidenote: A Sense of Foreboding]

Conversation at dinner proceeded slowly, but on pleasant lines. Edith seemed preoccupied, and, at times, Alden relapsed into long silences. Madame noted that they scarcely spoke to each other, and was vaguely troubled, for she liked Edith, and wanted Alden to like her too.

After dinner, Edith played cribbage with Madame and Alden read the paper. When Madame had won three games, in rapid succession, Edith said good-night. Alden, from the depths of his paper, murmured the conventional response.

* * * * *

That night he started from his sleep with a sense of foreboding. He sat up and listened, but there was no sound. Not even the wind moving a shutter, nor a swaying branch tapping at his window—not a footfall, nor an echo, nor a breath.

The tall clock on the landing struck four. The silvery strokes died away into a silence that was positive, rather than negative. The sense of foreboding still persisted; moreover, he was conscious that someone else was awake also.

[Sidenote: A Mysterious Perception]

Was it his mother? Was she ill? No—he was sure of that. Was it Edith? Yes, that was it. She was awake, and had been awake all night. Moreover, she was crying.

His heart throbbed with tender pity. He yearned to comfort her, to assure her that whatever was wrong must eventually be made right. Why, from the crown of her beautiful head to the turned-up toe of her blue Chinese slipper, Edith had been made for joy—and for love.

Out of the darkness came a sudden mysterious perception. She knew she had awakened him, and had smiled at the knowledge. A sense of weariness quickly followed, then a restful silence which carried no thought with it.

He lay back on his pillow and waited, with his eyes closed, until he felt that she was asleep. Then he slept also.



X

A Little Brown Mouse

[Sidenote: A Letter for Rosemary]

Rosemary peered into the letter box and saw that The Household Guardian was there. On one Thursday it had failed to appear and she had been unable to convince Grandmother of her entire innocence in the matter. Even on the following day, when she brought it home, in the original wrapping, she felt herself regarded with secret suspicion. As it never had failed to come on Thursday, why should it, unless Rosemary, for some reason best known to herself, had tampered with the United States Mail?

There was also a letter, and Rosemary waited eagerly for the postmaster to finish weighing out two pounds of brown sugar and five cents' worth of tea for old Mrs. Simms. She pressed her nose to the glass, and squinted, but the address eluded her. Still, she was sure it was for her, and, very probably, from Alden, whom she had not seen for ten days.

[Sidenote: Ways and Means]

She felt a crushing sense of disappointment when she saw that it was not from Alden, but was addressed in an unfamiliar hand. Regardless of the deference she was accustomed to accord a letter, she tore it open hastily and read:

"MY DEAR ROSEMARY:

"Can you come to tea on Saturday afternoon about four? We have a guest whom I am sure you would like to meet.

"Affectionately, your

"MOTHER."

The words were formal enough, and the quaint stateliness of the handwriting conveyed its own message of reserve and distance but the signature thrilled her through and through. "Mother!" she repeated, in a whisper. She went out of the post-office blindly, with the precious missive tightly clasped in her trembling hand.

Would she go? Of course she would, even though it meant facing Grandmother, Aunt Matilda, and all the dogs of war.

As the first impulse faded, she became more cautious, and began to consider ways and means. It was obviously impossible to wear brown gingham or brown alpaca to a tea-party. That meant that she must somehow get her old white muslin down from the attic, iron it, mend it, and freshen it up as best she could. She had no doubt of her ability to do it, for both old ladies were sound sleepers, and Rosemary had learned to step lightly, in bare feet, upon secret errands around the house at night.

[Sidenote: Secret Longings]

But how could she hope to escape, unobserved, on Saturday afternoon? And, even if she managed to get away, what of the inevitable return? Why not, for once, make a bold declaration of independence, and say, calmly: "Grandmother, I am going to Mrs. Marsh's Saturday afternoon at four, and I am going to wear my white dress." Not "May I go?" or "May I wear it?" but "I am going," and "I am going to wear it."

At the thought Rosemary shuddered and her soul quailed within her. She knew that she would never dare to do it. At the critical moment her courage would fail her, and she would stay at home. Perhaps she could wear the brown gingham if it were fresh and clean, and she pinned at her throat a bow of the faded pink ribbon she had found in her mother's trunk in the attic. And, if it should happen to rain Saturday, or even look like rain, so much the better. Anyhow, she would go, even in the brown gingham. So much she decided upon.

Yet, with all her heart, she longed for the white dress, the only thing she had which even approached daintiness. An old saying came back to her in which she had found consolation many times before. "When an insurmountable obstacle presents itself, sometimes there is a way around it." And, again, "Take one step forward whenever there is a foothold and trust to God for the next."

[Sidenote: A Bit of News]

That night, at supper, Aunt Matilda electrified Grandmother with a bit of news which she had jealously kept to herself all day.

"The milkman was telling me," she remarked, with an assumed carelessness which deceived no one, "that there's company up to Marshs'."

Grandmother dropped her knife and fork with a sharp clatter. "You don't tell me!" she cried. "Who in creation is it?"

"I was minded to tell you before," Aunt Matilda resumed, with tantalising deliberation, "but you've had your nose in that fool paper all day, and whenever I spoke to you you told me not to interrupt. Literary folks is terrible afraid of bein' interrupted, I've heard, so I let you alone."

"I didn't know it was anything important," murmured Grandmother, apologetically.

"How could you know," questioned Matilda, logically, "before I'd told you what it was?"

There being no ready answer to this, Grandmother responded with a snort, which meant much or little, as one might choose. A dull red burned on her withered cheeks and she had lost interest in her supper. Only Rosemary was calm.

[Sidenote: A Play-Actin' Person]

"As I was sayin'," Matilda went on, after an aggravating silence, "there's company up to Marshs'."

"Seems to me," Grandmother grunted, "that she'd better be payin' up the calls she owes in the neighbourhood than entertainin' strangers." This shaft pierced a vulnerable spot in Matilda's armour of self-esteem, for she still smarted under Madame Marsh's neglect.

"The milkman says it's a woman. Her name's Mis' Lee. She come a week ago and last Saturday she was to the post-office, and up the river-road all the afternoon in that old phaeton with young Marsh."

Rosemary's heart paused for a moment, then resumed its beat.

"She's a play-actin' person, he says, or at any rate she looks like one, which amounts to the same thing. She's brought four trunks with her—one respectable trunk, same as anybody might have, one big square trunk that looks like a dog-house, and another big trunk that a person could move into if there wasn't no other house handy, and another trunk that was packed so full that it had bulged out on all sides but one, and when Jim and Dick took it up into the attic there wasn't but one side they could set it on. And whiles they was findin' a place to set it, she and young Marsh was laughin' down in the hall."

[Sidenote: Servant's Gossip]

"Who is she?" demanded Grandmother. "Where did she come from? How long is she goin' to stay? Where'd Mis' Marsh get to know her?"

"The milkman's wife was over last Monday," Matilda continued, "to help with the washin', and she says she never see such clothes in all her born days nor so many of 'em. They was mostly lace, and she had two white petticoats in the wash. The stocking was all silk, and she said she never see such nightgowns. They was fine enough for best summer dresses, and all lace, and one of 'em had a blue satin bow on it, and what was strangest of all was that there wa'n't no place to get into 'em. They was made just like stockin's with no feet to 'em, and if she wore 'em, she'd have to crawl in, either at the bottom or the top. She said she never see the beat of those nightgowns."

"Do tell!" ejaculated Grandmother.

"And her hair looks as if she ain't never combed it since the day she was born. The milkman says it looks about like a hen's nest and is pretty much the same colour. He see her on the porch for a minute, and all he could look at was that hair. And when he passed 'em on the river-road after they come from the post-office, he couldn't see her hair at all, cause she had on a big hat tied on with some thin light blue stuff. He reckoned maybe her hair was a wig."

[Sidenote: Discussing the Stranger]

"I'd know whether 'twas a wig or not, if I saw it once," Grandmother muttered. "There ain't nobody that can fool me about false hair."

"I guess you ain't likely to see it," retorted Matilda, viciously. "All we'll ever hear about her'll be from the milk folks."

"Maybe I could see her," ventured Rosemary, cautiously. "I could put on my best white dress and go to see Mrs. Marsh, to-morrow or next day, after I get the work done up. I could find out who she was and all about her, and come back and tell you."

For an instant the stillness was intense, then both women turned to her. "You!" they said, scornfully, in the same breath.

"Yes," said Grandmother, after an impressive pause, "I reckon you'll be puttin' on your best dress and goin' up to Marshs' to see a play-actin' woman."

"You'd have lots to do," continued Aunt Matilda, "goin' to see a woman what ain't seen fit to return a call your Aunt made on her more'n five years ago."

"Humph!" Grandmother snorted.

"The very idea," exclaimed Aunt Matilda.

What had seemed to Rosemary like an open path had merely led to an insurmountable stone wall. She shrugged her shoulders good-humouredly. "Very well," she said, "I'm sure I don't care. Suit yourselves."

[Sidenote: One Step Forward]

She began to clear away the supper dishes, for, though the others had eaten little, they had apparently finished. Out in the kitchen, she sang as she worked, and only a close observer would have detected a tremor in the sweet, untrained soprano. "Anyway," thought Rosemary, "I'll put on the flat-irons."

The fire she had built would not go out for some hours. She had used coal ruinously in order to heat the oven for a special sort of tea-biscuit of which Grandmother was very fond. While the fire was going out, it would heat the irons, and then——