"Come back here and finish up my job, John," Amidon called out; yet he watched him warily.

"Here, put up that razor!" the postmaster called out.

"I'll put it up when you stop speakin' mellifluously of my friends," declared the barber. "There ain't nobody in this parlor goin' to speak a word against Captain Carroll if I'm in hearin'; there ain't an honester man in this town."

The barber's back was towards the door. Suddenly Tappan's eyes stared past him, his grin widened inexplicably. Flynn became aware of a pregnant silence throughout the shop. He turned, following Tappan's gaze, and Arthur Carroll stood there. He had entered silently and had heard all the last of the discussion. Every face in the shop was turned towards him; he stood looking at them with the curious expression of a man taken completely off guard. All the serene force and courtesy which usually masked his innermost emotions had, as it were, slipped off; for a flash he stood revealed, soul-naked, for any one who could see. None there could fully see, although every man looked, sharpened with curiosity and suspicion. Carroll was white and haggard, unsmiling, despairing, even pathetic; his eyes actually looked suffused. Then in a flash it was over, and Arthur Carroll in his usual guise stood before them—it was like one of those metamorphoses of which one reads in fairy tales. Carroll stood there smiling, stately, gracefully, even confidentially condescending. It was as if he appealed to their sense of humor, that he, Carroll, stood among them addressing them as their equals.

"Good-day, gentleman," he said, and came forward.

Little Willy Eddy sprang up with a frightened look and gave him his chair, murmuring in response to Carroll's deprecating thanks that he was just going; but he did not go. He remained in the doorway staring. He had a vague idea of some judgment descending upon them all from this great man whom they had been slandering.

"Well, how are you, captain?" said Lee, speaking with an air of defiant importance. It became evident that what had gone before was to be ignored by everybody except Tappan, who suddenly rose and went out, muttering something which nobody heard. Then the lash of a whip was heard outside, a "g'lang," with the impetus of an oath, and a milk wagon clattered down the street.

Carroll replied to Lee, urbanely: "Fine," he said, "fine. How are you, Mr. Lee?"

"Seems to me you are not looking quite up to the mark," Lee remarked, surveying him with friendly solicitude.

The little barber had returned to Amidon in the chair, and was carefully scraping his cheek with the razor.

"Then my looks belie me," Carroll replied, smiling. He offered a cigar to Lee and to the druggist, who sat next on the other side.

"Been out of town?" asked the druggist.

"Yes," replied Carroll.

Drake looked at him hesitatingly, but Amidon, speaking stiffly and cautiously, put the question directly: "Where you been, cap'n?"

"A little journey on business," Carroll answered, easily, lighting his cigar.

"When did you get home?" asked Amidon.

"This morning."

"You certainly look as if you had lost flesh," said Lee, with obsequious solicitude.

"Well, it is a hard journey to Chicago—quite a hard journey," remarked the druggist, with cunning.

"Not on the fast train," said Carroll.

"So you went on the flyer?" said the postmaster.

Carroll was having some difficulty in lighting his cigar, and did not reply.

"Did you go on the flyer?" persisted the postmaster.

"No, I did not," replied Carroll, with unmistakable curtness.

The postmaster hemmed to conceal embarrassment. He had been shaved and had only lingered for a bit of gossip, and now the church-bells began to ring, and he was going to church, as were also Lee, the druggist, and most of the others. They rose and lounged out, one after another; little Willy Eddy followed them. Flynn finished shaving Amidon, who also left, and finally he was left alone in the shop with Carroll, who arose and approached the chair.

"Sorry to keep you waitin', Captain Carroll," said Flynn, preparing a lather with enthusiasm.

"The day is before me," said Carroll, as he seated himself.

"I hope," said Flynn, beating away his hand in a bowl of mounting rainbow bubbles—"I hope that—that—your feelings were not hurt at—at—our eavesdropping."

"At what?" asked Carroll, kindly and soberly.

"At our eavesdropping," reported the barber, with a worshipful and agitated glance at him.

"Oh!" answered Carroll, but he did not smile. "No," he said, "my feelings were not hurt." He looked at the small man who was the butt of the town, and his expression was almost caressing.

Flynn continued to beat away at the lather, and the rainbow bubbles curled over the edge of the bowl. "You said that you would devise me when the time had come for me to invest that money," he said, diffidently, and yet with a noble air of confidence and loyalty.

"It hasn't come yet," Carroll replied.



Chapter XIX

As Ina Carroll's wedding-day drew nearer, the excitement in Banbridge increased. It was known that the services of a New York caterer had been engaged. Blumenfeldt was decorating the church, Samson Rawdy was furbishing up all his vehicles and had hired supplementary ones from New Sanderson.

"No girl has ever went from this town as that Carroll girl will," he told his wife, who assisted him to clean the carriage cushions.

"I s'pose the folks will dress a good deal," said she, brushing assiduously.

"You bet," said her husband.

"Well, they won't get no dirt on their fine duds off your carriage-seats," said she. She was large and perspiring, but full of the content of righteous zeal. She and Samson Rawdy thoroughly enjoyed the occasion, and he was, moreover, quite free from any money anxiety regarding it. At first he had been considerably exercised. He had come home and conferred with his wife, who was the business balance-wheel of the family.

"Carroll has been speakin' to me about providin' carriages for his daughter's weddin', an' I dunno about it," said he.

"How many does he want?" inquired his wife. He had sunk on his doorstep on coming home at dusk, and sat with speculative eyes on the pale western sky, while his wife sat judicially, quite filling with her heated bulk a large rocking-chair, placed for greater coolness in front of the step, in the middle of the slate walk.

"He wants all mine and all I can hire in New Sanderson," replied Rawdy.

"Lord!" ejaculated his wife. "All them?"

"All them," replied Rawdy, moodily triumphant.

"Well," said his wife, "that ain't the point."

"No, it ain't," agreed Rawdy.

"The point is," said she, "is he agoin' to or ain't he agoin' to pay."

"That's so," said Rawdy.

"He's a-owin' everybody, ain't he?" said the wife.

"Pooty near, I guess."

"Well, you ain't goin' to let one of your cerridges go, let alone hirin', unless he pays ahead."

"Lord! Dilly, how'm I goin' to ask him?" protested Rawdy.

"How? Why, the way anybody would ask him. 'Ain't you got a tongue in your head?" demanded she.

"You dunno what a man he is. I asked him the other night when I drove him up, and it wa'n't a job I liked, I can tell you."

"Did he pay you?"

"Paid me some of it."

"He's owin' you now, ain't he?"

"Well, he ain't owin' much, only the few times their cerridge 'ain't been down. It ain't much, Dilly."

"But it's something."

"Yes; everythin' that ain't nothin' is somethin', I s'pose."

"And now you're goin' right on an' lettin' him have all your cerridges, and you'll be wantin' me to help clean the seats, too, I'll warrant, and you're agoin' to hire into the bargain, with him owin' you and owin' everybody else in town."

"Now, Dilly, I didn't say I was agoin' to," protested Rawdy.

"An' me needin' a new dress, and 'ain't had one to my back for two years, and them Carroll women in a different one every time they appear out, and the girl having enough clothes for a Vanderbilt. I guess Stella Griggs will rue the day. She's a fool, and always was. If you can afford to give that man money you can afford to get me a new dress. I'd go to the weddin'—it's free, in the church—if I had anything decent to wear."

"Now, Dilly, what can I do? I leave it to you," asked Samson Rawdy, with confessed helplessness.

"Do?" said she. "Why, tell him he's got to pay ahead or he can't have the cerridges. If you're afraid to, I'll ask him. I ain't afraid."

"Lord! I ain't afraid, Dilly," said Rawdy.

"You'd better clean up, after supper, an' go up there and tell him," said Dilly Rawdy, mercilessly.

In the end Rawdy obeyed, having shaved and washed, and set forth. When he returned he was jubilant.

"He's a gentleman, I don't care what they say," said he, "and he treated me like a gentleman. Gave me a cigar, and asked me to sit down. He was smokin', himself, out on the porch. The women folks were in the house.

"Did he pay you?" asked Mrs. Rawdy.

Then Rawdy shook a fat roll of bills in her face. "Look at here," said he.

"The whole of it?"

"Every darned mill; my cerridges and the New Sanderson ones, too."

"Well, now, ain't you glad you did the way I told you to?"

"Lord! he'd paid me, anyway," declared Rawdy. "He's a gentleman. Women are always dreadful scart."

"It's a pity men wasn't a little scarter sometimes," said his wife.

Rawdy, grinning, tossed a bill to her. "Wa'n't you sayin' you wanted a dress?" said he.

"I ruther guess I do. I 'ain't had one for two years."

"I guess I'd better git a silk hat to wear. I suppose I shall have to drive some of the Carrolls' folks," said Rawdy, with a timid look at his wife. A silk hat had always been his ambition, but she had always frowned upon it.

"Well, I would," said she, cordially.

Samson Rawdy told everybody how Carroll had paid him in advance—"every cent, sir; and he didn't believe, for his part, half the stories that were told about him. He guessed that he paid, in the long run, as well as anybody in Banbridge. Carroll wa'n't the only one that hadn't paid him, not by a long-shot. He guessed some of them that talked about Carroll had better look to home. He called Carroll a gentleman, and any time when anything happened that his carriage wa'n't on hand when the train come in, he was ready an' willin' to drive him up, or any of his folks, an' if they didn't have a quarter handy right on the spot, he wa'n't goin' to lay awake sweatin' over it."

Rawdy's testimony prevented Blumenfeldt, the florist, from asking for his pay in advance, as he had intended. He and his son and daughter, who assisted him in his business, decorated the church and the Carroll house, and wagons laden with palms and flowers were constantly on the road. Tuesday, the day before the wedding, was unusually warm. Banbridge had an air of festive weariness. Everybody who passed the church stopped and stared at the open doors and the wilting grass leaves strewn about.

Elsa Blumenfeldt, in a blue shirt-waist and black skirt, with the tightest of fair braids packed above a round, pink face, with eyes so blue they looked opaque, tied and wove garlands with the stolid radiance of her kind. Her brother Franz worked as she did. Only the father Blumenfeldt, who was of a more nervous strain, flew about in excitement, his fat form full of vibrations, his fat face blazing, contorting with frantic energy.

"It iss ein goot yob," he repeated, constantly—"ein goot yob." Not a doubt was left. When he came in contact with Carroll he bowed to the ground; he was full of eager protestations, of almost hysterical assertions. All day long he was in incessant and fruitless motion, buzzing, as it were, over his task, conserving force only in the heat of his own spirit, not in the performance of the work. Meanwhile the son and daughter, dogged, undiverted, wrought with good results, weaving many a pretty floral fancy with their fat fingers. Eddy Carroll had taken it upon himself to guard the church doors and prevent people from viewing the splendors before the appointed time. All the morning he had waged war with sundry of his small associates, who were restrained from forcible entry only by the fear of the Blumenfeldt family.

"Mr. Blumenfeldt says he'll run anybody out who goes in, and kick 'em head over heels all the way down the aisle and down the steps," Eddy declared, mendaciously, to everybody, even his elders.

"I think you are telling a lie, little boy," said Mrs. Samson Rawdy, who had come with a timid female friend on a tour of inspection. Mrs. Rawdy, in virtue of her husband's employment, felt a sort of proprietorship in the occasion.

"There won't be a mite of trouble about our goin' in to see the church," she told the friend, who was a humble soul.

But Mrs. Rawdy reckoned without Eddy Carroll. When she told him that he was telling a lie, he smiled sweetly at her.

"You're telling a lie yourself, missis," said he.

Mrs. Rawdy essayed to push past him, but as he stood directly in the door, and she was unable, on account of her stout habit of body, to pass him, and hardly ventured to forcibly remove him, she desisted. "You are a sassy little boy," said she, "and if your sister is as sassy as her brother, I pity the man that's goin' to marry her."

In reply Eddy made up an impish face at her as she retreated. Then he entered the church himself to inspect progress, returning immediately to take up his position of sentry again. About noon Anderson passed on his way to the post-office, and nodded.

"You can't come in," the boy called out.

"All right," Anderson responded. But then Eddy made a flying leap from the church door and caught hold of his arm.

"Say, you can, if you won't tell anybody about it," he whispered, as if the curious village was within ear-shot.

"I am afraid I cannot stop now, thank you," Anderson replied, smiling.

"You ain't mad, are you?"

Anderson assured him that he was not.

"They didn't tell me to keep folks out," Eddy explained, "but I made up my mind I didn't want everybody seeing it till it was done. It's going to be a stunner, I can tell you. There's palms and pots of flowers, and yards and yards of white and green ribbon tied in bows, and the pews are all tied round with evergreen boughs, and to-morrow the smilax is going up. I tell you, it's fine."

"It must be," said Anderson. He strove to move on, but could not break free from the boy's little, clinging hand. "Just come up the steps and peek in," pleaded Eddy. So Anderson yielded weakly and let himself be pulled up the steps to the entrance of the church.

"Ain't it handsome?" asked Eddy, triumphantly.

"Very," replied Anderson.

"Say," said Eddy, "was it as handsome when you were married yourself?"

"I never was married," replied Anderson, laughing.

"You weren't?" said Eddy, staring at him. "Why, I thought you were a widow man."

"No," said Anderson.

"Well, why were you never married?" asked Eddy, sharply.

"Oh, for a good many reasons which I have never formulated sufficiently to give," replied Anderson.

"I hate big words," said Eddy, "and I didn't think you would do it. It's mean."

"So it is," said Anderson, with a kindly look at him. "Well, all I meant was I couldn't give my reasons without thinking it over."

"Perhaps you'll tell me when you get them thought over," said Eddy, accepting the apology generously.

"Perhaps."

Anderson turned to go, after saying again that the church was very handsomely decorated, and Eddy still kept at his side.

"You didn't stay not married because you couldn't get a girl to marry you, anyhow, I know that," said he, "because you are an awful handsome man. You are better-looking than major Arms. I should think Ina would a heap rather have married you."

"Thank you," said Anderson.

"You are going to the wedding, aren't you?" asked Eddy.

"No, I think not."

"Why not?"

"I am very busy."

"Why, you don't keep your store open Wednesday evening?" asked Eddy, regarding him sharply.

"I have letters to write," replied Anderson.

"Oh, shucks! let the letters go!" cried the boy. "There's going to be stacks of fun, and lots of things to eat. There's chicken salad and lobster, and sandwiches, and ice-cream and cake, and coffee and cake, and—" The boy hesitated; then he spoke again in a whisper of triumph that had its meaning of pathos: "They are all paid for. I know, for I heard papa tell Major Arms. The carriages are paid for, too, and the florist is going to be paid."

"That's good," said Anderson.

"Yes, sir, so the things are sure to be there. They won't back out at the last minute, as they do sometimes. Awful mean, too. Say, you'd better come. Your mother can come, too. She likes ice-cream, don't she?"

Anderson said that he believed she did.

"Well, she'll be sure to get all she can eat," said Eddy. "Tell her to come. I like your mother." He clung closely to the man's arm and walked along the street with him, forgetting his post as guardian of the church. "You'll come, won't you?" he said.

"No. I shall be too busy, my son," said Anderson, smiling; and finally Eddy retreated dissatisfied. When he went home an hour later he burst into the house with a question.

"Say," he asked Charlotte, "I want to know if Mr. Anderson and his mother were asked to the wedding."

Charlotte was hurrying through the hall with white and green ribbons flying around her, en route to trim the bay-window where the bridal couple were to stand to receive the guests. "Oh, Eddy, dear," she cried, "I can't stop now; indeed I can't. I don't know who was invited and who not."

"But, Charlotte," Eddy persisted, "I want to know particularly. Please tell me, honey."

Then Charlotte stopped and looked back over her great snarl of white and green ribbon. "Who did you say, dear?" she asked. "Hurry! I can't stop."

"Mr. Anderson," repeated Eddy. "Mr. Anderson and his mother."

"Mr. Anderson and his mother?" repeated Charlotte, vaguely, and just then Anna Carroll came with a little table which was to support a bowl of roses in the bay-window.

"Mr. Anderson," said Eddy again.

"I don't know who you mean, Eddy, dear," said Charlotte.

"Why, yes, you do, Charlotte, Mr. Anderson and his mother."

"What is it?" asked Anna Carroll. "Eddy, you must not stop us for anything. We are too busy."

"You might just tell me if they are asked to the wedding," said Eddy, in an aggrieved tone. "That won't take a minute. Mr. Anderson. He keeps store."

"Gracious!" cried Anna Carroll. "The child means the grocer! No, dear, he isn't asked."

"Why, I never thought!" said Charlotte. "No, dear, he isn't asked."

"Why not?" asked Eddy.

"We couldn't ask everybody, honey," replied Anna. "Now you must not hinder us another minute."

But Eddy danced persistently before them, barring their progress.

"He isn't everybody," he said. "He's the nicest man in this town. Why didn't you ask him? Didn't you think he was nice enough, I'd like to know?"

"Of course he is nice, dear," said Charlotte; "very nice." She flushed a little.

"Why didn't you ask him, then?" demanded Eddy. "I call it mean."

Anna took Eddy by his small shoulders and set him aside.

"Eddy," she said, sternly, "not another word. We could not ask the grocer to your sister's wedding. Now, don't say another word about it. Your sister and I are too busy to bother with you."

"I don't see why you won't ask him because he's a grocer," Eddy called, indignantly, after her. "He's the nicest man here, and he always lets us have things, whether we pay him or not. I have heard you say so. I think you are awful mean to take his groceries, and eat 'em, and use them for Ina's wedding, and then not ask him, just because he is a grocer."

Anna's laughter floated back, and the boy wondered angrily what she was laughing at. Then he went by himself about righting wrongs. He hunted about until he found on his mother's desk some left-over wedding-cards, and he sent invitations to both the wedding and reception to Randolph Anderson and his mother, which were received that night.

Randolph carried them home, and his mother examined them with considerable satisfaction.

"We might go to the ceremony," said she, with doubtful eyes on her son's face.

"I really think we had better not, mother."

"You think we had better not, simply to the ceremony? Of course I admit that we could not go to the reception at the house, since we have not called, but the ceremony?"

"I think we had better not; this very late invitation—"

"Oh, Randolph, that is easily accounted for. It is so easy to overlook an invitation."

But Randolph persisted in his dissent to the proposition to attend. He was quite sure how the invitation had happened to come at all, and later on in the day he was confirmed in his opinion when Eddy Carroll made a rush into his office and inquired, breathlessly, if he had received his invitation and if he was coming.

"Because I found out you hadn't been asked, and I told them it was mean, and I sent you one myself," said he, with generous indignation.

Anderson finally compromised by going with him to the church and viewing the completed decorations. He also presented him with a package of candy from his glass jars when he followed him back to the store.

"Say, you are a brick," Eddy assured him. "When I am a man I am going to keep a grocery store. I'd a great deal rather do that than have a business like papa's. If you have the things yourself in your own store, you don't have to owe anybody for them. Good-bye. If you should get those letters done, you come, and your mother, and I'll look out you have everything you want; and I'll save seats in the pew where I sit, too."

"Thank you," said Anderson, and was conscious of an exceedingly warm feeling for the child flying out of the store with his package of sweets under his arm.



Chapter XX

Carroll had arrived home very unexpectedly that Sunday morning. The family were at the breakfast-table. As a usual thing, Sunday-morning breakfast at the Carrolls' was a desultory and uncertain ceremony, but when Major Arms was there it was promptly on the table at eight o'clock. He had not yet, in the relaxation of civilian life, gotten over the regular habits acquired in the army.

"It isn't hard you'll find the old man on you, sweetheart," he told Ina, "but there's one thing he's got to have, and that is his breakfast, and a good old Southern one, with plenty to eat, at eight o'clock, or you'll find him as cross as a bear all day to pay for it."

Ina laughed and blushed, and sprinkled the sugar on her cereal.

"Ina will not mind," said Mrs. Carroll. "She and Charlotte have never been sleepy-heads."

Eddy glanced resentfully at his mother. He was a little jealous in these days. He had never felt himself so distinctly in the background as during these preparations for his sister's wedding.

"I am not a sleepy-head, either, Amy," said he.

"It is a pity you are not," said she, and everybody laughed.

"Eddy is always awake before anybody in the house," said Ina, "and prowling around and sniffing for breakfast."

"And you bet there is precious little breakfast to sniff lately, unless we have company," said Eddy, still in his resentful little pipe; and for a second there was silence.

Then Mrs. Carroll laughed, not a laugh of embarrassment, but a delightful, spontaneous peal, and the others, even Major Arms, who had looked solemnly nonplussed, joined her.

Eddy ate his cereal with a sly eye of delight upon the mirthful faces. "Yes," said he, further. "I wish you'd stay here all the time, Major Arms, and stay engaged to Ina instead of marrying her; then all the rest of us would have enough to eat. We always have plenty when you are here."

He looked around for further applause, but he did not get it. Charlotte gave him a sharp poke in the side to institute silence.

"What are you poking me for, Charlotte?" he asked, aggrievedly. She paid no attention to him.

"Don't you think it is strange we don't hear from papa?" said Charlotte.

Major Arms stared at her. "Do you mean to say you have not heard from him since he went away?" he asked.

"Not a word," replied Mrs. Carroll, cheerfully.

"I am a little uneasy about papa," said Ina, but she went on eating her breakfast quite composedly.

"I should be if I had ever known him to fail to take care of himself," said Mrs. Carroll.

"It's the other folks that had better look out," remarked Eddy, with perfect innocence, though would-be wit. He looked about for applause.

Arms's eyes twinkled, but he bent over his plate solemnly.

"Eddy, you are talking altogether too much," Anna Carroll said.

"You are unusually silly this morning, Eddy," said Charlotte. "There is no point in such a remark as that."

"You said Arthur had gone to Chicago?" Arms said to Mrs. Carroll.

"Well, the funny part of it is, we don't exactly know whether he has or not," replied Mrs. Carroll, "but we judge so. Arthur had been talking about going to Chicago. He had spoken about the possibility of his having to go for some time, and all of a sudden that morning came a telegram from New York saying that he was called away on business."

"Amy, of course he went to Chicago," Anna Carroll said, quickly. "You know there is no doubt of it. He said he might have to go there on business, and he had carried a dress-suit case in to the office, to have it ready, and he had given you the Chicago hotel address."

"Yes, so he did, Anna," assented Mrs. Carroll. "I suppose he must have gone to Chicago."

"You have written him there, I suppose?" said Arms, who was evidently perturbed.

"Oh yes," replied Mrs. Carroll, easily, "I have written three times."

"Did you put a return address on the corner of the envelope in case he was not there?"

"Oh no! I never do. I thought only business men did that."

"Amy doesn't even date her letters," said Ina.

"I never can remember the date," said Mrs. Carroll, "and I never can remember whether it is Banbridge or Banridge, so I never write the name of the place, either."

"And she always signs her name just Amy," said Charlotte.

"Yes, I do, of course," said Mrs. Carroll, smiling.

Arms turned to Anna Carroll. "You have not felt concerned?" said he to her.

"Not in the least," she replied, calmly. "I have no doubt that he has gone to Chicago, and possibly his business has taken him farther still. I think nothing whatever of not hearing from him. Arthur, with all of his considerateness in other respects, has always been singularly remiss as to letters."

"Yes, he has, even before we were married," agreed Mrs. Carroll. "Not hearing from Arthur was never anything to worry about."

"And I think with Amy that Arthur Carroll is perfectly well able to take care of himself," said Anna, further, with her slight inflection of sarcasm.

"I understood that he was going to Chicago, from something he said to me some time ago," Arms said, thoughtfully.

"Of course he has gone there," Anna Carroll said again, with a sharp impatience.

And then there was a whirring flash of steel past the window, and the fiercely hitching curve of a boy's back.

"It's Jim Leech on his wheel, and he's got a telegram," proclaimed Eddy, and made a dash for the door.

There was a little ripple of excitement. Charlotte jumped up and followed Eddy, but he re-entered the room dancing aloof with the telegram. In spite of her efforts to reach it, he succeeded in tearing it open. Charlotte was almost crying and quite pale.

"Eddy," she pleaded, "please give it to me—please."

"Eddy, bring that telegram here," commanded his aunt, half rising from her seat.

"It is only from Arthur, saying he is coming, of course," said Mrs. Carroll, calmly sipping her coffee. "Arthur always telegraphs when he has been away anywhere and is coming home."

"Eddy!" said Charlotte.

But Eddy essayed reading the telegram with an effect of being in the air, such was his defensive agility. "He's coming, I guess," he said. "I don't think anything very bad has happened. I don't think it's an accident or anything, but the writing is awful. I should think that telegraph man would be ashamed to write like that."

"Eddy, bring that telegram to me," said Anna; "bring it at once." And the boy finally obeyed.

Anna read the telegram and her nervous forehead relaxed. "It is all right," said she; then she read the message aloud. It was dated New York, the night before:

"Am in New York. Shall take the first train home in the morning."

"He sent it last night at eight o'clock, and we have only just got it," said Ina.

"He is all right," repeated Anna.

"Of course he is all right," said Mrs. Carroll. "Why doesn't Marie bring in the eggs? We have all finished the cereal?"

"Eggs! Golly!" cried Eddy, slipping into his chair.

"Why, it must be time for him now!" Charlotte said, suddenly.

Arms looked at his watch. "Yes, it is," he agreed.

It was not long before Samson Rawdy drove into the grounds, and everybody sprang up at the sound of the wheels.

"There's papa!" cried Eddy, and led the way to the door, slipping out before the others.

Carroll was engaged in a discussion with the driver. He nodded his head in a smiling aside in response to the chorus of welcome from the porch, and went on conferring with the liveryman, who was speaking in a low, inaudible voice, but gesticulating earnestly. Presently Carroll drew out his pocket-book and gave him some money.

"My!" said Eddy, in a tone of awe, "papa's paying him some money."

Still the man, Samson Rawdy, did not seem quite satisfied. Something was quite audible here about the rest of the bill, but finally he smiled in response to Carroll's low, even reply, raised his hat, sprang into his carriage, and turned round in a neat circle while Carroll came up the steps.

"Arthur, dear, where have you been?" asked his wife, folding soft, silken arms around his neck and putting up her smiling face for his kiss. "We have not heard a word from you since you went away."

"You got my telegram?" replied Carroll, interrogatively, kissing her, and passing on to his daughters. Eddy, meantime, was clinging to one of his father's hands and making little leaps upon him like a pet dog.

"Yes," cried everybody together, "the telegram just came—just a minute ago."

Anna had kissed her brother, then stepped quietly into the house. The others moved slowly after her.

"How are you, old man?" Carroll asked Major Arms.

"First rate," replied Arms, grasping the proffered hand, yet in a somewhat constrained fashion.

"Why didn't you write, Arthur dear?" Mrs. Carroll asked, yet not in the least complainingly or reproachfully. On the contrary, she was smiling at him with the sweetest unreserve of welcome as she entered the dining-room by his side.

"Breakfast is getting cold, papa," said Charlotte. "Come right in."

"We have got a bully breakfast. No end to eat," said Eddy, as he danced at his father's heels.

Carroll need not have answered his wife's question then, for her attention was diverted from it, but he did. "I was very busy, dear," he said, rather gravely. "You were no less in mind. In fact, I never had you all any more in mind."

"You must have had a hard night's journey, papa," Charlotte said, as they all sat down at the table, and Marie brought in the eggs.

"Yes, I had a very hard night," Carroll replied, still with a curious gravity.

Charlotte regarded him anxiously. "Why, papa," she said, "aren't you well?"

"Very well indeed, honey," Carroll replied, and he smiled then.

The others looked at him. "Why, papa, you do look sick!" cried Ina.

"Arthur, dear, you look as if you had been ill a month, and I never noticed it till now, I was so glad to see you," cried Mrs. Carroll. Suddenly she jumped from her seat and passed behind her husband's chair and drew his head to her shoulder. "Arthur, dearest, are you ill?"

"No, I am not, sweetheart."

"But, Arthur, you have lost twenty pounds!"

"Nonsense, dear!"

"Haven't you had anything to eat, papa?" Eddy asked, with sharp sidewise eyes on his father.

Then Anna Carroll spoke. "Can't you see that Arthur wants his breakfast?" said she, and in her tone was a certain impatience and pity for her brother.

Major Arms, however, was not a man to take a hint. He also was scrutinizing Carroll. "Arthur," he suddenly exclaimed, "what on earth is the matter, lad? You do look pretty well knocked up."

Carroll loosened his wife's arm and gave her an exceedingly gentle push. He laughed constrainedly at the same time. "Anna is about right," he said. "I am starved. Wait until I have eaten my breakfast before you pass judgment on my appearance."

"Haven't you eaten anything since you left Chicago, papa?" asked Ina.

"Never mind, dear," he replied, in an odd, curt tone, and she looked a little grieved.

"Did you come on the flyer, papa?" asked Eddy. "What are you nudging me for, Charlotte?"

"Papa doesn't want any more questions asked. He wants his breakfast," said Charlotte.

"No, I did not come on the flyer," Carroll answered, in the same curt tone. Then for a moment there was silence, and Carroll ate his breakfast.

It was Major Arms who broke the silence. "You got in last night," he said, with scarcely an inflection of interrogation.

But Carroll replied, "I was in the hotel at midnight."

"We have been frightfully busy since you left, Arthur dear," said Mrs. Carroll. "It is a tremendous undertaking to make a wedding."

"How do the preparations go on?" asked Carroll, while Ina bent over her plate with a half-annoyed, half-pleased expression.

"Very well," replied Mrs. Carroll. "Ina's things are lovely, and the dressmaker is so pleased that we gave her the trousseau. It will be a lovely wedding."

"Where have you been all the week?" Carroll asked of Arms, who was gazing with an utter openness of honest delight at Ina.

"Here some of the time, and in New York. I had to run up to Albany on business for two days. I got home Wednesday night too late to come out here, and I went into Proctor's roof-garden to see the vaudeville show."

"Did you?" remarked Carroll, in an even voice. He sugared his cereal more plentifully.

"Yes. I had the time on my hands. It was a warm night and I did not feel like turning in, and I was trailing about and the lights attracted me. And, by Jove! I was glad I went in, for I saw something that carried me back—well, I won't say how many years, for I'm trying to be as much of a boy as I can for this little girl here—but, by Jove! it did carry me back, though."

"What was it?" asked Charlotte.

"Well, dear, it was nothing except a dance by a nigger. Maybe you wouldn't have thought so much of it. I don't know, though; it did bring down the house. He was called back I don't know how many times. It was like a dance an old fellow on my father's plantation used to dance before the war. Arthur, you must have seen old Uncle Noah dance that. Why, now I think of it, you used to dance it yourself when you were a boy, and sing for the music just the way he did. Don't you remember?"

Carroll nodded laughingly, and went on eating.

"Used to—I guess you did! I remember your dancing that at Bud Hamilton's when Bud came of age. Old Noah must have been gone then. It was after the war."

"Oh, papa," cried Eddy, in a rapture, "do dance it sometime, won't you?"

"I'll tell you what we will all do," cried Major Arms, with enthusiasm, "we'll all go to the City to-morrow night, and we'll see that dance. I tell you it's worth it. It's a queer thing, utterly unlike anything I have ever seen. It is a sort of cross between a cake-walk and an Indian war-dance. Jove! how it carried me back!" Arms began to hum. "That's it, pretty near, isn't it, Arthur?" he asked.

"Quite near, I should say," replied Carroll.

"Oh, papa, won't you sing and dance it after breakfast?" cried Eddy.

"Now, hush up, my son," said Arms. "Your father has the dignity of his position to support. A gentleman doesn't dance nigger dances when he is grown up and the head of a family. It's all very well when he is a boy. But we'll all go to New York to-morrow night and we'll see that dance."

"There is a great deal to do," Anna Carroll remarked.

"Nonsense!" said the major. "There's time enough. Where are the Sunday papers? I'll see if it is on to-morrow. Have they come yet?"

"I am going down to get shaved, and I will bring them up," Carroll said.

"Don't they bring them to the door in Banbridge?" asked Arms, wonderingly.

"They used when we first came here," said Eddy. "I guess—" Then he stopped in obedience to a look from his aunt.

"I will bring them when I come home," repeated Carroll.

"Well, we'll all go in to-morrow night, and we'll see that dance," said the major.

But when Carroll, on his return from the barber's shop, brought the papers, Major Arms discovered, much to his disappointment, that that particular attraction had been removed from the roof-garden. There was a long and flattering encomium of the song and dance which upheld him in his enthusiasm.

"Yes, it was a big thing; you can understand by what it says here," said he, "I was right. I'm mighty sorry it's off."



Chapter XXI

Anderson on Wednesday evening sat on the porch and saw the people stream by to the wedding. Mrs. Anderson, although it was a very pleasant and warm evening, did not come outside, but sat by the parlor window, well-screened by the folds of the old damask curtain. The wedding was at eight, and by quarter-past seven the people began to pass; by half-past seven the street was quite full of them. It seemed as if all Banbridge was gathering. A church wedding was quite an unusual festivity in the town, and, besides, there had always been so much curiosity with regard to the Carrolls that interest was doubled in this case. His mother called to him softly from the parlor. "There are a great many going, aren't they?" said she.

"Yes, mother," replied Anderson. He distinctly heard a soft sigh from the window, and his heart smote him a little. He realized dimly that a matter like this might seem important to a woman. Presently he heard a soft flop of draperies, and his mother stood large and white and mild behind him.

"They are nearly all gone who are going, I think?" said she, interrogatively.

Anderson looked at his watch, holding it towards the light of the moon, which was just coming above the horizon. The daylight had paled with suddenness like a lamp burning low from lack of oil. "Yes; they must be all gone now," said he. "It is eight o'clock."

He rose and placed a chair for his mother, and she settled into it.

"I thought I would not come out here while the people were passing," said she. "I have my matinee on, and I am never quite sure that it is dress enough for the porch."

Anderson looked at the lacy, beribboned thing which his mother wore over her black silk skirt, and said it was very pretty.

"Yes, it is," said she, "but I am never sure that it is just the thing to be out of my own room in. I suppose the dresses to-night will be very pretty. Miss Carroll ought to make a lovely bride. She is a very pretty girl, and so is her sister. I dare say their dresses will be prettier than anything of the kind ever seen in Banbridge."

There was an indescribable wistfulness in Mrs. Anderson's voice. Large and rather majestic woman that she was, she spoke like a disappointed child, and her son looked at her with wonder.

"I don't understand how a woman can care so much about seeing pretty dresses," he said, not unkindly, but with a slight inflection of amused scorn.

"No," said his mother, "I don't suppose you can, dear. I don't suppose any man can." And it was as if she regarded him from feminine heights. At that moment the longing, never quite stilled in her breast, for a daughter, a child of her own kind, who would have understood her, who would have gone with her to this wedding, and been to the full as disappointed as she was to have missed it, was strong upon her. She was very fond of her son, but at the moment she saw him with alien eyes. "No, dear, I don't suppose you can understand," she repeated; "you are a man."

"If you had really cared so much, mother—if I had understood," he said, gently, "you might have gone. You could have gone with the Egglestons."

"There was no reason why we could not have gone by ourselves," said she, "and sat with the invited guests, where we could have seen everything nicely, since we had an invitation."

Anderson opened his mouth to tell his mother of the true source of the invitation; then he hesitated. He had a theory that it was foolish, in view of the large alloy of bitterness in the world, to destroy the slightest element of sweet by a word. It was quite evident that his mother, for some occult reason, took pleasure in the invitation. Why destroy it? So he repeated that she might have gone, had she cared so much; and feeling that he was showing a needless humility in his own scruples, he added that he would have gone with her. Then his mother declared that she did not, after all, really care, that it was a warm night and she would have been obliged to dress, and after fanning herself a little while, went in the house and to bed, leaving him marvelling at the ways of women. The problem as to whether his mother had really wished very much to go to the wedding and whether he had been selfish and foolish in opposing her wish or not, rather agitated him for some minutes. Then he gave it up, and relegated women to a place with the fourth dimension on the shelf of his understanding. The moon was now fairly aloft, sailing triumphant in a fleet of pale gold and rosy clouds. The night was very hot, the night insects were shrieking in their persistent dissonances all over the street. Shadows waved and trembled over the field of silver radiance cast by the moon. No one passed. He could not see a window-light in any of the houses. Everybody had gone to the wedding, and the place was like a deserted village. Anderson felt unutterably lonely. He felt outside of all the happy doors and windows of life. Discontent was not his failing, but all at once the evil spirit swept over him. He seemed to realize that instead of moving in the broad highway trod by humanity he was on his own little side-path to the tomb, and injury and anger seized him. He thought of the man who was being married so short a distance away, and envy in a general sense, with no reference even to Charlotte, swept over him. He had never been disturbed in very great measure with longing for the happiness that the other man was laying hold of, but even that fact served to augment his sense of injury and resentment. He felt that it was due to circumstances, in a very large degree to the inevitable decrees of his fate, that he had not had the longing, and not to any inherent lack of his own nature. He felt that he had had a double loss in both the hunger and the satisfaction of it, and now, after all, had come at last this absurd and hopeless affection which had lately possessed him. To-night the affection, instead of seeming to warm the heart of a nobly patient and reasonable man, seemed to sting it.

Suddenly out of the hot murk of the night came a little puff of cool wind, and borne on it a faint strain of music. Anderson listened. The music came again.

"It cannot be possible that the wedding is just about to begin," he thought, "not at this hour."

But that was quite possible with the Carrolls, who, with the exception of the head of the family, had never been on time in their lives. It was nearly nine o'clock, and the guests had been sitting in a subdued impatience amid the wilting flowers and greens in the church, and the minister had been trying to keep in a benedictory frame of mind in a stuffy little retiring-room, and now the wedding-party were just entering the church. A sudden impulse seized Anderson. He stole inside the house, and looked and listened in the hall. Everything was dark up-stairs, and silent. Mrs. Anderson always fell asleep like a baby immediately upon going to bed.

Anderson got his hat from the hall-tree, and went out, closing the door with its spring-lock very cautiously. Then he slipped around the house and listened. He could hear a soft, cooing murmur of voices from the back stoop. The servant, as usual, was keeping tryst there with her lover. He walked a little farther and came upon their consolidated shadow of love under the wild-cucumber vine which wreathed over the trellis-hood of the door. The girl gave a little shriek and a giggle, the man, partly pushed, partly of his own volition, started away from her and stood up with an incoherent growl of greeting.

"Good-evening," said Anderson. "Jane, I am going out, and my mother has gone up-stairs. If you will be kind enough to have a little attention in case she should ring." Anderson had fixed an electric bell in his mother's room, which communicated with the kitchen.

"Yes, sir," said the girl, with a sound between a gasp and a giggle.

"I have locked the front-door," said Anderson.

"Yes, sir," said the girl, again.

Anderson went around the house, and the sound of an embarrassed and happy laugh floated after him. He felt again the sense of injury and resentment, as if he were shut even out of places where he would not care to be, even out of the humblest joys of life, out of the kitchens as well as the palaces.

Anderson strolled down the deserted street and turned the corner on to Main Street. Then he strolled on until he reached the church. It was brilliantly lighted. Peering people stood in the entrance and the sidewalk before it was crowded. There was a line of carriages in waiting. But everything was still except for the unintermittent voices of the night, which continued like the tick of a clock measuring off eternity, undisturbed by anything around it. From the church itself a silence which could be sensed seemed to roll, eclipsing the diapason of an organ. Not a word of the minister's voice was audible at that distance. Instead was that tremendous silence and hush. Anderson wondered what that pretty, ignorant little girl in there was, to dare to tamper with this ancient force of the earth? Would it not crush her? If the man loved her would he not, after all, have simply tried to see to it that the fair little butterfly of a thing had always her flowers to hang over: the little sweets of existence, the hats and frocks and ribbons which she loved, and then have gone away and left her? A great pity for the bride came over him, and then a flood of yearning tenderness for the other girl, greater than he had ever known.

In his awe and wonder at what was going on all his own rebellion and unhappiness were gone. He felt only that yearning for, and terror for, that little, tender soul that he loved, exposed to all the terrible and ancient solemn might of existence, which the centuries had rolled up until her time came. He longed to shield her not only from sorrow, but from joy. He took off his hat and stood back in the shadow of a door on the opposite sidewalk. It seemed to him that the ceremony would never end. It was, in fact, unusually long, for the Banbridge minister had much to say for the edification of the bridal pair, and for his own aggrandizement. But at last the triumphant peal of the organ burst forth, and the church swarmed like a hive. People began to stir.

All the heads turned. The rustle of silk was quite audible from outside, also a gathering sibilance of whispers and rustling stir of curious humanity, exactly like the swarming impetus of a hive. Fans fluttered like butterflies over all this agitation of heaving shoulders and turning heads in the church. Outside, the people standing about the steps and on the sidewalk separated hurriedly and formed an aisle of gaping curiosity. A carriage streaming with white ribbons rolled up, the others fell into line. Anderson could see Samson Rawdy on the white-ribboned wedding-coach, sitting in majesty. He was paid well in advance; his wife, complacent and beaming in her new silk waist, was in the church. The contemplation of the new marriage had brought a wave of analogous happiness and fresh love for her over his soul. He was as happy with his own measure of happiness as any one there. Every happiness as well as every sorrow is a source of centrifugal attraction.

Anderson, watching, saw presently, the bridal party emerge from the church. To his fancy, which naturally looked for similes to his beloved pursuits of life, he saw the bride like a white moth of the night, her misty veil, pendant from her head to her feet, carrying out the pale, slanting evanescence of the moth's wings. She moved with a slight wavering motion suggestive of the flight of the vague winged thing which flits from darkness to darkness when it does not perish in the candle beams. This moth, to Anderson, was doing the latter, fluttering possibly to her death, in the light of that awful primaeval force of love upon which the continuance of creation hangs. Again, a great pity for her overwhelmed him, and a very fierceness of protection seized him at the sight of Charlotte following her sister in her bridesmaid's attire of filmy white over rose, with pink roses in her hair.

Anderson stood where he could see the faces of the bridal party quite plainly in the glare of the electric light. Charlotte, he saw, with emotion, had an awed, intensely sober expression on her charming face, but the bride's, set in the white mist of her thrown-back veil, was smiling lightly. He saw Arms bend over and whisper to her, and she laughed outright with girlish gayety. Anderson wondered what he said. Arms had smiled, yet his face was evidently moved. What he had said was simple enough: "Fighting Indians is nothing to getting married, honey."

Ina laughed, but her husband's lips quivered a little. She herself realized a curious self-possession greater than she had ever realized in her whole life. It is possible that the world is so old and so many women have married in it that a heredity of self-control supports them in the midst of an occasion which has quickened their pulses in anticipation during their whole lives. But the bridegroom was not so supported. He was manifestly agitated and nervous, especially during the reception which followed the ceremony. He stood with forced amiability responding to the stilted congratulations and gazing with wondering admiration at his bride, whose manner was the perfection of grace.

"Lord, old man!" he whispered once to Carroll, "this part of it is a farce for an old fellow like me, standing in a blooming bower, being patted on the head like a little poodle-dog."

Carroll laughed.

"She likes it, now," whispered Arms, with a fond, proud glance at Ina.

"Women all do," responded Carroll.

"Well, I'd stand here a week if she wanted to, bless her," Arms whispered back, and turned with a successful grimace to acknowledge Mrs. Van Dorn's carefully worded congratulations. As she turned away she met Carroll's eyes, and a burning blush overspread her face to her pompadour crest surmounting her large, middle-aged face. She suddenly recalled, with painful acuteness, the only other occasion on which she had been in the house; but Carroll's manner was perfect, there was in his eyes no recollection whatever.

Mrs. Carroll was lovely in pale-mauve crape embroidered with violets, a relic of past splendors, remodelled for the occasion in spite of doubts on her part, and her beautiful old amethysts. Anna had urged it.

"I shall wear my cream lace, which no one here has ever seen, and I think, Amy, you had better wear that embroidered mauve crape," she said.

"But, Anna," said Mrs. Carroll, "doesn't it seem as if Ina's mother ought not to wear an old gown at the dear child's wedding? I would as lief, as far as I am concerned, but is it doing the right thing?"

"Why not?" asked Anna, rather tartly. Lately her temper was growing a little uncertain. Sometimes she felt as if she had been beset all her life by swarms of gnats. "No one here has ever seen the dress," said she. "And what in the world could you have prettier, if you were to get a new one?"

"Oh, this Banbridge dressmaker is really making charming things," said Mrs. Carroll, rather eagerly. She had a childish fondness for new clothes. "She would make me a beautiful dress, so far as that goes, Anna, dear."

"She has all she can do with Ina's things."

"I reckon she could squeeze in one for me, Anna. Don't you think so?"

"Then there is the extra expense," said Anna.

"But she does not hesitate in the least to trust us," said Mrs. Carroll. "But maybe you are right, Anna. That embroidered mauve is lovely, and perfectly fresh, and it is very warm to fuss over another, and then my amethysts look charming with that."

Therefore, Mrs. Carroll wore the mauve and the amethysts, and was by many considered handsomer than either of her daughters. There had been some discussion about giving the amethysts to Ina for a wedding-gift, but finally a set of wonderful carved corals, which she had always loved and never been allowed to wear, were decided upon. Anna had given a pearl brooch, which had come down from her paternal grandmother, and Carroll had presented her with a large and evidently valuable pearl ring which had excited some wonder in the family.

"Why, Arthur, where did you get it?" his wife had cried, involuntarily; and he had laughed and refused to tell her.

Ina herself, while she received the ring with the greatest delight, was secretly a little troubled. "I am afraid poor papa ought not to have given me such a present as this," she said to Charlotte, when the two girls were in their room that night. As she spoke she was holding the pearl to the lamp-light and watching the beautiful pink lights. It was a tinted pearl.

"It is a little different, because you are going away, and papa will never buy you things again," said Charlotte. "I should not worry, dear." For the few days before her marriage, Charlotte had gotten a habit of treating her sister with the most painstaking consideration for her nerves and her feelings, as if she were an invalid. She was herself greatly troubled at the thought that her father had overtasked his resources to purchase such a valuable thing, but she would not for worlds have intimated such a thing to Ina.

"Well, I do worry," said Ina. "I cannot help it. It was too much for poor papa to do." She even shed a few tears over the pearl, and Charlotte kissed and coddled her a good deal for comfort.

"It is such a beauty, dear," she said. "Look at it and take comfort in it, darling."

"Yes, it is a beauty," sobbed Ina. "I never saw such a pearl except that one of poor papa's, the one he has in his scarf-pin that belonged to that friend of his who died, you know."

"Yes, dear," said Charlotte, "I know. It is another just such a beauty. Don't cry any more, honey. Think how happy you are to have it."

But Charlotte herself, after she had gone to bed in her own little room, had sobbed very softly lest her sister should hear her, until Ina was asleep. Her sister's remarks had brought a suspicion to her own mind. "Poor papa!" she kept whispering softly, to herself. "Poor papa!" It seemed to her that her heart was breaking with understanding of and pity for her father.

Charlotte's own gift to Ina had been some pieces of embroidery. She was the only one in the family who excelled in any kind of handicraft. "Ina will like this better than anything," she had told her aunt Anna, "and then it will not tax poor papa, either. It will cost nothing."

Her aunt had looked at her a minute, then suddenly thrown her arms around her and kissed her. "Charlotte, you little honey, you are the best of the lot!" she had said.

Charlotte herself, the night of the wedding, was looking rather pale and serious. Many observed that she was the least good-looking of the family. Several Banbridge young men essayed to make themselves agreeable to her, but she did not know it. She was very busy. Besides their one maid there were the waiters sent by the caterer, and Eddy was exceedingly troublesome. He was a nervous boy, and unless directly under his father's eye, almost beyond restraint when impressed, as he was then, with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. His activities took especially the form of indiscriminate and superfluous helping the guests to refreshments, until the waiters waxed fairly murderous, and one of them even appealed to Anna Carroll, intimating in Eddy's hearing that unless the young gentleman left matters to them the supply of salad would run short.

"Why didn't we have more, then?" inquired Eddy, quite audibly, to the delight of all within ear-shot. "I thought we were going to have plenty for everybody this time."

"Eddy dear," whispered Charlotte, taking his little arm, "come with me into the hall and help me put back some roses that have fallen out of the big vase. I am afraid I shall get some water on my gown if I touch them, and I noticed just now that some one had brushed against them and jostled some out."

"Charlotte, why didn't we have salad enough?" persisted Eddy, as he followed his sister, pulling back a little at her leading hand.

"Hush, dear; we have enough, only you had better leave it to the waiters, you know."

"Everybody has taken it that I have passed it to," said Eddy. "I have given that gentleman over there four plates heaped up."

"Oh, hush, Eddy dear!" whispered Charlotte, in an agony.

By this time they were in the hall, and Eddy, still full of grievances, was picking up the scattered roses. "I suppose there won't be enough salad for my friend and his mother when they come," said he, further.

"Who are your friend and his mother, darling?"

"Mr. Anderson and his mother," declared Eddy, promptly. "He is the best man in this town, and so is his mother."

"Mr. Anderson, dear?"

"Yes. You know who I mean. You ought to know. He always lets us have all we want out of his store. He and his mother are the nicest people in this town except us."

Charlotte looked at her little brother and her face flushed softly. "But, dear," she whispered, "they did not have any invitations to the reception."

"Yes, they did," declared Eddy, triumphantly.

"Why, who sent them?"

"I did," said Eddy.

Charlotte regarded her little brother with a curious expression. It was amused, and yet strangely puzzled, but more as if the puzzle were in her own mind than elsewhere. It was as if she were trying to remember something.

"Don't you think he is a nice man?" asked Eddy, looking sharply at her.

"Yes, dear, I think so. I don't know anything to the contrary."

"Don't you think he is handsome?"

Suddenly Charlotte saw Anderson's face in her thoughts for the first time very plainly. "Yes," she said, "of course. Let us go in the other room, Eddy, and see if Amy doesn't want anything." She led Eddy forcibly into the parlor.

"It is so late, I am afraid he won't come," the little boy said, disappointedly, when the clock on the mantel struck eleven just as they entered.

It was not long after that when the company began to disperse. The bride and groom were to take a midnight-train, and the bride and her sister stole away up-stairs for the changing of the bridal for the travelling costume.

Charlotte unfastened her sister's wedding-gown, and she was striving her best to keep the tears back. Ina, on the contrary, was gayer than usual.

"It is very odd," said she, as Charlotte hooked the collar of her gray travelling-gown, "how a girl looks forward to getting married, all her life, and thinks more of it than anything else, and how, after all, it is nothing at all. You can remember that I said so, Charlotte, when you come to get married. You needn't dread it as if it were some tremendous undertaking. It isn't, you know."

"You speak exactly as if you had died, and were telling me not to dread dying," said Charlotte. She laughed, and the laugh was almost a sob.

"What an idea!" cried Ina, laughing. "Of course I am very sad at leaving home and you all, you darling, but the getting married is not so much, after all. You will find that I am right."

"I shall never get married," said Charlotte.

"Nonsense, honey! 'Deed you will."

"No, I shall not. I shall stay with papa."

"Yes, you will. Say, honey, Robert"—Ina said Robert quite easily and prettily now—"Robert has a stunning cousin, young enough to be his son. His name is Floyd—Floyd Arms. Isn't that a dear name? And his father has just died, and he has the next place to ours."

"Don't be foolish, dear."

"Robert says he is a fine fellow."

"I know all about him. I have seen Floyd Arms," said Charlotte, rather contemptuously.

"Oh, so you have! He was home that last time you were in Acton, wasn't he? You spoke of him when you came home."

"Yes, the last term I was at school," said Charlotte. "Let me pin your veil, sweetheart."

"Don't you think he was handsome?"

"No, I don't, not so very," said Charlotte.

"Oh, Charlotte, where did you ever see a handsomer man, unless it was papa or Robert?"

"I have seen much handsomer men," declared Charlotte, firmly, as she carefully pinned her sister's veil.

"Well, I would like to know where? Not in this town?"

"Yes, in this town."

"Who?"

"Mr. Anderson."

"The grocer?"

"Yes," said Charlotte, defiantly. The veil was pinned, and Ina turned and looked at her, a rosy vision behind a film of gray lace. "You look lovely," said Charlotte, who had a soft pink in her cheeks.

"I think this hat is a beauty," said Ina. "Wasn't it lucky that New Sanderson milliner was so very good, and did not object to giving credit? Why, Mr. Anderson is the grocer! That is the man you mean, isn't it, honey?"

"Yes," replied Charlotte, still with defiance.

"Oh, well, that doesn't count," said Ina, turning for a last view of herself in the glass. "This dress fits beautifully."

"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Charlotte, as they left the room. She felt, even in the midst of parting, and without knowing why, a little indignation with her sister.

On the threshold, Ina paused suddenly and flung her arms around the other girl. "Oh, honey," she said, with a half-sob—"oh, honey, how can we talk of who is handsome and who isn't, whether he is the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick-maker, when, when—" The two clung together for a minute, then Charlotte put her sister gently away.

"You will muss your veil, dearest," said she, "and it is almost time to go, and Amy and papa will want the last of you."

That night, after the bridal pair had departed and everybody else had gone to bed, Anna Carroll and her brother had a little conference in the parlor amid the debris of the wedding splendor. The flowers and greens were drooping, the room and the whole house had that peculiar phase of squalidness which comes alone from the ragged ends of festivities; the floors were strewn with rice and rose leaves and crumbs from the feast; plates and cups and saucers or fragments stood about everywhere; the chairs and the tables were in confusion. Anna, who had been locking up the silver for the night, had come into the parlor, and found her brother standing in a curious, absent-minded fashion in the middle of the floor.

"Why, Arthur!" said she. "I thought you had gone to bed."

"I am going," said he, but he made no move.

Anna looked at him, and her expression was weary and a little bitter. "Well, it is over," said she.

Carroll nodded. "Yes," he said, with a half-suppressed sigh.

Anna glanced around the room. "This house is a sight for one maid to wrestle with," said she; and her brother, beyond a glance of the utmost indifference around the chaotic room, did not seem to notice her remark at all. However, that she did not resent. Indeed, she herself was so far from taking the matter to heart that she laughed a little as she continued to survey the ruins.

"Well, it went off well; it was a pretty wedding," said she, with a certain tone of pleasure.

Carroll turned to her quite eagerly. "You think Ina was pleased?" he said. "It was all as she wished it to be?"

"What could a girl have wished more?" cried Anna. "Everything was charming, just as it should be. All I think about is—"

"What?" asked her brother.

"We have danced," said Anna. "What I want to know is, is the piper to be paid, or shall we have to dance to another tune by way of reprisal."

"The piper is paid," replied Carroll, shortly. He turned to go, but his sister stepped in front of him.

"How?" she said.

Carroll looked down at her.

"Yes, you are quite right, Arthur," said she. "I am afraid. You are, or may reasonably be, rather a desperate man. You have never taken quite kindly to straits. If the piper is paid, I want to know how, for my own peace of mind. By the piper I mean the creditors for all this"—she glanced around the room—"the wedding flowers and feast and carriages."

"I earned enough honestly," replied Carroll. He had a strangely straightforward, almost boyish way of meeting her sharp gaze.

"How?"

"You had better not press the matter, Anna."

"I do. I am afraid." She responded to his look with a certain bitter, sarcastic insistence. "I have reason to be," said she. "You know I have, Arthur Carroll. We are all on the edge of a precipice, but I, for one, do not intend to let you drag me over, and I do not intend that Amy and the children shall go, either, if I can help it. I want to know where you got the money to pay for the wedding expenses, and I want to know where you got that pearl ring you gave Ina. It never cost a cent under three hundred dollars."

Carroll, looking at her, smiled a little sadly.

"It was then," said she, "Hart Lee's pearl that he left you when he died—your scarf-pin."

Carroll smiled. Anna's face changed a little.

"I noticed that you had not worn it lately," said she.

"Sooner or later it would have been the child's. It might as well be sooner," said Carroll, with a slightly annoyed air.

"Eddy should have had it," Anna said, with a jealous air.

"That child?"

"When he was older, of course."

"That is a long way ahead," said Carroll. He moved to go, but again Anna stood before him.

"Arthur," said she, solemnly, "I am living with you and doing all I am able. I am giving my strength for you and yours. You know that as well as I do. You know upon whom the brunt here falls. I do not complain. The one who has the best strength should bear the burden, and I have the strength, such as it is. None of us Carrolls need brag of strength, God knows. But I want to know how you came by that money. Yes, I suspect, and I am not ashamed. I have a right to suspect. How did you get that money?"

"I sang and danced for it in a music-hall, blackened up as a negro," said Arthur Carroll.

"Then that was you, Arthur!" gasped Anna.

"Yes. It was the one thing I could do to get that money honestly and pay the bills, and I did it. I would not let Arms pay."

"I should think not," cried Anna. "We have not fallen quite so low as that yet. But you—"

"Yes, I," said Carroll. "Now let us go to bed, Anna."

Anna stood aside, but as her brother turned to pass her she suddenly put up her arms, and as he stooped she kissed him. He felt her cheek wet against his. "Good-night, Arthur," she said, and all the bitterness was gone from her voice.



Chapter XXII

It was a week to a day after the wedding, and Anderson had been to the office for the morning mail, and was just returning to the store when a watching face at a window of Madame Griggs's dress-making establishment opposite suddenly disappeared, and when Anderson was mounting the steps of the store piazza he heard a panting breath and rattle of starched petticoats, and turned to see the dress-maker.

"Good-morning," she gasped.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Griggs," returned Anderson.

"Can I see you jest a minute on business? I have been watching for you to come back from the office. I want to buy a melon, if it ain't too dear, before I go, but I want to see you jest a minute in the office first, if you ain't too busy."

"Certainly. Come right in," responded Anderson; but his heart sank, for he divined her errand.

The dress-maker followed him into the office with a nervous teeter and a loud rattle of starched cottons. That morning she was clad in blue gingham trimmed profusely with white lace, and her face looked infinitesimal and meagre in the midst of her puffs of blond frizzes.

"I should think that woman was dressed in paper bags by the noise she makes," Sam Riggs remarked to the old clerk when the office door had closed behind her.

"I should think it would kinder take her mind off things she starts out to do," remarked Price. The rattle of the oscillating petticoats had distracted his own mind from a nice calculation as to the amount of a bill for a fractional amount of citron at a fractional increase in the market-price. The old clerk was about to send a cost slip with some goods to be delivered to a cash customer.

"Yep," responded Sam Riggs. "I should think she'd git rattled with sech a rattlin' of her petticoats." The boy regarded this as so supernaturally smart that he actually blushed with modest appreciation of his own wit, and tears sprang to his eyes when he laughed. But when he glanced at his fellow-clerk, Price was calculating the cost of the citron, and did not seem to have noticed anything unusual in the speech. Riggs, who was easily taken down, felt immediately humiliated, and doubtful of his own humor, and changed the subject. "Say," he whispered, jerking his index-finger towards the office door, "you don't suppose she is settin' her cap at the boss, do you?"

"Well, I guess she'd have to take it out in settin'," replied the old clerk, in scorn. He had now the price of the citron fixed in his head, and he trotted to the standing desk at the end of the counter to enter it.

"I guess so, too," said Riggs. "Guess she'd have to starch her cap stiffer than her petticoats before she'd catch him." Again Riggs thought he must be funny, but, when the other clerk did not laugh, concluded he must have been mistaken.

The conference in the office was short, and Price had hardly gotten the slip made out when Madame Griggs emerged. Indeed, she had not accepted Anderson's proffer of a chair.

"No," said she, "I can't set down. I 'ain't got but a minute. Two of my girls is went on their vacation, an' I 'ain't got nobody but Bessie Starley, an' I've promised Mis' Rawdy she should have her new silk skirt before Sunday to wear to Coney Island. Mr. Rawdy has made so much on hiring his carriages for the weddin' that he has bought his wife a new black silk dress, an' now he is goin' to take her to Coney Island Sunday, and hire the Liscom boy to take his place drivin'. Now what I come in here for was—" Madame Griggs lowered her voice; she drew nearer Anderson, and her anxious whisper whistled in his ear. "What I want to know is," said she, "here's Mr. Rawdy, an' I hear the caterer, were paid in advance, an' Blumenfeldt was paid the day after the weddin', an' I ain't, an' I wonder if I'm goin' to be."

"Have you sent in your bill yet?" inquired Anderson.

"No, I 'ain't, but Captain Carroll asked Blumenfeldt for his bill an' he paid the others in advance, an' he 'ain't asked for my bill."

"I do not see why you distress yourself until you have sent in your bill," Anderson said, rather coldly.

"Now, don't you think so?"

"I certainly do not."

"Well," said she, "to tell the truth, I kinder hated to send it too quick. I hated to have it look as if I was scart. It's a pretty big bill, too, an' they seem like real ladies, an' the sister, the one that ain't married, is as nice a girl as I ever see—nicer than the other one, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. She ain't stuck up a mite. The rest of them don't mean to be stuck up, but they be without knowin' it. Guess they was brought up so; but Charlotte ain't. Well, I kinder hated, as I say, to send that bill, especially as it is a pretty big one. I made everything as reasonable as I could, but she had a good many things, an' Charlotte had her bridesmaid's dress, too, an' it's mounted up to considerable, an' I hated to have 'em think I was dreadful scart. I 'ain't never been in the habit of sendin' in a bill to nobody, not for some weeks after the things was did, an' I didn't like to this time. But I says to myself, as long as there had been so much talk round 'mongst folks about the Carrolls not payin' their bills, I'd wait a week an' then I'd send it in. Now it's jest a week ago to-day since the weddin', an' there ain't a word. I thought mebbe they'd ask for the bill the way they did with Blumenfeldt, an' now I want to know if you think I had better send the bill or wait a little while longer."

Anderson replied that he thought it would do no harm, that he did not like to advise in such a case.

The dress-maker eyed him sharply and with a certain resentment. "Now, I want to know," said she. "I want you to speak right out and tell me, if you think I'm imposin'."

"I don't quite understand what you mean," Anderson replied, in bewilderment. He was horribly annoyed and perplexed, but his manner was kind, for the memory of poor little Stella Mixter with her shower of blond curls was strong upon him, and there was something harrowingly pathetic about the combination of little, veinous hands twitching nervously in the folds of the blue gingham, the painstaking frizzes, the pale, screwed little face, and the illogical feminine brain.

But the dress-maker's next remark almost dispelled the pathos. "I want you to tell me right out," said she, "if it would make any difference if I paid you. Of course I know you've given up law, an' I 'ain't thought of offerin' you pay for advice. I've traded all I can in your store, though I always think you are a little dearer, and I didn't know but you'd think that made it all right; but—"

"I do think it is all right," Anderson returned, quickly, "I assure you, Mrs. Griggs, and I have never dreamed of such a thing as your paying me. Indeed, I have given you no advice which I should have felt justified in sending in a bill for, if I were practising my profession."

"Well, I didn't think you had told me anything worth much," said Madame Griggs, "but I know how lawyers tuck on for nothin', and I didn't know but you might feel—"

"I certainly do not," said Anderson.

"Well," said Madame Griggs, "I am very much obliged to you. I'll send the bill a week from to-day, and I feel a great deal better about it. I don't have nobody to ask, and sometimes I feel as if I didn't have a friend or a brother to ask whether I'd better do anything or not, I should give up. I'm very much obliged, Mr. Anderson."

"You are very welcome to anything I have done," replied Anderson, looking at her with a dismay of bewilderment. It was as if he had witnessed some mental inversion which affected his own brain. Anderson always pitied Madame Griggs, but never, after his conferences with her concerning the Carrolls, did he in his heart of hearts blame her husband for running away.

Madame Griggs's coquettish manner developed on the threshold of the office. She smirked until her little, delicate-skinned face was a net-work mask, and all the muscles quivered to the sight through the transparent covering. She moved her thin, crooked elbows with a flapping motion like wings as she smirked and thanked him again.

"I should think you'd like the grocery business a heap better than law," said she, amiably, as she went out. "Oh, I want to get a melon if they ain't too dear." She evidently expected Anderson himself to wait upon her, and was a little taken aback that he did not follow her. She lingered for a long time haggling with Price, with a watchful eye on the office door, and finally departed without purchasing.

Shortly after she had gone, Sam Riggs came for Anderson to inspect some vegetables which had been brought in by a farmer. "He's got some fine potatoes," said he, "but he wants too much for 'em, Price thinks. He's got cabbages, too, and them's too high. Guess you had better look at 'em yourself, Price says."

So Anderson went out to interview the farmer, sparsely bearded, lank, and long-necked and seamy-skinned, his face ineffectual yet shrewd, a poor white of the South strung on wiry nerves, instead of lax muscles, the outcome of the New Jersey soil. He shuffled determinedly in his great boots, heavy with red shale, standing guard over his fine vegetables. He nodded phlegmatically at Anderson. He never smiled. Occasionally his long facial muscles relaxed, but they never widened. He was indefinably serious by nature, yet not melancholy, and absolutely acquiescent in his life conditions. The farmer of New Jersey is not of the stuff which breeds anarchy. He is rooted fast to his red-clinging native soil, which has taken hold of his spirit. He is tenacious, but not revolutionary. He was as adamant on the prices of his vegetables, and finally Anderson purchased at his terms.

"You got stuck," Price said, after the farmer, in his rusty wagon, drawn by a horse which was rather a fine animal, had disappeared down the street.

"Well, I don't know," Anderson replied. "His vegetables are pretty fine."

"Folks won't pay the prices you ought to ask to make a penny on it."

"Oh, I am not so sure of that. People want a good article, and very few raise potatoes or cabbages or even turnips in their own gardens."

"Ingram is selling potatoes two cents less than you, and I rather think turnips, too."

"Not these turnips."

"No, guess not. He has his from another man, but they look pretty good, and half the folks don't know the dif."

"Well," Anderson replied, "sell them for less, if you have to, rather than keep them. Selling a superfine article for no profit is sometimes the best and cheapest advertisement in the world."

Anderson stood a while observing the display of vegetables and fruit piled on the sidewalk before his store and in the store window. He took a certain honest pleasure of proprietorship, and also an artistic delight in it. He observed the great green cabbages, like enormous roses, the turnips, like ivory carvings veined with purplish rose towards their roots, the smooth russet of the potatoes. There were also baskets of fine grapes, the tender pink bloom of Delawares, and the pale emerald of Niagaras, with the plummy gloss of Concords. There were enormous green spheres of watermelons, baskets of superb peaches, each with a high light of rose like a pearl, and piles of bartlett and seckel pears. There was something about all this magnificent plenty of the fruits of the earth which was impressive. It was to an ardent fancy as if Flora and Pomona had been that way with their horns of plenty. The sordid question of market value, however, was distinctly irritating, and yet it was justly so. Why should not a man sell the fruits of the earth for dollars and cents with artistic and honorable dignity as anything else? All commodities for the needs of mankind are marketable, are the instruments of traffic, whether they be groceries or books, boots and shoes, dishes or furniture, or pictures; whether they be songs or sermons or corn plasters or shaving-soap; whether they be food for the mind or the body. What difference did it make which was dispensed? It was all a question of need and supply. The minister preached his sermons for the welfare of the soul; the Jew hawked his second-hand garments; everything was interwoven. One must eat to live, to hear sermons, to hear songs, to love, to think, to read. One must be clothed to tread the earth among his fellows. There was need, and one supplied one need, one another. All need was dignified by the man who possessed, all supply was dignified if one looked at it in the right way. There was a certain dignity even about his own need of two cents more on those turnips, which were actually as beautiful as an ivory carving. Anderson finally returned to his office, feeling a little impatient with himself that, in spite of his own perfect contentment with his business, he should now and then essay to justify himself in his contentment, as he undoubtedly did. It was like a violinist screwing his instrument up to concert-pitch, below which it would drop from day to day.

Anderson had not been long in his office before he heard a quick patter of feet outside, the peculiar clapping sound of swift toes, which none but a child's feet can produce, and Eddy Carroll entered. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open and ran in with no ceremony. He was well in the room before he apparently remembered something. He stopped short, ran back to the door, and knocked.

Anderson chuckled. "Come in," he said, in a loud tone, as if the door was closed.

Then Eddy came forward with some dignity. "I remembered after I got in that I ought to have knocked," said he. "I hope you'll excuse me."

"Certainly," said Anderson. "Won't you have a seat?"

Eddy sat down and swung his feet, kicking the round of the chair, with his eyes fastened on Anderson, who was seated in the other chair, smoking. "How old were you when you began to smoke?" the boy inquired, suddenly.

"Very much older than you are," replied Anderson.

Eddy sighed. "Is it very nice to smoke?" said he.

Anderson was conscious that he was distinctly at a loss for a reply, and felt like a defaulting Sunday-school teacher as he cast about for one.

"Is it?" said Eddy again.

"Different people look at it differently," said Anderson, "and the best way is for you to wait until you are a man and decide for yourself."

"Is it nicer to be a man than it was to be a boy?" inquired Eddy.

"That, also, is a matter of opinion," said Anderson.

"You can do lots of things that a boy can't," said Eddy. "You can smoke, and you can keep store, and have all the candy you want." Eddy cast an innocent glance towards the office door as he spoke.

"Sam!" called Anderson; and when the young clerk's grinning face appeared at the door, "Will you bring some of those peppermint-drops here for this young man."

"I'd rather have chocolates, if you can't sell 'em any better than the peppermint-drops," Eddy said, quickly.

When Sam reappeared with chocolates in a little paper bag, Eddy was blissful. He ate and swung his feet. "These are bully," said he. "I should think as long as you can have all the chocolates you want, you'd rather eat those than smoke a pipe."

"It is a matter of taste," replied Anderson.

"I'm always going to eat chocolates instead of smoking," said Eddy. "He gave me a lot. Say, I don't see how a boy can steal candy, do you?"

"No. It is very wrong," said Anderson.

"You bet 'tis. I knew a boy in New York State, where we used to live before we came here, that stole candy 'most every day, and he used to bring it to school and give the other boys. He used to give me much as a pound a day. Some days he used to give me much as five pounds." Then Eddy Carroll, after delivering himself of this statement, could not get his young, black eyes away from the fixed regard of the man's keen, blue ones, and he began to wriggle as to his body, with his eyes held firm by that unswerving gaze. "What you looking at me that way for?" he stammered. "I don't think you're very polite."

"How much candy did that boy give you every day?" asked Anderson.

Eddy wriggled. "Well, maybe he didn't give me more 'n half a pound," he muttered.

"How much?"

"Well, maybe it wasn't more 'n a quarter. I don't know."

"How much?" persisted Anderson.

"Well, maybe it might have been three pieces; it was a good many years ago. A fellow can't remember everything."