When, some two years after Mr. Mavick relinquished the mission to Italy to another statesman who had done some service to the opposite party, an heiress was born to the house of Mavick, her appearance in the world occasioned some disappointment to those who had caused it. Mavick naturally wished a son to inherit his name and enlarge the gold foundation upon which its perpetuity must rest; and Mrs. Mavick as naturally shrank from a responsibility that promised to curtail freedom of action in the life she loved. Carmen—it was an old saying of the danglers in the time of Henderson—was a domestic woman except in her own home.

However, it is one of the privileges of wealth to lighten the cares and duties of maternity, and the enlarged household was arranged upon a basis that did not interfere with the life of fashion and the charitable engagements of the mother. Indeed, this adaptable woman soon found that she had become an object of more than usual interest, by her latest exploit, in the circles in which she moved, and her softened manner and edifying conversation showed that she appreciated her position. Even the McTavishes, who were inclined to be skeptical, said that Carmen was delightful in her new role. This showed that the information Mrs. Mavick got from the women who took care of her baby was of a kind to touch the hearts of mothers and spinsters.

Moreover, the child was very pretty, and early had winning ways. The nurse, before the baby was a year old, discovered in her the cleverness of the father and the grace and fascination of the mother. And it must be said that, if she did not excite passionate affection at first, she enlisted paternal and maternal pride in her career. It dawned upon both parents that a daughter might give less cause for anxiety than a son, and that in an heiress there were possibilities of an alliance that would give great social distinction. Considering, therefore, all that she represented, and the settled conviction of Mrs. Mavick that she would be the sole inheritor of the fortune, her safety and education became objects of the greatest anxiety and precaution.

It happened that about the time Evelyn was christened there was a sort of epidemic of stealing children, and of attempts to rob tombs of occupants who had died rich or distinguished, in the expectation of a ransom. The newspapers often chronicled mysterious disappearances; parents whose names were conspicuous suffered great anxiety, and extraordinary precautions were taken in regard to the tombs of public men. And this was the reason that the heiress of the house of Mavick became the object of a watchful vigilance that was probably never before exercised in a republic, and that could only be paralleled in the case of a sole heir-apparent of royalty.

These circumstances resulted in an interference with the laws of nature which it must be confessed destroyed one of the most interesting studies in heredity that was ever offered to an historian of social life. What sort of a child had we a right to expect from Thomas Mavick, diplomatist and operator, successor to the rights and wrongs of Rodney Henderson, and Carmen Mavick, with the past of Carmen Eschelle and Mrs. Henderson? Those who adhered to the strictest application of heredity, in considering the natural development of Evelyn Mavick, sought refuge in the physiological problem of the influence of Rodney Henderson, and declared that something of his New England sturdiness and fundamental veracity had been imparted to the inheritor of his great fortune.

But the visible interference took the form of Ann McDonald, a Scotch spinster, to whom was intrusted the care of Evelyn as soon as she was christened. It was merely a piece of good fortune that brought a person of the qualifications of Ann McDonald into the family, for it is not to be supposed that Mrs. Mavick had given any thought to the truth that the important education of a child begins in its cradle, or that in selecting a care-taker and companion who should later on be a governess she was consulting her own desire of freedom from the duties of a mother. It was enough for her that the applicant for the position had the highest recommendations, that she was prepossessing in appearance, and it was soon perceived that the guardian was truthful, faithful, vigilant, and of an affectionate disposition and an innate refinement.

Ann McDonald was the only daughter of a clergyman of the Scotch Church, and brought up in the literary atmosphere common in the most cultivated Edinburgh homes. She had been accurately educated, and always with the knowledge that her education might be her capital in life. After the death of her mother, when she was nineteen, she had been her father's housekeeper, and when in her twenty-fourth year her father relinquished his life and his salary, she decided, under the advice of influential friends, to try her fortune in America. And she never doubted that it was a providential guidance that brought her into intimate relations with the infant heiress. It seemed probable that a woman so attractive and so solidly accomplished would not very long remain a governess, but in fact her career was chosen from the moment she became interested in the development of the mind and character of the child intrusted to her care. It is difficult to see how our modern life would go on as well as it does if there were not in our homes a good many such faithful souls. It sometimes seems, in this shifting world, that about the best any of us can do is to prepare some one else for doing something well.

Miss McDonald had a pretty comprehensive knowledge of English literature and history, and, better perhaps than mere knowledge, a discriminating and cultivated taste. If her religious education had twisted her view of the fine arts, she had nevertheless a natural sympathy for the beautiful, and she would not have been a Scotchwoman if she had not had a love for the romances of her native land and at heart a "ballad" sentiment for the cavaliers. If Evelyn had been educated by her in Edinburgh, she might have been in sentiment a young Jacobite. She had through translations a sufficient knowledge of the classics to give her the necessary literary background, and her study of Latin had led her into the more useful acquisition of French.

If she had been free to indulge her own taste, she would have gone far in natural history, as was evident from her mastery of botany and her interest in birds.

She inspired so much confidence by her good sense, clear-headedness, and discretion, that almost from the first Evelyn was confided to her sole care, with only the direction that the baby was never for an instant, night or day, to be left out of the sight of a trusty attendant. The nurse was absolutely under her orders, she selected the two maids, and no person except the parents and the governess could admit visitors to the nursery. This perfect organization was maintained for many years, and though it came to be relaxed in details, it was literally true that the heiress was never alone, and never out of the sight of some trusted person responsible for her safety. But whatever the changes or relaxation, in holidays, amusements, travel, or education, the person who formed her mind was the one who had taught her to obey, to put words together into language, and to speak the truth, from infancy.

It is not necessary to consider Ann McDonald as a paragon. She was simply an intelligent, disciplined woman, with a strong sense of duty. If she had married and gone about the ordinary duties of life at the age of twenty-four, she would probably have been in no marked way distinguished among women. Her own development was largely due to the responsibility that was put upon her in the training of another person. In this sense it was true that she had learned as much as she had imparted. And in nothing was this more evident than in the range of her literary taste and judgment. Whatever risks, whatever latitude she might have been disposed to take with regard to her own mind, she would not take as to the mind of another, and as a consequence her own standards rose to meet the situation. That is to say, in a conscientious selection of only the best for Evelyn, she became more fastidious as to the food for her own mind. Or, to put it in still another way, in regard to character and culture generally, the growth of Miss McDonald could be measured by that of Evelyn.

When, from the time Evelyn was seven years old, it became necessary in her education to call in special tutors in the languages and in mathematics, and in certain arts that are generally called accomplishments, Miss McDonald was always present when the lessons were given, so that she maintained her ascendency and her influence in the girl's mind. It was this inseparable companionship, at least in all affairs of the mind, that gave to this educational experiment an exceptional interest to students of psychology. Nothing could be more interesting than to come into contact with a mind that from infancy onward had dwelt only upon what is noblest in literature, and from which had been excluded all that is enervating and degrading. A remarkable illustration of this is the familiar case of Helen Keller, whose acquisitions, by reason of her blindness and deafness, were limited to what was selected for her, and that mainly by one person, and she was therefore for a long time shielded from a knowledge of the evil side of life. Yet all vital literature is so close to life, and so full of its passion and peril, that it supplies all the necessary aliment for the growth of a sound, discriminating mind; and that knowledge of the world, as knowledge of evil is euphemistically called, can be safely left out of a good education. This may be admitted without going into the discussion whether good principles and standards in literature and morals are a sufficient equipment for the perils of life.

This experiment, of course, was limited in Evelyn's case. She came in contact with a great deal of life. Her little world was fairly representative, for it contained her father, her mother, her governess, the maids and the servants, and occasional visitors, whom she saw freely as she grew older. The interesting fact was that she was obliged to judge this world according to the standards of literature, morals, and manners that had been implanted in her mainly by the influence of one person. The important part of this experiment of partial exclusion, in which she was never alone' an experiment undertaken solely for her safety and not for her training-was seen in her when she became conscious of its abnormal character, and perceived that she was always under surveillance. It might have made her exceedingly morbid, aside from its effect of paralyzing her self-confidence and power of initiation, had it not been for the exceptionally strong and cheerful nature of her companion. A position more hateful, even to a person not specially socially inclined, cannot be imagined than that of always being watched, and never having any assured privacy. And under such a tutelage and dependence, how in any event could she be able to take care of herself? What weapons had this heiress of a great fortune with which to defend herself? What sort of a girl had this treatment during seventeen years produced?



VIII

To the private apartment of Mr. Mavick, in the evening of the second eventful day, where, over his after-dinner cigar, he was amusing himself with a French novel, enters, after a little warning tap, the mistress of the house, for, what was a rare occurrence, a little family chat.

"So you didn't horsewhip and you didn't prosecute. You preferred to wriggle out!"

"Yes," said Mavick, too much pleased with the result to be belligerent, "I let the newspaper do the wriggling."

"Oh, my dear, I can trust you for that. Have you any idea how it got hold of the details?"

"No; you don't think McDonald—"

"McDonald! I'd as soon suspect myself. So would you."

"Well, everybody knew it already, for that matter. I only wonder that some newspaper didn't get on to it before. What did Evelyn say?"

"Nothing more than what you heard at dinner. She thought it amusing that there should be such a crowd to gaze at the house, simply because a picture of it had appeared in a newspaper. She thought her father must be a very important personage. I didn't undeceive her. At times, you know, dear, I think so myself."

"Yes, I've noticed that," said Mavick, with a good-natured laugh, in which Carmen joined, "and those times usually coincide with the times that you want something specially."

"You ought to be ashamed to take me up that way. I just wanted to talk about the coming-out reception. You know I had come over to your opinion that seventeen was perhaps better than eighteen, considering Evelyn's maturity. When I was seventeen I was just as good as I am now."

"I don't doubt it," said Mavick, with another laugh.

"But don't you see this affair upsets all our arrangements? It's very vexatious."

"I don't see it exactly. By-the-way, what do you think of the escape suggested by the Spectrum, in the assertion that you and Evelyn had arranged to go to Europe? The steamer sails tomorrow."

"Think!" exclaimed Carmen. "Do you think I am going to be run, as you call it, by the newspapers? They run everything else. I'm not politics, I'm not an institution, I'm not even a revolution. No, I thank you. It answers my purpose for them to say we have gone."

"I suppose you can keep indoors a few days. As to the reception, I had arranged my business for it. I may be in Mexico or Honolulu the following winter."

"Well, we can't have it now. You see that."

"Carmen, I don't care a rap what the public thinks or says. The child's got to face the world some time, and look out for herself. I fancy she will not like it as much as you did."

"Very likely. Perhaps I liked it because I had to fight it. Evelyn never will do that."

"She hasn't the least idea what the world is like."

"Don't you be too sure of that, my dear; you don't understand yet what a woman feels and knows. You think she only sees and thinks what she is told. The conceit of men is most amusing about this. Evelyn is deeper than you think. The discrimination of that child sometimes positively frightens me—how she sees into things. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if she actually knew her father and mother!"

"Then she beats me," said Mavick, with another laugh, "and I've been at it a long time. Carmen, just for fun, tell me a little about your early life."

"Well"—there was a Madonna-like smile on her lips, and she put out the toe of her slender foot and appeared to study it for a moment—" I was intended to be a nun."

"Spanish or French?"

"Just a plain nun. But mamma would not hear of it. Mamma was just a bit worldly."

"I never should have suspected it," said Mavick, with equal gravity. "But how did you live in those early days, way back there?"

"Oh!" and Carmen looked up with the most innocent, open-eyed expression, "we lived on our income."

"Naturally. We all try to do that." The tone in Mavick's voice showed that he gave it up.

"But, of course," and Carmen was lively again, "it's much nicer to have a big income that's certain than a small one that is uncertain."

"It would seem so."

"Ah, deary me, it's such a world! Don't you think, dear, that we have had enough domestic notoriety for one year?"

"Quite. It would do for several."

"And we will put it off a year?"

"Arrange as you like." And Mavick stretched up his arms, half yawned, and took up another cigar.

"It will be such a relief to McDonald. She insisted it was too soon." And Carmen whirled out of her chair, went behind her husband, lifted with her delicate fingers a lock of grayish hair on his forehead, deposited the lightest kiss there—"Nobody in the world knows how good you are except me," and was gone.

And the rich man, who had gained everything he wanted in life except happiness, lighted his cigar and sought refuge in a tale of modern life, that was, however, too much like his own history to be consoling.

It must not be supposed from what she said that Mrs. Mavick stood in fear of her daughter, but it was only natural that for a woman of the world the daily contact of a pure mind should be at times inconvenient. This pure mind was an awful touchstone of conduct, and there was a fear that Evelyn's ignorance of life would prevent her from making the proper allowances. In her affectionate and trusting nature, which suspected little evil anywhere, there was no doubt that her father and mother had her entire confidence and love. But the likelihood was that she would not be pliant. Under Miss McDonald's influence she had somewhat abstract notions of what is right and wrong, and she saw no reason why these should not be applied in all cases. What her mother would have called policy and reasonable concessions she would have given different names. For getting on in the world, this state of mind has its disadvantages, and in the opinion of practical men, like Mavick, it was necessary to know good and evil. But it was the girl's power of discernment that bothered her mother, who used often to wonder where the child came from.

On the other hand, it must not be supposed that the singular training of Evelyn had absolutely destroyed her inherited tendencies, or made her as she was growing into womanhood anything but a very real woman, with the reserves, the weaknesses, the coquetries, the defenses which are the charm of her sex. Nor was she so ignorant of life as such a guarded personality might be thought. Her very wide range of reading had liberalized her mind, and given her a much wider outlook upon the struggles and passions and failures and misery of life than many another girl of her age had gained by her limited personal experience. Those who hold the theory that experience is the only guide are right as a matter of fact, since every soul seems determined to try for itself and not to accept the accumulated wisdom of literature or of experienced advisers; but those who come safely out of their experiences are generally sound by principle which has been instilled in youth. But it is useless to moralize. Only the event could show whether such an abnormal training as Evelyn had received was wise.

When Mrs. Mavick went to her daughter's apartments she found Evelyn reading aloud and Miss McDonald at work on an elaborate piece of Bulgarian embroidery.

"How industrious! What a rebuke to me!"

"I don't see, mamma, how we could be doing less; I've only an audience of one, and she is wasting her time."

"Well, carissima, it is settled. It's off for a year."

"The reception? Why so?"

"Your father cannot arrange it. He has too much on hand this season, and may be away."

"There, McDonald, we've got a reprieve," and Evelyn gave a sigh of relief.

The Scotch woman smiled, and only said, "Then I shall have time to finish this."

Evelyn jumped up, threw herself into her mother's lap, and began to smooth her hair and pet her. "I'm awfully glad. I'd ever so much rather stay in than come out. Yes, dear little mother."

"Little?"

"Yes." And the girl pulled her mother from her chair, and made her stand up to measure. "See, McDonald, almost an inch taller than mamma, and when I do my hair on top!"

"And see, mamma"—the girl was pirouetting on the floor—"I can do those steps you do. Isn't it Spanish?"

"Rather Spanish-American, I guess. This is the way."

Evelyn clapped her hands. "Isn't that lovely!"

"You are only a little brownie, after all." Her mother was holding her at arm's—length and studying her critically, wondering if she would ever be handsome.

The girl was slender, but not tall. Her figure had her mother's grace, but not its suggestion of yielding suppleness. She was an undoubted brunette—complexion olive, hair very dark, almost black except in the sunlight, and low on her forehead-chin a little strong, and nose piquant to say the least of it. Certainly features not regular nor classic. The mouth, larger than her mother's, had full lips, the upper one short, and admirable curves, strong in repose, but fascinating when she smiled. A face not handsome, but interesting. And the eyes made you hesitate to say she was not handsome, for they were large, of a dark hazel and changeable, eyes that flashed with merriment, or fell into sadness under the long eyelashes; and it would not be safe to say that they could not blaze with indignation. Not a face to go wild about, but when you felt her character through it, a face very winning in its dark virgin purity.

"I do wonder where she came from?" Mrs. Mavick was saying to herself, as she threw herself upon a couch in her own room and took up the latest Spanish novel.



IX

Celia Howard had been, in a way, Philip's inspiration ever since the days when they quarreled and made up on the banks of the Deer field. And a fortunate thing for him it was that in his callow years there was a woman in whom he could confide. Her sympathy was everything, even if her advice was not always followed. In the years of student life and preparation they had not often met, but they were constant and painstaking correspondents. It was to her that he gave the running chronicle of his life, and poured out his heart and aspirations. Unconsciously he was going to school to a woman, perhaps the most important part of his education. For, though in this way he might never hope to understand woman, he was getting most valuable knowledge of himself.

As a guide, Philip was not long in discovering that Celia was somewhat uncertain. She kept before him a very high ideal; she expected him to be distinguished and successful, but, her means varied from time to time. Now she would have him take one path and now another. And Philip learned to read in this varying advice the changes in her own experience. There was a time when she hoped he would be a great scholar: there was no position so noble as that of a university professor or president. Then she turned short round and extolled the business life: get money, get a position, and then you can study, write books, do anything you like and be independent. Then came a time—this was her last year in college —when science seemed the only thing. That was really a benefit to mankind: create something, push discovery, dispel ignorance.

"Why, Phil, if you could get people to understand about ventilation, the necessity of pure air, you would deserve a monument. And, besides—this is an appeal to your lower nature—science is now the thing that pays." Theology she never considered; that was just now too uncertain in its direction. Law she had finally approved; it was still respectable; it was a very good waiting-ground for many opportunities, and it did not absolutely bar him from literature, for which she perceived he had a sneaking fondness.

Philip wondered if Celia was not thinking of the law for herself. She had tried teaching, she had devoted herself for a time to work in a College Settlement, she had learned stenography, she had talked of learning telegraphy, she had been interested in women's clubs, in a civic club, in the political education of women, and was now a professor of economics in a girl's college.

It finally dawned upon Philip, who was plodding along, man fashion, in one of the old ruts, feeling his way, like a true American, into the career that best suited him, that Celia might be a type of the awakened American woman, who does not know exactly what she wants. To be sure, she wants everything. She has recently come into an open place, and she is distracted by the many opportunities. She has no sooner taken up one than she sees another that seems better, or more important in the development of her sex, and she flies to that. But nothing, long, seems the best thing. Perhaps men are in the way, monopolizing all the best things. Celia had never made a suggestion of this kind, but Philip thought she was typical of the women who push individualism so far as never to take a dual view of life.

"I have just been," Celia wrote in one of her letters, when she was an active club woman, "out West to a convention of the Federation of Women's Clubs. Such a striking collection of noble, independent women! Handsome, lots of them, and dressed—oh, my friend, dress is still a part of it! So different from a man's convention! Cranks? Yes, a few left over. It was a fine, inspiring meeting. But, honestly, I could not exactly make out what they were federating about, and what they were going to do when they got federated. It sort of came over me, I am such a weak sister, that there is such a lot of work done in this world with no object except the doing of it."

A more recent letter:—"Do you remember Aunt Hepsy, who used to keep the little thread-and-needle and candy shop in Rivervale? Such a dear, sweet, contented old soul! Always a smile and a good word for every customer. I can see her now, picking out the biggest piece of candy in the dish that she could afford to give for a little fellow's cent. It never came over me until lately how much good that old woman did in the world. I remember what a comfort it was to go and talk with her. Well, I am getting into a frame of mind to want to be an Aunt Hepsy. There is so much sawdust in everything—No, I'm not low-spirited. I'm just philosophical—I've a mind to write a life of Aunt Hepsy, and let the world see what a real useful life is."

And here is a passage from the latest:—"What an interesting story your friend—I hope he isn't you friend, for I don't half like him—has made out of that Mavick girl! If I were the girl's mother I should want to roast him over the coals. Is there any truth in it?

"Of course I read it, as everybody did and read the crawl out, and looked for more. So it is partly our fault, but what a shame it is, the invasion of family life! Do tell me, if you happen to see her—the girl —driving in the Park or anywhere—of course you never will—what she looks like. I should like to see an unsophisticated millionaire-ess! But it is an awfully interesting problem, invented or not I'm pretty deep in psychology these days, and I'd give anything to come in contact with that girl. You would just see a woman, and you wouldn't know. I'd see a soul. Dear me, if I'd only had the chance of that Scotch woman! Don't you see, if we could only get to really know one mind and soul, we should know it all. I mean scientifically. I know what you are thinking, that all women have that chance. What you think is impertinent—to the subject."

Indeed, the story of Evelyn interested everybody. It was taken up seriously in the country regions. It absorbed New York gossip for two days, and then another topic took possession of the mercurial city; but it was the sort of event to take possession of the country mind. New York millionaires get more than their share of attention in the country press at all times, but this romance became the subject of household talk and church and sewing-circle gossip, and all the women were eager for more details, and speculated endlessly about the possible character and career of the girl.

Alice wrote Philip from Rivervale that her aunt Patience was very much excited by it. "'The poor thing,' she said, 'always to have somebody poking round, seeing every blessed thing you do or don't do; it would drive me crazy. There is that comfort in not having anything much—you have yourself. You tell Philip that I hope he doesn't go there often. I've no objection to his being kind to the poor thing when they meet, and doing neighborly things, but I do hope he won't get mixed up with that set.' It is very amusing," Alice continued, "to hear Patience soliloquize about it and construct the whole drama.

"But you cannot say, Philip, that you are not warned (!) and you know that Patience is almost a prophet in the way she has of putting things together. Celia was here recently looking after the little house that has been rented ever since the death of her mother. I never saw her look so well and handsome, and yet there was a sort of air about her as if she had been in public a good deal and was quite capable of taking care of herself. But she was that way when she was little.

"I think she is a good friend of yours. Well, Phil, if you do ever happen to see that Evelyn in the opera, or anywhere, tell me how she looks and what she has on—if you can."

The story had not specially interested Philip, except as it was connected with Brad's newspaper prospects, but letters, like those referred to, received from time to time, began to arouse a personal interest. Of course merely a psychological interest, though the talk here and there at dinner-tables stimulated his desire, at least, to see the subject of them. But in this respect he was to be gratified, in the usual way things desired happen in life—that is, by taking pains to bring them about.

When Mr. Brad came back from his vacation his manner had somewhat changed. He had the air of a person who stands on firm ground. He felt that he was a personage. He betrayed this in a certain deliberation of speech, as if any remark from him now might be important. In a way he felt himself related to public affairs.

In short, he had exchanged the curiosity of the reporter for the omniscience of the editor. And for a time Philip was restrained from intruding the subject of the Mavick sensation. However, one day after dinner he ventured:

"I see, Mr. Brad, that your hit still attracts attention." Mr. Brad looked inquiringly blank.

I mean about the millionaire heiress. It has excited a wide interest."

"Ah, that! Yes, it gave me a chance," replied Brad, who was thinking only of himself.

"I've had several letters about it from the country."

"Yes? Well, I suppose," said Brad, modestly, "that a little country notoriety doesn't hurt a person."

Philip did not tell his interlocutor that, so far as he knew, nobody in the country had ever heard the name of Olin Brad, or knew there was such a person in existence. But he went on:

"Certainly. And, besides, there is a great curiosity to know about the girl. Did you ever see her?"

"Only in public. I don't know Mavick personally, and for reasons," and Mr. Brad laughed in a superior manner. "It's easy enough to see her."

"How?"

"Watch out for a Wagner night, and go to the opera. You'll see where Mavick's box is in the bill. She is pretty sure to be there, and her mother. There is nothing special about her; but her mother is still a very fascinating woman, I can tell you. You'll find her sure on a 'Carmen' night, but not so sure of the girl."

On this suggestion Philip promptly acted. The extra expense of an orchestra seat he put down to his duty to keep his family informed of anything that interested them in the city. It was a "Siegfried" night, and a full house. To describe it all would be very interesting to Alice. The Mavick box was empty until the overture was half through. Then appeared a gentleman who looked as if he were performing a public duty, a lady who looked as if she were receiving a public welcome, and seated between them a dark, slender girl, who looked as if she did not see the public at all, but only the orchestra.

Behind them, in the shadow, a middle-aged woman in plainer attire. It must be the Scotch governess. Mrs. Mavick had her eyes everywhere about the house, and was graciously bowing to her friends. Mr. Mavick coolly and unsympathetically regarded the house, quite conscious of it, but as if he were a little bored. You could not see him without being aware that he was thinking of other things, probably of far-reaching schemes. People always used to say of Mavick, when he was young and a clerk in a Washington bureau, that he looked omniscient. At least the imagination of spectators invested him with a golden hue, and regarded him through the roseate atmosphere that surrounds a many-millioned man. The girl had her eyes always on the orchestra, and was waiting for the opening of the world that lay behind the drop-curtain. Philip noticed that all the evening Mrs. Mavick paid very little attention to the stage, except when the rest of the house was so dark that she could distinguish little in it.

Fortunately for Philip, in his character of country reporter, the Mavick box was near the stage, and he could very well see what was going on in it, without wholly distracting his attention from Wagner's sometimes very dimly illuminated creation.

There are faces and figures that compel universal attention and admiration. Commonly there is one woman in a theatre at whom all glances are leveled. It is a mystery why one face makes only an individual appeal, and an appeal much stronger than that of one universally admired. The house certainly concerned itself very little about the shy and dark heiress in the Mavick box, having with regard to her only a moment's curiosity. But the face instantly took hold of Philip. He found it more interesting to read the play in her face than on the stage. He seemed instantly to have established a chain of personal sympathy with her. So intense was his regard that it seemed as if she must, if there is anything in the telepathic theory of the interchange of feeling, have been conscious of it. That she was, however, unconscious of any influence reaching her except from the stage was perfectly evident. She was absorbed in the drama, even when the drama was almost lost in darkness, and only an occasional grunting ejaculation gave evidence that there was at least animal life responsive to the continual pleading, suggesting, inspiring strains of the orchestra. In the semi-gloom and groping of the under-world, it would seem that the girl felt that mystery of life which the instruments were trying to interpret.

At any rate, Philip could see that she was rapt away into that other world of the past, to a practical unconsciousness of her immediate surroundings. Was it the music or the poetic idea that held her? Perhaps only the latter, for it is Wagner's gift to reach by his creations those who have little technical knowledge of music. At any rate, she was absorbed, and so perfectly was the progress of the drama repeated in her face that Philip, always with the help of the orchestra, could trace it there.

But presently something more was evident to this sympathetic student of her face. She was not merely discovering the poet's world, she was finding out herself. As the drama unfolded, Philip was more interested in this phase than in the observation of her enjoyment and appreciation. To see her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow with enthusiasm during the sword-song was one thing, but it was quite another when Siegfried began his idyl, that nature and bird song of the awakening of the whole being to the passion of love. Then it was that Evelyn's face had a look of surprise, of pain, of profound disturbance; it was suffused with blushes, coming and going in passionate emotion; the eyes no longer blazed, but were softened in a melting tenderness of sympathy, and her whole person seemed to be carried into the stream of the great life passion. When it ceased she sank back in her seat, and blushed still more, as if in fear that some one had discovered her secret.

Afterwards, when Philip had an opportunity of knowing Evelyn Mavick, and knowing her very well, and to some extent having her confidence, he used to say to himself that he had little to learn—the soul of the woman was perfectly revealed to him that night of "Siegfried."

As the curtain went down, Mrs. Mavick, whose attention had not been specially given to the artists before, was clapping her hands in a great state of excitement.

"Why don't you applaud, child?"

"Oh, mother," was all the girl could say, with heaving breast and downcast eyes.



X

All winter long that face seemed to get between Philip and his work. It was an inspiration to his pen when it ran in the way of literature, but a distinct damage to progress in his profession. He had seen Evelyn again, more than once, at the opera, and twice been excited by a passing glimpse of her on a crisp, sunny afternoon in the Mavick carriage in the Park-always the same bright, eager face. So vividly personal was the influence upon him that it seemed impossible that she should not be aware of it—impossible that she could not know there was such a person in the world as Philip Burnett.

Fortunately youth can create its own world. Between the secluded daughter of millions and the law clerk was a great gulf, but this did not prevent Evelyn's face, and, in moments of vanity, Evelyn herself, from belonging to Philip's world. He would have denied—we have a habit of lying to ourselves quite as much as to others—that he ever dreamed of possessing her, but nevertheless she entered into his thoughts and his future in a very curious way. If he saw himself a successful lawyer, her image appeared beside him. If his story should gain the public attention, and his occasional essays come to be talked of, it was Evelyn's interest and approval that he caught himself thinking about. And he had a conviction that she was one to be much more interested in him as a man of letters than as a lawyer. This might be true. In Philip's story, which was very slowly maturing, the heroine fell in love with a young man simply for himself, and regardless of the fact that he was poor and had his career to make. But he knew that if his novel ever got published the critics would call it a romance, and not a transcript of real life. Had not women ceased to be romantic and ceased to indulge in vagaries of affection?

Was it that Philip was too irresolute to cut either law or literature, and go in, single-minded, for a fortune of some kind, and a place? Or was it merely that he had confidence in the winning character of his own qualities and was biding his time? If it was a question of making himself acceptable to a woman—say a woman like Evelyn—was it not belittling to his own nature to plan to win her by what he could make rather than by what he was?

Probably the vision he had of Evelyn counted for very little in his halting decision. "Why don't you put her into a novel?" asked Mr. Brad one evening. The suggestion was a shock. Philip conveyed the idea pretty plainly that he hadn't got so low as that yet. "Ah, you fellows think you must make your own material. You are higher-toned than old Dante." The fact was that Philip was not really halting. Every day he was less and less in love with the law as it was practiced, and, courting reputation, he would much rather be a great author than a great lawyer. But he kept such thoughts to himself. He had inherited a very good stock of common-sense. Apparently he devoted himself to his office work, and about the occupation of his leisure hours no one was in his confidence except Celia, and now and then, when he got something into print, Alice. Professedly Celia was his critic, but really she was the necessary appreciator, for probably most writers would come to a standstill if there was no sympathetic soul to whom they could communicate, while they were fresh, the teeming fancies of their brains.

The winter wore along without any incident worth recording, but still fruitful for the future, as Philip fondly hoped. And one day chance threw in his way another sensation. Late in the afternoon of a spring day he was sent from the office to Mavick's house with a bundle of papers to be examined and signed.

"You will be pretty sure to find him," said Mr. Sharp, "at home about six. Wait till you do see him. The papers must be signed and go to Washington by the night mail."

Mr. Mavick was in his study, and received Philip very civilly, as the messenger of his lawyers, and was soon busy in examining the documents, flinging now and then a short question to Philip, who sat at the table near him.

Suddenly there was a tap at the door, and, not waiting for a summons, a young girl entered, and stopped after a couple of steps.

"Oh, I didn't know—"

"What is it, dear?" said Mr. Mavick, looking up a moment, and then down at the papers.

"Why, about the coachman's baby. I thought perhaps—" She had a paper in her hand, and advanced towards the table, and then stopped, seeing that her father was not alone.

Philip rose involuntarily. Mr. Mavick looked up quickly. "Yes, presently. I've just now got a little business with Mr. Burnett."

It was not an introduction. But for an instant the eyes of the young people met. It seemed to Philip that it was a recognition. Certainly the full, sweet eyes were bent on him for the second she stood there, before turning away and leaving the room. And she looked just as true and sweet as Philip dreamed she would look at home. He sat in a kind of maze for the quarter of an hour while Mavick was affixing his signature and giving some directions. He heard all the directions, and carried away the papers, but he also carried away something else unknown to the broker. After all, he found himself reflecting, as he walked down the avenue, the practice of the law has its good moments!

What was there in this trivial incident that so magnified it in Philip's mind, day after day? Was it that he began to feel that he had established a personal relation with Evelyn because she had seen him? Nothing had really happened. Perhaps she had not heard his name, perhaps she did not carry the faintest image of him out of the room with her. Philip had read in romances of love at first sight, and he had personal experience of it. Commonly, in romances, the woman gives no sign of it, does not admit it to herself, denies it in her words and in her conduct, and never owns it until the final surrender. "When was the first moment you began to love me, dear?" "Why, the first moment, that day; didn't you know it then?" This we are led to believe is common experience with the shy and secretive sex. It is enough, in a thousand reported cases, that he passed her window on horseback, and happened to look her way. But with such a look! The mischief was done. But this foundation was too slight for Philip to build such a hope on.

Looking back, we like to trace great results to insignificant, momentary incidents—a glance, a word, that turned the current of a life. There was a definite moment when the thought came to Alexander that he would conquer the world! Probably there was no such moment. The great Alexander was restless, and at no initial instant did he conceive his scheme of conquest. Nor was it one event that set him in motion. We confound events with causes. It happened on such a day. Yes, but it might have happened on another. But if Philip had not been sent on that errand to Mavick probably Evelyn would never have met him. What nonsense this is, and what an unheroic character it makes Philip! Is it supposable that, with such a romance as he had developed about the girl, he would not some time have come near her, even if she had been locked up with all the bars and bolts of a safety deposit?

The incident of this momentary meeting was, however, of great consequence. There is no such feeder of love as the imagination. And fortunate it was for Philip that his romance was left to grow in the wonder-working process of his own mind. At first there had been merely a curiosity in regard to a person whose history and education had been peculiar. Then the sight of her had raised a strange tumult in his breast, and his fancy began to play about her image, seen only at a distance and not many times, until his imagination built up a being of surpassing loveliness, and endowed with all the attractions that the poets in all ages have given to the sex that inspires them. But this sort of creation in the mind becomes vague, and related to literature only, unless it is sustained by some reality. Even Petrarch must occasionally see Laura at the church door, and dwell upon the veiled dreamer that passed and perhaps paused a moment to regard him with sad eyes. Philip, no doubt, nursed a genuine passion, which grew into an exquisite ideal in the brooding of a poetic mind, but it might in time have evaporated into thin air, remaining only as an emotional and educational experience. But this moment in Mr. Mavick's library had given a solid body to his imaginations, and a more definite turn to his thought of her.

If, in some ordinary social chance, Philip had encountered the heiress, without this previous wonderworking of his imagination in regard to her, the probability is that he would have seen nothing especially to distinguish her from the other girls of her age and newness in social experience. Certainly the thought that she was the possessor of uncounted millions would have been, on his side, an insuperable barrier to any advance. But the imagination works wonders truly, and Philip saw the woman and not the heiress. She had become now a distinct personality; to be desired above all things on earth, and that he should see her again he had no doubt.

This thought filled his mind, and even when he was not conscious of it gave a sort of color to life, refined his perceptions, and gave him almost sensuous delight in the masterpieces of poetry which had formerly appealed only to his intellectual appreciation of beauty.

He had not yet come to a desire to share his secret with any confidant, but preferred to be much alone and muse on it, creating a world which was without evil, without doubt, undisturbed by criticism. In this so real dream it was the daily office work that seemed unreal, and the company and gossip of his club a kind of vain show. He began to frequent the picture-galleries, where there was at least an attempt to express sentiment, and to take long walks to the confines of the city-confines fringed with all the tender suggestions of the opening spring. Even the monotonous streets which he walked were illumined in his eyes, glorified by the fullness of life and achievement. "Yes," he said again and again, as he stood on the Heights, in view of the river, the green wall of Jersey and the great metropolis spread away to the ocean gate, "it is a beautiful city! And the critics say it is commonplace and vulgar." Dear dreamer, it is a beautiful city, and for one reason and another a million of people who have homes there think so. But take out of it one person, and it would have for you no more interest than any other huge assembly of ugly houses. How, in a lover's eyes, the woman can transfigure a city, a landscape, a country!

Celia had come up to town for the spring exhibitions, and was lodging at the Woman's Club. Naturally Philip saw much of her, indeed gave her all his time that the office did not demand. Her company was always for him a keen delight, an excitement, and in its way a rest. For though she always criticised, she did not nag, and just because she made no demands, nor laid any claims on him, nor ever reproached him for want of devotion, her society was delightful and never dull. They dined together at the Woman's Club, they experimented on the theatres, they visited the galleries and the picture-shops, they took little excursions into the suburbs and came back impressed with the general cheapness and shabbiness, and they talked—talked about all they saw, all they had read, and something of what they thought. What was wanting to make this charming camaraderie perfect? Only one thing.

It may have occurred to Philip that Celia had not sufficient respect for his opinions; she regarded them simply as opinions, not as his.

One afternoon, in the Metropolitan Picture-Gallery, Philip had been expressing enthusiasm for some paintings that Celia thought more sentimental than artistic, and this reminded her that he was getting into a general way of admiring everything.

"You didn't use, Philip, to care so much for pictures."

"Oh, I've been seeing more."

"But you don't say you like that? Look at the drawing."

"Well, it tells the story."

"A story is nothing; it's the way it's told. This is not well told."

"It pleases me. Look at that girl."

"Yes, she is domestic. I admit that. But I'm not sure I do not prefer an impressionistic girl, whom you can't half see, to such a thorough bread-and-butter miss as this."

"Which would you rather live with?"

"I'm not obliged to live with either. In fact, I'd rather live with myself. If it's art, I want art; if it's cooking and sewing, I want cooking and sewing. If the artist knew enough, he'd paint a woman instead of a cook."

"Then you don't care for real life?"

"Real life! There is no such thing. You are demonstrating that. You transform this uninteresting piece of domesticity into an ideal woman, ennobling her surroundings. She doesn't do it. She is level with them."

"It would be a dreary world if we didn't idealize things."

"So it would. And that is what I complain of in such 'art' as this. I don't know what has got into you, Phil. I never saw you so exuberant. You are pleased with everything. Have you had a rise in the office? Have you finished your novel?"

"Neither. No rise. No novel. But Tweedle is getting friendly. Threw an extra job in my way the other day. Do you think I'd better offer my novel, when it is done, to Tweedle?"

"Tweedle, indeed!"

"Well, one of our clients is one of the great publishing firms, and Tweedle often dines with the publisher."

"For shame, Phil!"

Philip laughed. "At any rate, that is no meaner than a suggestion of Brad's. He says if I will just weave into it a lot of line scenery, and set my people traveling on the great trunk, stopping off now and then at an attractive branch, the interested railroads would gladly print it and scatter it all over the country."

"No doubt," said Celia, sinking down upon a convenient seat. "I begin to feel as if there were no protection for anything. And, Phil, that great monster of a Mavick, who is eating up the country, isn't he a client also?"

"Occasionally only. A man like Mavick has his own lawyers and judges."

"Did you ever see him?"

"Just glimpses."

"And that daughter of his, about whom such a fuss was made, I suppose you never met her?"

"Oh, as I wrote you, at the opera; saw her in her box."

"And—?"

"Oh, she's rather a little thing; rather dark, I told you that; seems devoted to music."

"And you didn't tell what she wore."

"Why, what they all wear. Something light and rather fluffy."

"Just like a man. Is she pretty?"

"Ye-e-s; has that effect. You'd notice her eyes." If Philip had been frank he would have answered,

"I don't know. She's simply adorable," and Celia would have understood all about it.

"And probably doesn't know anything. Yes, highly educated? I heard that. But I'm getting tired of 'highly educated'; I see so many of them. I've been making them now for years. Perhaps I'm one of them. And where am I? Don't interrupt. I tell you it is a relief to come across a sweet, womanly ignoramus. What church does she go to?"

"Who?"

"That Mavick girl."

"St. Thomas', I believe."

"That's good—that's devotional. I suppose you go there too, being brought up a Congregationalist?"

"At vespers, sometimes. But, Celia, what is the matter with you? I thought you didn't care—didn't care to belong to anything?"

"I? I belong to everything. Didn't I write you reams about my studies in psychology? I've come to one conclusion. There are only two persons in the world who stand on a solid foundation, the Roman Catholic and the Agnostic. The Roman Catholic knows everything, the Agnostic doesn't know anything."

Philip was never certain when the girl was bantering him; nor, when she was in earnest, how long she would remain in that mind and mood. So he ventured, humorously:

"The truth is, Celia, that you know too much to be either. You are what they call emancipated."

"Emancipated!" And Celia sat up energetically, as if she were now really interested in the conversation. "Become the slave of myself instead of the slave of somebody else! That's the most hateful thing to be, emancipated. I never knew a woman who said she was emancipated who wasn't in some ridiculous folly or another. Now, Phil, I'm going to tell you something. I can tell you. You know I've been striving to have a career, to get out of myself somehow, and have a career for myself. Well, today—mind, I don't say tomorrow"—(and there was a queer little smile on her lips)—"I think I will just try to be good to people and things in general, in a human way."

"And give up education?"

"No, no. I get my living by education, just as you do, or hope to do, by law or by letters; it's all the same. But wait. I haven't finished what I was going to say. The more I go into psychology, trying to find out about my mind and mind generally, the more mysterious everything is. Do you know, Phil, that I'm getting into the supernatural? You can't help running into it. For me, I am not side-tracked by any of the nonsense about magnetism and telepathy and mind-reading and other psychic imponderabilities. Isn't it queer that the further we go into science the deeper we go into mystery?

"Now, don't be shocked, I mean it reverently, just as an illustration. Do you think any one knows really anything more about the operation in the world of electricity than he does about the operation of the Holy Ghost? And yet people talk about science as if it were something they had made themselves."

"But, Celia—"

"No, I've talked enough. We are in this world and not in some other, and I have to make my living. Let's go into the other room and see the old masters. They, at least, knew how to paint—to paint passion and character; some of them could paint soul. And then, Phil, I shall be hungry. Talking about the mind always makes me hungry."



XI

Philip was always welcome at his uncle's house in Rivervale. It was, of course, his home during his college life, and since then he was always expected for his yearly holiday. The women of the house made much of him, waited on him, deferred to him, petted him, with a flattering mingling of tenderness to a little boy and the respect due to a man who had gone into the world. Even Mr. Maitland condescended to a sort of equality in engaging Philip in conversation about the state of the country and the prospects of business in New York.

It was July. When Philip went to sleep at night—he was in the front chamber reserved for guests—the loud murmur of the Deerfield was in his ears, like a current bearing him away into sweet sleep and dreams in a land of pleasant adventures. Only in youth come such dreams. Later on the sophisticated mind, left to its own guidance in the night, wanders amid the complexities of life, calling up in confusion scenes long forgotten or repented of, images only registered by a sub-conscious process, dreams to perplex, irritate, and excite.

In the morning the same continuous murmur seemed to awake him into a peaceful world. Through the open window came in the scents of summer, the freshness of a new day. How sweet and light was the air! It was indeed the height of summer. The corn, not yet tasseled, stood in green flexible ranks, moved by the early breeze. In the river-meadows haying had just begun. Fields of timothy and clover, yellowing to ripeness, took on a fresh bloom from the dew, and there was an odor of new-mown grass from the sections where the scythes had been. He heard the call of the crow from the hill, the melody of the bobolink along the meadow-brook; indeed, the birds of all sorts were astir, skimming along the ground or rising to the sky, keeping watch especially over the garden and the fruit-trees, carrying food to their nests, or teaching their young broods to fly and to chirp the songs of summer. And from the woodshed the shrill note of the scythe under the action of the grindstone. No such vivid realization of summer as that.

Philip stole out the unused front door without disturbing the family. Whither? Where would a boy be likely to go the first thing? To the barn, the great cavernous barn, its huge doors now wide open, the stalls vacant, the mows empty, the sunlight sifting in through the high shadowy spaces. How much his life had been in that barn! How he had stifled and scrambled mowing hay in those lofts! On the floor he had hulled heaps of corn, thrashed oats with a flail—a noble occupation—and many a rainy day had played there with girls and boys who could not now exactly describe the games or well recall what exciting fun they were. There were the racks where he put the fodder for cattle and horses, and there was the cutting-machine for the hay and straw and for slicing the frozen turnips on cold winter mornings.

In the barn-yard were the hens, just as usual, walking with measured step, scratching and picking in the muck, darting suddenly to one side with an elevated wing, clucking, chattering, jabbering endlessly about nothing. They did not seem to mind him as he stood in the open door. But the rooster, in his oriental iridescent plumage, jumped upon a fence-post and crowed defiantly, in warning that this was his preserve. They seemed like the same hens, yet Philip knew they were all strangers; all the hens and flaunting roosters he knew had long ago gone to Thanksgiving. The hen is, or should be, an annual. It is never made a pet. It forms no attachments. Man is no better acquainted with the hen, as a being, than he was when the first chicken was hatched. Its business is to live a brief chicken life, lay, and be eaten. And this reminded Philip that his real occupation was hunting hens' eggs. And this he did, in the mows, in the stalls, under the floor-planks, in every hidden nook. The hen's instinct is to be orderly, and have a secluded nest of her own, and bring up a family. But in such a communistic body it is a wise hen who knows her own chicken. Nobody denies to the hen maternal instincts or domestic proclivities, but what an ill example is a hen community!

And then Philip climbed up the hill, through the old grass-plot and the orchard, to the rocks and the forest edge, and the great view. It had more meaning to him than when he was a boy, and it was more beautiful. In a certain peaceful charm, he had seen nothing anywhere in the world like it. Partly this was because his boyish impressions, the first fresh impressions of the visible world, came back to him; but surely it was very beautiful. More experienced travelers than Philip felt its unique charm.

When he descended, Alice was waiting to breakfast with him. Mrs. Maitland declared, with an approving smile on her placid, aging face, that he was the same good-for-nothing boy. But Alice said, as she sat down to the little table with Philip, "It is different, mother, with us city folks." They were in the middle room, and the windows opened to the west upon the river-meadows and the wooded hills beyond, and through one a tall rose-bush was trying to thrust its fragrant bloom.

What a dainty breakfast! Alice flushed with pleasure. It was so good of him to come to them. Had he slept well? Did it seem like home at all? Philip's face showed that it was home without the need of saying so. Such coffee-yes, a real aroma of the berry! Just a little more, would he have? And as Alice raised the silver pitcher, there was a deep dimple in her sweet cheek. How happy she was! And then the butter, so fresh and cool, and the delicious eggs—by the way, he had left a hatful in the kitchen as he came in. Alice explained that she did not make the eggs. And then there was the journey, the heat in the city, the grateful sight of the Deerfield, the splendid morning, the old barn, the watering-trough, the view from the hill everything just as it used to be.

"Dear Phil, it is so nice to have you here," and there were tears in Alice's eyes, she was so happy.

After breakfast Philip strolled down the country road through the village. How familiar was every step of the way!—the old houses jutting out at the turns in the road; the glimpse of the river beyond the little meadow where Captain Rice was killed; the spring under the ledge over which the snap-dragon grew; the dilapidated ranks of fence smothered in vines and fireweeds; the cottages, with flower-pots in front; the stores, with low verandas ornamented with boxes and barrels; the academy in its green on the hill; the old bridge over which the circus elephant dared not walk; the new and the old churches, with rival steeples; and, not familiar, the new inn.

And he knew everybody, young and old, at doorways, in the fields or gardens, and had for every one a hail and a greeting. How he enjoyed it all, and his self-consciousness added to his pleasure, as he swung along in his well-fitting city clothes, broad-shouldered and erect—it is astonishing how much a tailor can do for a man who responds to his efforts. It is a pleasure to come across such a hero as this in real life, and not have to invent him, as the saying is, out of the whole cloth. Philip enjoyed the world, and he enjoyed himself, because it was not quite his old self, the farmer's boy going on an errand. There must be knowledge all along the street that he was in the great law office of Hunt, Sharp & Tweedle. And, besides, Philip's name must be known to all the readers of magazines in the town as a writer, a name in more than one list of "contributors." That was fame. Translated, however, into country comprehension it was something like this, if he could have heard the comments after he had passed by:

"Yes, that's Phil Burnett, sure enough; but I'd hardly know him; spruced up mightily. I wonder what he's at?"

"I heard he was down in New York trying to law it. I heard he's been writin' some for newspapers. Accordin' to his looks, must pay a durn sight better'n farmin'."

"Well, I always said that boy wa'n't no skeezics."

Almost the first question Philip asked Alice on his return was about the new inn, the Peacock Inn.

"There seemed a good deal of stir about it as I passed."

"Why, I forgot to tell you about it. It's the great excitement. Rivervale is getting known. The Mavicks are there. I hear they've taken pretty much the whole of it."

"The Mavicks?

"Yes, the New York Mavicks, that you wrote us about, that were in the paper."

"How long have they been there?"

"A week. There is Mrs. Mavick and her daughter, and the governess, and two maids, and a young fellow in uniform—yes, livery—and a coachman in the same, and a stableful of horses and carriages. It upset the village like a circus. And they say there's a French chef in white cap and apron, who comes to the side-door and jabbers to the small boys like fireworks."

"How did it come about?"

"Naturally, I guess; a city family wanting a quiet place for summer in the country. But you will laugh. Patience first discovered it. One day, sitting at the window, she saw a two-horse buggy driven by the landlord of the Peacock, and a gentleman by his side. 'Well, I wonder who that is-city man certainly. And wherever is he going? May be a railroad man. But there is nothing the matter with the railroad. Shouldn't wonder if he is going to see the tunnel. If it was just that, the landlord wouldn't drive him; he'd send a man. And they keep stopping and pointing and looking round. No, it isn't the railroad, it's scenery. And what can a man like that want with scenery?

"He does look like a railroad man. It may be tunnel, but it isn't all tunnel. When the team came back in the afternoon, Patience was again at the window; she had heard meantime from Jabez that a city man was stopping at the Peacock. There he goes, and looking round more than ever. They've stopped by the bridge and the landlord is pointing out. It's not tunnel, it's scenery. I tell you, he is a city boarder. Not that he cares about scenery; it's for his family. City families are always trying to find a grand new place, and he has heard of Rivervale and the Peacock Inn. Maybe the tunnel had something to do with it."

"Why, it's like second sight."

"No, Patience says it's just judgment. And she generally hits it. At any rate, the family is here."

The explanation of their being there—it seemed to Philip providential —was very simple. Mr. Mavick had plans about the Hoosac Tunnel that required him to look at it. Mrs. Mavick took advantage of this to commission him to look at a little inn in a retired village of which she had heard, and to report on scenery and climate. Warm days and cool nights and simplicity was her idea. Mavick reported that the place seemed made for the family.

Evelyn was not yet out, but she was very nearly out, and after the late notoriety Mrs. Mavick dreaded the regular Newport season. And, in the mood of the moment, she was tired of the Newport palace. She always said that she liked simplicity—a common failing among people who are not compelled to observe it. Perhaps she thought she was really fond of rural life and country ways. As she herself said,

"If you have a summer cottage at Newport or Lenox, it is necessary to go off somewhere and rest." And then it would be good for Evelyn to live out-of-doors and see the real country, and, as for herself, as she looked in the mirror, "I shall drink milk and go to bed early. Henderson used to say that a month in New Hampshire made another woman of me."

Oh, to find a spot where we could be undisturbed, alone and unknown. That was the program. But Carmen simply could not be anywhere content if she were unnoticed. It was not so easy to give up daily luxury, and habits of ease at the expense of attendants, or the ostentation which had become a second nature. Therefore the "establishment" went along with her to Rivervale, and the shy, modest little woman, who had dropped down into the country simplicity that she so dearly loved, greatly enjoyed the sensation that her coming produced. It needed no effort on her part to produce the sensation. The carriage, and coachman and footman in livery, would have been sufficient; and then the idea of one family being rich enough to take the whole hotel!

The liveries, the foreign cook in his queer cap and apron, and all the goings-on at the Peacock were the inexhaustible topic of talk in every farmhouse for ten miles around. Rivervale was a self-respecting town, and principled against luxury and self-indulgence, and judged with a just and severe judgment the world of fashion and of the grasping, wicked millionaires. And now this world with all its vain show had plumped down in the midst of them. Those who had traveled and seen the ostentation of cities smiled a superior smile at the curiosity and wonder exhibited, but even those who had never seen the like were cautious about letting their surprise appear. Especially in the presence of fashion and wealth would the independent American citizen straighten his backbone, reassuring himself that he was as good as anybody. To be sure, people flew to windows when the elegant equipage dashed by, and everybody found frequent occasion to drive or walk past the Peacock Inn. It was only the novelty of it, in a place that rather lacked novelties.

And yet there prevailed in the community a vague sense that millions were there, and a curious expectation of some individual benefit from them. All the young berry-pickers were unusually active, and poured berries into the kitchen door of the inn. There was not a housewife who was not a little more anxious about the product of her churning; not a farmer who did not think that perhaps cord-wood would rise, that there would be a better demand for garden "sass," and more market for chickens, and who did not regard with more interest his promising colt. When he drove to the village his rig was less shabby and slovenly in appearance. The young fellows who prided themselves upon a neat buggy and a fast horse made their turnouts shine, and dashed past the inn with a self-conscious air. Even the stores began to "slick up" and arrange their miscellaneous notions more attractively, and one of them boldly put in a window a placard, "Latest New York Style." When the family went to the Congregational church on Sunday not the slightest notice was taken of them—though every woman could have told to the last detail what the ladies wore—but some of the worshipers were for the first time a little nervous about the performance of the choir, and the deacons heard the sermon chiefly with reference to what a city visitor would think of it.

Mrs. Mavick was quite equal to the situation. In the church she was devout, in the village she was affable and friendly. She made acquaintances right and left, and took a simple interest in everybody and everything. She was on easy terms with the landlord, who declared, "There is a woman with no nonsense in her." She chatted with the farmers who stopped at the inn door, she bought things at the stores that she did not want, and she speedily discovered Aunt Hepsy, and loved to sit with her in the little shop and pick up the traditions and the gossip of the neighborhood. And she did not confine her angelic visits to the village. On one pretense and another she made her way into every farmhouse that took her fancy, penetrated the kitchens and dairies, and got, as she told McDonald, into the inner life of the people.

She must see the grave of Captain Moses Rice. And on this legitimate errand she one day carried her fluttering attractiveness and patchouly into the Maitland house. Mrs. Maitland was civil, but no more. Alice was civil but reserved—a great many people, she said, came to see the graves in the old orchard. But Mrs. Mavick was not a bit abashed. She expressed herself delighted with everything. It was such a rest, such a perfectly lovely country, and everybody was so hospitable! And Aunt Hepsy had so interested her in the history of the region! But it was difficult to get her talk responded to.

However, when Miss Patience came in she made better headway. She had heard so much of Miss Maitland's apartments. She herself was interested in decorations. She had tried to do something in her New York home. But there were so many ideas and theories, and it was so hard to be natural and artificial at the same time. She had no doubt she could get some new ideas from Miss Maitland. Would it be asking too much to see her apartments? She really felt like a stranger nowhere in Rivervale. Patience was only too delighted, and took her into her museum of natural history, art, religion, and vegetation.

"She might have gone to the grave-yard without coming into the house," Alice remarked.

"Oh, well," said her mother, "I think she is very amusing. You shouldn't be so exclusive, Alice."

"Mother, I do believe she paints."

With Patience, Mrs. Mavick felt on surer ground.

"How curious, how very curious and delightful it is! Such knowledge of nature, such art in arrangement."

"Oh, I just put them up," said Patience, "as I thought they ought by rights to be put up."

"That's it. And you have combined everything here. You have given me an idea. In our house we have a Japan room, and an Indian room, and a Chinese room, and an Otaheite, and I don't know what—Egyptian, Greek, and not one American, not a really American. That is, according to American ideas, for you have everything in these two rooms. I shall write to Mr. Mavick." (Mr. Mavick never received the letter.)

When she came away it was with a profusion of thanks, and repeated invitations to drop in at the inn. Alice accompanied her to the first stone that marked the threshold of the side door, and was bowing her away, when Mr. Philip swung over the fence by the wood-shed, with a shot-gun on his shoulder, and swinging in his left hand a gray squirrel by its bushy tail, and was immediately in front of the group.

"Ah!" involuntarily from Mrs. Mavick. An introduction was inevitable.

"My cousin, Mr. Burnett, Mrs. Mavick." Philip raised his cap and bowed.

"A hunter, I see."

"Hardly, madam. In vacations I like to walk in the woods with a gun."

"Then you are not—"

"No," said Philip, smiling, "unfortunately I cannot do this all the time."

"You are of the city, then?"

"With the firm of Hunt, Sharp & Tweedle."

"Ah, my husband knows them, I believe."

"I have seen Mr. Mavick," and Philip bowed again.

"How lucky!"

Mrs. Mavick had an eye for a fine young fellow—she never denied that —and Philip's manly figure and easy air were not lost on her. Presently she said:

"We are here for a good part of the summer. Mr. Mavick's business keeps him in the city and we have to poke about a good deal alone. Now, Miss Alice, I am so glad I have met your cousin. Perhaps he will show us some of the interesting places and the beauties of the country he knows so well." And she looked sideways at Philip.

"Yes, he knows the country," said Alice, without committing herself.

"I am sure I shall be delighted to do what I can for you whenever you need my services," said Philip, who had reasons for wishing to know the Mavicks which Alice did not share.

"That's so good of you! Excursions, picnics oh, we will arrange. You must come and help me arrange. And I hope," with a smile to Alice, "you can persuade your cousin to join us sometimes."

Alice bowed, they all bowed, and Mrs. Mavick said au revoir, and went swinging her parasol down the driveway. Then she turned and called back, "This is the first long walk I have taken." And then she said to herself, "Rather stiff, except the young man and the queer old maid. But what a pretty girl the younger must have been ten years ago! These country flowers!"



XII

Mrs. Mavick thought herself fortunate in finding, in the social wilderness of Rivervale, such a presentable young gentleman as Philip. She had persuaded herself that she greatly enjoyed her simple intercourse with the inhabitants, and she would have said that she was in deep sympathy with their lives. No doubt in New York she would relate her summer adventures as something very amusing, but for the moment this adaptable woman seemed to herself in a very ingenuous, receptive, and sympathetic state of mind. Still, there was a limit to the entertaining power of Aunt Hepsy, which was perceived when she began to repeat her annals of the neighborhood, and to bring forward again and again the little nuggets of wisdom which she had evolved in the small circle of her experience. And similarly Mrs. Mavick became aware that there was a monotony in the ideas brought forward by the farmers and the farmers' wives, whether in the kitchen or the best room, which she lighted up by her gracious presence, that it was possible to be tired of the most interesting "peculiarities" when once their novelty was exhausted, and that so-called "characters" in the country fail to satisfy the requirements of intimate or long companionship. Their world is too narrowly circumscribed.

The fact that Philip was a native of the place, and so belonged to a world that was remote from her own, made her free to seek his aid in making the summer pass agreeably without incurring any risk of social obligations. Besides, when she had seen more of him, she experienced a good deal of pleasure in his company. His foreign travel, his reading, his life in the city, offered many points of mutual interest, and it was a relief to her to get out of the narrow range of topics in the provincial thought, and to have her allusions understood. Philip, on his part, was not slow to see this, or to perceive that in the higher intellectual ranges, the serious topics which occupied the attention of the few cultivated people in the neighborhood, Mrs. Mavick had little interest or understanding, though there was nothing she did not profess an interest in when occasion required. Philip was not of a suspicious nature, and it may not have occurred to him that Mrs. Mavick was simply amusing herself, as she would do with any agreeable man, young or old, who fell in her way, and would continue to do so if she reached the age of ninety.

On the contrary, it never seemed to occur to Mrs. Mavick, who was generally suspicious, that Philip was making himself agreeable to the mother of Evelyn. In her thought Evelyn was still a child, in leading-strings, and would be till she was formally launched, and the social gulf between the great heiress and the law clerk and poor writer was simply impassable. All of which goes to show that the most astute women are not always the wisest.

To one person in Rivervale the coming of Mrs. Mavick and her train of worldliness was unwelcome. It disturbed the peaceful simplicity of the village, and it was likely to cloud her pleasure in Philip's visit. She felt that Mrs. Mavick was taking him away from the sweet serenity of their life, and that in everything she said or did there was an element of unrest and excitement. She was careful, however, not to show any of this apprehension to Philip; she showed it only by an increased affectionate interest in him and his concerns, and in trying to make the old home more dear to him. Mrs. Mavick was loud in her praise of Alice to her cousin, and sought to win her confidence, but she was, after all, a little shy of her, and probably would have characterized her to a city friend as a sort of virgin in the Bible.

It so happened that day after day went by without giving Philip anything more than passing glimpses of Evelyn, when she was driving with her mother or her governess. Yet Rivervale never seemed so ravishingly beautiful to all his senses. Surely it was possessed by a spirit of romance and poetry, which he had never perceived before, and he wasted a good deal of time in gazing on the river, on the gracious meadows, on the graceful contours of the hills. When he was a lad, in the tree-top, there had been something stimulating and almost heroic in the scene, which awakened his ambition. Now it was the idyllic beauty that took possession of him, transformed as it was by the presence of a woman, that supreme interpreter of nature to a youth. And yet scarcely a woman—rather a vision of a girl, impressible still to all the influences of such a scene and to the most delicate suggestions of unfolding life. Probably he did not analyze this feeling, but it was Evelyn he was thinking of when he admired the landscape, breathed with exhilaration the fresh air, and watched the white clouds sail along the blue vault; and he knew that if she were suddenly to leave the valley all the light would go out of it and the scene would be flat to his eyes and torturing to his memory.

Mrs. Mavick he encountered continually in the village. He had taken many little strolls with her to this or that pretty point of view, they had exchanged reminiscences of foreign travel, and had dipped a little into current popular books, so that they had come to be on easy, friendly terms. Philip's courtesy and deference, and a certain wit and humor of suggestion applied to ordinary things, put him more and more on a good footing with her, so much so that she declared to McDonald that really young Burnett was a genuine "find" in the country.

It seems a pity that the important events in our lives are so commonplace. Philip's meeting with Evelyn, so long thought of and dramatized in his mind, was not in the least as he had imagined it. When one morning he went to the Peacock Inn at the summons of Mrs. Mavick, in order to lay out a plan of campaign, he found Evelyn and her governess seated on the veranda, with their books. It was Evelyn who rose first and came forward, without, so far as Philip could see, the least embarrassment of recognition.

"Mr. Burnett? Mamma will be here in a moment. This is our friend, Miss McDonald."

The girl's morning costume was very simple, and in her short walking-skirt she seemed younger even than in the city. She spoke and moved—Philip noticed that—without the least self-consciousness, and she had a way of looking her interlocutor frankly in the eyes, or, as Philip expressed it, "flashing" upon him.

Philip bowed to the governess, and, still standing and waving his hand towards the river, hoped they liked Rivervale, and then added:

"I see you can read in the country."

"We pretend to," said Evelyn, who had resumed her seat and indicated a chair for Philip, "but the singing of that river, and the bobolinks in the meadow, and the light on the hills are almost too much for us. Don't you think, McDonald, it is like Scotland?"

"It would be," the governess replied, "if it rained when it didn't mist, and there were moors and heather, and—"

"Oh, I didn't mean all that, but a feeling like that, sweet and retired and sort of lonesome?"

"Perhaps Miss McDonald means," said Philip, "that there isn't much to feel here except what you see."

Miss McDonald looked sharply around at Philip and remarked: "Yes, that's just it. It is very lovely, like almost any outdoors, if you will give yourself up to it. You remember, Evelyn, how fascinating the Arizona desert was? But there was a romantic addition to the colored desolation because the Spaniards and the Jesuits had been there. Now this place lacks traditions, legends, romance. You have to bring your romance with you."

"And that is the reason you read here?"

"One reason. Especially romances. This charming scenery and the summer sounds of running water and birds make a nice accompaniment to the romance."

"But mamma says," Evelyn interrupted, "there is plenty of legend here, and tradition and flavor, Indians and early settlers, and even Aunt Hepsy."

"Well, I confess they don't appeal to me. And as for Indians, Parkman's descriptions of those savages made me squirm. And I don't believe there was much more romance about the early settlers than about their descendants. Isn't it true, Mr. Burnett, that you must have a human element to make any country interesting?"

Philip glanced at Evelyn, whose bright face was kindled with interest in the discussion, and thought, "Good heavens! if there is not human interest here, I don't know where to look for it," but he only said:

"Doubtless."

"And why don't you writers do something about it? It is literature that does it, either in Scotland or Judea."

"Well," said Philip, stoutly, "they are doing something. I could name half a dozen localities, even sections of country, that travelers visit with curiosity just because authors have thrown that glamour over them. But it is hard to create something out of nothing. It needs time."

"And genius," Miss McDonald interjected.

"Of course, but it took time to transform a Highland sheep-stealer into a romantic personage."

Miss McDonald laughed. "That is true. Take a modern instance. Suppose Evangeline had lived in this valley! Or some simple Gretchen about whose simple story all the world is in sympathy!"

"Or," thought Philip, "some Evelyn." But he replied, looking at Evelyn, "I believe that any American community usually resents being made the scene of a romance, especially if it is localized by any approach to reality."

"Isn't that the fault mostly of the writer, who vulgarizes his material?"

"The realists say no. They say that people dislike to see themselves as they are."

"Very likely," said Miss McDonald; "no one sees himself as others see him, and probably the poet who expressed the desire to do so was simply attitudinizing.—[Robert Burns: "Oh! wha gift the Giftie gie us; to see o'rselves as others see us." Ed.]—By the way, Mr. Burnett, you know there is one place of sentiment, religious to be sure, not far from here. I hope we can go some day to see the home of the 'Mountain Miller.'"

"Yes, I know the place. It is beyond the river, up that steep road running into the sky, in the next adjoining hill town. I doubt if you find any one there who lays it much to heart. But you can see the mill."

"What is the Mountain Miller?" asked Evelyn.

"A tract that, when I was a girl," answered Miss McDonald, "used to be bound up with 'The Dairyman's Daughter' and 'The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.' It was the first thing that interested me in New England."

"Well," said Philip, "it isn't much. Just a tract. But it was written by Parson Halleck, a great minister and a sort of Pope in this region for fifty years. It is, so far as I know, the only thing of his that remains."

This tractarian movement was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Mavick.

"Good-morning, Mr. Burnett. I've been down to see Jenkins about his picnic wagon. Carries six, besides the driver and my man, and the hampers. So, you see, Miss Alice will have to go. We couldn't go rattling along half empty. I'll go up and see her this afternoon. So, that's settled. Now about the time and place. You are the director. Let's sit down and plan it out. It looks like good weather for a week."

"Miss McDonald says she wants to see the Mountain Miller," said Philip, with a smile.

"What's that? A monument like your Pulpit Rock?"

"No, a tract about a miller."

"Ah, something religious. I never heard of it. Well, perhaps we had better begin with something secular, and work round to that."

So an excursion was arranged for the next day. And as Philip walked home, thinking how brilliant Evelyn had been in their little talk, he began to dramatize the excursion.

All excursions are much alike, exhilarating in the outset, rarely up to expectation in the object, wearisome in the return; but, nevertheless, delightful in the memory, especially if attended with some hardship or slight disaster. To be free, in the open air, and for a day unconventional and irresponsible, is the sufficient justification of a country picnic; but its common attraction is in the opportunity for bringing young persons of the opposite sex into natural and unrestrained relations. To Philip it was the first time in his life that a picnic had ever seemed a defensible means of getting rid of a day.

The two persons to whom this excursion was most novel and exciting were Evelyn and the elder maiden, Alice, who sat together and speedily developed a sympathy with each other in the enjoyment of the country, and in a similar poetic temperament, very shy on the part of Alice and very frank on the part of Evelyn. The whole wild scene along the river was quite as novel to Alice as to the city girl, because, although she was familiar with every mile of it and had driven through it a hundred times, she had never in all her life before, of purpose, gone to see it. No doubt she had felt its wildness and beauty, but now for the first time she looked at it as scenery, as she might have looked at a picture in a gallery. And in the contagion of Evelyn's outspoken enthusiasm she was no longer afraid to give timid expression to the latent poetry in her own soul. And daring to express this, she seemed to herself for the first time to realize vividly the nobility and grace of the landscape. And yet there was a difference in the appreciation of the two. More widely read and traveled, Evelyn's imagination took a wider range of comparison and of admiration, she was appealed to by the large features and the grandiose effects; while Alice noted more the tenderer aspects, the wayside flowers and bushes, the exotic-looking plants, which she longed to domesticate in what might be called the Sunday garden on the terraces in front of her house. For it is in these little cultivated places by the door-step, places of dreaming in the summer hours after meeting and at sunset, that the New England maiden experiences something of that tender religious sentiment which was not much fed in the barrenness of the Congregational meeting-house.

The Pulpit Rock, in the rough pasture land of Zoar, was reached by a somewhat tedious climb from the lonely farmhouse, in a sheltered nook, through straggling woods and gray pastures. It was a vast exposed surface rising at a slight angle out of the grass and undergrowth. Along the upper side was a thin line of bushes, and, pushing these aside, the observer was always startled at the unexpected scene—as it were the raising of a curtain upon another world. He stood upon the edge of a sheer precipice of a thousand feet, and looked down upon a green amphitheatre through the bottom of which the brawling river, an amber thread in the summer foliage, seemed trying to get an outlet from this wilderness cul de sac. From the edge of this precipice the first impulse was to start back in surprise and dread, but presently the observer became reassured of its stability, and became fascinated by the lonesome wildness of the scene.

"Why is it called Pulpit Rock?" asked Mrs. Mavick; "I see no pulpit."

"I suppose," said Philip, "the name was naturally suggested to a religious community, whose poetic images are mainly Biblical, and who thought it an advantageous place for a preacher to stand, looking down upon a vast congregation in the amphitheatre."

"So it is," exclaimed Evelyn. "I can see John the Baptist standing here now, and hear his voice crying in the wilderness."

"Very likely," said Mrs. Mavick, persisting in her doubt, "of course in Zoar. Anywhere else in the world it would be called the Lover's Leap."

"That is odd," said Alice; "there was a party of college girls came here two years ago and made up a story about it which was printed, how an Indian maiden pursued by a white man ran up this hill as if she had been a deer, disappeared from his sight through these bushes, and took the fatal leap. They called it the Indian Maiden's Rock. But it didn't take. It will always be Pulpit Rock."

"So you see, Miss McDonald," said Philip, "that writers cannot graft legends on the old stock."

"That depends upon the writer," returned the Scotch woman, shortly. "I didn't see the schoolgirl's essay."

When the luncheon was disposed of, with the usual adaptation to nomadic conditions, and the usual merriment and freedom of personal comment, and the wit that seems so brilliant in the open air and so flat in print, Mrs. Mavick declared that she was tired by the long climb and the unusual excitement.

"Perhaps it is the Pulpit," she said, "but I am sleepy; and if you young people will amuse yourselves, I will take a nap under that tree."

Presently, also, Alice and the governess withdrew to the edge of the precipice, and Evelyn and Philip were left to the burden of entertaining each other. It might have been an embarrassing situation but for the fact that all the rest of the party were in sight, that the girl had not the least self-consciousness, having had no experience to teach her that there was anything to be timid about in one situation more than in another, and that Philip was so absolutely content to be near Evelyn and hear her voice that there was room for nothing else in his thought. But rather to his surprise, Evelyn made no talk about the situation or the day, but began at once with something in her mind, a directness of mental operation that he found was characteristic of her.

"It seems to me, Mr. Burnett, that there is something of what Miss McDonald regards as the lack of legend and romance in this region in our life generally."

"I fancy everybody feels that who travels much elsewhere. You mean life seems a little thin, as the critics say?"

"Yes, lacks color and background. But, you see, I have no experience. Perhaps it's owing to Miss McDonald. I cannot get the plaids and tartans and Jacobins and castles and what-not out of my head. Our landscapes are just landscapes."

"But don't you think we are putting history and association into them pretty fast?"

"Yes, I know, but that takes a long time. I mean now. Take this lovely valley and region, how easily it could be made romantic."

"Not so very easy, I fancy."

"Well, I was thinking about it last night." And then, as if she saw a clear connection between this and what she was going to say, "Miss McDonald says, Mr. Burnett, that you are a writer."

"I? Why, I'm, I'm—a lawyer."

"Of course, that's business. That reminds me of what papa said once: 'It's lucky there is so much law, or half the world, including the lawyers, wouldn't have anything to do, trying to get around it and evade it.' And you won't mind my repeating it—I was a mite of a girl—I said, 'Isn't that rather sophistical, papa?' And mamma put me down'—It seems to me, child, you are using pretty big words.'"

They both laughed. But suddenly Evelyn added:

"Why don't you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Write a story about it—what Miss McDonald calls 'invest the region with romance.'"

The appeal was very direct, and it was enforced by those wonderful eyes that seemed to Philip to discern his powers, as he felt them, and his ambitions, and to express absolute confidence in him. His vanity was touched in its most susceptible spot. Here seemed to be a woman, nay, a soul, who understood him, understood him even better than Celia, the lifelong confidante. It is a fatal moment for men and women, that in which they feel the subtle flattery of being understood by one of the opposite sex. Philip's estimation of himself rose 'pari passu' with his recognition of the discernment and intellectual quality of the frank and fascinating girl who seemed to believe in him. But he restrained himself and only asked, after a moment of apparent reflection upon the general proposition: