"'O first of women who has laid Magnetic glory on a braid! In others' tresses we may mark If they be silken, blonde, or dark, But thine we praise and dare not feel them, Not Hermes, god of theft, dare steal them; It is enough for eye to gaze Upon their vivifying maze.'"

Jack: "She has beautiful hair, but as an architect I shouldn't think of mentioning it first. Details should follow, not precede, general characteristics. Her hair is an exquisite detail; so, you might say, is her nose, her foot, her voice; but viewed as a captivating whole, Egeria might be described epigrammatically as an animated lodestone. When a man approaches her he feels his iron- work gently and gradually drawn out of him."

Atlas looked distinctly incredulous at this statement, which was reinforced by the affirmative nods of the whole party.

Penelope: "A man cannot talk to Egeria an hour without wishing the assistance of the Society for First Aid to the Injured. She is a kind of feminine fly-paper; the men are attracted by the sweetness, and in trying to absorb a little of it, they stick fast."

Tommy: "Egeria is worth from two to two and a half times more than any girl alive; I would as lief talk to her as listen to myself."

Atlas: "Great Jove, what a concession! I wish I could find a woman—an unmarried woman (with a low bow to Mrs. Jack)—that would produce that effect upon me. So you all like her?"

Aunt Celia: "She is not what I consider a well-informed girl."

Penelope: "Now don't carp, Miss Van Tyck. You love her as much as we all do. 'Like her,' indeed! I detest the phrase. Werther said when asked how he liked Charlotte, 'What sort of creature must he be who merely liked her; whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed by her! Some one asked me lately how I 'liked' Ossian."

Atlas: "Don't introduce Ossian, Werther and Charlotte into this delightful breakfast chat, I beseech you; the most tiresome trio that ever lived. If they were travelling with us, how they would jar! Ossian would tear the scenery in tatters with his apostrophes, Werther would make love to Mrs. Jack, and Charlotte couldn't cut an English household loaf with a hatchet. Keep to Egeria,—though if one cannot stop at liking her, she is a dangerous subject."

Jack: "Don't imagine from these panegyrics that, to the casual observer, Egeria is anything more than a nice girl. The deadly qualities that were mentioned only appeal to the sympathetic eye (which you have not), and the susceptible heart (which is not yours), and after long acquaintance (which you can't have, for she stays only a week). Tommy, you can meet the charmer at the station; your sister will pack up, and I'll pay the bills and make arrangements for the journey."

Jack Copley (when left alone with his spouse): "Kitty, I wonder, why you invited Egeria to travel in the same party with Atlas."

Mrs. Jack (fencing): "Pooh! Atlas is safe anywhere."

Jack: "He is a man."

Mrs. Jack: "No; he is a reformer."

Jack: "Even reformers fall in love."

Mrs. Jack: "Not unless they can find a woman to reform. Egeria is too nearly perfect to attract Atlas; besides, what does it matter, anyway?"

Jack: "It matters a good deal if it makes him unhappy; he is too good a fellow."

Mrs. Jack: "I've lived twenty-five years and I have never seen a man's unhappiness last more than six months, and I have never seen a woman make a wound in a man's heart that another woman couldn't heal. The modern young man is as tough as—well, I can't think of anything tough enough to compare him to. I've always thought it a pity that the material of which men's hearts is made couldn't be utilized for manufacturing purposes; think of its value for hinges, or for the toes of little boys' boots, or the heels of their stockings!"

Jack: "I should think you had just been jilted, my dear; how has Atlas offended you?"

Mrs. Jack: "He hasn't offended me; I love him, but I think he is too absent-minded lately."

Jack: "And is Egeria invited to join us in order that she may bring his mind forcibly back to the present?"

Mrs. Jack: "Not at all; I consider Atlas as safe as a—as a church, or a dictionary, or a guide-post, or anything; he is too much interested in tenement-house reform to fall in love with a woman."

Jack: "I think a sensible woman wouldn't be out of place in Atlas' schemes for the regeneration of humanity."

Mrs. Jack: "No; but Egeria isn't a—yes, she is, too; I can't deny it, but I don't believe she knows anything about the sweating system, and she adores Ossian and Fiona Macleod, so she probably won't appeal to Atlas in his present state, which, to my mind, is unnecessarily intense. The service of humanity renders a young man perfectly callous to feminine charms. It's the proverbial safety of numbers, I suppose, for it's always the individual that leads a man into temptation, if you notice, never the universal;—Woman, not women. I have studied Atlas profoundly, and he is nearly as blind as a bat. He paid no attention to my new travelling-dress last week, and yesterday I wore four rings on my middle finger and two on each thumb all day long, just to see if I could catch his eye and hold his attention. I couldn't."

Jack: "That may all be; a man may be blind to the charms of all women but one (and precious lucky if he is), but he is particularly keen where the one is concerned."

Mrs. Jack: "Atlas isn't keen about anything but the sweating system. You needn't worry about him; your favourite Stevenson says that a wet rag goes safely by the fire, and if a man is blind, he cannot expect to be much impressed by romantic scenery. Atlas momentarily a wet rag and temporarily blind. He told me on Wednesday that he intended to leave all his money to one of those long-named regenerating societies—I can't remember which."

Jack: "And it was on Wednesday you sent for Egeria. I see."

Mrs. Jack (haughtily): "Then you see a figment of your own imagination; there is nothing else to see. There! I've packed everything that belongs to me, while you've been smoking and gazing at that railway guide. When do we start?"

Jack: "11.59. We arrive in Bideford at 4.40, and have a twelve- mile drive to Clovelly. I will telegraph for a conveyance to the inn and for five bedrooms and a sitting-room."

Mrs. Jack: "I hope that Egeria's train will be on time, and I hope that it will rain so that I can wear my five-guinea mackintosh. It poured every day when I was economizing and doing without it."

Jack: "I never could see the value of economy that ended in extra extravagance."

Mrs. Jack: "Very likely; there are hosts of things you never can see, Jackie. But there she is, stepping out of a hansom, the darling! What a sweet gown! She's infinitely more interesting than the sweating system."

We thought we were a merry party before Egeria joined us, but she certainly introduced a new element of interest. I could not help thinking of it as we were flying about the Bristol station, just before entering the first-class carriage engaged by our host. Tommy had bought us rosebuds at a penny each; Atlas had a bundle of illustrated papers under his arm—The Sketch, Black and White, The Queen, The Lady's Pictorial, and half a dozen others. The guard was pasting an "engaged" placard on the carriage window and piling up six luncheon-baskets in the corner on the cushions, and speedily we were off.

It is a sincere tribute to the intrinsic charm of Egeria's character that Mrs. Jack and I admire her so unreservedly, for she is for ever being hurled at us as an example in cases where men are too stupid to see that there is no fault in us, nor any special virtue in her. For instance, Jack tells Kitty that she could walk with less fatigue if she wore sensible shoes like Egeria's. Now, Egeria's foot is very nearly as lovely as Trilby's in the story, and much prettier than Trilby's in the pictures; consequently, she wears a hideous, broad-toed, low-heeled boot, and looks trim and neat in it. Her hair is another contested point: she dresses it in five minutes in the morning, walks or drives in the rain and wind for a few hours, rides in the afternoon, bathes in the surf, lies in a hammock, and, if circumstances demand, the creature can smooth it with her hands and walk in to dinner! Kitty and I, on the contrary, rise a half-hour earlier to curl or wave; our spirit- lamps leak into our dressing-bags, and our beauty is decidedly damaged by damp or hot weather. Most women's hair is a mere covering to the scalp, growing out of the head, or pinned on, as the case may be. Egeria's is a glory like Eve's; it is expressive, breathing a hundred delicate suggestions of herself; not tortured into frizzles, or fringes, or artificial shapes, but winding its lustrous lengths about her head, just high enough to show the beautiful nape of her neck, "where this way and that the little lighter-coloured irreclaimable curls run truant from the knot,— curls, half curls, root curls, vine ringlets, wedding-rings, fledgling feathers, tufts of down, blown wisps,—all these wave, or fall, or stray, loose and downward in the form of small, silken paws, hardly any of them thicker than a crayon shading, cunninger than long, round locks of gold to trick the heart."

At one o'clock we lifted the covers of our luncheon-baskets.

"Aren't they the tidiest, most self-respecting, satisfying things!" exclaimed Egeria, as she took out her plate, and knife, and fork, opened her Japanese napkin, set in dainty order the cold fowl and ham, the pat of butter, crusty roll, bunch of lettuce, mustard and salt, the corkscrew, and, finally, the bottle of ale. "I cannot bear to be unpatriotic, but compare this with the ten minutes for refreshments at an American lunch-counter, its baked beans, and pies, and its cream cakes and doughnuts under glass covers. I don't believe English people are as good as we are; they can't be; they're too comfortable. I wonder if the little discomforts of living in America, the dissatisfaction and incompetency of servants, and all the other problems, will work out for the nation a more exceeding weight of glory, or whether they will simply ruin the national temper."

"It's wicked to be too luxurious, Egeria," said Tommy, with a sly look at Atlas. "It's the hair shirt, not the pearl-studded bosom, that induces virtue."

"Is it?" she asked innocently, letting her clear gaze follow Tommy's. "You don't believe, Mr. Atlas, that modest people like you, and me, and Tommy, and the Copleys, incur danger in being too comfortable; the trouble lies in the fact that the other half is too uncomfortable, does it not? But I am just beginning to think of these things," she added soberly.

"Egeria," said Mrs. Jack sternly, "you may think about them as much as you like; I have no control over your mental processes, but if you mention single tax, or tenement-house reform, or Socialism, or altruism, or communism, or the sweating system, you will be dropped at Bideford. Atlas is only travelling with us because he needs complete moral and intellectual rest. I hope, oh, how I hope, that there isn't a social problem in Clovelly! It seems as if there couldn't be, in a village of a single street and that a stone staircase."

"There will be," I said, "if nothing more than the problem of supply and demand; of catching and selling herrings."

We had time at Bideford to go into a quaint little shop for tea before starting on our twelve-mile drive; time also to be dragged by Tommy to Bideford Bridge, that played so important a part in Kingsley's "Westward Ho!" We did not approach Clovelly finally through the beautiful Hobby Drive, laid out in former years by one of the Hamlyn ladies of Clovelly Court, but by the turnpike road, which, however, was not uninteresting. It had been market-day at Bideford and there were many market carts and "jingoes" on the road, with perhaps a heap of yellow straw inside and a man and a rosy boy on the seat. The roadway was prettily bordered with broom, wild honeysuckle, fox-glove, and single roses, and there was a certain charming post-office called the Fairy Cross, in a garden of blooming fuchsias, where Egeria almost insisted upon living and officiating as postmistress.

All at once our driver checked his horses on the brink of a hill, apparently leading nowhere in particular.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Jack, who is always expecting accidents.

"Clovelly, mum."

"Clovelly!" we repeated automatically, gazing about us on every side for a roof, a chimney, or a sign of habitation.

"You'll find it, mum, as you walk down-along."

"How charming!" cried Egeria, who loves the picturesque. "Towns are generally so obtrusive; isn't it nice to know that Clovelly is here and that all we have to do is to walk 'down-along' and find it? Come, Tommy. Ho, for the stone staircase!"

We who were left behind discovered by more questioning that one cannot drive into Clovelly; that although an American president or an English chancellor might, as a great favour, be escorted down on a donkey's back, or carried down in a sedan chair if he chanced to have one about his person, the ordinary mortal must walk to the door of the New Inn, his luggage being dragged "down-along" on sledges and brought "up-along" on donkeys. In a word, Clovelly is not built like unto other towns; it seems to have been flung up from the sea into a narrow rift between wooded hills, and to have clung there these eight hundred years of its existence. It has held fast, but it has not expanded, for the very good reason that it completely fills the hollow in the cliffs, the houses clinging like limpets to the rocks on either side, so that it would be a costly and difficult piece of engineering indeed to build any extensions or additions.

We picked our way "down-along" until we caught the first glimpse of white-washed cottages covered with creepers, their doors hospitably open, their windows filled with blooming geraniums and fuchsias. All at once, as we began to descend the winding, rocky pathway, we saw that it pitched headlong into the bluest sea in the world. No wonder the painters have loved it! Shall we ever forget that first vision! There were a couple of donkeys coming "up-along" laden, one with coals, the other with bread-baskets; a fisherman was mending his nets in front of his door; others were lounging "down to quay pool" to prepare for their evening drift-fishing. A little further on, at a certain abrupt turning called the "lookout," where visitors stop to breathe and villagers to gossip, one could catch a glimpse of the beach and "Crazed Kate's Cottage," the drying-ground for nets, the lifeboat house, the pier, and the breakwater.

We were all enchanted when we arrived at the door of the inn.

"Devonshire for me! I shall live here!" cried Mrs. Jack. "I said that a few times in Wales, but I retract it. You had better live here, too, Atlas; there aren't any problems in Clovelly."

"I am sure of that," he assented smilingly. "I noticed dozens of live snails in the rocks of the street as we came down; snails cannot live in combination with problems."

"Then I am a snail," answered Mrs. Jack cheerfully; "for that is exactly my temperament."

We found that we could not get room enough for all at the tiny inn, but this only exhilarated Egeria and Tommy. They disappeared and came back triumphant ten minutes later.

"We got lodgings without any difficulty," said Egeria. "Tommy's isn't half bad; we saw a small boy who had been taking a box 'down- along' on a sledge, and he referred us to a nice place where they took Tommy in; but you should see my lodging—it is ideal. I noticed the prettiest yellow-haired girl knitting in a doorway. 'There isn't room for me at the inn,' I said; 'could you let me sleep here?' She asked her mother, and her mother said 'Yes,' and there was never anything so romantic as my vine-embowered window. Juliet would have jumped at it."

"She would have jumped out of it, if Romeo had been below," said Mrs. Jack, "but there are no Romeos nowadays; they are all busy settling the relations of labour and capital."

The New Inn proved some years ago to be too small for its would-be visitors. An addition couldn't be built because there wasn't any room; but the landlady succeeded in getting a house across the way. Here there are bedrooms, a sort of quiet tap-room of very great respectability, and the kitchens. As the dining-room is in house number one, the matter of serving dinner might seem to be attended with difficulty, but it is not apparent. The maids run across the narrow street with platters and dishes surmounted by great Britannia covers, and in rainy weather they give the soup or joint the additional protection of a large cotton umbrella. The walls of every room in the inn are covered with old china, much of it pretty, and some of it valuable, though the finest pieces are not hung, but are placed in glass cabinets. One cannot see an inch of wall space anywhere in bedrooms, dining- or sitting-rooms for the huge delft platters, whole sets of the old green dragon pattern, quaint perforated baskets, pitchers and mugs of British lustre, with queer dogs, and cats, and peacocks, and clocks of china. The massing of colour is picturesque and brilliant, and the whole effect decidedly unique. The landlady's father and grandfather had been Bideford sea-captains and had brought here these and other treasures from foreign parts. As Clovelly is a village of seafolk and fisher-folk, the houses are full of curiosities, mostly from the Mediterranean. Egeria had no china in her room, but she had huge branches of coral, shells of all sizes and hues, and an immense coloured print of the bay of Naples. Tommy's landlady was volcanic in her tastes, and his walls were lined with pictures of Vesuvius in all stages of eruption. My room, a wee, triangular box of a thing, was on the first floor of the inn. It opened hospitably on a bit of garden and street by a large glass door that wouldn't shut, so that a cat or a dog spent the night by my bed- side now and then, and many a donkey tried to do the same, but was evicted.

Oh, the Clovelly mornings! the sunshine, the salt air, the savour of the boats and the nets, the limestone cliffs of Gallantry Bower rising steep and white at the head of the village street, with the brilliant sea at the foot; the walks down by the quay pool (not key pool, you understand, but quaay puul in the vernacular), the sails in a good old herring-boat called the Lorna Doone, for we are in Blackmore's country here.

We began our first day early in the morning, and met at nine- o'clock breakfast in the coffee-room. Egeria came in glowing. She reminds me of a phrase in a certain novel, where the heroine is described as always dressing (seemingly) to suit the season and the sky. Clad in sea-green linen with a white collar, and belt, she was the very spirit of a Clovelly morning. She had risen at six, and in company with Phoebe, daughter of her house (the yellow- haired lassie mentioned previously), had prowled up and down North Hill, a transverse place or short street much celebrated by painters. They had met a certain bold fisher-lad named Jem, evidently Phoebe's favourite swain, and explored the short passage where Fish Street is built over, nicknamed Temple Bar.

Atlas came in shortly after and laid a nosegay at Egeria's plate.

"My humble burnt-offering, your ladyship," he said.

Tommy: "She has lots of offerings, but she generally prefers to burn 'em herself. When Egeria's swains talk about her, it is always 'ut vidi,' how I saw, succeeded by 'ut perii,' how I sudden lost my brains."

Egeria: "YOU don't indulge in burnt-offerings" (laughing, with slightly heightened colour); "but how you do burn incense! You speak as if the skeletons of my rejected suitors were hanging on imaginary lines all over the earth's surface."

Tommy: "They are not hanging on 'imaginary' lines."

Mrs. Jack: "Turn your thoughts from Egeria's victims, you frivolous people, and let me tell you that I've been 'up-along' this morning and found—what do you think?—a library: a circulating library maintained by the Clovelly Court people. It is embowered in roses and jasmine, and there is a bird's nest hanging just outside one of the open windows next to a shelf of Dickens and Scott. Never before have young families of birds been born and brought up with similar advantages. The snails were in the path just as we saw them yesterday evening, Atlas; not one has moved, not one has died! Oh, I certainly must come and live here. The librarian is a dear old lady; if she ever dies, I am coming to take her place. You will be postmistress at the Fairy Cross then, Egeria, and we'll visit each other. And I've brought Dickens' 'Message from the Sea' for you, and Kingsley's 'Westward Ho!' for Tommy, and 'The Wages of Sin' for Atlas, and 'Hypatia' for Egeria, 'Lorna Doone' for Jack, and Charles Kingsley's sermons for myself. We will read aloud every evening."

"I won't," said Tommy succinctly. "I've been down by the quay pool, and I've got acquainted with a lot of A1 chaps that have agreed to take me drift-fishing every night, and they are going to put out the Clovelly lifeboat for exercise this week, and if the weather is fine, Bill Marks is going to take Atlas and me to Lundy Island. You don't catch me round the evening lamp very much in Clovelly."

"Don't be too slangy, Tommy, and who on earth is Bill Marks?" asked Jack.

"He's our particular friend, Tommy's and mine," answered Atlas, seeing that Tommy was momentarily occupied with bacon and eggs. "He told us more yarns than we ever before heard spun in the same length of time. He is seventy-seven, and says he was a teetotaler until he was sixty-nine, but has been trying to make up time ever since. From his condition last evening, I should say he was likely to do it. He was so mellow, I asked him how he could manage to walk down the staircase. 'Oh, I can walk down neat enough,' he said, 'when I'm in good sailing trim, as I am now, feeling just good enough, but not too good, your honour; but when I'm half seas over or three sheets in the wind, I roll down, your honour!' He spends three shillings a week for his food and the same for his 'rummidge.' He was thrilling when he got on the subject of the awful wreck just outside this harbour, 'the fourth of October, seventy-one years ago, two-and-thirty men drowned, your honour, and half of 'em from Clovelly parish. And I was one of the three men saved in another storm twenty-four years agone, when two-and-twenty men were drowned; that's what it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown, your honour.' When he found we'd been in Scotland, he was very anxious to know if we could talk 'Garlic,' said he'd always wanted to know what it sounded like."

Somehow, in the days that followed, Tommy was always with his particular friends, the fishermen, on the beach, at the Red Lion, or in the shop of a certain boat-builder, learning the use of the calking-iron. Mr. and Mrs. Jack, Aunt Celia, and I unexpectedly found ourselves a quartette for hours together, while Egeria and Atlas walked in the churchyard, in the beautiful grounds of Clovelly Court, or in the deer park, where one finds as perfect a union of marine and woodland scenery as any in England.

Atlas may have taken her there because he could discuss single tax more eloquently when he was walking over the entailed estates of the English landed gentry, but I suspect that single tax had taken off its hat, and bowing profoundly to Egeria, had said, "After you, Madam!" and retired to its proper place in the universe; for not even the most blatant economist would affirm that any other problem can be so important as that which confronts a man when he enters that land of Beulah, which is upon the borders of Heaven and within sight of the City of Love.

Atlas was young, warm of heart, high of mind, and generous of soul. All the necessary chords, therefore, were in him, ready to be set in vibration. No one could do this more cunningly than Egeria; the only question was whether love would "run out to meet love," as it should, "with open arms."

We simply waited to see. Mrs. Jack, with that fine lack of logic that distinguished her, disclaimed all responsibility. "He is awake, at least," she said, "and that is a great comfort; and now and then he observes a few very plain facts, mostly relating to Egeria, it is true. If it does come to anything, I hope he won't ask her to live in a college settlement the year round, though I haven't the slightest doubt that she would like it. If there were ever two beings created expressly for each other, it is these two, and for that reason I have my doubts about the matter. Almost all marriages are made between two people who haven't the least thing in common, so far as outsiders can judge. Egeria and Atlas are almost too well suited for marriage."

The progress of the affair had thus far certainly been astonishingly rapid, but it might mean nothing. Egeria's mind and heart were so easy of access up to a certain point that the traveller sometimes overestimated the distance covered and the distance still to cover. Atlas quoted something about her at the end of the very first day, that described her charmingly: "Ordinarily, the sweetest ladies will make us pass through cold mist and cross a stile or two, or a broken bridge, before the formalities are cleared away, to grant us rights of citizenship. She is like those frank lands where we have not to hand out a passport at the frontier and wait for dubious inspection." But the description is incomplete. Egeria, indeed, made no one wait at the frontier for a dubious inspection of his passport; but once in the new domain, while he would be cordially welcomed to parks, gardens, lakes, and pleasure grounds, he would find unexpected difficulty in entering the queen's private apartments, a fact that occasioned surprise to some of the travellers.

We all took the greatest interest, too, in the romance of Phoebe and Jem, for the course of true love did not run at all smooth for this young couple. Jack wrote a ballad about her, and Egeria made a tune to it, and sang it to the tinkling, old-fashioned piano of an evening:-

"Have you e'er seen the street of Clovelly? The quaint, rambling street of Clovelly, With its staircase of stone leading down to the sea, To the harbour so sleepy, so old, and so wee, The queer, crooked street of Clovelly.

"Have you e'er seen the lass of Clovelly? The sweet little lass of Clovelly, With kirtle of grey reaching just to her knee, And ankles as neat as ankles may be, The yellow-haired lass of Clovelly.

"There's a good honest lad in Clovelly, A bold, fisher lad of Clovelly, With purpose as straight and swagger as free As the course of his boat when breasting a sea, The brave sailor lad of Clovelly.

"Have you e'er seen the church at Clovelly? Have you heard the sweet bells of Clovelly? The lad and the lassie will hear them, maybe, And join hand in hand to sail over life's sea From the little stone church at Clovelly."

When the nights were cool or damp we crowded into Mrs. Jack's tiny china-laden sitting-room, and had a blaze in the grate with a bit of driftwood burning blue and green and violet on top of the coals. Tommy sometimes smelled of herring to such a degree that we were obliged to keep the door open; but his society was so precious that we endured the odours.

But there were other evenings out of doors, when we sat in a sheltered corner down on the pier, watching the line of limestone cliffs running westward to the revolving light at Hartland Point that sent us alternate flashes of ruby and white across the water. Clovelly lamps made glittering disks in the quay pool, shining there side by side with the reflected star-beams. We could hear the regular swish-swash of the waves on the rocks, and to the eastward the dripping of a stream that came tumbling over the cliff.

Such was our last evening in Clovelly; a very quiet one, for the charm of the place lay upon us and we were loath to leave it. It was warm and balmy, and the moonlight lay upon the beach. Egeria leaned against the parapet, the serge of her dress showing white against the background of rock. The hood of her dark blue yachting-cape was slipping off her head, and her eyes were as deep and clear as crystal pools.

Presently she began to sing,—first, "The Sands o' Dee," then,—

"Three fishers went sailing out into the west, Out into the west as the sun went down; Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, And the children stood watching them out of the town."

Egeria is one of the few women who can sing well without an accompaniment. She has a thrilling voice, and what with the scene, the hour, and the pathos of Kingsley's verses, tears rushed into my eyes, and Bill Marks' words came back to me—"Two-and-twenty men drowned; that's what it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown."

Atlas gazed at her with eyes that no longer cared to keep their secret. Mrs. Jack was still uncertain; for me, I was sure. Love had rushed past him like a galloping horseman, and shooting an arrow almost without aim, had struck him full in the heart, that citadel that had withstood a dozen deliberate sieges.

It was midnight, and our few belongings were packed. Egeria had come to the Inn to sleep, and stole into my room to warm her toes before the blaze in my grate, for I was chilly and had ordered a sixpenny fire. When I say that she came in to warm her toes, I am asking you to accept her statement, not mine; it is my opinion that she came in for no other purpose than to tell me something that was in her mind and heart pleading for utterance.

I didn't help her by leading up to the subject, because I thought her fib so flagrant and unnecessary; accordingly, we talked over a multitude of things,—Phoebe and Jem and their hard-hearted parents, our visit to Cardiff and Ilfracombe, Bill Marks and his wife, the service at the church, and finally her walk with Atlas in the churchyard.

"We went inside," said Egeria, "and I copied the inscription on the bronze tablet that Atlas liked so much on Sunday: 'Her grateful and affectionate husband's last and proudest wish will be that whenever Divine Providence shall call him hence, his name may be engraved on the same tablet that is sacred in perpetuating as much virtue and goodness as could adorn human nature.'" Then she went on, with apparent lack of sequence: "Penelope, don't you think it is always perfectly safe to obey a Scriptural command, because I have done it?"

"Did you find it in the Old or the New Testament?"

"The Old."

"I should say that if you found some remarks about breaking the bones of your enemy, and have twisted it out of its connection, it would be particularly bad advice to follow."

"It is nothing of that sort."

"What is it, then?"

She took out a tortoise-shell dagger just here, and gave her head an absent-minded shake so that her lustrous coil of hair uncoiled itself and fell on her shoulders in a ruddy spiral. It was a sight to induce covetousness, but one couldn't be envious of Egeria. She charmed one by her lack of consciousness.

"The happy lot Be his to follow Those threads through lovely curve and hollow, And muse a lifetime how they got Into that wild, mysterious knot," -

quoted I, as I gave her head an insinuating pat. "Come, Egeria, stand and deliver! What is the Scriptural command, that having first obeyed, you ask my advice about afterwards?"

"Have you a Bible?"

"You might not think it, but I have, and it is here on my table."

"Then I am going into my room, to lock the door, and call the verse through the keyhole. But you must promise not to say a word to me till to-morrow morning."

I was not in a position to dictate terms, so I promised. The door closed, the bolt shot into the socket, and Egeria's voice came so faintly through the keyhole that I had to stoop to catch the words:-

"Deuteronomy, 10:19."

I flew to my Bible. Genesis—Exodus—Leviticus—Numbers— Deuteronomy—Deut-er-on-omy—Ten—Nineteen -

"Love ye therefore the stranger—"



PENELOPE AT HOME



"'Tis good when you have crossed the sea and back To find the sit-fast acres where you left them." Emerson.

Beresford Broadacres, April 15, 19-.

Penelope, in the old sense, is no more! No mound of grass and daisies covers her; no shaft of granite or marble marks the place where she rests;—as a matter of fact she never does rest; she walks and runs and sits and stands, but her travelling days are over. For the present, in a word, the reason that she is no longer "Penelope," with dozens of portraits and three volumes of "Experiences" to her credit, is, that she is Mrs. William Hunt Beresford.

As for Himself, he is just as much William Hunt Beresford as ever he was, for marriage has not staled, nor fatherhood withered, his infinite variety. There may be, indeed, a difference, ever so slight; a new dignity, and an air of responsibility that harmonizes well with the inch of added girth at his waist-line and the grey thread or two that becomingly sprinkle his dark hair.

And where is Herself, the vanished Penelope, you ask; the companion of Salemina and Francesca; the traveller in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; the wanderer in Switzerland and Italy? Well, if she is a thought less irresponsible, merry, and loquacious, she is happier and wiser. If her easel and her palette are not in daily evidence, neither are they altogether banished from the scene; and whatever measure of cunning Penelope's hand possessed in other days, Mrs. Beresford has contrived to preserve.

If she wields the duster occasionally, in alternation with the paint-brush and the pen, she has now a new choice of weapons; and as for models,—her friends, her neighbours, even her enemies and rivals, might admire her ingenuity, her thrift, and her positive genius in selecting types to paint! She never did paint anything beautifully but children, though her backgrounds have been praised, also the various young things that were a vital part of every composition. She could never draw a horse or a cow or an ox to her satisfaction, but a long-legged colt, or a newborn Bossy-calf were well within her powers. Her puppies and kittens and chickens and goslings were always admired by the public, and the fact that the mothers and fathers in the respective groups were never quite as convincing as their offspring,—this somehow escaped the notice of the critics.

Very well, then, what was Penelope inspired to do when she became Mrs. Beresford and left the Atlantic rolling between the beloved Salemina, Francesca, and herself? Why, having "crossed the sea and back" repeatedly, she found "the sit-fast acres" of the house of Beresford where she "left them" and where they had been sitting fast for more than a hundred years.

"Here is the proper place for us to live," she said to Himself, when they first viewed the dear delightful New England landscape over together. "Here is where your long roots are, and as my roots have been in half a hundred places they can be easily transplanted. You have a decent income to begin on; why not eke it out with apples and hay and corn and Jersey cows and Plymouth Rock cocks and hens, while I use the scenery for my pictures? There are backgrounds here for a thousand canvases, all within a mile of your ancestral doorstep."

"I don't know what you will do for models in this remote place," said Himself, putting his hands in his pockets and gazing dubiously at the abandoned farm-houses on the hillsides; the still green dooryards on the village street where no children were playing, and the quiet little brick school-house at the turn of the road, from which a dozen half-grown boys and girls issued decorously, looking at us like scared rabbits.

"I have an idea about models," said Mrs. Beresford.

And it turned out that she had, for all that was ten years ago, and Penelope the Painter, merged in Mrs. Beresford the mother, has the three loveliest models in all the countryside!

Children, of course, are common enough everywhere; not, perhaps, as common as they should be, but there are a good many clean, well- behaved, truthful, decently-featured little boys and girls who will, in course of time, become the bulwarks of the Republic, who are of no use as models. The public is not interested in, and will neither purchase nor hang on its walls anything but a winsome child, a beautiful child, a pathetic child, or a picturesquely ragged and dirty child. (The latter type is preferably a foreigner, as dirty American children are for some reason or other quite unsalable.)

All this is in explanation of the foregoing remarks about Mrs. Beresford's ingenuity, thrift, and genius in selecting types to paint. The ingenuity lay in the idea itself; the thrift, in securing models that should belong to the Beresford "sit-fast acres" and not have to be searched for and "hired in" by the day; and the genius, in producing nothing but enchanting, engrossing, adorable, eminently "paintable" children. They are just as obedient, interesting, grammatical, and virtuous as other people's offspring, yet they are so beautiful that it would be the height of selfishness not to let the world see them and turn green with envy.

When viewed by the casual public in a gallery, nobody of course believes that they are real until some kind friend says: "No, oh, no! not ideal heads at all; perfect likenesses; the children of Mr. and Mrs. Beresford; Penelope Hamilton, whose signature you see in the corner, IS Mrs. Beresford."

When they are exhibited in the guise of, and under such titles as: "Young April," "In May Time," "Girl with Chickens," "Three of a Kind" (Billy with a kitten and a puppy tumbling over him), "Little Mothers" (Frances and Sally with their dolls), "When all the World is Young" (Billy, Frances, and Sally under the trees surrounded by a riot of young feathered things, with a lamb and a Jersey calf peeping over a fence in the background), then Himself stealthily visits the gallery. He stands somewhere near the pictures pulling his moustache nervously and listening to the comments of the bystanders. Not a word of his identity or paternity does he vouchsafe, but occasionally some acquaintance happens to draw near, perhaps to compliment or congratulate him. Then he has been heard to say vaingloriously: "Oh, no! they are not flattered; rather the reverse. My wife has an extraordinary faculty of catching likenesses, and of course she has a wonderful talent, but she agrees with me that she never quite succeeds in doing the children justice!"

Here we are, then, Himself and I, growing old with the country that gave us birth (God bless it!) and our children growing up with it, as they always should; for it must have occurred to the reader that I am Penelope, Hamilton that was, and also, and above all, that I am Mrs. William Hunt Beresford.

April 20, 19-

Himself and I have gone through the inevitable changes that life and love, marriage and parenthood, bring to all human creatures; but no one of the dear old group of friends has so developed as Francesca. Her last letter, posted in Scotland and delivered here seven days later, is like a breath of the purple heather and brings her vividly to mind.

In the old days when we first met she was gay, irresponsible, vivacious, and a decided flirt,—with symptoms of becoming a coquette. She was capricious and exacting; she had far too large an income for a young girl accountable to nobody; she was lovely to look upon, a product of cities and a trifle spoiled.

She danced through Europe with Salemina and me, taking in no more information than she could help, but charming everybody that she met. She was only fairly well educated, and such knowledge as she possessed was vague, uncertain, and never ready for instant use. In literature she knew Shakespeare, Balzac, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Longfellow, but if you had asked her to place Homer, Schiller, Dante, Victor Hugo, James Fenimore Cooper, or Thoreau she couldn't have done it within a hundred years.

In history she had a bowing acquaintance with Napoleon, Washington, Wellington, Prince Charlie, Henry of Navarre, Paul Revere, and Stonewall Jackson, but as these gallant gentlemen stand on the printed page, so they stood shoulder to shoulder, elbowing one another in her pretty head, made prettier by a wealth of hair, Marcel-waved twice a week.

These facts were brought out once in examination, by one of Francesca's earliest lovers, who, at Salemina's request and my own, acted as her tutor during the spring before our first trip abroad, the general idea being to prepare her mind for foreign travel.

I suppose we were older and should have known better than to allow any man under sixty to tutor Francesca in the spring. Anyhow, the season worked its maddest pranks on the pedagogue. He fell in love with his pupil within a few days,—they were warm, delicious, budding days, for it was a very early, verdant, intoxicating spring that produced an unusual crop of romances in our vicinity. Unfortunately the tutor was a scholar at heart, as well as a potential lover, and he interested himself in making psychological investigations of Francesca's mind. She was perfectly willing, for she always regarded her ignorance as a huge joke, instead of viewing it with shame and embarrassment. What was more natural, when she drove, rode, walked, sailed, danced, and "sat out" to her heart's content, while more learned young ladies stayed within doors and went to bed at nine o'clock with no vanity-provoking memories to lull them to sleep? The fact that she might not be positive as to whether Dante or Milton wrote "Paradise Lost," or Palestrina antedated Berlioz, or the Mississippi River ran north and south or east and west,—these trifling uncertainties had never cost her an offer of marriage or the love of a girl friend; so she was perfectly frank and offered no opposition to the investigations of the unhappy but conscientious tutor, meeting his questions with the frankness of a child. Her attitude of mind was the more candid because she suspected the passion of the teacher and knew of no surer way to cure him than to let him know her mind for what it was.

When the staggering record of her ignorance on seven subjects was set down in a green-covered blank book, she awaited the result not only with resignation, but with positive hope; a hope that proved to be ill-founded, for curiously enough the tutor was still in love with her. Salemina was surprised, but I was not. Of course I had to know anatomy in order to paint, but there is more in it than that. In painting the outsides of people I assure you that I learned to guess more of what was inside them than their bony structures! I sketched the tutor while he was examining Francesca and I knew that there were no abysmal depths of ignorance that could appall him where she was concerned. He couldn't explain the situation at all, himself. If there was anything that he admired and respected in woman, it was a well-stored, logical mind, and three months' tutoring of Francesca had shown him that her mental machinery was of an obsolete pattern and that it was not even in good working order. He could not believe himself influenced (so he confessed to me) by such trivial things as curling lashes, pink ears, waving hair (he had never heard of Marcel), or mere beauties of colour and line and form. He said he was not so sure about Francesca's eyes. Eyes like hers, he remarked in confidence, were not beneath the notice of any man, be he President of Harvard University or Master of Balliol College, for they seemed to promise something never once revealed in the green examination book.

"You are quite right," I answered him; "the green book is not all there is of Miss Monroe, but whatever there is is plainly not for you"; and he humbly agreed with my dictum.

Is it not strange that a man will talk to one woman about the charms of another for days upon days without ever realizing that she may possibly be born for some other purpose than listening to him? For an hour or two, of course, any sympathetic or generous- minded person can be interested in the confidences of a lover; but at the end of weeks or months, during which time he has never once regarded his listener as a human being of the feminine gender, with eyes, nose, and hair in no way inferior to those of his beloved,— at the end of that time he should be shaken, smitten, waked from his dreams, and told in ringing tones that in a tolerably large universe there are probably two women worth looking at, the one about whom he is talking, and the one to whom he is talking!

May 12, 19-

To go on about Francesca, she always had a quick intelligence, a sense of humour, a heart, and a conscience; four things not to be despised in the equipment of a woman. The wit she used lavishly for the delight of the world at large; the heart had not (in the tutor's time) found anything or anybody on which to spend itself; the conscience certainly was not working overtime at the same period, but I always knew that it was there and would be an excellent reliable organ when once aroused.

Of course there is no reason why the Reverend Ronald MacDonald, of the Established Church of Scotland, should have been the instrument chosen to set all the wheels of Francesca's being in motion, but so it was; and a great clatter and confusion they made in our Edinburgh household when the machinery started! If Ronald was handsome he was also a splendid fellow; if he was a preacher he was also a man; and no member of the laity could have been more ardently and satisfactorily in love than he. It was the ardour that worked the miracle; and when Francesca was once warmed through to the core, she began to grow. Her modest fortune helped things a little at the beginning of their married life, for it not only made existence easier, but enabled them to be of more service in the straggling, struggling country parishes where they found themselves at first.

Francesca's beautiful American clothes shocked Ronald's congregations now and then, and it was felt that, though possible, it was not very probable, that the grace of God could live with such hats and shoes, such gloves and jewels as hers. But by the time Ronald was called from his Argyllshire church to St. Giles's Cathedral in Edinburgh there was a better understanding of young Mrs. MacDonald's raiment and its relation to natural and revealed religion. It appeared now that a clergyman's wife, by strict attention to parochial duties; by being the mother of three children all perfectly well behaved in church; by subscribing generously to all worthy charities; by never conducting herself as light-mindedly as her eyes and conversation seemed to portend,—it appeared that a woman COULD live down her clothes! It was a Bishop, I think, who argued in Francesca's behalf that godliness did not necessarily dwell in frieze and stout leather and that it might flourish in lace and chiffon. Salemina and I used to call Ronald and Francesca the antinomic pair. Antinomics, one finds by consulting the authorities, are apparently contradictory poles, which, however, do not really contradict, but are only correlatives, the existence of one making the existence of the other necessary, explaining each other and giving each other a real standing and equilibrium.

May 7, 19-

What immeasurable leagues of distance lie between Salemina, Francesca, and me! Not only leagues of space divide us, but the difference in environment, circumstances, and responsibilities that give reality to space; yet we have bridged the gulf successfully by a particular sort of three-sided correspondence, almost impersonal enough to be published, yet revealing all the little details of daily life one to the other.

When we three found that we should be inevitably separated for some years, we adopted the habit of a "loose-leaf diary." The pages are perforated with large circular holes and put together in such a way that one can remove any leaf without injuring the book. We write down, as the spirit moves us, the more interesting happenings of the day, and once in a fortnight, perhaps, we slip a half-dozen selected pages into an envelope and the packet starts on its round between America, Scotland, and Ireland. In this way we have kept up with each other without any apparent severing of intimate friendship, and a farmhouse in New England, a manse in Scotland, and the Irish home of a Trinity College professor and his lady are brought into frequent contact.

Inspired by Francesca's last budget, full of all sorts of revealing details of her daily life, I said to Himself at breakfast: "I am not going to paint this morning, nor am I going to 'keep house'; I propose to write in my loose-leaf diary, and what is more I propose to write about marriage!"

When I mentioned to Himself the subject I intended to treat, he looked up in alarm.

"Don't, I beg of you, Penelope," he said. "If you do it the other two will follow suit. Women cannot discuss marriage without dragging in husbands, and MacDonald, La Touche, and I won't have a leg to stand upon. The trouble with these 'loose leaves' that you three keep for ever in circulation is, that the cleverer they are the more publicity they get. Francesca probably reads your screeds at her Christian Endeavour meetings just as you cull extracts from Salemina's for your Current Events Club. In a word, the loosened leaf leads to the loosened tongue, and that's rather epigrammatic for a farmer at breakfast time."

"I am not going to write about husbands," I said, "least of all my own, but about marriage as an institution; the part it plays in the evolution of human beings."

"Nevertheless, everything you say about it will reflect upon me," argued Himself. "The only husband a woman knows is her own husband, and everything she thinks about marriage is gathered from her own experience."

"Your attitude is not only timid, it is positively cowardly!" I exclaimed. "You are an excellent husband as husbands go, and I don't consider that I have retrograded mentally or spiritually during our ten years of life together. It is true nothing has been said in private or public about any improvement in me due to your influence, but perhaps that is because the idea has got about that your head is easily turned by flattery.—Anyway, I shall be entirely impersonal in what I write. I shall say I believe in marriage because I cannot think of any better arrangement; also that I believe in marrying men because there is nothing else TO marry. I shall also quote that feminist lecturer who said that the bitter business of every woman in the world is to convert a trap into a home. Of course I laughed inwardly, but my shoulders didn't shake for two minutes as yours did. They were far more eloquent than any loose leaf from a diary; for they showed every other man in the audience that you didn't consider that YOU had to set any 'traps' for ME!"

Himself leaned back in his chair and gave way to unbridled mirth. When he could control his speech, he wiped the tears from his eyes and said offensively:-

"Well, I didn't; did I?"

"No," I replied, flinging the tea-cosy at his head, missing it, and breaking the oleander on the plant-shelf ten feet distant.

"You wouldn't be unmarried for the world!" said Himself. "You couldn't paint every day, you know you couldn't; and where could you find anything so beautiful to paint as your own children unless you painted me; and it just occurs to me that you never paid me the compliment of asking me to sit for you."

"I can't paint men," I objected. "They are too massive and rugged and ugly. Their noses are big and hard and their bones show through everywhere excepting when they are fat and then they are disgusting. Their eyes don't shine, their hair is never beautiful, they have no dimples in their hands and elbows; you can't see their mouths because of their moustaches, and generally it's no loss; and their clothes are stiff and conventional with no colour, nor any flowing lines to paint."

"I know where you keep your 'properties,' and I'll make myself a mass of colour and flowing lines if you'll try me," Himself said meekly.

"No, dear," I responded amiably. "You are very nice, but you are not a costume man, and I shudder to think what you would make of yourself if I allowed you to visit my property-room. If I ever have to paint you (not for pleasure, but as a punishment), you shall wear your everyday corduroys and I'll surround you with the children; then you know perfectly well that the public will never notice you at all." Whereupon I went to my studio built on the top of the long rambling New England shed and loved what I painted yesterday so much that I went on with it, finding that I had said to Himself almost all that I had in mind to say, about marriage as an institution.

June 15, 19-.

We were finishing luncheon on the veranda with all out of doors to give us appetite. It was Buttercup Sunday, a yellow June one that had been preceded by Pussy Willow Sunday, Dandelion Sunday, Apple Blossom, Wild Iris, and Lilac Sunday, to be followed by Daisy and Black-Eyed Susan and White Clematis and Goldenrod and Wild Aster and Autumn Leaf Sundays.

Francie was walking over the green-sward with a bowl and spoon, just as our Scottish men friends used to do with oat-meal at breakfast time. The Sally-baby was blowing bubbles in her milk, and Himself and I were discussing a book lately received from London.

Suddenly I saw Billy, who had wandered from the table, sitting on the steps bending over a tiny bird's egg in his open hand. I knew that he must have taken it from some low-hung nest, but taken it in innocence, for he looked at it with solicitude as an object of tender and fragile beauty. He had never given a thought to the mother's days of patient brooding, nor that he was robbing the summer world of one bird's flight and one bird's song.

"Did you hear the whippoorwills singing last night, Daddy?" I asked.

"I did, indeed, and long before sunrise this morning. There must be a new family in our orchard, I think; but then we have coaxed hundreds of birds our way this spring by our little houses, our crumbs, and our drinking dishes."

"Yes, we have never had so many since we came here to live. Look at that little brown bird flying about in the tall apple-tree, Francie; she seems to be in trouble."

"P'r'haps it's Mrs. Smiff's wenomous cat," exclaimed Francie, running to look for a particularly voracious animal that lived across the fields, but had been known to enter our bird-Eden.

"Hear this, Daddy; isn't it pretty?" I said, taking up the "Life of Dorothy Grey."

Billy pricked up his ears, for he can never see a book opened without running to join the circle, so eager he is not to lose a precious word.

"The wren sang early this morning" (I read slowly). "We talked about it at breakfast and how many people there were who would not be aware of it; and E. said, 'Fancy, if God came in and said: "Did you notice my wren?" and they were obliged to say they had not known it was there!'"

Billy rose quietly and stole away behind the trees, returning in a few moments, empty-handed, to stand by my side.

"Does God know how many eggs there are in a bird's nest, mother?" he asked.

"People have so many different ideas about what God sees and takes note of, that it's hard to say, sonny. Of course you remember that the Bible says not one sparrow falls to the ground but He knows it."

"The mother bird can't count her eggs, can she, mother?"

"Oh! Billy, you do ask the hardest questions; ones that I can never answer by Yes and No! She broods her eggs all day and all night and never lets them get cold, so she must know, at any rate, that they are going to BE birds, don't you think? And of course she wouldn't want to lose one; that's the reason she's so faithful!"

"Well!" said Billy, after a long pause, "I don't care quite so much about the mother, because sometimes there are five eggs in a weeny, weeny nest that never could hold five little ones without their scrunching each other and being uncomfortable. But if God should come in and say: 'Did you take my egg, that was going to be a bird?' I just couldn't bear it!"

June 15, 19-.

Another foreign mail is in and the village postmistress has sent an impassioned request that I steam off the stamps for her boy's album, enriched during my residence here by specimens from eleven different countries. ("Mis' Beresford beats the Wanderin' Jew all holler if so be she's be'n to all them places, an' come back alive!"—so she says to Himself.) Among the letters there is a budget of loose leaves from Salemina's diary, Salemina, who is now Mrs. Gerald La Touche, wife of Professor La Touche, of Trinity College, Dublin, and stepmother to Jackeen and Broona La Touche.

It is midsummer, College is not in session, and they are at Rosnaree House, their place in County Meath.

Salemina is the one of our trio who continues to move in grand society. She it is who dines at the Viceregal Lodge and Dublin Castle. She it is who goes with her distinguished husband for week-ends with the Master of the Horse, the Lord Chancellor, and the Dean of the Chapel Royal. Francesca, it is true, makes her annual bow to the Lord High Commissioner at Holyrood Palace and dines there frequently during Assembly Week; and as Ronald numbers one Duke, two Earls, and several Countesses and Dowager Countesses in his parish, there are awe-inspiring visiting cards to be found in the silver salver on her hall table,—but Salemina in Ireland literally lives with the great, of all classes and conditions! She is in the heart of the Irish Theatre and the Modern Poetry movements,—and when she is not hobnobbing with playwrights and poets she is consorting with the Irish nobility and gentry.

I cannot help thinking that she would still be Miss Peabody, of Salem, Massachusetts, had it not been for my generous and helpful offices, and those of Francesca! Never were two lovers, parted in youth in America and miraculously reunited in middle age in Ireland, more recalcitrant in declaring their mutual affection than Dr. La Touche and Salemina! Nothing in the world divided them but imaginary barriers. He was not rich, but he had a comfortable salary and a dignified and honourable position among men. He had two children, but they were charming, and therefore so much to the good. Salemina was absolutely "foot loose" and tied down to no duties in America, so no one could blame her for marrying an Irishman. She had never loved any one else, and Dr. La Touche might have had that information for the asking; but he was such a bat for blindness, adder for deafness, and lamb for meekness that because she refused him once, when she was the only comfort of an aged mother and father, he concluded that she would refuse him again, though she was now alone in the world. His late wife, a poor, flighty, frivolous invalid, the kind of woman who always entangles a sad, vague, absent-minded scholar, had died six years before, and never were there two children so in need of a mother as Jackeen and Broona, a couple of affectionate, hot-headed, bewitching, ragged, tousled Irish darlings. I would cheerfully have married Dr. Gerald myself, just for the sake of his neglected babies, but I dislike changes and I had already espoused Himself.

However, a summer in Ireland, undertaken with no such great stakes in mind as Salemina's marriage, made possible a chance meeting of the two old friends. This was followed by several others, devised by us with incendiary motives, and without Salemina's knowledge. There was also the unconscious plea of the children working a daily spell; there was the past, with its memories, tugging at both their hearts; and above all there was a steady, dogged, copious stream of mental suggestion emanating from Francesca and me, so that, in course of time, our middle-aged couple did succeed in confessing to each other that a separate future was impossible for them.

They never would have encountered each other had it not been for us; never, never would have become engaged; and as for the wedding, we forcibly led them to the altar, saying that we must leave Ireland and the ceremony could not be delayed.

Not that we are the recipients of any gratitude for all this! Rather the reverse! They constantly allude to their marriage as made in Heaven, although there probably never was another union where creatures of earth so toiled and slaved to assist the celestial powers.

I wonder why middle-aged and elderly lovers make such an appeal to me! Is it because I have lived much in New England, where "ladies- in-waiting" are all too common,—where the wistful bride-groom has an invalid mother to support, or a barren farm out of which he cannot wring a living, or a malignant father who cherishes a bitter grudge against his son's chosen bride and all her kindred,—where the woman herself is compassed about with obstacles, dragging out a pinched and colourless existence year after year?

And when at length the two waiting ones succeed in triumphing over circumstances, they often come together wearily, soberly, with half the joy pressed out of life. Young lovers have no fears! That the future holds any terrors, difficulties, bugbears of any sort they never seem to imagine, and so they are delightful and amusing to watch in their gay and sometimes irresponsible and selfish courtships; but they never tug at my heart-strings as their elders do, when the great, the long-delayed moment comes.

Francesca and I, in common with Salemina's other friends, thought that she would never marry. She had been asked often enough in her youth, but she was not the sort of woman who falls in love at forty. What we did not know was that she had fallen in love with Gerald La Touche at five-and-twenty and had never fallen out,— keeping her feelings to herself during the years that he was espoused to another, very unsuitable lady. Our own sentimental experiences, however, had sharpened our eyes, and we divined at once that Dr. La Touche, a scholar of fifty, shy, reserved, self- distrustful, and oh! so in need of anchor and harbour,—that he was the only husband in the world for Salemina; and that he, after giving all that he had and was to an unappreciative woman, would be unspeakably blessed in the wife of our choosing.

I remember so well something that he said to me once as we sat at twilight on the bank of the lake near Devorgilla. The others were rowing toward us bringing the baskets for a tea picnic, and we, who had come in the first boat, were talking quietly together about intimate things. He told me that a frail old scholar, a brother professor, used to go back from the college to his house every night bowed down with weariness and pain and care, and that he used to say to his wife as he sank into his seat by the fire: "Oh! praise me, my wife, praise me!"

My eyes filled and I turned away to hide the tears when Dr. Gerald continued absently: "As for me, Mistress Beresford, when I go home at night I take my only companion from the mantelshelf and leaning back in my old armchair say, 'Praise me, my pipe, praise me!'"

And Salemina Peabody was in the boat coming toward us, looking as serenely lovely in a grey tweed and broad white hat as any good sweet woman of forty could look, while he gazed at her "through a glass darkly" as if she were practically non-existent, or had nothing whatever to do with the case.

I concealed rebellious opinions of blind bats, deaf adders, meek lambs, and obstinate pigs, but said very gently and impersonally: "I hope you won't always allow your pipe to be your only companion;—you, with your children, your name and position, your home and yourself to give—to somebody!"

But he only answered: "You exaggerate, my dear madam; there is not enough left in me or of me to offer to any woman!"

And I could do nothing but make his tea graciously and hand it to him, wondering that he was able to see the cup or the bread-and- butter sandwich that I put into his modest, ungrateful hand.

However, it is all a thing of the past, that dim, sweet, grey romance that had its rightful background in a country of subdued colourings, of pensive sweetness, of gentle greenery, where there is an eternal wistfulness in the face of the natural world, speaking of the springs of hidden tears.

Their union is a perfect success, and I echo the Boots of the inn at Devorgilla when he said: "An' sure it's the doctor that's the satisfied man an' the luck is on him as well as on e'er a man alive! As for her ladyship, she's one o' the blessings o' the wurruld an' 't would be an o'jus pity to spile two houses wid 'em."

July 12, 19-.

We were all out in the orchard sunning ourselves on the little haycocks that the "hired man" had piled up here and there under the trees.

"It is not really so beautiful as Italy," I said to Himself, gazing up at the newly set fruit on the apple boughs and then across the close-cut hay field to the level pasture, with its rocks and cow paths, its blueberry bushes and sweet fern, its clumps of young sumachs, till my eyes fell upon the deep green of the distant pines. "I can't bear to say it, because it seems disloyal, but I almost believe I think so."

"It is not as picturesque," Himself agreed grudgingly, his eye following mine from point to point; "and why do we love it so?"

"There is nothing delicious and luxuriant about it," I went on critically, "yet it has a delicate, ethereal, austere, straight- forward Puritanical loveliness of its own; but, no, it is not as beautiful as Italy or Ireland, and it isn't as tidy as England. If you keep away from the big manufacturing towns and their outskirts you may go by motor or railway through shire after shire in England and never see anything unkempt, down-at-the-heel, out-at-elbows, or ill-cared-for; no broken-down fences or stone walls; no heaps of rubbish or felled trees by the wayside; no unpainted or tottering buildings—"

"You see plenty of ruins," interrupted Himself in a tone that promised argument.

"Yes, but ruins are different; they are finished; they are not tottering, they HAVE tottered! Our country is too big, I suppose, to be 'tidy,' but how I should like to take just one of the United States and clear it up, back yards and all, from border line to border line!"

"You are talking like a housewife now, not like an artist," said Himself reprovingly.

"Well, I am both, I hope, and I don't intend that any one shall know where the one begins or the other leaves off, either! And if any foreigner should remark that America is unfinished or untidy I shall deny it!"

"Fie! Penelope! You who used to be a citizen of the world!"

"So I am still, so far as a roving foot and a knowledge of three languages can make me; but you remember that the soul 'retains the characteristic of its race and the heart is true to its own country, even to its own parish.'"

"When shall we be going to the other countries, mother?" asked Billy. "When shall we see our aunt in Scotland and our aunt in Ireland?" (Poor lambs! Since the death of their Grandmother Beresford they do not possess a real relation in the world!)

"It will not be very long, Billy," I said. "We don't want to go until we can leave the perambulator behind. The Sally-baby toddles now, but she must be able to walk on the English downs and the Highland heather."

"And the Irish bogs," interpolated Billy, who has a fancy for detail.

"Well, the Irish bogs are not always easy travelling," I answered, "but the Sally-baby will soon be old enough to feel the spring of the Irish turf under her feet."

"What will the chickens and ducklings and pigeons do while we are gone?" asked Francie.

"An' the lammies?" piped the Sally-baby, who has all the qualities of Mary in the immortal lyric.

"Oh! we won't leave home until the spring has come and all the young things are born. The grass will be green, the dandelions will have their puff-balls on, the apple blossoms will be over, and Daddy will get a kind man to take care of everything for us. It will be May time and we will sail in a big ship over to the aunts and uncles in Scotland and Ireland and I shall show them my children—"

"And we shall play 'hide-and-go-coop' with their children," interrupted Francie joyously.

"They will never have heard of that game, but you will all play together!" And here I leaned back on the warm haycock and blinked my eyes a bit in moist anticipation of happiness to come. "There will be eight-year-old Ronald MacDonald to climb and ride and sail with our Billy; and there will be little Penelope who is named for me, and will be Francie's playmate; and the new little boy baby—"

"Proba'ly Aunt Francie's new boy baby will grow up and marry our girl one," suggested Billy.

"He has my consent to the alliance in advance," said Himself, "but I dare say your mother has arranged it all in her own mind and my advice will not be needed."

"I have not arranged anything," I retorted; "or if I have it was nothing more than a thought of young Ronald or Jack La Touche in— another quarter,"—this with discreetly veiled emphasis.

"What is another quarter, mother?" inquired Francie, whose mental agility is somewhat embarrassing.

"Oh, why,—well,—it is any other place than the one you are talking about. Do you see?"

"Not so very well, but p'r'aps I will in a minute."

"Hope springs eternal!" quoted Francie's father.

"And then, as I was saying before being interrupted by the entire family, we will go and visit the Irish cousins, Jackeen and Broona, who belong to Aunt Salemina and Uncle Gerald, and the Sally-baby will be the centre of attraction because she is her Aunt Salemina's godchild—"

"But we are all God's children," insisted Billy.

"Of course we are."

"What's the difference between a god-child and a God's child?"

"The bottle of chloroform is in the medicine closet, my poor dear; shall I run and get it?" murmured Himself sotto voce.

"Every child is a child of God," I began helplessly, "and when she is somebody's godchild she—oh! lend me your handkerchief, Billy!"

"Is it the nose-bleed, mother?" he asked, bending over me solicitously.

"No, oh, no! it's nothing at all, dear. Perhaps the hay was going to make me sneeze. What was I saying?"

"About the god—"

"Oh, yes! I remember! (Ka-choo!) We will take the Irish cousins and the Scotch cousins and go all together to see the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. We'll go to Bushey Park and see the chestnuts in bloom, and will dine at Number 10, Dovermarle Street— "

"I shall not go there, Billy," said Himself. "It was at Number 10, Dovermarle Street that your mother told me she wouldn't marry me; or at least that she'd have to do a lot of thinking before she'd say Yes; so she left London and went to North Malvern."

"Couldn't she think in London?" (This was Billy.)

"Didn't she always want to be married to you?" (This was Francie.)

"Not always."

"Didn't she like US?" (Still Francie.)

"You were never mentioned,—not one of you!"

"That seems rather queer!" remarked Billy, giving me a reproachful look.

"So we'll leave the Irish and Scotch uncles and aunts behind and go to North Malvern just by ourselves. It was there that your mother concluded that she WOULD marry me, and I rather like the place."

"Mother loves it, too; she talks to me about it when she puts me to bed." (Francie again.)

"No doubt; but you'll find your mother's heart scattered all over the Continent of Europe. One bit will be clinging to a pink thorn in England; another will be in the Highlands somewhere,—wherever the heather's in bloom; another will be hanging on the Irish gorse bushes where they are yellowest; and another will be hidden under the seat of a Venetian gondola."

"Don't listen to Daddy's nonsense, children! He thinks mother throws her heart about recklessly while he loves only one thing at a time."

"Four things!" expostulated Himself, gallantly viewing our little group at large.

"Strictly speaking, we are not four things, we are only four parts of one thing;—counting you in, and I really suppose you ought to be counted in, we are five parts of one thing."

"Shall we come home again from the other countries?" asked Billy.

"Of course, sonny! The little Beresfords must come back and grow up with their own country."

"Am I a little Beresford, mother?" asked Francie, looking wistfully at her brother as belonging to the superior sex and the eldest besides.

"Certainly."

"And is the Sally-baby one too?"

Himself laughed unrestrainedly at this.

"She is," he said, "but you are more than half mother, with your unexpectednesses."

"I love to be more than half mother!" cried Francie, casting herself violently about my neck and imbedding me in the haycock.

"Thank you, dear, but pull me up now. It's supper-time."

Billy picked up the books and the rug and made preparations for the brief journey to the house. I put my hair in order and smoothed my skirts.

"Will there be supper like ours in the other countries, mother?" he asked. "And if we go in May time, when do we come back again?"

Himself rose from the ground with a luxurious stretch of his arms, looking with joy and pride at our home fields bathed in the afternoon midsummer sun. He took the Sally-baby's outstretched hands and lifted her, crowing, to his shoulder.

"Help sister over the stubble, my son.—We'll come away from the other countries whenever mother says: 'Come, children, it's time for supper.'"

"We'll be back for Thanksgiving," I assured Billy, holding him by one hand and Francie by the other, as we walked toward the farmhouse. "We won't live in the other countries, because Daddy's 'sit-fast acres' are here in New England."

"But whenever and wherever we five are together, especially wherever mother is, it will always be home," said Himself thankfully, under his breath.

THE END