"Why, Prudence Pardon, how you talk!" said Miss Penny.



CHAPTER VIII.

A TEA-PARTY

"I wish we might have had William Jaquith as well," said Miss Vesta. "It would have pleased Mary, and every one says he is doing so well."

"I am quite as well satisfied as it is, my dear Vesta," replied Miss Phoebe. "Let me see; one, two, three—six cups and saucers, if you please; the gold-sprigged ones, and the plates to match. I think it is just as well not to have William Jaquith. I rejoice in his reform, and trust it will be as permanent as it is apparently sincere; but with Mr. and Mrs. Bliss—no, Vesta, I feel that the combination would hardly have been suitable. Besides, he and Cousin Homer could not both leave the office at once, so early in the evening."

"That is true," said Miss Vesta. "Which bowl shall we use for the wine jelly, Sister Phoebe? I think the color shows best in this plain one with the gold stars; or do you prefer the heavy fluted one?"

The little lady was perched on the pantry-steps, and looked anxiously down at Miss Phoebe, who, comfortably seated, on account of her rheumatism, was vainly endeavoring to find a speck of dust on cup or dish.

"The star-bowl is best, I am convinced," said Miss Phoebe, gravely; then she sighed.

"I sometimes fear that cut glass is a snare, Vesta. The pride of the eye! I tremble, when I look at all these dishes."

"Surely, Sister Phoebe," said Miss Vesta, gently, "there can be no harm in admiring beautiful things. The Lord gave us the sense of beauty, and I have always counted it one of his choicest mercies."

"Yes, Vesta; but Satan is full of wiles. I have not your disposition, and when I look at these shelves I am distinctly conscious that there is no such glass in Elmerton, perhaps none in the State. In china Aunt Marcia surpasses us,—naturally, having all the Tree china, and most of the Darracott; I have always felt that we have less Darracott china than is ours by right,—but in glass we stand alone. At times I feel that it may be my duty to give away, or sell for the benefit of the heathen, all save the few pieces which we actually need."

"Surely, Sister Phoebe, you would not do that!" said Miss Vesta, aghast. "Think of all the associations! Four generations of cut glass!"

"No, Vesta, I would not," said Miss Phoebe, sadly; "and that shows the snare plainly, and my feet in it. We are perishable clay! Suppose we put the cream in the gold-ribbed glass pitcher to-night, instead of the silver one; it will go better with the gold-sprigged cups. After all, for whom should we display our choicest possessions if not for our pastor?"

Little Mr. Bliss, the new minister, was not observant, and beyond a vague sense of comfort and pleasure, knew nothing of the exquisite features of Miss Phoebe's tea-table. His wife did, however, and as she said afterward, felt better every time the delicate porcelain of her teacup touched her lips. Mrs. Bliss had the tastes of a duchess, and was beginning life on a salary of five hundred dollars a year and a house. Doctor Stedman and Mr. Homer Hollopeter, too, appreciated the dainty service of the Temple of Vesta, each in his own way; and a pleasant cheerfulness shone in the faces of all as Diploma Crotty handed round her incomparable Sally Lunns, with a muttered assurance to each guest that she did not expect they were fit to eat.

"Phoebe," said Doctor Stedman, "I never can feel more than ten years old when I sit down at this table. I hope you have put me—yes, this is my place. Here is the mark. You set this table, Vesta?"

Miss Vesta blushed, the blush of a white rose at sunset.

"Yes, James," she said, softly. "I remembered where you like to sit."

"You see this dent?" said Doctor Stedman, addressing his neighbor, Mrs. Bliss; "I made that when I was ten years old. I used to be here a great deal, playing with Nathaniel, Miss Blyth's brother, and we were always cautioned not to touch this table. It was always, as you see it now, a shining mirror, and every time a little warm paw was laid on it, it left a mark. This, however, was not explained to us. We were simply told that if we touched that table, something would happen; and when we asked what, the reply was, 'You'll find out what!' That was your Aunt Timothea, girls, of course. Well, Nathaniel, being a peaceful and docile child, accepted this dictum. Perhaps, knowing his aunt, he may have understood it; but I did not, and I was possessed to find out what would happen if I touched the table. Once or twice I secretly laid the tip of a finger on it, when I was alone in the room; but nothing coming of it, I decided that a stronger touch was needed to bring the 'something' to pass. There used to be a little ivory mallet that belonged to the Indian gong—ah, yes, there it is! I remember as if it were yesterday the moment when, finding myself alone in the room, I felt that my opportunity had come. I caught up the mallet and gave a sounding bang on the sacred mahogany; then waited to see what would happen. Then Miss Timothea came in, and I found out. She did it with a slipper, and I spent most of the next week standing up."

"Our Aunt Timothea Darracott was the guardian of our childhood," Miss Phoebe explained to Mrs. Bliss. "She was an austere, but exemplary person. We derived great benefit from her ministrations, which were most devoted. A well-behaved child had little to fear from Aunt Timothea."

"You must not give our friends a false impression of James's childhood, Sister Phoebe," said Miss Vesta, looking up with the expression of a valorous dove. "He was far from being an unruly child as a general thing, though of course it was a pity about the table."

"Thank you, Vesta!" said Doctor Stedman. "But I am afraid I often got Nat into mischief. Do you remember your Uncle Tree's spankstick, Phoebe?"

"Shall we perhaps change the subject?" said Miss Phoebe, with bland severity. "It is hardly suited to the social board. Cousin Homer, may I give you a little more of the chicken, or will you have some oysters?"

"A—it is immaterial, I am obliged to you, Cousin Phoebe," said Mr. Homer Hollopeter, looking up with the air of one suddenly awakened. "The inner man has been abundantly refreshed, I thank you."

"The inner man was making a sonnet, Phoebe, and you have cruelly interrupted him," said Doctor Stedman, not without a gleam of friendly malice.

"Not a sonnet, James, this time," said Mr. Homer, coloring. "A few lines were, I confess, shaping themselves in my mind; it is very apt to be the case, when my surroundings are so gracious—so harmonious—I may say so inspiring, as at the present moment."

He waved his hands over the table, whose general effect was of crystal and gold, cream and honey, shining on the dark mirror of the bare table.

"I agree with you, I'm sure, Mr. Hollopeter," said little Mrs. Bliss, heartily. "I couldn't write a line of poetry to save my life, but if I could, I am sure it would be about this table, Miss Blyth. It is the prettiest table I ever saw, and the prettiest setting."

Miss Phoebe looked pleased.

"It is a Darracott table," she said. "My aunt, Mrs. Tree, has the mate to it. They were saved when Darracott House was burned, and naturally we value them highly. I believe they formed part of the original furnishing brought over from England by James Lysander James Darracott in 1642. It is a matter of rivalry between our good Diploma Crotty and her aunt, Mrs. Tree's domestic, as to which table is in the more perfect condition. Mrs. Tree's table has no dent in it—"

"Ah, Phoebe, I shall carry that dent to my grave with me!" said Doctor Stedman, with a twinkle in his gray eyes. "You will never forgive it, I see."

"On the contrary, James, I forgave it long ago," said Miss Phoebe, graciously. "I was about to remark that though the other table has no dent, it has a scratch, made by Jocko in his youth, which years of labor have failed to efface. To my mind, the scratch is more noticeable than the dent, though both are to be regretted. Mr. Bliss, you are eating nothing. I beg you will allow me to give you a little honey! It is made by our own bees, and I think I can conscientiously recommend it. A little cream, you will find, takes off the edge of the sweet, and makes it more palatable."

"Miss Blyth, you must not give us too many good things," said the little minister, shaking his head, but holding out his plate none the less. "Thank you! thank you! most delicious, I am sure. I only hope it is not a snare of the flesh, Miss Phoebe."

He spoke merrily, in full enjoyment of his first spoonful of honey—not the colorless, flavorless white clover variety, but the goldenrod honey, rich and full in color and flavor. He smiled as he spoke, but Miss Phoebe looked grave.

"I trust not, indeed, Mr. Bliss," she said. "It would ill become my sister and me to lay snares of any kind for your feet. I always feel, however, that milk, or cream, and honey, being as it were natural gifts of a bounteous Providence, and frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, may be partaken of in moderation without fear of over-indulgence of sinful appetites. A little more? Another pound cake, Mrs. Bliss? No? Then shall we return to the parlor?"

"You spoke of your aunt, Mrs. Tree, Miss Blyth," said Mr. Bliss, when they were seated in the pleasant, shining parlor of the Temple of Vesta, the red curtains drawn, the fire crackling its usual cordial welcome.

"She is a—a singularly interesting person. What vivacity! what readiness! what a fund of information on a variety of subjects! She put me to the blush a dozen times in a talk I had with her recently."

"Have you been able to have any serious conversation with my aunt, Mr. Bliss?" asked Miss Phoebe, with a slight indication of frost in her tone. "I should be truly rejoiced to hear that such was the case."

"A—well, perhaps not exactly serious," owned the little minister, smiling and blushing. "In fact,"—here he caught his wife's eye, and checked himself—"in fact,—a—she is an extremely interesting person!" he concluded, lamely.

"Now, John, why should you stop?" cried Mrs. Bliss. "Mrs. Tree is the Miss Blyths' own aunt, and they must know her ever so much better than we do. She was just as funny as she could be, Miss Blyth. Deacon Weight had asked Mr. Bliss to call and reason with her on spiritual matters,—'wrestle' was what he said, but John told him he was no wrestler,—and so he went and tried; but he had hardly said a word—had you, John?—when Mrs. Tree asked him which he liked best, Shakespeare or the musical glasses—what do you suppose she meant, Miss Vesta? And when he said Shakespeare, of course, she began talking about Hamlet, and Macready, and Mrs. Siddons, who gave her an orange when she was a little girl, and he never got in another word, did you, John? And Deacon Weight was so put out when he heard about it! I'm gl—"

"Marietta, my love!" remonstrated Mr. Bliss, hastily, "you forget yourself. Deacon Weight is our senior deacon."

"I'm sorry, John! but Mrs. Tree is just as kind as she can be," the little wife went on, her eyes kindling as she spoke. "Oh!—no, I won't tell, John; you needn't be afraid. Why, she said that if I told she would set the parrot on me, and she meant it. That bird frightens me out of my wits. But she is kind, and I never shall forget all she has done for us."

"I understand that you are a poet, sir," the minister said, turning to Mr. Homer Hollopeter, and evidently desirous of changing the subject. "May I ask if the sonnet is your favorite form of verse?"

Mr. Homer bridled and colored.

"A—not at present, sir," he replied, modestly. "For some years I did feel that my—a—genius, if I may call it so, moved most freely in the fetters of the sonnet; but of late I have thought it well to seek—to employ—to—a—avail myself of the various forms in which the Muse enshrines herself. It—gives, if I may so express myself, more breadth of wing; more scope; more freedom; more"—he waved his hands—"circumambiency!"

His hand went with a fluttering motion to his pocket.

"I am sure, Cousin Homer," said Miss Vesta, "our friends would be glad to hear some of your poetry, if you happen to have any with you."

"Very glad," echoed Mr. and Mrs. Bliss, heartily. Doctor Stedman, after a thoughtful glance at the door, and another at the clock,—but it was only seven,—settled himself resignedly in his chair and said, "Fire away, Homer!" quite kindly.

Mr. Homer drew forth a folded paper, and gazed on the company with a pensive smile.

"I confess," he said, "the thought had occurred to me that, if so desired, I might read these few lines to the choice circle before whom—or more properly which—I find myself this evening. An episode has recently occurred in our—a—midst, Mrs. Bliss, which is of deep interest to us Elmertonians. The return of a youth, always cherished, but—shall I say, Cousin Phoebe, a temporary estray from the—a—star-y-pointing path?"

"It is a graceful way of putting it, Cousin Homer," said Miss Phoebe, with some austerity. "I trust it may be justified. Proceed, if you please. We are all attention."

Mr. Homer unfolded his paper, and opened his lips to read; but some uneasiness seemed to strike him. He moved in his seat, as if missing something, and glanced round the room. His eye fell and rested on Miss Phoebe, sitting erect and rigid—in the rocking-chair, his rocking-chair! Miss Phoebe would not have rocked a quarter of an inch for a fortune; every line of her figure protested against its being supposed possible that she could rock in company; but there she sat, and her seat was firm as the enduring hills.

Mr. Homer sighed; pushed his chair back a little, only to find its legs wholly uncompromising—and read as follows:

"LINES ON THE RETURN OF A YOUTHFUL AND VALUED FRIEND.

"Our beloved William Jaquith Has resolved henceforth to break with Devious ways; And returning to his mother Vows he will have ne'er another All his days.

"Husk of swine did not him nourish; Plant of Virtue could not flourish Far from home; So his heart with longing burned, And his feet with speed returned To its dome.

"Welcome, William, to our village! Peaceful dwell, devoid of pillage, Cherished son! On her sightless steps attendant, Wear a crown of light resplendent, Duty done!"

There was a soft murmur of appreciation from Miss Vesta and Mrs. Bliss, followed by silence. Mr. Homer glanced anxiously at Miss Phoebe.

"I should be glad of your opinion as to the third line, Cousin Phoebe," he said. "I had it 'Satan's ways,' in my first draught, but the expression appeared strong, especially for this choice circle, so I substituted 'devious' as being more gentle, more mild, more—a"—he waved his hands—"more devoid of elements likely to produce discord in the mind."

"Quite so, Cousin Homer!" replied Miss Phoebe, with a stately bend of her head. "I congratulate you upon the alteration. Satan has no place in an Elmerton parlor, especially when honored by the presence of its pastor."



CHAPTER IX.

A GARDEN PARTY

It was a golden morning in mid-October; one of those mornings when Summer seems to turn in her footsteps, and come back to search for something she had left behind. Wherever one looked was gold: gold of maple and elm leaves, gold of late-lingering flowers, gold of close-shorn fields. Over and in and through it all, airy gold of quivering, dancing sunbeams.

No spot in all Elmerton was brighter than Mrs. Tree's garden, which took the morning sun full in the face. Here were plenty of flowers still, marigolds, coreopsis, and chrysanthemums, all drinking in the sun-gold and giving it out again, till the whole place quivered with light and warmth.



Mrs. Tree, clad in an antique fur-trimmed pelisse, with an amazing garden hat surmounting her cap, sat in a hooded wicker chair on the porch talking to William Jaquith, who was tying up roses and covering them with straw.

"Yes; such things mostly go crisscross," she was saying. "Careful with that Bride Blush, Willy; that young scamp of a Geoffrey Strong gave it to me, and I suppose I shall have to tend it the rest of my days. Humph! pity you didn't know him; he might have done something for that cough. He got the girl he wanted, but more often they don't. Look at James Stedman! and there's Homer Hollopeter has been in love with Mary Ashton ever since he was in petticoats."

"With Mary—do you mean my mother?" said Jaquith, looking up.

"She wasn't your mother when he began!" said the old lady, tartly. "He couldn't foresee that she was going to be, could he? If he had he might have asked your permission. She preferred George Jaquith, naturally. Women mostly prefer a handsome scamp. Not that Homer ever looked like anything but a sheep. Then there was Lily Bent—"

She broke off suddenly. "You're tying that all crooked, Will Jaquith. I'll come and do it myself if you can't do better than that."

"I'll have it right in a moment, Mrs. Tree. You were saying—something about Lily Bent?"

"There are half a dozen lilies bent almost double!" Mrs. Tree declared, peevishly. "Careless! I paid five dollars for that Golden Lily, young man, and you handle it as if it were a yellow turnip."

"Mrs. Tree!"

"Well, what is it? It's time for me to have my nap, I expect."

"Mrs. Tree,"—the young man's voice was earnest and pleading,—"I brought you a letter from Lily Bent this morning. I have been waiting—I want to hear something about her. I know she has been an angel of tenderness and goodness to my mother ever since—why does she stay away so long?"

"Because she's having a good time, I suppose," said Mrs. Tree, dryly. "She's been tied close enough these last three years, what with her grandmother and—one thing and another. The old woman's dead now, and small loss. Everybody's dead, I believe, except me and a parcel of silly children. I forget what you said became of that—of your wife after she left you."

"She died," said Jaquith, abstractedly. "Didn't I tell you? They went South, and she took yellow fever. It was only a month after—"

"No, you did not!" cried Mrs. Tree, sitting bolt upright. "You never told me a word, Willy Jaquith. What Providence was thinking of when it made this generation, passes me to conceive. If I couldn't make a better one out of fish-glue and calico, I'd give up. Bah! I've no patience with you."

She struck her stick sharply on the floor, and her little hands trembled.

"I am sorry we don't amount to more," said Jaquith, smiling, "But—I think my glue is hardening, Mrs. Tree. Tell me where Lily Bent is, that's a dear good soul, and why she stays away so long."

"I can't!" cried the old woman, and she wrung her hands. "I cannot, Willy."

"You cannot, and my mother will not," repeated William Jaquith, slowly. "And there is no one else I can or will ask. Why can you not tell me, Mrs. Tree? I think you have no right to refuse me so much information."

"Because I promised not to tell you!" cried Mrs. Tree. "There! don't speak to me, or I shall go into a caniption! If I had known, I never would have promised. I never made a promise yet that I wasn't sorry for. Dear me, Sirs! I wonder if ever anybody was so pestered as I am.

"There! there's James Stedman. Call him over here! and don't you speak a word to me, Willy Jaquith, but finish those plants, if you are ever going to."

Obeying Jaquith's hail, Doctor Stedman, who had been for passing with a bow and a wave of the hand, turned and came up the garden walk.

"Good morning, James Stedman," said Mrs. Tree. "You haven't been near me for a month. I might be dead and buried twenty times over for all you know or care about me. A pretty kind of doctor you are!"

"What do you want of me, Mrs. Tree?" asked Doctor Stedman, laughing, and shaking the little brown hand held out to him. "I'll come once a week, if you don't take care, and then what would you say? What do you want of me, my lady?"

"I don't want my bones crushed, just for the sake of giving you the job of mending them," said the old lady. "I'd as lief shake paws with a grizzly bear. You are getting to look rather like one, my poor James. I've always told you that if you would only shave, you might have a better chance—but never mind about that now. You were wanting to know where Lily Bent was."

"Was I?" said Doctor Stedman, wondering. "Lily Bent! why, I haven't—"

"Yes, you have," said Mrs. Tree, sharply. "Or if you haven't, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. She is staying with George Greenwell's folks, over at Parsonsbridge; his wife was her father's sister, a wall-eyed woman with crockery teeth. George Greenwell, Parsonsbridge, do you hear? There! now I must go and take my nap, and plague take everybody, I say. Good morning to you!"

Rising from her seat with amazing celerity, she whisked into the house before Doctor Stedman's astonished eyes, and closed the door smartly after her.

With a low whistle, Doctor Stedman turned to William Jaquith.

"Our old friend seems agitated," he said. "What has happened to distress her?"

Jaquith made no reply. He was tying up a rosebush with shaking fingers, and his usually pale face was flushed, perhaps with exertion.

Doctor Stedman's bushy eyebrows came together.

"Hum!" he said, half aloud. "Lily Bent! why,—ha! yes. How is your mother, Will? I have not seen her for some time."

"She's very well, thank you, sir!" said Will Jaquith, hurrying on his coat, and gathering up his gardening tools. "If you will excuse me, Doctor Stedman, I must get back to the office; Mr. Homer will be looking for me; he gave me this hour off, to see to Mrs. Tree's roses. Good day."

"Now, what is going on here?" said James Stedman to himself, as, still standing on the porch, he watched the young man going off down the street with long strides. "The air is full of mystery—and prickles. And why is Lily Bent—pretty creature! Why, I haven't seen her since I came back, haven't laid eyes on her! Why is she brought into it? H'm! let me see! Wasn't there a boy and girl attachment between her and Willy Jaquith? To be sure there was! I can see them now going to school together, he carrying her satchel. Then—she had a long bout of slow fever, I remember. Pottle attended her, and it's a wonder—h'm! But wasn't that about the time when that little witch, Ada Vere, came here, and turned both the boys' heads, and carried off poor Willy, and half broke Arthur's heart? H'm! Well, I don't know what I can do about it. Hum! pretty it all looks here! If there isn't the strawberry bush, grown out of all knowledge! We were big children, Vesta and I, before we gave up hoping that it would bear strawberries. How we used to play here!"

His eyes wandered about the pleasant place, resting with friendly recognition on every knotty shrub and ancient vine.

"The snowball is grown a great tree. How long is it since I have really been in this garden? Passing through in a hurry, one doesn't see things. That must be the rose-flowered hawthorn. My dear little Vesta! I can see her now with the wreath I made for her one day. She was a little pink rose then under the rosy wreath; now she is a white one, but more a rose than ever. Whom have we here?"

A wagon had drawn up by the garden gate with two sleepy white horses. A brown, white-bearded face was turned toward the doctor.

"Hello, doc'," said a cheery voice. "I want to know if that's you!"

"Nobody else, Mr. Butters! What is the good word with you? Are you coming in, or shall I—"

But Mr. Ithuriel Butters was already clambering down from his seat, and now came up the garden walk carrying a parcel in his hand. An old man of patriarchal height and build, with hair and beard to match. Dress him in flowing robes or in armor of brass and you would have had Abraham or a chief of the Maccabees, "'cordin' to," as he would have said. As it was, he was Old Man Butters of the Butterses Lane Ro'd, Shellback.

He gave Doctor Stedman a mighty grip, and surveyed him with friendly eyes.

"Wal, you've been in furrin parts sence I see ye. I expected you'd come back some kind of outlandishman, but I don't see but you look as nat'ral as nails in a door. Ben all over, hey? Seen the hull consarn?"

"Pretty near, Mr. Butters; I saw all I could hold, anyhow."

"See anything to beat the State of Maine?"

"I think not. No, certainly not."

"Take fall weather in the State of Maine," said Mr. Butters, slowly, his eyes roving about the sunlit garden; "take it when it's good—when it is good—it's good, sometimes! Not but what I've thought myself I should like to see furrin parts before I go. Don't want to appear ignorant where I'm goin', you understand. Mis' Tree to home, I presume likely?"

"Yes, she is at home, Mr. Butters, but I have an idea she is lying down just now. Perhaps in half an hour—"

"Nothing of the sort!" said a voice like the click of castanets; and here was Mrs. Tree again, pelisse, hat, stick, and all. Doctor Stedman stared.

"How do you do, Ithuriel?" said Mrs. Tree, in a friendly tone, "I am glad to see you. Sit down on the bench! You may sit down too, James, if you like. What brings you in to-day, Ithuriel?"

"I brought some apples in for Blyths's folks," said Mr. Butters. "And I brought you a present, Mis' Tree."

He untied his parcel, and produced a pair of large snowy wings.

"I ben killin' some gooses lately," he explained. "The woman allers meant to send you in a pair o' wings for dusters, but she never got round to it, so I thought I'd fetch 'em in now. They're kind o' handy round a fireplace."

The wings were graciously accepted and praised.

"I was sorry to hear of your wife's death, Ithuriel," said Mrs. Tree. "I am told she was a most excellent woman."

"Yes'm, she was!" said Mr. Butters, soberly. "She was a good woman and a smart one. Pleasant to live with, too, which they ain't all. Yes, I met with a loss surely in Loviny."

"Was it sudden?"

"P'ralsis! She only lived two days after she was called, and I was glad, for she'd lost her speech, and no woman can stand that. She knowed things, you understand, she knowed things, but she couldn't free her mind. 'Loviny,' I says, 'if you know me,' I says, 'jam my hand!' She jammed it, but she never spoke. Yes'm, 'twas a visitation. I dono as I shall git me another now."

"Well, I should hope not, Ithuriel Butters!" said Mrs. Tree, with some asperity. "Why, you are nearly as old as I am, you ridiculous creature, and you have had three wives already. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Wal, I dono as I be, Mis' Tree," said Mr. Butters, sturdily. "Age goes by feelin's, 'pears to me, more'n by Family Bibles. Take the Bible, and you'd think mebbe I warn't so young as some; but take the way I feel—why, I'm as spry as any man of sixty I know, and spryer than most of 'em. I like the merried state, and it suits me. Men-folks is like pickles, some; women-folks is the brine they're pickled in; they don't keep sweet without 'em. Besides, it's terrible lon'some on a farm, now I tell ye, with none but hired help, and them so poor you can't tell 'em from the broomstick hardly, except for their eatin'."

"Where is your stepdaughter? I thought she lived with you."

"Alviry? She's merried!" Mr. Butters threw his head back with a huge laugh. "Ain't you heerd about Alviry's gittin' merried, Mis' Tree? Wal, wal!"

He settled back in his seat, and the light of the story-teller came into his eyes.

"I expect I'll have to tell you about that. 'Bout six weeks ago—two months maybe it was—a man come to the door—back door—and knocked. Alviry peeked through the kitchen winder,—she's terrible skeert of tramps,—and she see 'twas a decent-appearin' man, so she went to the door.

"'Miss Alviry Wilcox to home?' says he.

"'You see her before ye!' says Alviry, speakin' kind o' short.

"'I want to know!' says he. 'I was lookin' for a housekeeper, and you was named,' he says, 'so I thought I'd come out and see ye.'

"She questioned him,—Alviry's a master hand at questionin',—and he said he was a farmer livin' down East Parsonsbridge way; a hundred acres, and a wood-lot, and six cows, and I dono what all. Wal, Alviry's ben kind o' uneasy, and lookin' for a change, for quite a spell back. I suspicioned she'd be movin' on, fust chance she got. I s'pose she thought mebbe Parsonsbridge butter would churn easier than Shellback; I dono. Anyhow, she said mebbe she'd try it for a spell, and he might expect her next week. Wal, sir,—ma'am, I ask your pardon,—he'd got his answer, and yet he didn't seem ready to go. He kind o' shuffled his feet, Alviry said, and stood round, and passed remarks on the weather and sich; and she was jest goin' to say she must git back to her ironin', when he hums and haws, and says he: 'I dono but 'twould be full as easy if we was to git merried. I'm a single man, and a good character. If you've no objections, we might fix it up that way,' he says.

"Wal! Alviry was took aback some at that, and she said she'd have to consider of it, and ask my advice and all. 'Why, land sake!' she says, 'I don't know what your name is,' she says, 'let alone marryin' of ye.'

"So he told her his name,—Job Weezer it was; I know his folks; he has got a wood-lot, I guess he's all right,—and she said if he'd come back next day she'd give him his answer. Wal, sir,—ma'am, I should say,—when I come in from milkin' she told me. I laughed till I surely thought I'd shake to pieces; and Alviry sittin' there, as sober as a jedge, not able to see what in time I was laughin' at.

"Wal, all about it was, he come back next day, and she said yes; and they was merried in a week's time by Elder Tyson, and off they went. I believe they're doin' well, and both parties satisfied; but if it ain't the beat of anything ever I see!"

"It is quite scandalous, if that is what you mean!" said Mrs. Tree. "I never heard of such heathen doings."

"That ain't the p'int!" said Mr. Butters, chuckling. "They ain't no spring goslin's, neither one on 'em; old enough to know their own minds. What gits me is, what he see in Alviry!"



CHAPTER X.

MR. BUTTERS DISCOURSES

After leaving Mrs. Tree's house, Mr. Ithuriel Butters drove slowly along the village street toward the post-office. He jerked the reins loosely once or twice, but for the most part let the horses take their own way; he seemed absorbed in thought, and now and then he shook his head and muttered to himself, his bright blue eyes twinkling, the humorous lines of his strong old face deepening into smiling furrows. Passing the Temple of Vesta, he looked up sharply at the windows, seemed half inclined to check his horses; but no one was to be seen, and he let them take their sleepy way onward.

"I d'no as 'twould be best," he said to himself. "Diplomy's a fine woman, I wouldn't ask to see a finer; but there, I d'no how 'tis. When you've had pie you don't hanker after puddin', even when it's good puddin'; and Loviny was pie; yes, sir! she was, no mistake; mince, and no temperance mince neither. Guess I'll get along someways the rest of the time. Seems as if some of Alviry's talk must have got lodged in the cracks or somewhere; there's ben enough of it these three months. Mebbe that'll last me through. Git ap, you!"

Arrived at the post-office, Mr. Butters quitted his perch once more, and with a word to the old horses (which they did not hear, being already asleep) made his way into the outer room. Seth Weaver, who was leaning on the ledge of the delivery window, turned and greeted the old man cordially.

"Well, Uncle Ithe, how goes it?"

"H'are ye, Seth?" replied Mr. Butters, "How's the folks? Mornin', Homer! anything for out our way? How's Mother gettin' on, Seth?"

"She's slim," replied his nephew, "real slim, Mother is. She's ben doctorin' right along, too, but it don't seem to help her any. I'm goin' to get her some new stuff this mornin' that she heard of somewhere."

"Help her? No, nor it ain't goin' to help her," said Mr. Butters, with some heat; "it's goin' to hender her. Parcel o' fools! She's taken enough physic now to pison a four-year-old gander. Don't you get her no more!"

"Wal," said Weaver, easily, "I dono as it really henders her any, Uncle Ithe; and it takes up her mind, gives her something to think about. She doctored Father so long, you know, and she's used to messin' with roots and herbs; and now her sight's failin', I tell ye, come medicine time, she brightens up and goes for it same as if it was new cider. I don't know as I feel like denyin' her a portion o' physic, seein' she appears to crave it. She thought this sounded like good searchin' medicine, too. Them as told her about it said you feel it all through you."

"I should think you would!" retorted Mr. Butters. "So you would a quart of turpentine if you took and swallered it."

"Wal, I don't know what else to do, that's the fact!" Weaver admitted. "Mother's slim, I tell ye. I do gredge seein' her grouchin' round, smart a woman as she's ben."

"You make me think of Sile Stover, out our way," said Mr. Butters. "He sets up to be a hoss doctor, ye know; hosses and stock gen'lly. Last week he called me in to see a hog that was failin' up. Said he'd done all he could do, and the critter didn't seem to be gettin' no better, and what did I advise?

"'What have ye done?' says I.

"'Wal,' says he, 'I've cut his tail, and drawed two of his teeth, and I dono what else to do,' he says. Hoss doctor! A clo'es-hoss is the only kind he knows much about, I calc'late."

"Wasn't he the man that tried to cure Peckham's cow of the horn ail, bored a hole in her horn and put in salt and pepper,—or was it oil and vinegar?"

Mr. Butters nodded. "Same man! Now that kind of a man will always find folks enough to listen to him and take up his dum notions. I tell ye what it is! You can have drought, and you can have caterpillars, and you can have frost. You can lose your hay crop, and your apple crop, and your potato crop; but there's one crop there can't nothin' touch, and that's the fool crop. You can count on that, sartin as sin. I tell ye, Seth, don't you fill your mother up with none of that pison stuff. She's a good woman, if she did marry a Weaver."

Seth's eyes twinkled. "Well, Uncle Ithe, seein' you take it so hard," he said, "I don't mind tellin' you that I'd kind o' thought the matter out for myself; and it 'peared to me that a half a pint o' molasses stirred up with a gre't spoonful o' mustard and a small one of red pepper would look about the same, and taste jest as bad, and wouldn't do her a mite of harm. I ain't all Weaver now, be I?"

Uncle and nephew exchanged a sympathetic chuckle. At this moment Mr. Homer's meek head appeared at the window.

"There are no letters for you to-day, Mr. Butters," he said, deprecatingly; "but here is one for Miss Leora Pitcher; she is in your neighborhood, I believe?"

"Wal, depends upon what you call neighborhood," Mr. Butters replied. "It's two miles by the medders, and four by the ro'd."

"Oh!" said Mr. Homer, still more deprecatingly; "I was not aware that the distance was so considerable, Mr. Butters. I conceived that Miss Pitcher's estate and yours were—adjacent;—a—contiguous;—a—in point of fact, near together."

"Wal, they ain't," said Mr. Butters; "but if it's anyways important, mebbe I could fetch a compass round that way."

"I should be truly grateful if you could do so, Mr. Butters!" said Mr. Homer, eagerly. "I—I feel as if this letter might be of importance, I confess. Miss Pitcher has sent in several times by various neighbors, and I have felt an underlying anxiety in her inquiries. I was rejoiced this morning when the expected letter came. It is—a—in a masculine hand, you will perceive, Mr. Butters, and the postmark is that of the town to which Miss Pitcher's own letters were sent. I do not wish to seem indelicately intrusive, but I confess it has occurred to me that this might be a case of possible misunderstanding; of—a—alienation; of—a—wounding of the tendrils of the heart, gentlemen. To see a young person, especially a young lady, suffer the pangs of hope deferred—"

Ithuriel Butters looked at him.

"Have you ever seen Leory Pitcher, Homer?" he asked, abruptly.

"No, sir, I have not had that pleasure. But from the character of her handwriting (she has the praiseworthy habit of putting her own name on the envelope), I have inferred her youth, and a certain timidity of—"

"Wal, she's sixty-five, if she's a day, and she's got a hare-lip and a cock-eye. She's uglier than sin, and snugger than eel-skin; one o' them kind that when you prick 'em they bleed sour milk; and what she wants is for her brother-in-law to send her his wife's clo'es, 'cause he's goin' to marry again. All Shellback's ben talkin' about it these three months."

Mr. Homer colored painfully.

"Is it so?" he said, dejectedly. "I regret that—that my misconception was so complete. I ask your pardon, Mr. Butters."

"Nothin' at all, nothin' at all," said Mr. Butters, briskly, seeing that he had given pain. "You mustn't think I want to say anything against a neighbor, Homer, but there's no paintin' Leory Pitcher pooty, 'cause she ain't.

"I ben visitin' with Mis' Tree this mornin'," he added, benevolently; "she's aunt to you, I believe, ain't she?"

"Cousin, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer, still depressed. "Mrs. Tree and my father were first cousins. A most interesting character, my cousin Marcia, Mr. Butters."

"Wal, she is so," responded Mr. Butters, heartily. "She certinly is; ben so all her life. Why, sir, I knew Mis' Tree when she was a gal."

"Sho!" said Seth Weaver, incredulously.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Homer, with interest.

"Yes, sir, I knew her well. She was older than me, some. When I was a boy, say twelve year old, Miss Marshy Darracott was a young lady. The pick of the country she was, now I tell ye! Some thought Miss Timothy was handsomer,—she was tall, and a fine figger; her and Mis' Blyth favored each other,—but little Miss Marshy was the one for my money. She used to make me think of a hummin'-bird; quick as a flash, here, and there, gone in a minute, and back again before you could wink. She had a little black mare she used to ride, Firefly, she called her. Eigh, sirs, to see them two kitin' round the country was a sight, now I tell ye. I recall one day I was out in the medder behind Darracott House—you know that gully that runs the len'th of the ten-acre lot? Well, there used to be a bridge over that gully, just a footbridge it was, little light thing, push it over with your hand, seemed as if you could. Wal, sir, I was pokin' about the way boys do, huntin' for box-plums, or woodchucks, or nothin' at all, when all of a suddin I heard hoofs and voices, and I slunk in behind a tree, bein' diffident, and scairt of bein' so near the big house.

"Next minute they come out into the ro'd, two on 'em, Miss Marshy Darracott and George Tennaker, Squire Tennaker's son, over to Bascom. He was a big, red-faced feller, none too well thought of, for all his folks had ben in the country as long as the Darracotts, or the Butterses either, for that matter, and he'd ben hangin' round Miss Marshy quite a spell, though she wouldn't have nothin' to say to him. I was in her Sabbath-school class, and thought the hull world of her, this one and a piece of the next; and I gredged George Tennaker so much as lookin' at her. Wal, they come along, and he was sayin' something, and she answered him short and sharp; I can see her now, her eyes like black di'monds, and the red comin' and goin' in her cheeks: she was a pictur if ever I seed one. Pooty soon he reached out and co't holt of her bridle. Gre't Isrel, sir! she brought down her whip like a stroke of lightning on his fingers, and he dropped the rein as if it burnt him. Then she whisked round, and across that bridge quicker'n any swaller ever you see. It shook like a poplar-tree, but it hadn't no time to fall if it wanted to; she was acrost, and away out of sight before you could say 'Simon Peter;' and he set there in the ro'd cussin', and swearin', and suckin' his fingers. I tell ye, I didn't need no dinner that day; I was full up, and good victuals, too."

"This is extremely interesting, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer. "You—a—you present my venerable relative in a wholly new light. She is so—a—so extremely venerable, if I may so express myself, that I confess I have never before had an accurate conception of her youth."

"You thought old folks was born old," said Mr. Butters, with a chuckle. "Wal, they warn't. They was jest as young as young folks, and oftentimes younger. Miss Marshy warn't no more than a slip of a girl when she merried. Come along young Cap'n Tree, jest got his first ship, and the world in his pants pocket, and said 'Snip!' and she warn't backward with her 'Snap!' I tell ye. Gorry! they were a handsome pair. See 'em come along the street, you knowed how 'twas meant man and woman should look. For all she was small, Mis' Tree would ha' spread out over a dozen other women, the sperit she had in her; and he was tall enough for both, the cap'n would say. And proud of each other! He'd have laid down gold bricks for her to walk on if he'd had his way. Yes, sir, 'twas a sight to see 'em.

"There ain't no such young folks nowadays; not but what that young Strong fellow was well enough; he got a nice gal, too. Wal, sir, this won't thresh the oats. I must be gettin' along. Think mebbe there ain't no sech hurry about that letter for Leory Pitcher, do ye, Homer? I'll kerry it if you say so."

"I thank you, Mr. Butters," said Mr. Homer, sadly, "it is immaterial, I am obliged to you."



CHAPTER XI.

MISS PHOEBE PASSES ON

Miss Phoebe Blyth's death came like a bolt from a clear sky. The rheumatism, which had for so many years been her companion, struck suddenly at her heart. A few hours of anguish, and the stout heart had ceased to beat, the stern yet kindly spirit was gone on its way.

Great was the grief in the village. If not beloved as Miss Vesta was, Miss Phoebe was venerated by all, as a woman of austere and exalted piety and of sterling goodness. All Elmerton went to her funeral, on a clear October day not unlike Miss Phoebe herself, bright, yet touched with wholesome frost. All Elmerton went about the rest of the day with hushed voice and sober brow, looking up at the closed shutters of the Temple of Vesta, and wondering how it fared with the gentle priestess, now left alone. The shutters were white and fluted, and being closed, heightened the effect of clean linen which the house always presented—linen starched to the point of perfection, with a dignified frill, but no frivolity of lace or trimming.

"I do declare," said Miss Penny Pardon, telling her sister about it all, "the house looked so like Miss Blyth herself, I expected to hear it say, 'Pray step in and be seated!' just like she used to. Elegant manners Miss Blyth had; and she walked elegant, too, in spite of her rheumatiz. When I see her go past up the street, I always said, 'There goes a lady, let the next be who she will!'"

"Yes," said Miss Prudence, with a sigh; "if Phoebe Blyth had but dressed as she might, there's no one in Elmerton could have stood beside her for style. I've told her so, time and again, but she never would hear a word. She was peculiar."

"There! I expect we're all peculiar, sister, one way or another," said Miss Penny, soothingly. This matter of the Blyth girls' dressing was Miss Prudence's great grievance, and just now it was heightened by circumstances.

"Miss Blyth's mind was above clothes, I expect, Prudence," Miss Penny continued. "'Twa'n't that she hadn't every confidence in you, for I've heard her speak real handsome of your method."

"A person's mind has no call to be above clothes," said Miss Prudence, with some asperity. "They are all that stands between us and savages, some think. But I've no wish to cast reflections this day. Miss Blyth was a fine woman, and she is a great loss to this village. But I do say she was peculiar, and I'll stand to that with my dying breath; and I do think Vesta shows a want of—"

She stopped abruptly. The shop-bell rang, and Mrs. Weight entered, crimson and panting. She hurried across the shop, and entered the sewing-room before Miss Penny could go to meet her.

"Well," she said, "here I am! How do you do, Prudence? You look re'l poorly. Girls, I've come straight to you. I'm not one to pass by on the other side, never was. I like to sift a thing to the bottom, and get the rights of it. I'm not one to spread abroad, but when I do speak, I desire to speak the truth, and for that truth I have come to you."

She paused, and fixed a solemn gaze on the two sisters.

"You'll get it!" said Miss Prudence, a steely glitter coming into her gray eyes. "We ain't in the habit of tellin' lies here, as I know of. What do you want?"

"I want to know if it's true that Vesta Blyth isn't going to wear mourning for her sole and only sister. I want to know if it's so! You could have knocked me down with a broom-straw when I see her settin' there in her gray silk dress, for all the world as if we'd come to sewin'-circle instead of a funeral. I don't know when I have had such a turn; I was palpitating all through the prayer. Now I want you to tell me just how 'tis, girls, for, of course, you know—unless she sent over to Cyrus for her things, and they been delayed. I shouldn't hardly have thought she'd have done that, though some say that new dressmaker over there has all the styles straight from New York. What say?"

"I don't know as I've said anything yet," said Miss Prudence, with ominous calm. "I don't know as I've had a chance. But it's true that Miss Vesta Blyth don't intend to put on mourning."

"Well, I—"

For once, words seemed to fail Mrs. Weight, and she gaped upon her hearers open-mouthed; but speech returned quickly.

"Girls, I would not have believed it, not unless I had seen it with these eyes. Even so, I supposed most likely there had been some delay. I asked Mis' Tree as we were comin' out—she spoke pleasant to me for once in her life, and I knew she must be thinkin' of her own end, and I wanted to say something, so I says, 'Vesta ain't got her mournin' yet, has she, Mis' Tree?'

"She looked at me jest her own way, her eyes kind o' sharpenin' up, and says, 'Neither has the Emperor of Morocco! Isn't it a calamity?'

"I dono what she meant, unless 'twas to give me an idee what high connections they had, though it ain't likely there's anything of that sort; I never heerd of any furrin blood in either family: but I see 'twas no use tryin' to get anything out of her, so I come straight to you. And here you tell me—what does it mean, Prudence Pardon? Are we in a Christian country, I want to know, or are we not?"

Miss Prudence knit her brows behind her spectacles. "I don't know, sometimes, whether we are in a Christian country or whether we ain't," she said, grimly. "Miss Phoebe Blyth didn't approve of mourning, on religious grounds; and Miss Vesta feels it right to carry out her sister's views. That's all there is to it, I expect; I expect it's their business, too, and not other folks'."

"Miss Phoebe thought mournin' wa'n't a Christian custom," said Miss Penny. "I've heard her say so; and that 'twas payin' too much respect to the perishin' flesh. We don't feel that way, Sister an' me, but them was her views, and she was a consistent, practical Christian, if ever I see one. I don't think it strange, for my part, that Miss Vesta should wish to do as was desired, though very likely her own feelin's may have ben different. She would be a perfect pictur' in a bunnet and veil, though I dono as she could look any prettier than what she did to-day."

"If I could have the dressin' of Vesta Blyth as she should be dressed," said Miss Prudence, solemnly, "there's no one in this village—I'll go further, and say county—that could touch her. She hasn't the style of Phoebe, but—there! there's like a light round her when she moves; I don't know how else to put it. It's like stickin' the scissors into me every time I cut them low shoulders for her. I always did despise a low shoulder, long before I ever thought I should be cuttin' of 'em."

"Well, girls," said Mrs. Weight, "you may make the best of it, and it's handsome in you, I will say, Prudence, for of course you naturally looked to have the cuttin', and I suppose all dressmakers get something extry for mournin', seein' it's a necessity, or is thought so by most Christian people. But I am the wife of the senior deacon of the parish wherein she sits, and I feel a call to speak to Vesta Blyth before I sleep this night. Our pastor's wife is young, and though I am aware she means well, she hasn't the stren'th nor yet the faculty to deal with folks as is older than herself on spiritual matters; so I feel it laid upon me—"

"I thought it was clothes you was talkin' about," said Miss Prudence, and she closed her scissors with a snap. "I hope you'll excuse me, Mis' Weight, but you speakin' to Vesta Blyth about spiritual matters seems to me jest a leetle mite like a hen teachin' a swallow to fly."

* * * * *

While this talk was going on, little Miss Vesta, in her gray gown and white kerchief, was moving softly about the lower rooms of the Temple of Vesta, setting the chairs in their accustomed places, passing a silk cloth across their backs in case of finger-marks, looking anxiously for specks of dust on the shining tables and whatnots, putting fresh flowers in the vases. Some well-meaning but uncomprehending friends had sent so-called "funeral flowers," purple and white; to these Miss Vesta added every glory of yellow, every blaze of lingering scarlet, that the garden afforded. She threw open the shutters, and let the afternoon sun stream into the darkened rooms.

Diploma Crotty, standing in a corner, her hands folded in her apron, her eyes swollen with weeping, watched with growing anxiety the slight figure that seemed to waver as it moved from very fatigue.

"That strong light'll hurt your eyes, Miss Blyth," she said, presently. "You go and lay down, and I'll bring you a cup of tea."

"No, I thank you, Diploma," said Miss Vesta, quietly; and she added, with a soft hurry in her voice, "And if you would please not to call me Miss Blyth, my good Diploma, I should be grateful to you. Say 'Miss Vesta,' as usual, if you please. I desire—let us keep things as they have been—as they have been. My beloved sister has gone away"—the soft even voice quivered, but did not break—"gone away, but not far. I am sure I need not ask you, Diploma, to help me in keeping everything as my dear sister would like best to have it. You know so well about almost every particular; but—she preferred to have the tidies straight, not cornerwise. You will not feel hurt, I am sure, if I alter them. They are beautifully done up, Diploma; it would be a real pleasure to my dear sister to see them."

"I knew they were on wrong," said the handmaid, proceeding to aid in changing the position of the delicate crocheted squares. "Mis' Bliss wanted to do something to help,—she's real good,—and I had them just done up, and thought she couldn't do much harm with 'em. There! I knew Deacon Weight wouldn't rest easy till he got his down under him. He's got it all scrunched up, settin' on it. It doos beat all how that man routs round in his cheer."

"Hush, Diploma! I must ask you not to speak so," said Miss Vesta. "Deacon Weight is an officer of the church. I fear he may have chosen a chair not sufficiently ample for his person. There, that will do nicely! Now I think the room looks quite as my dear sister would wish to see it. Does it not seem so to you, Diploma?"

"The room's all right," said Diploma, gruffly; "but if Miss Blyth was here, she'd tell you to go and lay down this minute, Miss Vesty, and so I bid you do. You're as white and scrunched as that tidy. No wonder, after settin' up these two nights, and all you've ben through. I wish to goodness Doctor Strong had ben here; he'd have made you get a nurse, whether or whethern't. Doctor Stedman ain't got half the say-so to him that Doctor Strong has."

"You are mistaken, Diploma!" said Miss Vesta, blushing. "Doctor Stedman spoke strongly, very strongly indeed. He was very firm on the point; indeed, he became incensed about it, but it was not a point on which I could give way. My dear sister always said that no hireling should ever touch her person, and I consider it one of my crowning mercies that I was able to care for her to the last; with your help, my dear Diploma! I could not have done it without your help. I beg you to believe how truly grateful I am to you for your devotion."

"Well, there ain't no need, goodness knows!" grumbled Diploma Crotty, "but if so you be, you'll go and lay down now, Miss Vesty, like a good girl. There! there's Mis' Weight comin' up the steps this minute of time. I'll go and tell her you're on the bed and can't see her."

Was it Miss Vesta, gentle Miss Vesta, who answered? It might have been Miss Phoebe, with head erect and flashing eyes of displeasure.

"You will tell the simple truth, Diploma, if you please. Tell Mrs. Weight that I do not desire to see her. She should know better than to call at this house to-day on any pretence whatever. My dear sister would have been highly incensed at such a breach of propriety. I—" the fire faded, and the little figure drooped, wavered, rested for a moment on the arm of the faithful servant. "I thank you, my good Diploma. I will go and lie down now, as you thoughtfully suggest."



CHAPTER XII.

THE PEAK IN DARIEN

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken: Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

—John Keats.

Behind the yellow walls of the post-office Mr. Homer Hollopeter mourned deeply and sincerely for his cousin. The little room devoted to collecting and dispensing the United States mail, formerly a dingy and sordid den, had become, through Mr. Homer's efforts, cheerfully seconded by those of Will Jaquith, a little temple of shining neatness, where even Miss Phoebe's or Miss Vesta's dainty feet might have trod without fear of pollution. It was more like home to Mr. Homer than the bare little room where he slept, and now that it was his own, he delighted in dusting, polishing, and cleaning, as a woman might have done. The walls were brightly whitewashed, and adorned with portraits of Keats and Shelley; on brackets in two opposite corners Homer and Shakespeare gazed at each other with mutual approval. The stove was black and glossy as an Ashantee chief, and the clock, once an unsightly mass of fly-specks and cobwebs, now showed a white front as immaculate as Mr. Homer's own. Opposite the clock hung a large photograph, in a handsome gilt frame, of a mountain peak towering alone against a clear sky.

When Mr. Homer entered the post-office the day after Miss Phoebe's funeral, he carried in his hand a fine wreath of ground pine tied with a purple ribbon, and this wreath he proceeded to hang over the mountain picture. Will Jaquith watched him with wondering sympathy. The little gentleman's eyes were red, and his hands trembled.

"Let me help you, sir!" cried Jaquith, springing up. "Let me hang it for you, won't you?"

But Mr. Homer waved him off, gently but decidedly.

"I thank you, William, I thank you!" he said, "but I prefer to perform this action myself. It is—a tribute, sir, to an admirable woman. I wish to pay it in person; in person."

After some effort he succeeded in attaching the wreath, and, standing back, surveyed it with mournful pride.

"I think that looks well," he said. "My fingers are unaccustomed to twine any garlands save those of—a—song; but I think that looks well, William?"

"Very well, sir!" said Will, heartily. "It is a very handsome wreath; and how pretty the green looks against the gold!"

"The green is emblematic; it is the color of memory," said Mr. Homer. "This wreath, though comparatively enduring, will fade, William; will—a—wither; will—a—become dessicated in the natural process of decay; but the memory of my beloved cousin will endure, sir, in one faithful heart, while that heart continues to—beat; to—throb; to—a—palpitate."

He was silent for a few minutes, gazing at the picture; then he continued:

"I had hoped," he said, sadly, "that at some date in the near future my dear cousin would have condescended to visit our—retreat, William, and have favored it with the seal of her approval. I venture to think that she would have found its conditions improved; ameliorated—a—rendered more in accordance with the ideal. But it was not to be, sir, it was not to be. As the lamented Keats observes, 'The Spirit mourn'd "Adieu!"' She is gone, sir; gone!"

"I have often meant to ask you, sir," said Will Jaquith, "what mountain that is. I don't seem to recognize it."

Mr. Homer was silent, his eyes still fixed on the picture. Jaquith, thinking he had not heard, repeated the question.

"I heard you, William, I heard you!" said Mr. Homer, with dignity. "I was considering what reply to make to you. That picture, sir, represents a Peak in Darien."

"Indeed!" said Will, in surprise. "Do you know its name? I did not think there were any so high as this."

Mr. Homer waved his hands with a vague gesture.

"I do not know its name!" he said, "Therefore I expressly said, a peak. I do not even know that this special mountain is in Darien, though I consider it so; I consider it so. The picture, William, is a symbolical one—to me. It represents—a—Woman."

"Woman!" repeated Jaquith, puzzled.

"Woman!" said Mr. Homer. His mild face flushed; he cleared his throat nervously, and opened and shut his mouth several times.

"I pay to-day, as I have told you, my young friend, a tribute to one admirable woman; but the Peak in Darien symbolizes—a—Woman, in general. Without Woman, sir, what, or where, should we be? Until we attain a knowledge of—a—Woman, through the medium of the—a—Passion (I speak of it with reverence!), what, or where are we? We journey over arid plains, we flounder in treacherous quagmires. Suddenly looms before us, clear against the sky, as here represented, the Peak in Darien—Woman! Guided by the—a—Passion (I speak of its lofty phases, sir, its lofty phases!), we scale those crystal heights. It may be in fancy only; it may be that circumstances over which we have no control forbid our ever setting an actual foot on even the bases of the Peak; but this is a case in which fancy is superior to fact. In fancy, we scale those heights; and—and we stare at the Pacific, sir, and look at each other with a wild surmise—silent, sir, silent, upon a Peak in Darien!"

Mr. Homer said no more, but stood gazing at his picture, rapt in contemplation. Jaquith was silent, too, watching him, half in amusement, half—or more than half—in something not unlike reverence. Mr. Homer was not an imposing figure: his back was long, his legs were short, his hair and nose were distinctly absurd; but now, the homely face seemed transfigured, irradiated by an inward glow of feeling.

Jaquith recalled Mrs. Tree's words. Had this quaint little gentleman really been in love with his beautiful mother? Poor Mr. Homer! It was very funny, but it was pathetic, too. Poor Mr. Homer!

The young man's thoughts ran on swiftly. The Peak in Darien! Well, that was all true. Only, how if—unconsciously he spoke aloud, his eyes on the picture—"How if a man were misled for a time by—I shall have to mix my metaphors, Mr. Homer—by a will-o'-the-wisp, and fell into the quagmire, and lost sight of his mountain for a time, only to find it again, more lovely than—would he have any right to—what was it you said, sir?—to try once more to scale those crystal heights?"

"Undoubtedly he would!" said Mr. Homer Hollopeter. "Undoubtedly, if he were sure of himself, sure that no false light—I perceive the mixture of metaphors, but this cannot always be avoided—would again fall across his path."

"He is sure of that!" said Will Jaquith, under his breath.

He had risen, and the two men were standing side by side, both intent upon the picture. Twilight was falling, but a ray of the setting sun stole through the little window, and rested upon the Peak in Darien.

"He is sure of that!" repeated William Jaquith.

When he spoke again, his voice was husky, his speech rapid and broken.

"Mr. Homer" (no one ever said "Mr. Hollopeter," nor would he have been pleased if any one had), "I have been here six months, have I not? six months to-morrow?"

"Yes, William," said Mr. Homer, turning his mild eyes on his assistant.

"Have I—have I given satisfaction, sir?"

"Eminent satisfaction!" said Mr. Homer, cordially. "William, I have had no fault to find; none. Your punctuality, your exactness, your assiduity, leave nothing to be desired. This has been a great gratification to me—on many accounts."

"Then, you—you think I have the right to call myself a man once more; that I have the right to take up a man's life, its joys, as well as its labors?"

"I think so, most emphatically," cried the little gentleman, nodding his head. "I think you deserve the best that life has to give."

"Then—then, Mr. Homer, may I have a day off to-morrow, please? I want"—he broke into a tremulous laugh, and laid his hand on the elder man's shoulder,—"I want to climb the Peak, Mr. Homer!"

* * * * *

So it came to pass one day, soon after this, that as Mrs. Tree was sitting by her fire, with the parrot dozing on his perch beside her, there came to the house two young people, who entered without knock or ring, and coming hand in hand to her side, bent down, not saying a word, and kissed her.

"Highty tighty!" cried Mrs. Tree, her eyes twinkling very brightly under a tremendous frown.

"What is the meaning of all this, I should like to know? How dare you kiss me, Willy Jaquith?"

"Old friends to love!" said Jocko, opening one yellow eye, and ruffling his feathers knowingly.

"Jocko knows how I dare!" said Will Jaquith. "Dear old friend, I will tell you what it means. It means that I have brought you another Golden Lily in place of the one you said I spoiled. You can only have her to look at, though, for she is mine, mine and my mother's, and we cannot give her up, even to you."

"I didn't exactly break my promise, Lily!" cried the old lady; her hands trembled on her stick, but her cap was erect, immovable. "I didn't tell him, but I never promised not to tell James Stedman, you know I never did."

The lovely, dark-eyed girl bent over her and kissed the withered cheek again.

"My dear! my naughty, wicked, delightful dear," she murmured, "how shall I ever forgive you—or thank you?"



CHAPTER XIII.

LIFE IN DEATH

"Drive to Miss Dane's!" said Mrs. Tree.

"Drive where?" asked old Anthony, pausing with one foot on the step of the ancient carryall.

"To Miss Dane's!"

"Well, I snum!" said old Anthony.

The Dane Mansion, as it was called, stood on the outskirts of the village; a gaunt, gray house, standing well back from the road, with dark hedges of Norway spruce drawn about it like a funeral scarf. The panelled wooden shutters of the front windows were never opened, and a stranger passing by would have thought the house uninhabited; but all Elmerton knew that behind those darkling hedges and close shutters, somewhere in the depths of the tall many-chimneyed house, lived—"if you can call it living!" Mrs. Tree said—Miss Virginia Dane. Miss Dane was a contemporary of Mrs. Tree's,—indeed, report would have her some years older,—but she had no other point of resemblance to that lively potentate. She never left her house. None of the present generation of Elmertonians had ever seen her face; and to the rising generation, the boys and girls who passed the outer hedge, if dusk were coming on, with hurried step and quick affrighted glances, she was a kind of spectre, a living phantom of the past, probably terrible to look upon, certainly dreadful to think of. These terrors were heightened by the knowledge, diffused one hardly knew how, that Miss Dane was a spiritualist, and that in her belief at least, the silent house was peopled with departed Danes, the brothers and sisters of whom she was the last remaining one.

Things being thus, it was perhaps not strange that old Anthony, usually the most discreet of choremen, was driven by surprise to the extent of "snumming" by the order he received. He allowed himself no further comment, however, but flecked the fat brown horse on the ear with his whip, and said "Gitty up!" with more interest than he usually manifested.

Mrs. Tree was arrayed in her India shawl, and crowned with the bird-of-paradise bonnet, from which swept an ample veil of black lace. She sat bolt upright in the carriage, her stick firmly planted in front of her, her hands crossed on its crutch handle, and her whole air was one of uncompromising energy.

"Shall I knock?" said Anthony, glancing up at the blind house-front with an expression which said plainly enough "It won't be any use."

"No, I'm going to get out. Here, help me! the other side, ninnyhammer! You have helped me out on the wrong side for forty years, Anthony Barker; I must be a saint after all, or I never should have stood it."

The old lady mounted the granite steps briskly, and knocked smartly on the door with the top of her stick. After some delay it was opened by a grim-looking elderly woman with a forbidding squint.

"How do you do, Keziah? I am coming in. You may wait for me, Anthony."

"I don't know as Miss Dane feels up to seein' company, Mis' Tree," said the grim woman, doubtfully, holding the door in her hand.

"Folderol!" said Mrs. Tree, waving her aside with her stick. "She's in her sitting-room, I suppose. To be sure! How are you, Virginia?"

The room Mrs. Tree entered was gaunt and gray like the house itself; high-studded, with blank walls of gray paint, and wintry gleams of marble on chimneypiece and furniture. Gaunt and gray, too, was the figure seated in the rigid high-backed chair, a tall old woman in a black gown and a close muslin cap like that worn by the Shakers, with a black ribbon bound round her forehead. Her high features showed where great beauty, of a masterful kind, had once dwelt; her sunken eyes were cold and dim as a steel mirror that has lain long buried and has forgotten how to give back the light.

These eyes now dwelt upon Mrs. Tree, with recognition, but no warmth or kindliness in their depths.

"How are you, Virginia?" repeated the visitor. "Come, shake hands! you are alive, you know, after a fashion; where's the use of pretending you are not?"

Miss Dane extended a long, cold, transparent hand, and then motioned to a seat.

"I am well, Marcia," she said, coldly. "I have been well for the past fifteen years, since we last met."

"I made the last visit, I remember," said Mrs. Tree, composedly, hooking a gray horsehair footstool toward her with her stick, and settling her feet on it. "You gave me to understand then that I need not come again till I had something special to say, so I have stayed away."

"I have no desire for visitors," said Miss Dane. She spoke in a hollow, inward monotone, which somehow gave the impression that she was in the habit of talking to herself, or to something that made no response. "My soul is fit company for me."

"I should think it might be!" said Mrs. Tree.

"Besides, I am surrounded by the Blessed," Miss Dane went on. "This room probably appears bare and gloomy to your eyes, Marcia, but I see it peopled by the Blessed, in troops, crowding about me, robed and crowned."

"I hope they enjoy themselves," said Mrs. Tree. "I will not interrupt you or them more than a few minutes, Virginia. I want to ask if you have made your will. A singular question, but I have my reasons for asking."

"Certainly I have; years ago."

"Have you left anything to Mary Jaquith—Mary Ashton?"

"No!" A spark crept into the dim gray eyes.

"So I supposed. Did you know that she was poor, and blind?"

There was a pause.

"I did not know that she was blind," Miss Dane said, presently. "For her poverty, she has herself to thank."

"Yes! she married the man she loved. It was a crime, I suppose. You would have had her live on here with you all her days, and turn to stone slowly."

"I brought Mary Ashton up as my own child," Miss Dane went on; and there was an echo of some past emotion in her deathly voice. "She chose to follow her own way, in defiance of my wishes, of my judgment. She sowed the wind, and she has reaped the whirlwind. We are as far apart as the dead and the living."

"Just about!" said Mrs. Tree. "Now, Virginia Dane, listen to me! I have come here to make a proposal, and when I have made it I shall go away, and that is the last you will see of me in this world, or most likely in the next. Mary Ashton married a scamp, as other women have done and will do to the end of the chapter. She paid for her mistake, poor child, and no one has ever heard a word of complaint or repining from her. She got along—somehow; and now her boy, Will, has come home, and means to be a good son, and will be one, too, and see her comfortable the rest of her days. But—Will wants to marry. He is engaged to Andrew Bent's daughter, a sweet, pretty girl, born and grown up while you have been sitting here in your coffin, Virginia Dane. Now—they won't take any more help from me, and I like 'em for it; and yet I want them to have more to do with. Will is clerk in the post-office, and his salary would give the three of them skim milk and red herrings, but not much more. I want you to leave them some money, Virginia."

There was a pause, during which the two pairs of eyes, the dim gray and the fiery black, looked into each other.

"This is a singular request, Marcia," said Miss Dane, at last. "I believe I have never offered you advice as to the bestowal of your property; nor, if I remember aright, is Mary Ashton related to you in any way."

"Cat's foot!" said Mrs. Tree, shortly. "Don't mount your high horse with me, Jinny, because it won't do any good. I don't know or care anything about your property; you may leave it to the cat for aught I care. What I want is to give you some of mine to leave to William Jaquith, in case you die first."

She then made a definite proposal, to which Miss Dane listened with severe attention.

"And suppose you die first," said the latter. "What then?"

"Oh, my will is all right, I have left him money enough. But there's no more prospect of my dying than there was twenty years ago. I shall live to be a hundred."

"I also come of a long-lived family," said Miss Dane.

"I thought the Blessed might get tired of waiting, and come and fetch you," said Mrs. Tree, dryly; "besides, you haven't so far to go as I have. Seriously, one of us must in common decency go before long, Virginia; it is hardly respectable for both of us to linger in this way. Now, if you will only listen to reason, when the time does come for either of us, Willy Jaquith is sure of comfort for the rest of his days. What do you say?"

Miss Dane was silent for some time. Finally:

"I will consider the matter," she said, coldly. "I cannot answer you at this moment, Marcia. You have broken in upon the current of my thoughts, and disturbed the peace of my soul. I will communicate with you by writing, when my decision is reached; no second interview will be necessary."

"I'm glad you think so," said Mrs. Tree, rising. "I wasn't intending to come again. You knew that Phoebe Blyth was dead?"

"I knew that Phoebe had passed out of this sphere," replied Miss Dane. "Keziah learned it from the purveyor."

She paused a moment, and then added, "Phoebe was with me last night."

"Was she?" said Mrs. Tree, grimly. "I'm sorry to hear it. Phoebe was a good woman, if she did have her faults."

"You may be glad to hear that she is in a blessed state at present," the cold monotone went on. "She came with my sisters Sophia and Persis; Timothea was also with them, and inquired for you."

"H'm!" said Mrs. Tree.

"I have no wish to rouse your animosity, Marcia," continued Miss Dane, after another pause, "and I am well aware of your condition of hardened unbelief; but we are not likely to meet again in this sphere, and since you have sought me out in my retirement, I feel bound to tell you, that I have received several visits of late from your husband, and that he is more than ever concerned about your spiritual welfare. If you wish it, I will repeat to you what he said."

The years fell away from Marcia Darracott like a cloak. She made two quick steps forward, her little hands clenched, her tiny figure towering like a flame.

"You dare—" she said, then stopped abruptly. The blaze died down, and the twinkle came instead into her bright eyes. She laughed her little rustling laugh, and turned to go. "Good-by, Jinny," she said; "you don't mean to be funny, but you are. Ethan Tree is in heaven; but if you think he would come back from the pit to see you—te hee! Good-by, Jinny Dane!"

Mrs. Tree sat bolt upright again all the way home, and chuckled several times.

"Now, that woman's jealousy is such," she said, aloud, "that, rather than have me do for her niece, she'll leave her half her fortune and die next week, just to spite me." (In point of fact, this prophecy came almost literally to pass, not a week, but a month later.)

"Yes, Anthony, a very pleasant call, thank ye. Help me out; the other side, old step-and-fetch-it! I believe you were a hundred years old when I was born. Yes, that's all. Direxia Hawkes, give him a cup of coffee; he's got chilled waiting in the cold. No, I'm warm enough; I had something to warm me."

In spite of this last declaration, when little Mrs. Bliss came in half an hour later to see the old lady, she found her with her feet on the fender, sipping hot mulled wine, and declaring that the marrow was frozen in her bones.

"I have been sitting in a tomb," she said, in answer to the visitor's alarmed inquiries, "talking to a corpse. Did you ever see Virginia Dane?"

Mrs. Bliss opened her blue eyes wide. "Oh, no, Mrs. Tree. I didn't know that any one ever saw Miss Dane. I thought she was—"

"She is dead," said Mrs. Tree. "I have been talking with her corpse, I tell you, and I don't like corpses. You are alive and warm, and I like you. Tell me some scandal."

"Oh, Mrs. Tree!"

"Well, tell me about the baby, then. I suppose there's no harm in my asking that. If I live much longer, I sha'n't be allowed to talk about anything except gruel and nightcaps. How's the baby?"

"Oh, he is so well, Mrs. Tree, and such a darling! He looks like a perfect beauty in that lovely cloak. I must bring him round in it to show to you. It is the handsomest thing I ever saw, and it didn't look a bit yellow after it was pressed."

"I got it in Canton," said Mrs. Tree. "My baby—I never had but one—was born in the China seas. Here's her coral."

She motioned toward her lap, and Mrs. Bliss saw that a small chest of carved sandalwood lay open on her knees, full of trinkets and odds and ends.

"It is very pretty," said little Mrs. Bliss, lifting the coral and bells reverently.

"Her name was Lucy," said Mrs. Tree. "She married Arthur Blyth, cousin to the girls, and died when little Arthur was born. You may have that for your baby; I'm keeping Arthur's for little Vesta's child. If you thank me, you sha'n't have it."



CHAPTER XIV.

TOMMY CANDY, AND THE LETTER HE BROUGHT

"How do you do, Thomas Candy?" said Mrs. Tree.

"How-do-you-do-Missis-Tree-I'm-pretty-well-thank-you-and-hope-you-are- the-same!" replied Tommy Candy, in one breath.

"Humph! you shake hands better than you did; but remember to press with the palm, not pinch with the fingers! Now, what do you want?"

"I brung you a letter," said Tommy Candy. "I was goin' by the post-office, and Mr. Jaquith hollered to me and said bring it to you, and so I brung it."

"I thank you, Thomas," said the old lady, taking the letter and laying it down without looking at it. "Sit down! There are burnt almonds in the ivory box. Humph! I hear very bad accounts of you, Tommy Candy."

Tommy looked up from an ardent consideration of the relative size of the burnt almonds; his face was that of a freckled cherub who knew not sin.

"What is all this about Isaac Weight and Timpson Boody, the sexton? I hear you were at the bottom of the affair."

The freckled cherub vanished; instead appeared an imp, with a complex and illuminating grin pervading even the roots of his hair.

"Ho!" he chuckled. "I tell ye, Mis' Tree, I had a time! I tell ye I got even with old Booby and Squashnose Weight, too, that time. Ho! ha! Yes'm, I did."

"You are an extremely naughty boy!" said Mrs. Tree, severely. "Sit there—don't wriggle in your cheer; you are not an eel, though I admit you are the next thing to it—and tell me every word about it, do you hear?"

"Every word?" echoed Tommy Candy.

"Every word."

Their eyes met; and, if twinkle met twinkle, still her brows were severe, and her cap simply awful. Tommy Candy chuckled again. "I tell ye!" he said.

He reflected a moment, nibbling an almond absently, then leaned forward, and, clasping his hands over both knees, began his tale.

"Old Booby's ben pickin' on me ever sence I can remember. I don't git no comfort goin' to meetin', he picks on me so. Ever anybody sneezes, or drops a hymn-book, or throws a lozenger, he lays it to me, and he ketches me after meetin' and pulls my ears. Last Sunday he took away every lozenger I had, five cents' wuth, jest because I stuck one on Doctor Pottle's co't in the pew front of our'n. So then I swowed I'd have revenge, like that feller in the poetry-book you lent me. So next day after school I seed him—well, saw him—come along with his glass-settin' tools, and go to work settin' some glass in one of the meetin'-house winders. Some o' them little small panes got broke somehow—yes'm, I did, but I never meant to, honest I didn't. I was jest tryin' my new catapult, and I never thought they'd have such measly glass as all that. Well, so I see—saw him get to work, and I says to Squashnose Weight—we was goin' home from school together—I says, 'Let's go up in the gallery!' Old Booby had left the door open, and 'twas right under the gallery that he was to work. So we went up; and I had my pocket full of split peas—no'm, I didn't have my bean-blower along; I'd known better than to take it into the meetin'-house, anyway; and we slipped in behind old Booby's back and got up into the gallery, and I slid the winder up easy, and we commenced droppin' peas down on his head. He's bald as a bedpost, you know, and to see them peas hop up and roll off—I tell ye, 'twas sport! Old Booby didn't know what in thunder was the matter at first. First two or three he jest kind o' shooed with his hand—thought it was hossflies, mebbe, or June-bugs; but we went on droppin' of 'em, and they hopped and skipped off his head like bullets, and bumby he see one on the ground. He picked it up and looked it all over, and then he looked up. You know how he opens his mouth and sort o' squinnies up his eyes? Mis' Tree, I couldn't help it, no way in the world; I jest dropped a handful of peas right down into his mouth. 'Twa'n't no great of a shot, for he opened the spread of a quart dipper; but Squashnose he sung out 'Gee whittakers!' and raised up his head, and old Booby saw him. Well, the way he dropped his tools and put for the door was a caution. We thought we could get down before he reached the gallery stairs, but I caught my pants on a nail, and Squashnose got his foot wedged in between two benches, and, by the time we got loose, we heard old Booby comin' poundin' up the stairs like all possessed. There wa'n't nothin' to do then but cut and run up the belfry ladder. We slipped off our shoes and stockin's, and thought mebbe we could get up without him hearin' us, but he did hear, and up he come full chisel, puffin' and cussin' like all creation.

"We waited—there wa'n't nothin' else to do; and I meant—I reely did, Mis' Tree—to own up and say I was sorry and take my lickin'; but that Squashnose Weight—he makes me tired!—the minute he see old Booby's bald head comin' up the ladder, he hollers out, 'Tommy Candy did it, Mr. Boody! Tommy Candy did it; he's got his pocket full of 'em now. I see him!'

"Well, you bet I was mad then! I got holt of him and give his head one good ram against the wall; and then when old Booby stepped up into the loft, I dropped down on all fours and run between his legs, and upset him onto Squashnose, and clum down the ladder and run home. That was every livin' thing I done, Mis' Tree, honest it was; and they blame it all on me, the lickin' Squashnose got, and all. I give him a good one, too, next day. I druther be me than him, anyway."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Tree. She did not look at Tommy, but held the Chinese screen before her face. "Did—did your father whip you well, Tommy?"

"Yes'm, he did so, the best lickin' I had this year; I dono but the best I ever had, but 'twas wuth it!"

When Master Candy left Mrs. Tree he had a neat and concise little lecture passing through his head, on its way from one ear to the other, and in his pocket an assortment of squares of fig-paste, red and white. The red, as Mrs. Tree pointed out to him, had nuts in them.

Left alone, the old lady put down the screen, and let the twinkle have its own way. She shook her head two or three times at the fire, and laughed a little rustling laugh.

"Solomon Candy! Solomon Candy!" she said. "A chip of the old block!"

Then she took up her letter.

Half an hour later Miss Vesta, coming in for her daily visit (for Miss Phoebe's death had brought the aunt and niece even nearer together than they were before), found her aunt in a state of high indignation. She began to speak the moment Miss Vesta entered the room.

"Vesta, don't say a word to me! do you hear? not a single word! I will not put up with it for an instant; understand that once and for all!"

"Dear Aunt Marcia," said Miss Vesta, mildly, "I may say good morning, surely? What has put you about to-day?"

"I have had a letter. The impudence of the woman, writing to me! Now, Vesta, don't look at me in that way, for you have some sense, if not much, and you know perfectly well it was impudent. Folderol! don't tell me! her dear aunt, indeed! I'll dear-aunt her, if she tries to set foot in this house."

Miss Vesta's puzzled brow cleared. "Oh," she said, "I see, Aunt Marcia. You also have had a letter from Maria."

"Read it!" said Mrs. Tree. "I'd take it up with the tongs, if I were you."

Miss Vesta did not think it necessary to obey this injunction, but unfolded the square of scented paper which her aunt indicated, and read as follows:

"MY DEAR AUNT:—I was much grieved to hear of poor Phoebe's death. It seems very strange that I was not informed of her illness; being her own first cousin, it would have been natural and gratifying for me to have shared the last sad hours with you and Vesta; but malice is no part of my nature, and I am quite ready to overlook the neglect. You and Vesta must miss Phoebe sadly, and be very lonely, and I feel it a duty that I must not shirk to come and show you both that to me, at least, blood is thicker than water. One drop of Darracott blood, I always say, is enough to establish a claim on me. It is a long time since I have been in Elmerton, and I should like above all things to bring my two sweet girls, to show them their mother's early home, and present them to their venerable relation. I think you would find them not inferior, to say the least, to some others who have been more put forward to catch the eye. A violet by a mossy stone has always been my idea of a young woman. However, my daughters' engagements are so numerous, and they are so much sought after, that it will be impossible for me to bring them at present; later I shall hope to do so. I propose to divide my visit impartially between you and poor Vesta, but shall go to her first, being the one in affliction, since such we are bidden to visit.

"Looking forward with great pleasure to my visit with you, and hoping that this may find you in the enjoyment of such a measure of health as your advanced years may allow, I am, my dear Aunt,

"Your affectionate niece, "MARIA DARRACOTT PRYOR."

"When you have finished it, you may put it into the fire," said Mrs. Tree. "Bah! what did she say to you? Cat! I don't mean you, Vesta."

But Miss Vesta, with all her dove-like qualities, had something of the wisdom of the serpent, and had no idea of repeating what Mrs. Pryor had said to her. Several phrases rose to her mind,—"Aunt Marcia's few remaining days on earth," "precarious spiritual condition of which reports have reached me," "spontaneous distribution of family property," etc.,—and she rejoiced in being able to say calmly, "I did not bring the letter with me, Aunt Marcia. Maria speaks of her intended visit, and seems to look forward with much pleasure to—"

"Vesta Blyth," said Mrs. Tree, "look me in the eye!"

"Yes, dear Aunt Marcia," said the little lady. Her soft brown eyes met fearlessly the black sparks which gleamed from under Mrs. Tree's eyebrows. She smiled, and laid her hand gently on that of the elder woman.

"There is no earthly use in your smiling at me, Vesta," the old lady went on. "I see nothing whatever to smile about. I wish simply to say, as I have said before, that after I am dead you may do as you please; but I am not dead yet, and while I live, Maria Darracott sets no foot in this house."

"Dear Aunt Marcia!"

"No foot in this house!" repeated Mrs. Tree. "Not the point of her toe, if she had a point. She was born splay-footed, and I suppose she'll die so. Not the point of her toe!"

Miss Vesta was silent for a moment. If she were only like Phoebe! She must try her best to do as Phoebe would have wished.

"Aunt Marcia," she said, "you have always been so near and dear—so very near and so infinitely dear and kind, to us,—especially to Nathaniel and me, and to Nathaniel's children,—that I fear you sometimes forget the fact that Maria is precisely the same relation to you that we are."

"Cat's foot, fiddlestick, folderol, fudge!" remarked Mrs. Tree, blandly.

"Dear Aunt Marcia, do not speak so, I beg of you. Only think, Uncle James, Maria's father, was your own brother."

"His wife wasn't my own sister!" said Mrs. Tree, grimly. Then she blazed out suddenly. "Vesta Blyth, you are a good girl, and I am very fond of you; but I know what I am about, and I behave as I intend to behave. My brother James was a good man, though I never could understand the ground he took about the Copleys. He had no more right to them—but that is neither here nor there. His wife was a cat, and her mother before her was a cat, and her daughter after her is a cat. I don't like cats, and I never have had them in this house, and I never will. That's all there is to it. If that woman comes here, I'll set the parrot on her."

"Scat!" said the parrot, waking from a doze and ruffling his feathers. "Quousque tandem, O Catilina? Vesta, Vesta, don't you pester!"

Miss Vesta sighed. "Then—what will you say to Maria, Aunt Marcia?"

"I sha'n't say anything to her!" replied the old lady, snappishly.

"Surely you must answer her letter, dear."

"Must I! 'Must got bust,' they used to say when I was a girl."

"Surely you will answer it?" said Miss Vesta, altering the unlucky form of words.

"Nothing of the sort! She has had the impudence to write to me, and she can answer herself."

"She cannot very well do that, Aunt Marcia."

"Then she can go without.

"'Tiddy hi, toddy ho, Tiddy hi hum, Thus was it when Barbara Popkins was young!'"

Miss Vesta sighed again; it was always a bad sign when Mrs. Tree began to sing.

"Very well, Aunt Marcia," she said, after a pause, rising. "I will answer for both, then. I will say that—"

"Say that I am blind, deaf, and dumb!" her aunt commanded. "Say that I have the mumps and the chicken-pox, and am recommended absolute retirement. Say I have my sins to think about, and have no time for anything else. Say anything you like, Vesta, but run along now, like a good girl, and let me get smoothed out before that poor little parson comes to see me. He's coming at five. Last time I scared him out of a year's growth—te-hee!—and he has none to spare, inside or out. Good-by, my dear."



CHAPTER XV.

MARIA

"My dearest Vesta, what a pleasure to see you! You are looking wretched, simply wretched! How thankful I am that I came!"

Mrs. Pryor embraced her cousin with effusion. She was short and fair, with prominent eyes and teeth, and she wore a dress that crackled and ornaments that clinked. Miss Vesta, in her dove-colored cashmere and white net, seemed to melt into her surroundings and form part of them, but Mrs. Pryor stood out against them like a pump against an evening sky.

"It was very kind of you to come, Maria," said Miss Vesta, "very kind indeed. I trust you had a comfortable journey, and are not too tired."

"My dear," said Mrs. Pryor, buoyantly, "I am never tired. Watchspring and wire—Mr. Pryor always said that was what his little Maria was made of. But it would have made no difference if I had been at the point of exhaustion, I would have made any effort to come to you. Darracott blood, my love! Any one who has a drop of Darracott blood in his veins can call upon me for anything; how much more you, who are my own first cousin. Poor, dear Phoebe, what a loss! You are not in black, I see. Ah! I remember her peculiar views. You feel bound to respect them. I consider that a mistake, Vesta. We must respect, but we are not called upon to imitate, the eccentricities—"

"I share my sister's views," said Miss Vesta, tranquilly. "Will you have a cup of tea now, Maria, or would you like to go to your room at once?"

"Neither, my dear, just at this moment," said Mrs. Pryor, vivaciously. "I must just take a glance around. Dear me! how many years is it since I have been in this house? Had Phoebe aged as much as you have, Vesta? Single women, of course, always age faster,—no young life to keep them girlish. Ah! you must see my two sweet girls. Angels, Vesta! and Darracotts to their finger-ends. I feel like a child again, positively like a child. The parlor is exactly as I remember it, only faded. Things do fade so, don't they? It's a mistake not to keep your furniture fresh and up to date. I should re-cover those chairs, if I were you; nothing would be easier. A few yards of something bright and pretty, a few brass-headed nails—why, I could do it in a couple of hours. We must see what we can do, Vesta. And it is a pity, it seems to me, to have everything so bare, tables and all. Beautiful polish, to be sure, but they look so bleak. A chenille cover, now, here and there, a bright drape or two, would transform this room; all this old red damask is terribly antiquated, my dear. It comes of having no young life about you, as I said. My girls have such taste! You should see our parlor at home—not an inch but is covered with something bright and aesthetic. Ah! here are the portraits. Yes, to be sure. Do you know, Vesta, I have often thought of writing to you and Phoebe—in fact, I was on the point of it when the sad news came of poor Phoebe's being taken—about these portraits of Grandfather and Grandmother Darracott. Grandmother Darracott left them to your branch, I am well aware of that; but justice is justice, and I do think we ought to have one of them. We have just as much Darracott blood in our veins as you have, and you and Phoebe were always Blyth all over, while the Darracott nose and chin show so strongly in me and my children. You have no children, Vesta, and I always think it is the future generations that should be considered. We are passing away, my dear,—in the midst of life, you know, and poor Phoebe's death reminds us of it, I'm sure, more than ever—you don't look as if you had more than a year or two before you yourself, Vesta,—but—well—and so—I confess it seems to me as if you might feel more at ease in your mind if we had one of the portraits. Of course I should be willing to pay something, though I always think it a pity for money to pass between blood relations. What do you say?"

She paused, somewhat out of breath, and sat creaking and clinking, and fanning herself with a Chinese hand-screen.

Miss Vesta looked up at the portraits. Grandmother Darracott in turban and shawl, Grandfather Darracott splendid with frill and gold seals, looked down on her benignantly, as they had always looked. They had been part of her life, these kindly, silent figures. She had always felt sure of Grandmother Darracott's sympathy and understanding. Sometimes when, as a child, she fancied herself naughty (but she never was!), she would appeal from the keen, inquiring gaze of Grandfather Darracott to those soft brown eyes, so like her own, if she had only known it; and the brown eyes never failed to comfort and reassure her.

Part with one of those pictures? A month ago the request would have brought her distress and searchings of heart, with wonder whether it might not be her duty to do so just because it was painful; but Miss Vesta was changed. It was as if Miss Phoebe, in passing, had let the shadow of her mantle fall on her younger sister.

"I cannot consider the question, Maria!" she said, quietly. "My dear sister would have been quite unwilling to do so, I am sure. And now, as I have duties to attend to, shall I show you your room?"

Miss Vesta drifted up the wide staircase, and Mrs. Pryor stumped and creaked behind her.

"You have put me in Phoebe's room, I suppose," said the visitor, as they reached the landing. "So near you, I can give you any attention you may need in the night. Besides, the sun—oh, the dimity room! Well, I dare say it will do well enough. Stuffy, isn't it? but I am the easiest person in the world to satisfy. And how is Aunt Marcia? I shall go to see her the first thing in the morning; she will hardly expect me to call this afternoon, though I could make a special effort if you think she would feel sensitive."

"Indeed, Maria, I am very sorry, but I don't feel sure—in fact, I rather fear that you may not be able to see Aunt Marcia, at all events just at present."

"Not be able to see her! My dear Vesta, what can you mean? Why, I am going to stay with Aunt Marcia. I wrote to her as well as to you, and said that I should divide my visit equally between you. Of course I feel all that I owe to you, my love; I have made all my arrangements for a long stay; indeed, it happens to fit in very well with my plans, but I need not trouble you with details now. What I mean to say is, that in spite of all I owe to you, I have also a sacred duty to fulfil toward my aunt. It is impossible in the nature of things that she should live much longer, and as her own niece and the mother of a family I am bound, solemnly bound, to soothe and cheer a few, at least, of her closing days. I suppose the dear old thing feels a little hurt that I did not go to her first, from what you say; old people are very tetchy, I ought to have remembered that, but you were the one in affliction, and I felt bound—but I will make that all right, never fear, in the morning. There, my dear, don't, I beg of you, give yourself the slightest uneasiness about the matter! I am quite able to take care of myself, and of you and Aunt Marcia into the bargain. You do not know me, my dear! Yes, Diploma can bring me the tea now, and I will unpack and set things to rights a bit. You will not mind if I move the furniture about a little? I have my own ideas, and they are not always such bad ones. Good-by, my love! Go and rest now, you look like a ghost. I shall have to take you in hand at once, I see; so fortunate that I came. Good-by!"

Miss Vesta, descending the stairs with a troubled brow, was met by Diploma with the announcement that Doctor Stedman was in the parlor.

"Oh!" Miss Vesta breathed a little sigh of pleasure and relief, and hastened down.

"Good afternoon, James! I am rejoiced to see you. I—something perplexing has occurred; perhaps you may be able to advise me. Sister Phoebe would have known exactly what to do, but I confess I am puzzled. Our—my cousin, Mrs. Pryor, has arrived this afternoon."

"Mrs. Pryor!" said Doctor Stedman. "Any one I ought to know?"

"Maria Darracott. Surely you remember her?"

"Hum! yes, I remember her. She hasn't come here, to this house?"

"Yes; she is up-stairs now, unpacking her trunk. She has come to make a long stay, it would appear from the size of the trunk. Of course I am—of course it was very kind in her to come, and I shall do my best to make her stay agreeable; but—James, she intends to make Aunt Marcia a visit, too, and Aunt Marcia absolutely refuses to see her. What shall I do?"

Doctor Stedman chuckled. "Do? I wish you had followed your aunt's example; but that was not to be expected. Hum! I don't see that you can do anything. Your aunt is not amenable to the bit, not even the slightest snaffle; as to driving her with a curb, I should like to see the man who would attempt it. Won't see her, eh? ho! ho! Mrs. Tree is the one consistent woman I have ever known."

"But Maria is entirely unconvinced, James; I cannot make any impression upon her. She is determined to go to see Aunt Marcia to-morrow, and I fear—"

"Let her go! she is of age, if I remember rightly; let her go and try for herself. You are not responsible for what occurs. Vesta—let me look at you! Hum! I wish you would turn this visitor out, and go away somewhere for a bit."

"Go away, James? I?"

"Yes, you! You are not looking at all the thing, I tell you. It's all very well and very—everything that is like you—to take this trouble simply and naturally, but whatever you may say and believe, there is the shock and there is the strain, and those are things we have to pay for sooner or later. Go away, I tell you! Send away this—this visitor, give Diploma the key, and go off somewhere for a month or two. Go and make Nat a visit! Poor old Nat, he's lonely enough, with little Vesta and her husband in Europe. Think what it would mean to him, Vesta, to have you with him for awhile!"

"My dear James, you take my breath away," said Miss Vesta, fluttering a little. "You are most kind and friendly, but—but it would not be possible for me to go away. I could not think of it for a moment, even if the laws of hospitality did not bind me as long as Maria—my own cousin, remember, James—chooses to stay here. I could not think of it."