The three, Hollis, Linnet, and Marjorie, sat in the moon lighted parlor and talked over old times. Hollis had begun it by saying that his father had shown him "Flyaway" stowed away in the granary chamber.

He was sitting beside Linnet in a good position to study Marjorie's face unobserved. The girl's face bore the marks of having gone through something; there was a flutter about her lips, and her soft laugh and the joy about the lips was almost contradicted by the mistiness that now and then veiled the eyes. She had planned to go up to her chamber early, and have this evening alone by herself,—alone on her knees at the open window, with the stars above her and the rustle of the leaves and the breath of the sea about her. It had been a long sorrow; all she wanted was to rest, as Mary did, at the feet of the Lord; to look up into his face, and feel his eyes upon her face; to shed sweetest tears over the peace of forgiven sin.

She had written to Aunt Prue all about it that afternoon. She was tempted to show the letter to her mother, but was restrained by her usual shyness and timidity.

"Marjorie, why don't you talk?" questioned Linnet.

Marjorie was on the music stool, and had turned from them to play the air of one of the songs they used to sing in school.

"I thought I had been talking a great deal. I am thinking of so many things and I thought I had spoken of them all."

"I wish you would," said Hollis.

"I was thinking of Morris just then. But he was not in your school days, nor in Linnet's. He belongs to mine."

"What else? Go on please," said Hollis.

"And then I was thinking that his life was a success, as father's was. They both did the will of the Lord."

"I've been trying all day to submit to that will," said Linnet, in a thick voice.

"Is that all we have to do with it—submit to it?" asked Hollis with a grave smile. "Why do we always groan over 'Thy will be done,' as though there never was anything pleasant in it?"

"That's true," returned Linnet emphatically. "When Will came Saturday, I didn't rejoice and say 'It is the Lord's will,' but Sunday morning I thought it was, because it was so hard! All the lovely things that happen to us are his will of course."

"Suppose we study up every time where the Lord speaks of his father's will, and learn what that will is. Shall we, Marjorie?" proposed Hollis.

"Oh, yes; it will be delightful!" she assented.

"And when I come back from my fishing excursion we will compare notes, and give each other our thoughts. I must give that topic in our prayer-meeting and take it in my Bible class."

"We know the will of God is our sanctification," said Marjorie slowly. "I don't want to sigh, 'Thy will be done,' about that."

"Hollis, I mean to hold on to that—every happy thing is God's will as well as the hard ones," said Linnet.

"And here come the mothers for some music," exclaimed Marjorie. "They cannot go to sleep without it."

And Marjorie's mother did not go to sleep with it. Hollis had invited himself to remain all night, saying that he was responsible for Linnet and could not go home unless she went home.



XXVI.

MARJORIE'S MOTHER.

"Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice."—Johnson.

Marjorie fell asleep as happy as she wanted to be; but her mother did not close her eyes in sleep all that night. She closed them in prayer, however, and told Miss Prudence afterward that she "did not catch one wink of sleep." All night long she was asking the Lord if she might intermeddle between Marjorie and Hollis. As we look at them there was nothing to intermeddle with. Marjorie herself did not know of anything. Perhaps, more than anything, she laid before the Lord what she wanted him to do. She told him how Marjorie looked, and how depressed she had been, and her own fear that it was disappointment that was breaking her heart. The prayer was characteristic.

"Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest the hearts of both, and what is in thy will for both; but thou dost choose means, thou hast chosen means since the world began; and if thou hast chosen me, make me ready to speak. Soften the heart of the young man; show him how ill he has done; and knit their hearts to each other as thou didst the hearts of David and Jonathan. Make her willing as thou didst make Rebekah willing to go with the servant of Abraham. Give her favor in his eyes, as thou gavest favor to Abigail in the eyes of David. Bring her into favor and tender love, as thou broughtest Daniel. Let it not be beneath thy notice; the sparrows are not, and she is more than many sparrows to thee. Give me words to speak, and prepare his heart to listen. The king's heart is in thine hand, and so is his heart. If we acknowledge thee in all our ways, thou wilt direct our steps. I do acknowledge thee. Oh, direct my steps and my words."

With variety of phrasing, she poured out this prayer all through the hours of the night; she spread the matter before the Lord as Hezekiah did the letter that troubled him. Something must be done. She forgot all the commands to wait, to sit still and see the salvation of the Lord; she forgot, or put away from her, the description of one who believeth: "He that believeth shall not make haste." And she was making haste with all her might.

In the earliest dawn she arose, feeling assured that the Lord had heard her cry and had answered her; he had given her permission to speak to Hollis.

That he permitted her to speak to Hollis, I know; that it was his will, I do not know; but she was assured that she knew, and she never changed her mind. It may be that it was his will for her to make a mistake and bring sorrow upon Marjorie; the Lord does not shrink from mistakes; he knows what to do with them.

Before the house was astir, Hollis found her in the kitchen; she had kindled the fire, and was filling the tea-kettle at the pump in the sink.

"Good morning, Mrs. West. Excuse my early leave; but I must meet my friends to-day."

"Hollis!"

She set the tea-kettle on the stove, and turned and looked at him. The solemn weight of her eye rooted him to the spot.

"Hollis, I've known you ever since you were born."

"And now you are going to find fault with me!" he returned, with an easy laugh.

"No, not to find fault, but to speak with great plainness. Do you see how changed Marjorie is!"

"Yes. I could not fail to notice it. Has she been ill?"

"Yes, very ill. You see the effect of something."

"But she is better. She was so bright last night."

"Yes, last night," she returned impressively, setting the lid of the tea-kettle firmly in its place. "Did you ever think that you did wrong in writing to her so many years and then stopping short all of a sudden, giving her no reason at all?"

"Do you mean that has changed her, and hurt her?" he asked, in extreme surprise.

"I do. I mean that. I mean that you gained her affections and then left her," she returned with severity.

Hollis was now trembling in every limb, strong man as he was; he caught at the back of a chair, and leaned on his two hands as he stood behind it gazing into her face with mute lips.

"And now, what do you intend to do?"

"I never did that! It was not in my heart to do that! I would scorn to do it!" he declared with vehemence.

"Then what did you do?" she asked quietly.

"We were good friends. We liked to write to each other. I left off writing because I thought it not fair to interfere with Morris."

"Morris! What did he have to do with it?"

"She wears his ring," he said in a reasoning voice.

"She wears it as she would wear it if a brother had given it to her. They were brother and sister."

Hollis stood with his eyes upon the floor. Afterward Mrs. West told Miss Prudence that when it came to that, she pitied him with all her heart, "he shook all over and looked as if he would faint."

"Mrs. West!" he lifted his eyes and spoke in his usual clear, manly voice, "I have never thought of marrying any one beside Marjorie. I gave that up when mother wrote me that she cared for Morris. I have never sought any one since. I have been waiting—if she loved Morris, she could not love me. I have been giving her time to think of me if she wanted to—"

"I'd like to know how. You haven't given her the first sign."

"She does not know me; she is shy with me. I do not know her; we do not feel at home with each other."

"How are you going to get to feel at home with each other five hundred miles apart?" inquired the practical mother.

"It will take time."

"Time! I should think it would." Mrs. West pushed a stick of wood into the stove with some energy.

"But if you think it is because—"

"I do think so."

"Then she must know me better than I thought she did," he continued, thoughtfully.

"Didn't she go to school with you?"

"Not with me grown up."

"That's a distinction that doesn't mean anything."

"It means something to me. I am more at home with Linnet than I am with her. She has changed; she keeps within herself."

"Then you must bring her out."

"How can she care, if she thinks I have trifled with her?"

"I didn't say she thought so, I said I thought so!"

"You have hastened this very much. I wanted her to know me and trust me. I want my wife to love me, Mrs. West."

"No doubt of that, Master Hollis," with a sigh of congratulation to herself. "All you have to do is to tell her what you have told me. She will throw you off."

"Has she said so?" he inquired eagerly.

"Do you think she is the girl to say so?"

"I am sure not," he answered proudly.

"Hollis, this is a great relief," said Marjorie's mother.

"Well, good-bye," he said, after hesitating a moment with his eyes on the kitchen floor, and extending his hand. "I will speak to her when I come back."

"The Lord bless you," she answered fervently.

Just then Marjorie ran lightly down-stairs singing a morning hymn, entering the kitchen as he closed the door and went out.

"Hollis just went," said her mother.

"Why didn't he stay to breakfast?" she asked, without embarrassment.

"He had to meet his friends early," replied her mother, averting her face and busying herself at the sink.

"He will have to eat breakfast somewhere; but perhaps he expects to take a late breakfast on the fish he has caught. Mother, Linnet and I are to be little girls, and go berrying."

"Only be happy, children; that's all I want," returned Mrs. West, her voice breaking.

While Marjorie fried the fish for breakfast her mother went to her chamber to kneel down and give thanks.



XXVII.

ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALK.

"We are not to lead events but to follow them."—Epictetus.

Marjorie was so happy that she trembled with the joy of it. The relief from her burden, at times, was almost harder to bear than the burden itself. She sang all day hymns that were the outpouring of her soul in love to Christ.

"What a child you are, Marjorie," her mother said one day. "You were as doleful as you could be, and now you are as happy as a bird."

"Do you remember what Luther says?"

"Luther says several wise and good things."

"And this is one of them; it is one of Aunt Prue's favorite sayings: 'The Christian should be like a little bird, which sits on its twig and sings, and lets God think for it.'"

"That's all very well for a bird; but we have to do," replied her mother sharply.

"We have to do what God thinks, though," returned Marjorie quickly.

"Child, you are your father all over again; he always wanted to wait and see; but mine was the faith that acted."

"But now can we act, until we wait and see?" persisted Marjorie. "I want to be sure that God means for us to do things."

"Many a thing wouldn't have happened if I hadn't pushed through—why, your father would have been willing for Linnet to be engaged years and years."

"So would I," said Marjorie seriously.

A week later, one afternoon towards dusk, Marjorie was walking home from her grandfather's. Her happy face was shaded by a brown straw hat, her hands were sunburned, and her fingers were scratched with numerous berrying expeditions. There was a deepened color in the roundness of her cheeks; she was a country maiden this afternoon, swinging an empty basket in her hand. She was humming to herself as she walked along, hurrying her steps a little as she remembered that it was the mail for her long, foreign letter. This afternoon she was as happy as she wanted to be. Within half a mile of home she espied a tall figure coming towards her,—a figure in a long linen duster, wearing a gray, low-crowned, felt hat. After an instant she recognized Hollis and remembered that to-day he was expected home. She had not thought of it all day.

"Your mother sent me to meet you," he said, without formal greeting. Instantly she detected a change in his manner towards her; it was as easy as if he were speaking to Linnet.

"I've been off on one of my long walks."

"Do you remember our walk together from your grandfather's—how many years ago?"

"When I appealed to your sympathies and enlisted you in my behalf?"

"You were in trouble, weren't you? I believe it is just seven years ago."

"Physiologists tell us we are made over new every seven years, therefore you and I are another Hollis and another Marjorie."

"I hope I am another Hollis," he answered gravely.

"And I am sure I am another Marjorie," she said more lightly. "How you lectured me then!"

"I never lectured any one."

"You lectured me. I never forgot it. From that hour I wanted to be like your cousin Helen."

"You do not need to copy any one. I like you best as yourself."

"You do not know me."

"No; I do not know you; but I want to know you."

"That depends upon yourself as well as upon me."

"I do not forget that. I am not quick to read and you are written in many languages."

"Are you fond of the study—of languages? Did you succeed in French?"

"Fairly. And I can express my wants in German. Will you write to me again?"

There was a flush now that was not sunburn; but she did not speak; she seemed to be considering.

"Will you, Marjorie?" he urged, with gentle persistence.

"I—don't know."

"Why don't you know."

"I have not thought about it for so long. Let me see—what kind of letters did you write. Were they interesting?"

"Yours were interesting. Were you hurt because—"

It happened so long ago that she smiled as she looked up at him.

"I have never told you the reason. I thought Morris Kemlo had a prior claim."

"What right had you to think that?"

"From what I heard—and saw."

"I am ignorant of what you could hear or see. Morris was my twin-brother; he was my blessing; he is my blessing."

"Is not my reason sufficient?"

"Oh, yes; it doesn't matter. But see that sumach. I have not seen anything so pretty this summer; mother must have them. You wouldn't think it, but she is very fond of wild flowers."

She stepped aside to pluck the sumach and sprays of goldenrod; they were growing beside a stone wall, and she crossed the road to them. He stood watching her. She was as unconscious as the goldenrod herself.

What had her mother meant? Was it all a mistake? Had his wretched days and wakeful nights been for nothing? Was there nothing for him to be grieved about? He knew now how much he loved her—and she? He was not a part of her life, at all. Would he dare speak the words he had planned to speak?

"Then, Marjorie, you will not write to me," he began afresh, after admiring the sumach.

"Oh, yes, I will! If you want to! I love to write letters; and my life isn't half full enough yet. I want new people in it."

"And you would as readily take me as another," he said, in a tone that she did not understand.

"More readily than one whom I do not know. I want you to hear extracts from one of Mrs. Holmes' delicious letters to-night."

"You are as happy as a lark to-day.

"That is what mother told me, only she did not specify the bird. Morris, I am happier than I was Sunday morning."

He colored over the name. She smiled and said, "I've been thinking about him to-day, and wanting to tell him how changed I am."

"What has changed you?" he asked.

Her eyes filled before she could answer him. In a few brief sentences, sentences in which each word told, she gave him the story of her dark year.

"Poor little Mousie," he said tenderly. "And you bore the dark time all by yourself."

"That's the way I have my times. But I do not have my happy times by myself, you see."

"Did nothing else trouble you?"

"No; oh, no! Nothing like that. Father's death was not a trouble. I went with him as far as I could—I almost wanted to go all the way."

"And there was nothing else to hurt you?" he asked very earnestly.

"Oh, no; why should there be?" she answered, meeting his questioning eyes frankly. "Do you know of anything else that should have troubled me?"

"No, nothing else. But girls do have sometimes. Didn't your mother help you any? She helps other people."

"I could not tell her. I could not talk about it. She only thought I was ill, and sent for a physician. Perhaps I did worry myself into feeling ill."

"You take life easily," he said.

"Do I? I like to take it as God gives it to me; not before he gives it to me. This slowness—or faith—or whatever it is, is one of my inheritances from my blessed father. Who is it that says, 'I'd see to it pretty sharp that I didn't hurry Providence.' That has helped me."

"I wish it would some one else," he said grimly.

"I wish it would help every one else. Everything is helping me now; if I were writing to you I could tell you some of them."

"I like to hear you talk, Marjorie."

"Do you?" she asked wonderingly. "Linnet does, too, and Mrs. Kemlo. As I shall never write a book, I must learn to talk, and talk myself all out. Aunt Prue is living her book."

"Tell me something that has helped you," he urged.

She looked at the goldenrod in her hand, and raised it to her lips.

"It is coming to me that Christ made everything. He made those lilies of which he said, 'Consider the lilies.' Isn't it queer that we will not let him clothe us as he did the lilies? What girl ever had a white dress of the texture and whiteness and richness of the lily?"

"But the lily has but one dress; girls like a new dress for every occasion and a different one."

"'Shall he not much more clothe you?' But we do not let him clothe us. When one lily fades, he makes another in a fresh dress. I wish I could live as he wants me to. Not think about dress or what we eat or drink? Only do his beautiful work, and not have to worry and be anxious about things."

"Do you have to be?" he asked smiling.

"My life is a part of lives that are anxious about these things. But I don't think about dress as some girls do. I never like to talk about it. It is not a temptation to me. It would not trouble me to wear one dress all my life—one color, as the flowers do; it should be a soft gray—a cashmere, and when one was soiled or worn out I would have another like it—and never spend any more thought about it. Aunt Prue loves gray—she almost does that—she spends no thought on dress. If we didn't have to 'take thought,' how much time we would have—and how our minds would be at rest—to work for people and to study God's works and will."

Hollis smiled as he looked down at her.

"Girls don't usually talk like that," he said.

"Perhaps I don't—usually. What are you reading now?"

"History, chiefly—the history of the world and the history of the church."

They walked more and more slowly as they drifted into talk about books and then into his life in New York and the experiences he had had in his business tours and the people whom he had met.

"Do you like your life?" she asked.

"Yes, I like the movement and the life: I like to be 'on the go.' I expect to take my third trip across the ocean by and by. I like to mingle with men. I never could settle down into farming; not till I am old, at any rate."

They found Marjorie's mother standing in the front doorway, looking for them. She glanced at Hollis, but he was fastening the gate and would not be glanced at. Marjorie's face was no brighter than when she had set out for her walk. Linnet was setting the tea-table and singing, "A life on the ocean wave."

After tea the letter from Switzerland was read and discussed. Miss Prudence, as Mrs. West could not refrain from calling her, always gave them something to talk about. To give people something to think about that was worth thinking about, was something to live for, she had said once to Marjorie.

And then there was music and talk. Marjorie and Hollis seemed to find endless themes for conversation. And then Hollis and Linnet went home. Hollis bade them good-bye; he was to take an early train in the morning. Marjorie's mother scanned Marjorie's face, and stood with a lighted candle in her hand at bedtime, waiting for her confidence; but unconscious Marjorie closed the piano, piled away the sheets of music, arranged the chairs, and then went out to the milkroom for a glass of milk.

"Good-night, mother," she called back. "Are you waiting for anything?"

"Did you set the sponge for the bread?"

"Oh, yes," in a laughing voice.

And then the mother went slowly and wonderingly up the stairs, muttering "Well! well! Of all things!"

Marjorie drew Aunt Prue's letter from her pocket to think it all over again by herself. Mr. Holmes was buried in manuscript. Prue was studying with her, beside studying French and German with the pastor's daughter in the village, and she herself was full of many things. They were coming home by and by to choose a home in America.

"When I was your age, Marjorie, and older, I used to fall asleep at night thinking over the doings of the day and finding my life in them; and in the morning when I awoke, my thought was, 'What shall I do to-day?' And now when I awake—now, when my life is at its happiest and as full of doings as I can wish, I think, instead, of Christ, and find my joy in nearness to him, in doing all with his eye upon me. You have not come to this yet; but it is waiting for you. Your first thought to-morrow morning may be of some plan to go somewhere, of some one you expect to see, of something you have promised to-day; but, by and by, when you love him as you are praying to love him, your first thought will be that you are with him. You can imagine the mother awaking with joy at finding her child asleep beside her, or the wife awaking to another day with her husband; but blessed more than all is it to awake and find the Lord himself near enough for you to speak to."

Marjorie went to sleep with the thought in her heart, and awoke with it; and then she remembered that Hollis must be on his way to the train, and then that she and Linnet were to drive to Portland that day on a small shopping excursion and to find something for the birthday present of Morris' mother.

Several days afterward when the mail was brought in Mrs. West beckoned Marjorie aside in a mysterious manner and laid in her hand a letter from Hollis.

"Yes," said Marjorie.

"Did you expect it?"

"Oh, yes."

Mrs. West waited until Marjorie opened it, and felt in her pocket for her glasses. In the other time she had always read his letters. But Marjorie moved away with it, and only said afterward that there was no "news" in it.

It was not like the letters of the other time. He had learned to write as she had learned to talk. Her reply was as full of herself as it would have been to Morris. Hollis could never be a stranger again.



XXVIII.

THE LINNET.

"He who sends the storm steers the vessel."—Rev. T. Adams

August passed and September was almost through and not one word had been heard of the Linnet. Linnet lived through the days and through the nights, but she thought she would choke to death every night. Days before she had consented, her mother had gone to her and urged her with every argument at her command to lock up her house and come home until they heard. At first, she resented the very thought of it; but Annie Grey was busy in Middlefield, Marjorie was needed at home, and the hours of the days seemed never to pass away; at last, worn out with her anguish, she allowed Captain Rheid to lift her into his carriage and take her to her mother.

As the days went on Will's father neither ate nor slept; he drove into Portland every day, and returned at night more stern and more pale than he went away in the morning.

Linnet lay on her mother's bed and wept, and then slept from exhaustion, to awake with the cry, "Oh, why didn't I die in my sleep?"

One evening Mrs. Rheid appeared at the kitchen door; her cap and sunbonnet had fallen off, her gray hair was roughened over her forehead, her eyes were wild, her lips apart. Her husband had brought her, and sat outside in his wagon too stupefied to remember that he was leaving his old wife to stagger into the house alone.

Mrs. West turned from the table, where she was reading her evening chapter by candle light, and rising caught her before she fell into her arms. The two old mothers clung to each other and wept together; it seemed such a little time since they had washed up Linnet's dishes and set her house in order on the wedding day. Mrs. Rheid thrust a newspaper into her hand as she heard her husband's step, and went out to meet him as Mrs. West called Marjorie. Linnet was asleep upon her mother's bed.

"My baby, my poor baby!" cried her mother, falling on her knees beside the bed, "must you wake up to this?"

She awoke at midnight; but her mother lay quiet beside her, and she did not arouse her. In the early light she discerned something in her mother's face, and begged to know what she had to tell.

Taking her into her arms she told her all she knew. It was in the newspaper. A homeward-bound ship had brought the news. The Linnet had been seen; wrecked, all her masts gone, deserted, not a soul on board—the captain supposed she went down that night; there was a storm, and he could not find her again in the morning. He had tried to keep near her, thinking it worth while to tow her in. Before she ended, the child was a dead weight in her arms. For an hour they all believed her dead. A long illness followed; it was Christmas before she crossed the chamber, and in April Captain Rheid brought her downstairs in his arms.

His wife said he loved Linnet as he would have loved an own daughter. His heart was more broken than hers.

"Poor father," she would say, stroking his grizzly beard with her thin fingers; "poor father."

"Cynthy," African John's wife, had a new suggestion every time she was allowed to see Linnet. Hadn't she waited, and didn't she know? Mightn't an East Indian have taken him off and carried him to Madras, or somewhere there, and wasn't he now working his passage home as she had once heard of a shipwrecked captain doing! Or, perhaps some ship was taking him around the Horn—it took time to go around that Horn, as everybody knew—or suppose a whaler had taken him off and carried him up north, could he expect to get back in a day, and did she want him to find her in such a plight?

So Linnet hoped and hoped. His mother put on mourning, and had a funeral sermon preached; and his father put up a grave-stone in the churchyard, with his name and age engraved on it, and underneath, "Lost at sea." There were, many such in that country churchyard.

It was two years before Linnet could be persuaded to put on her widow's mourning, and then she did it to please the two mothers. The color gradually came back to her cheeks and lips; she moved around with a grave step, but her hands were never idle. After two years she insisted upon going back to Will's home, where the shutters had been barred so long, and the only signs of life were the corn and rye growing in the fields about it.

Annie Grey was glad to be with her again. She worked at dressmaking; and spent every night at home with Linnet.

The next summer the travellers returned from abroad; Mr. Holmes, more perfectly his developed self; little Prue growing up and as charming a girl as ever papa and mamma had hoped for, prayed for, and worked for; and Mrs. Holmes, or "Miss Prudence" and "Aunt Prue," as she was called, a lady whose slight figure had become rounded and whose white hair shaded a fair face full of peace.

There was no resisting such persuasions as those of Mrs. Kemlo, the girls' mother, and the "girls" themselves; and almost before they had decided upon it they found themselves installed at Mrs. West's for the summer. Before the first snow, however, a house was rented in New York City, the old, homelike furniture removed to it, and they had but to believe it to feel themselves at home in the long parlor in Maple Street.

Linnet was taken from her lonely home by loving force, and kept all winter. She could be at rest with Miss Prudence; she could be at rest and enjoy and be busy. It was wonderful how many things she became busied about and deeply interested in. Her letters to Marjorie were as full of life as in her school days. She was Linnet, Mrs. Holmes wrote to her mother; but she was Linnet chastened and sanctified.

And all this time Hollis and Marjorie had written to each other, and had seen each other for two weeks every day each year.

During the winter Linnet spent in New York the firm for which he travelled became involved; the business was greatly decreased; changes were made: one of the partners left the firm; the remaining head had a nephew, whom he preferred to his partner's favorite, Hollis Rheid; and Hollis Rheid found himself with nothing to do but to look around for something to do.

"Come home," wrote his father. "I will build you a house, and give you fifty acres of good land."

With the letter in his pocket, he sought his friends, the Holmes'. He was not so averse to a farmer's life as he had been when he once spoke of it to Marjorie.

He found Prue practicing; papa was in the study, she said, and mamma and Linnet had gone to the train to meet Marjorie.

"Marjorie did not tell me that she was coming."

"It was to be your surprise, and now I've spoiled it."

"Nothing can spoil the pleasure of it," he returned.

Prue stationed herself at the window, as when she was a little girl, to watch for Marjorie. She was still the blue bird with the golden crest.



XXIX.

ONE NIGHT.

"We are often prophets to others only because we are our own historians."—Madame Swetchine.

The evening before Marjorie started for New York she was sitting alone in her father's arm chair before the sitting-room fire. Her mother had left her to go up to Mrs. Kemlo's chamber for her usual evening chat. Mrs. Kemlo was not strong this winter, and on very cold days did not venture down-stairs to the sitting-room. Marjorie, her mother, and the young farmer who had charge of the farm, were often the only ones at the table, and the only occupants of the sitting-room during the long winter evenings. Marjorie sighed for Linnet, or she would have sighed for her, if she had been selfish; she remembered the evenings of studying with Morris, and the master's tread as he walked up and down and talked to her father.

Now she was alone in the dim light of two tallow candles. It was so cold that the small wood stove did not sufficiently heat the room, and she had wrapped the shawl about her that Linnet used to wear to school when Mr. Holmes taught. She hid herself in it, gathering her feet up under the skirt of her dress, in a position very comfortable and lazy, and very undignified for a maiden who would be twenty-five on her next birthday.

The last letter from Hollis had stated that he was seeking a position in the city. He thought he understood his business fairly, and the outlook was not discouraging. He had a little money well invested; his life was simple; and, beyond the having nothing to do, he was not anxious. He had thought of farming as a last resort; but there was rather a wide difference between tossing over laces and following the plow.

"Not that I dread hard work, but I do not love the solitude of country life. 'A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone,' Swift writes; but I am not a wise man, nor a wild beast. I love men and the homes of men, the business of men, the opportunities that I find among men."

She had not replied to this letter; what a talk they would have over it! She had learned Hollis; she knew him by heart; she could talk to him now almost as easily as she could write. These years of writing had been a great deal to both of them. They had educated each other.

The last time Mrs. West had seen Hollis she had wondered how she had ever dared speak to him as she had spoken that morning in the kitchen. Had she effected anything? She was not sure that they were engaged; she had "talked it over" with his mother, and that mother was equally in the dark.

"I know what his intentions are," confided Marjorie's mother "I know he means to have her, for he told me so."

"He has never told me so," said Hollis' mother.

"You haven't asked him," suggested Mrs. West comfortably.

"Have you?"

"I made an opportunity for it to be easy for him to tell me."

"I don't know how to make opportunities," returned Mrs. Rheid with some dignity.

"Everybody doesn't," was the complacent reply.

Marjorie had had a busy day arranging household matters for her mother while she should be gone, and was dozing with her head nestled in the soft folds of the shawl when her mother's step aroused her.

"Child, you are asleep and letting the fire go down."

"Am I?" she asked drowsily, "the room is cold."

She wrapped the shawl about her more closely and nestled into it again.

"Perhaps Hollis will come home with you," her mother began, drawing her own especial chair nearer the fire and settling down as if for a long conversation.

"Mother, you will be chilly;" and, with the instinct that her mother must be taken care of, she sprang up with her eyes still half asleep and attended to the fire.

The dry chips soon kindled a blaze, and she was wide awake with the flush of sleep in her cheeks.

"Why do you think he will?" she asked.

"It looks like it. Mrs. Rheid ran over to-day to tell me that the Captain had offered to give him fifty acres and build him a house, if he would come home for good."

"I wonder if he will like it."

"You ought to know," in a suggestive tone.

"I am not sure. He does not like farming."

"A farm of his own may make a difference. And a house of his own. I suppose the Captain thinks he is engaged to you."

Mrs. West was rubbing her thumb nail and not looking at Marjorie. Marjorie was playing with a chip, thrusting it into the fire and bringing it out lighted as she and Linnet used to like to do.

"Marjorie, is he?"

"No, ma'am," answered Marjorie, the corners of her lips twitching.

"I'd like to know why he isn't," with some asperity.

"Perhaps he knows," suggested Marjorie, looking at her lighted chip. It was childish; but she must be doing something, if her mother would insist upon talking about Hollis.

"Do you know?"

Marjorie dropped her chip into the stove and looked up at the broad figure in the wooden rocker—a figure in a black dress and gingham apron, with a neat white cap covering her gray hair, a round face, from which Marjorie had taken her roundness and dimples, a shrewd face with a determined mouth and the kindliest eyes that ever looked out upon the world. Marjorie looked at her and loved her.

"Mother, do you want to know? I haven't anything to tell you."

"Seems to me he's a long time about it."

Marjorie colored now, and, rising from her seat in front of the fire, wrapped the shawl again around her.

"Mother, dear, I'm not a child now; I am a woman grown."

"Too old to be advised," sighed her mother.

"I don't know what I need to be advised about."

"People never do. It is more than three years ago that he told me that he had never thought of any one but you."

"Why should he tell you that?" Marjorie's tone could be sharp as well as her mother's.

"I was talking about you. I said you were not well—I was afraid you were troubled—and he told me—that."

"Troubled about what?" Marjorie demanded.

"About his not answering your letter," in a wavering voice.

The words had to come; Mrs. West knew that Marjorie would have her answer.

"And—after that—he asked me—to write to him. Mother, mother, you do not know what you have done!"

Marjorie fled away in the dark up to her own little chamber, threw herself down on the bed without undressing, and lay all night, moaning and weeping.

She prayed beside; she could not be in trouble and not give the first breath of it to the Lord. Hollis had asked her to write because of what her mother had said to him. He believed—what did he believe?

"O, mother! mother!" she moaned, "you are so good and so lovely, and yet you have hurt me so. How could you? How could you?"

While the clock in Mrs. Kemlo's room was striking six, a light flashed across her eyes. Her mother stood at the bedside with a lighted candle in her hand.

"I was afraid you would oversleep. Why, child! Didn't you undress? Haven't you had anything but that quilt over you?"

"Mother, I am not going; I never want to see Hollis again," cried Marjorie weakly.

"Nonsense child," answered her mother energetically.

"It is not nonsense. I will not go to New York."

"What will they all think?"

"I will write that I cannot come. I could not travel to-day; I have not slept at all."

"You look so. But you are very foolish. Why should he not speak to me first?"

"It was your speaking to him first. What must he think of me! O, mother, mother, how could you?"

The hopeless cry went to her mother's heart.

"Marjorie, I believe the Lord allows us to be self-willed. I have not slept either; but I have sat up by the fire. Your father used to say that we would not make haste if we trusted, and I have learned that it is so. All I have done is to break your heart."

"Not quite that, poor mother. But I shall never write to Hollis again."

Mrs. West turned away and set the candle on the bureau. "But I can," she said to herself.

"Come down-stairs where it is warm, and I'll make you a cup of coffee. I'm afraid you have caught your death of cold."

"I am cold," confessed Marjorie, rising with a weak motion.

Her new gray travelling dress was thrown over a chair, her small trunk was packed, even her gloves were laid out on the bureau beside her pocket-book.

"Linnet has counted on it so," sighed her mother.

"Mother!" rising to her feet and standing by the bedside. "I will go. Linnet shall not be disappointed."

"That's a good child! Now hurry down, and I'll hurry you off," said her mother, in her usual brisk tone.

An hour and a half later Mrs. West kissed Marjorie's pale lips, and bade her stay a good while and have a good time. And before she washed up the breakfast dishes she put on a clean apron, burnished her glasses, and sat down to write to Hollis. The letter was as plain as her talk had been. He had understood then, he should understand now. But with Marjorie would be the difficulty; could he manage her?



XXX.

THE COSEY CORNER.

"God takes men's hearty desires and will instead of the deed where they have not the power to fulfill it; but he never took the bare deed instead of the will."—Richard Baxter.

Prue opened the door, and sprang into Marjorie's arms in her old, affectionate way; and Marjorie almost forgot that she was not in Maple Street, when she was led into the front parlor; there was as much of the Maple Street parlor in it as could be well arranged. Hollis was there on the hearth rug, waiting modestly in the background for his greeting; he had not been a part of Maple Street. The greeting he waited for was tardy in coming, and was shy and constrained, and it seemed impossible to have a word with her alone all the evening: she was at the piano, or chatting in the kitchen with old Deborah, or laughing with Prue, or asking questions of Linnet, and when, at last, Mr. Holmes took her upstairs to show her his study, he said good night abruptly and went away.

Marjorie chided herself for her naughty pride and passed another sleepless night; in the morning she looked so ill that the plans for the day were postponed, and she was taken into Mrs. Holmes own chamber to be petted and nursed to sleep. She awoke in the dusk to find Aunt Prue's dear face beside her.

"Aunt Prue," she said, stretching up her hands to encircle her neck, "I don't know what to do."

"I do. Tell me."

"Perhaps I oughtn't to. It's mother's secret."

"Suppose I know all about it."

"You can't! How can you?"

"Lie still," pushing her back gently among the pillows, "and let me tell you."

"I thought I was to tell you."

"A while ago the postman brought me a note from your mother. She told me that she had confessed to you something she told me last summer."

"Oh," exclaimed Marjorie, covering her face with both hands, "isn't it too dreadful!"

"I think your mother saw clearly that she had taken your life into her own hands without waiting to let God work for you and in you. I assured her that I knew all about that dark time of yours, and she wept some very sorrowful tears to think how heartbroken you would be if you knew. Perhaps she thought you ought to know it; she is not one to spare herself; she is even harder upon herself than upon other sinners."

"But, Aunt Prue, what ought I to do now? What can I do to make it right?"

"Do you want to meddle?"

"No, oh no; but it takes my breath away. I'm afraid he began to write to me again because he thought I wanted him to."

"Didn't you want him to?"

"Yes—but not—but not as mother thought I did. I never once asked God to give him back to me; and I should if I had wanted it very much, because I always ask him for everything."

"Your pride need not be wounded, poor little Marjorie! Do you remember telling Hollis about your dark time, that night he met you on your way from your grandfather's?"

"Yes; I think I do. Yes, I know I told him; for he called me 'Mousie,' and he had not said that since I was little; and with it he seemed to come back to me, and I was not afraid or timid with him after that."

"You wrote me about the talk, and he has told me about it since. To be frank, Marjorie, he told me about the conversation with your mother, and how startled he was. After that talk with you he was assured that she was mistaken—but, child, there was no harm, no sin—even if it had been true. The only sin I find was your mother's want of faith in making haste. And she sees it now and laments it. She says making haste has been the sin of her lifetime. Her unbelief has taken that form. You were very chilly to Hollis last night."

"I couldn't help it," said Marjorie. "I would not have come if I could have stayed at home."

"Is that proud heart satisfied now?"

"Perhaps it oughtn't to be—if it is proud."

"We will not argue about it now as there's somebody waiting for you down-stairs."

"I don't want to see him—now."

"Suppose he wants to see you."

"Aunt Prue! I wish I could be selfish just a few minutes."

"You may. A whole hour. You may be selfish up here all by yourself until the dinner bell rings."

Marjorie laughed and drew the lounge afghan up about her shoulders. She was so happy that she wanted to go to sleep;—to go to sleep and be thankful. But the dinner bell found her in the parlor talking to Linnet; Prue and Hollis were chattering together in French. Prue corrected his pronunciation and promised to lend him books.

The most inviting corner in the house to Marjorie was a cosey corner in the library; she found her way thither after dinner, and there Hollis found her, after searching parlors, dining-room, and halls for her. The cosey corner itself was an arm-chair near the revolving bookcase; Prue said that papa kept his "pets" in that bookcase.

Marjorie had taken a book into her hand and was gathering a thought here and there when Hollis entered; he pushed a chair to her side, and, seating himself, took the book from her fingers.

"Marjorie, I have come to ask you what to do?"

"About your father's offer?"

"Yes. I should have written to-day. I fancy how he watches the mail. But I am in a great state of indecision. My heart is not in his plan."

"Is your heart in buying and selling laces?"

"I don't see why you need put it that way," he returned, with some irritation. "Don't you like my business?"

"Do you?"

"I like what it gives me to do."

"I should not choose it if I were a man."

"What would you choose?"

"I have not considered sufficiently to choose, I suppose. I should want to be one of the mediums through which good passed to my neighbor."

"What would you choose for me to do?"

"The thing God bids you do."

"That may be to buy and sell laces."

"It may be. I hope it was while you were doing it."

"You mean that through this offer of father's God may be indicating his will."

"He is certainly giving you an opportunity to choose."

"I had not looked upon it in that light. Marjorie, I'm afraid the thought of his will is not always as present with me as with you."

"I used to think I needed money, like Aunt Prue, if I would bless my neighbor; but once it came to me that Christ through his poverty made us rich: the world's workers have not always been the men and the women with most money. You see I am taking it for granted that you do not intend to decide for yourself, or work for yourself."

"No; I am thinking of working for you."

"I am too small a field."

"But you must be included."

"I can be one little corner; there's all Middlefield beside. Isn't there work for you as a citizen and as a Christian in our little town? Suppose you go to Middlefield with the same motives that you would go on a mission to India, Africa, or the Isles of the Sea! You will not be sent by any Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, but by him who has sent you, his disciple, into the world. You have your experience, you have your strength, you have your love to Christ and your neighbor, to give them. They need everything in Middlefield. They need young men, Christian young men. The village needs you, the Church needs you. It seems too bad for all the young men to rush away from their native place to make a name, or to make money. Somebody must work for Middlefield. Our church needs a lecture room and a Sunday school room; the village needs a reading room—the village needs more than I know. It needs Christian push. Perhaps it needs Hollis Rheid."

"Marjorie, it will change all my life for me."

"So it would if you should go West, as you spoke last night of doing. If you should study law, as you said you had thought of doing, that would change the course of your life. You can't do a new thing and keep to the old ways."

"If I go I shall settle down for life."

"You mean you will settle down until you are unsettled again."

"What will unsettle me?"

"What unsettled you now?"

"Circumstances."

"Circumstances will keep on being in existence as long as we are in existence. I never forget a motto I chose for my birthday once on a time. 'The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.'"

"He commands us to fight, sometimes."

"And then we must fight. You seem to be undergoing some struggles now. Have you any opening here?"

"I answered an advertisement this morning, but we could not come to terms. Marjorie, what you say about Middlefield is worth thinking of."

"That is why I said it," she said archly.

"Would you like that life better?"

"Better for you?"

"No, better for yourself."

"I am there already, you know," with rising color.

"I believe I will write to father and tell him I will take his kindness into serious consideration."

"There is no need of haste."

"He will want to begin to make plans. He is a great planner. Marjorie! I just thought of it. We will rent Linnet's house this summer—or board with her, and superintend the building of our own, Do you agree to that?"

"You haven't taken it into serious consideration yet."

"Will it make any difference to you—my decision? Will you share my life—any way?"

Prue ran in at that instant, Linnet following. Hollis arose and walked around among the books. Prue squeezed herself into Marjorie's broad chair; and Linnet dropped herself on the hassock at Marjorie's feet, and laid her head in Marjorie's lap.

There was no trouble in Linnet's face, only an accepted sorrow.

"Marjorie, will you read to us?" coaxed Prue. "Don't you know how you used to read in Maple Street?"

"What do you feel like listening to?"

"Your voice," said Prue, demurely.



XXXI.

AND WHAT ELSE?

"What is the highest secret of victory and peace? To will what God wills."—W.R. Alger.

And now what further remains to be told?

Would you like to see Marjorie in her new home, with Linnet's chimneys across the fields? Would you like to know about Hollis' success as a Christian and a Christian citizen in his native town? Would you like to see the proud, indulgent grandmothers the day baby Will takes his first steps? For Aunt Linnet named him, and the grandfather declares "she loves him better than his mother, if anything!"

One day dear Grandma West came to see the baby, and bring him some scarlet stockings of her own knitting; she looked pale and did not feel well, and Marjorie persuaded her to remain all night.

In the morning Baby went into her chamber to awaken her with a kiss; but her lips were cold, and she would not open her eyes. She had gone home, as she always wanted to go, in her sleep.

That summer Mrs. Kemlo received a letter from her elder daughter; she was ill and helpless; she wanted her mother, and the children wanted her.

"They need me now," she said to Marjorie, with a quiver of the lip, "and nobody else seems to. When one door is shut another door is opened."

And then the question came up, what should Linnet and Marjorie do with their father's home? And then the Holmeses came to Middlefield for the summer in time to solve the problem. Mrs. Holmes would purchase it for their summer home; and, she whispered to Marjorie, "When Prue marries the medical student that papa admires so much, we old folks will settle down here and be grandpa and grandma to you all."

In time Linnet gave up "waiting for Will," and began to think of him as waiting for her. And, in time, they all knew God's will concerning them; as you may know if you do the best you can before you see it clearly.

THE END.